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A stone marker recording the water level of the February floods has been added to a 14th Century gateway at Worcester Cathedral. | The water gate, on the banks of the River Severn, has stones marking the high water points since 1672.
Last winter Worcester was cut in half by floods and water at the gateway was 16.5ft (5m) deep.
The carved stone has been made by an apprentice mason working on the cathedral's restoration.
The new marker was made from Forest of Dean sandstone, the same type used in the cathedral restoration, by apprentice stonemason Emily Draper.
"It has been a real pleasure to look at the previous letter styles and to put my own twist on it and put it up into the wall," she said.
Worcester Cathedral water gate
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This was supposed to be Arlo Parks' year. | By Paul GlynnEntertainment & arts reporter
The soulful indie singer was named on the BBC Sound of 2020 list, had her first UK headline tour under way and support slots in the States lined up, not to mention Glastonbury.
But before spring had sprung, she saw those plans "dissolve before my eyes" due to the "devastating" pandemic.
"I think I did have a fear that it was going to seriously rock my career and prospects," says the 20-year-old Londoner, who is signed to independent label Transgressive.
"It's shown that the rug can be pulled from under my feet at any time.
"But then on the flip side, I did learn that sense of resilience and finding ways to stay connected with fans and maintaining a sense of inspiration, and just doing my best with what was available and remaining optimistic."
The Association of Independent Music Award winner says the pause has given her time to write and enjoy some "surreal" experiences - like playing in an empty church with Phoebe Bridgers, and performing to a bunch of cows at Glastonbury's vacant Worthy Farm.
"I think taking time to just focus on my craft - learning to make beats, playing guitar, writing poetry and reading - getting back to the crux of like what makes me an artist, which is the actual creation process, has been my focus day-to-day," she says.
"Then I guess trying to remain optimistic that gigs will come back at some future."
Parks is among the indie artists helping BBC Radio 6 Music celebrate and examine the scene on its State of Independents Day on Thursday.
Another rising star whose ascent has been slowed by the virus is fellow Sound of 2020 act Beabadoobee.
The 90s-influenced rocker, real name Beatrice Kristi, says it "kind of sucked" to miss out on opening up for her Dirty Hit labelmates, The 1975, at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Instead, she used confinement to live-stream bedroom gigs on social media, and create the "perfect aesthetic" for her debut album, Fake It Flowers, which drops next month.
"I wouldn't say I didn't miss out on anything, but we have so much time and it's nice to take some things slow," offers the 20-year-old, who has a rescheduled tour booked in for September 2021.
"In all honesty, I feel like if I went away for this whole year - I didn't think I was ready. Now I think I'm ready, because I've spent so much time with my family and my boyfriend and I've kind of grown up a bit."
'Cultural recovery'
While socially-distanced indoor gigs have been allowed in England since mid-August, most venues have been unable to put them on in practice.
The Brudenell Social Club in Leeds has seen shows pushed back until next spring, but owner Nathan Clark tells the BBC those dates are only provisional.
The Yorkshireman is one of many grassroots venue bosses waiting to see if they will benefit from the government's £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund, of which £3.36m has been set aside for music venues.
Culture secretary Oliver Dowden told The Mail on Sunday that "mass indoor events" like opera, ballet and classical are now in sight. Yet Clark believes greater "sector specific support" is required to make it feasible for the live independent music circuit to re-start.
He notes how the guidance for "someone going to a theatre to sit down and observe quietly with their arms crossed" is not applicable to those going to see a rock band, rapper or DJ.
"You go to a gig to interact with people," says Clark. "To enjoy the music, dance and sing along. You can't do any of that, so it's taken away the main point of it.
"We're starting to get back to arranging some types of events and finding ways to make it work," he goes on. "But it's not going to be live music as we know it. It's going to be quite weird for a long time and it's certainly not going to be worth any money for us, for the artists, or for anyone else.
"It's basically an exercise in seeing, can we do it? Can it support a cultural recovery?"
'Normal jobs'
Brighton-based guitar band Porridge Radio emerged from the rubble of 2020 after their second album, Every Bad, was nominated for the upcoming Mercury Prize.
Fittingly, it finds frontwoman and main songwriter Dana Margolin reflecting on feelings of frustration and uncertainty.
Plans for the four-piece to quit their "normal jobs" to chase the music dream full-time have had to go on hold for now, which she believes may have worked in their favour during the crisis.
"I think for us, we don't have this sense of entitlement to a job in music," says Margolin, who also works as a nanny. "It's quite new for us anyway, for things to be going well!
"We've not played any of our sold-out shows," she adds. "It just didn't happen. So I'm like, 'Oh well, does it really exist?'"
'Music is a product'
Tom Gray's band Gomez won the Mercury Prize in 1998, when it was possible to stage an award ceremony.
Gray, now a director of copyright collective PRS for Music, says Southport's finest would have "no chance" of making a living from music in today's landscape, partly because streaming royalties don't go far when split five ways.
With gig earnings virtually cut off overnight, most artists have found they can no longer fall back on income from recorded music. Gray has launched the Broken Record campaign, calling for streaming giants like Spotify and YouTube to change their "outdated" models and pay artists more fairly. According to CNBC last year, rights-holding artists on Spotify earn around $0.006 (£0.0051p) per stream.
"Recorded music is a product; it's a thing that we make and we spend months and years of our lives making it," says Gray.
He stresses the "narrative" that most independent musicians earn as much as megastars like Adele or Stormzy needs to change too. "These people live in your communities, they play in your pubs, they probably make your coffee," he says.
'Consumption stronger than ever'
North west-based indie label Nice Swan Records offer "artist-friendly 50-50" record deals to the acts that come through their stable, such as Mercury Prize nominees Sports Team, Pip Blom and Fur.
The two-man operation, comprising Alex Edwards and Pete Heywoode, have also had to cancel tours this year and delay album campaigns for their more established acts, some of whom have had to take advantage of furlough schemes and other funding.
However, they found that launching an "introducing" series, highlighting their new signings during lockdown, brought great exposure.
"It's been really exciting launching new careers and getting loads of coverage in the media and press and radio," says Edwards. "But obviously with more established acts that are going into album two and three, we've hit some brick walls.
"We've noticed streaming figures going up," notes Heywoode. "The consumption of music has been stronger than ever."
The pair will continue to put their artists' material on streaming sites, and in independent record shops.
Phil Barton, who manages the Sister Ray shop in central London, says they had a "brilliant" Record Store Day last month.
They shifted most of their stock via a mixture of in-store and online sales, which he says was "a shot in the arm" after "a really bad six months".
He thinks smaller record shops can help themselves by having an online presence. He'd also like to see some external help so they can continue to enable people to "make contacts, exchange ideas" and discover their own Arlo Parks, next year and beyond.
"I think record stores should come under the same sorts of banner as live venues, and they should be treated as a sort of cultural necessity," states Barton.
"If we are to save as many record shops as we can, then maybe we should make it very difficult to close them down."
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Tens of thousands of people have signed up to a new service from two mobile-only banks designed to help problem gamblers. One former addict says this "gambling block", available on the banks' apps, helped him beat his addiction. | By Dan Whitworth and Olivia BeazleyBBC Radio 4 Money Box
"I'd be setting my alarm to wake up at 4am to do a first bet," says Danny Cheetham, who began placing bets in his early 20s.
"I'd plan my route to work so I could call in to a bookies which opened early for commuters."
Danny, who is now 29, found himself betting in bookies, on slot machines and online. He gambled a lot on football, which he doesn't even like.
He began relying on overtime from work and on payday loans. In the course of eight years, Danny, who's from Stockport, estimates he lost more than £50,000.
He sunk into depression and moved in with his dad as he could not afford to pay rent.
It was the death of his mum Christine in 2015 that he says was the turning point for him - but he was not able to kick his habit until he signed up to a gambling block with his bank, Monzo. The so-called challenger bank is a mobile-only version of a traditional bank.
Once the block is activated by the customer, it can spot any transaction that person might try to make with bookmakers - either online or in a shop - by using merchant category codes. It instantly stops the transaction from happening, before any money has left that customer's account.
If a customer is tempted to place a bet in the heat of the moment, there is a 48-hour cooling-off period before the block is switched off. There is also a daily limit on cash withdrawals.
Gambling addiction: The facts
Source: Gambling Commission
Monzo CEO Tom Blomfield says the block was introduced because customers asked for it.
"We have a team of people who work with vulnerable customers and they were getting this feedback quite often" he says.
More than 25,000 customers have signed up to the bank's block since it went live in June.
"Not all of those were problem gamblers [but] about 8,000 people did have a history of gambling," says Mr Blomfield.
"We've... seen a 70% decline in their gambling transactions so [it's made] a really big impact."
Another challenger bank, Starling, is offering a similar type of block. It's gained 20,000 users since its launch in June.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is calling on the big five high street banks - Lloyds, Santander, HSBC, RBS Group and Barclays - to offer the same type of service.
Doctor Henrietta Bowden-Jones told BBC Radio 4's Money Box: "If you are unable to access funds, this type of gambling block can save people's homes and their families."
The banks say protecting vulnerable customers is a priority and they are always looking at new ways to do that.
The Gambling Commission is talking to financial institutions about how to improve protection for problem gamblers.
Three years on from taking his first steps to beat his gambling addiction, Danny says he is happy.
"And I've actually got money in the bank which I never thought I'd have," he says.
"I'm well on target to being debt-free by my 30th birthday, which is my next one, and I just don't feel depressed or helpless like I used to."
He says he can now think about his future and - although he will have a bad credit file for up to six years - he says this will give him time to save for a deposit for his own place.
"I just don't feel like it's an endless battle any more."
You can hear more on BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme on Saturday at 12:00 BST or listen again here.
If you're worried you might have a problem with gambling or know someone who does you can get help here.
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Unless something utterly unexpected knocks the stuffing out of the parliamentary timetable and a substantial minority of the Conservative parliamentary party have woken up to discover they have lost their vertebrae, David Cameron is poised to suffer the biggest rebellion of his premiership later.
| By James LandaleDeputy Political Editor, BBC News
The current holders of the record are the 41 Conservative MPs who chose just a week or two ago to vote against their government on a motion affecting the timetable of the Protection of Freedoms Bill.
The promised rebellion, according to the very excellent Philip Cowley of Nottingham University - the Bill Frindall of parliamentary rebellions - would not only be Mr Cameron's biggest revolt - if it tops that magic 41 - but it would also be the largest revolt ever by Conservative MPs in government over Europe. Period, as the Americans say.
The issue at hand in the House of Commons vote at 10pm may be a piece of so-called backbench business on a motion that is binding on no-one, but it matters.
It matters not because it would force anyone to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. It would not. But it matters because of what it tells us of Mr Cameron's fractious relationship with his MPs and the potential consequences for the management of the coalition government.
Here are a few thoughts:
1. Why oh why has the government played hardball on this? Why didn't the government just roll over and allow its MPs to let off a little steam over a non-binding vote while Messrs Cameron, Hague and Osborne were overseas? To find the answer to this question that has so vexed Tory MPs over the weekend, ministers urge you to look carefully at the wording of the motion. It reads thus: "That this House calls upon the Government to introduce a Bill in the next session of Parliament to provide for the holding of a national referendum on whether the UK should a) remain a member of the European Union on the current terms; b) leave the European Union; c) re-negotiate the terms of its relationship in order to create a new relationship based on trade and cooperation."
There are two big no-nos in there. One is that it directly instructs the government to introduce a bill in the next parliament. This, say ministers, would be unacceptable to any government. Parliament does not tell governments what bills to introduce and when. If the motion had been less instructional and less specific, it would have caused less concern in Downing Street. Ministers note that the division earlier this year urging the government to oppose giving prisoners the vote was an expression of opinion, not an instruction to action, and thus ministers were able to roll with the punch. The second problem is more straightforward. It is not government policy to leave the EU. Downing Street insiders note dryly that the only large party to campaign on withdrawal from the EU were Labour in 1983. Any referendum that included the option of leaving the EU could never have been accepted by Downing Street. And whatever the rebels say about this being a non-binding motion, if it were passed, they would quite legitimately bang on about an in/out referendum being the will of the Commons until the cows were tucked up in bed and dreaming of clover.
There is also, say others, the small matter of Mr Cameron wishing to avoid: a) headlines using the word "u-turn", b) accusations that he can be pushed around by a section of his party and c) comparisons with John Major's push-me-pull-you relationship with his party's eurosceptics.
2. Why has the government appeared to be in such a muddle over this, changing the day of the vote and winding up so many of its backbenchers? Some ministers are prepared to admit privately that the government could have handled this better. They were not clear from day one that this was a three line whip issue, something on which the government could not move. They allowed the rebels to believe that there was flexibility when there was not. They hinted that this was a second order issue by fielding junior ministers in the media and scheduling junior ministers for the debate. Tory MPs could not understand why the government would chose to use a three line whip against a measure that arose from two mechanisms - the backbench business committee and the use of petitions - that the coalition itself championed.
3. This is a fight that both sides knew was going to happen one day. There is a strong eurosceptic sentiment in the current House of Commons. Thus far it has been diffuse, its focus spread across a range of issues from repatriating powers, to membership referendums, to the proceedings of the European Court of Human Rights. This vote crystallises all that sentiment and provides an outlet, uniting for the first time the eurosceptics of yore like Bill Cash and John Redwood with the new intake of Conservative MPs elected last year. Ministers knew there would be a clash one day and this is it. Their greater fear is if there were to be a vote on a substantive motion, such as whether or not Britain should fund another European bail out, or support a financial transaction tax so beloved of the European Commission. The reason ministers fear such votes is because they know they could not win them.
4. This is not just about Europe. This is also about party management. Many Conservative backbenchers are unhappy about a range of issues and are therefore less ready to listen to their whips and more ready to allow instinct to outweigh loyalty. In no particular order, some Tory MPs are upset about: the existence of the coalition and their perception that too many concessions have been made to the Liberal Democrats; the boundary changes that are making them nervous and keener to appeal to their eurosceptic party memberships; the cull of MPs itself; the lack of attention that they feel David Cameron has been paying them; the failure of the government to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty; the recent appointment to government of women elected in 2010 over the heads of the 2005 intake; the growing awareness of many Tory MPs that they might never be ministers and are liberated as a result. The eurozone crisis has also put the wind in the sails of many eurosceptic MPs who feel vindicated after being marginalised for years.
5. So what happens now? The crucial moment could come not in the debate itself but during the statement that precedes it. Mr Cameron is due to be on his feet for an hour or so from 3.30pm informing the House about the European summit on Sunday. But his bigger task will be to answer questions about why a referendum on Britain's EU membership is not right now. The obvious point he will make is that this is a distraction when the eurozone is in such crisis. He will also go further and make it clear that Britain has to prepare for huge change within the EU in the very short term. There could be substantial treaty changes within the next few years. Three "Europes" could emerge: an inner core of the eurozone bound together by greater fiscal union, an outer core of northern euro countries who are cautious about more integration, and the ten EU members outside the eurozone. The prime minister will argue - as he did on Sunday- that Britain should use this transformation to protect and advance Britain's national interests by repatriating certain powers from Brussels to London.
But, I am told, he may also suggest that such treaty change could prompt a referendum anyway if all 27 member states were affected and it transferred powers from London to Brussels, particularly over the single market. This is existing government policy. So watch closely to see if the prime minister hints at a possible referendum and if so, how hard he pushes the idea. His point would be: there is no need to push for an in/out referendum now because you are going to get a referendum sooner than you think anyway.
6. What will the rebellion mean for the future? The number of MPs who have tasted rebellion for the first time will have grown and it is often a taste they can learn to live with. It will be a rebellion that will set the tone for future debates and votes about Europe that could come to dominate the latter half of this parliament if the eurozone crisis forces institutional change. It will send a signal to voters that while many of David Cameron's MPs respect him, they don't always feel loyalty towards him, and that is something that voters tend to note and inwardly digest. It will allow Labour to compare Mr Cameron with John Major and claim the Tories are divided over Europe. But above all, the rebellion will cost Mr Cameron political capital that perhaps he may have preferred to spend in tougher times in the years ahead. There will be bigger votes and more important votes and from today he will find it harder to get the numbers he wants.
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When India conducted an air strike in Pakistani territory, Pakistan didn't just retaliate with force: it also banned Indian film and television. It's an easy punishment, but may just hit the wrong target, as the BBC's Ilyas Khan and Shumaila Jaffrey report. | India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads since 1947, but their shared love of Bollywood has somehow survived through Partition and beyond.
Despite this, Bollywood has all too often found itself the easy target of governments hoping to make a point - most recently following the deadly attack by militants on Indian soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir, which ended with India launching air strikes against what it said was a militant camp in Pakistan late last month, and Pakistan downing an Indian fighter jet.
A case of survival
Pakistan's Association of Film Exhibitors said that they were banning the release of Bollywood films and in March, Pakistan's top court went a step further and ruled that no Indian content could be broadcast on local television either. The ban applies to Indian adverts, soap operas and films.
"Who would want to watch Indian content when India is intruding [into] the country's boundaries?" the Supreme Court judge demanded as he imposed the ban.
Student Aqsa Khan, 24, wholeheartedly agrees.
"They are imposing war on us, how can we let their movies and dramas get released in Pakistan?" she asked.
But exactly who the ban will really punish is yet to be seen.
For a substantial number of Pakistanis, the pleasure of engaging with Indian entertainment would trump the patriotism of supporting a ban on it.
"I grew up watching Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan," said Ali Shiwari, an avid cinemagoer who was so inspired by Indian cinema he decided to study film.
"It will take time to find someone like them in the Pakistani industry."
Perhaps more importantly, however, taking it out of the equation could result in economic consequences - for Pakistanis.
"The Indian film industry is crucial for sustaining the Pakistani box office," Rafay Mahmood, a film journalist, points out.
There are around 120 movie theatres in the country, he explained, and the average shelf life of a good film is about two weeks. By his estimate, Pakistani cinemas need to show at least 26 new films a year to stay in business.
But Pakistan's own film industry has only been producing 12 to 15 annually. And, Mr Mahmood notes, these did not attract a large audience.
In fact, some 70% of the Pakistani movie industry's revenue is earned through Indian films, according to entertainment journalist Hassan Zaidi.
"This ban is just not sustainable," he said. "The film industry here cannot survive without Bollywood."
There is proof of just how hard such a ban would hit Pakistan: this is not the country's first ban on Bollywood.
The longest lasted 40 years, from 1965 until 2005, put in place after a war with India.
It sent the industry into decline: several hundred film theatres across Pakistan were converted into shopping malls or wedding halls.
Read more:
Once it was lifted, the Pakistani movie industry - which had died a death in the 1990s - also began to revive.
"This spurred the return of audiences to the cinema," said Atika Rehman, editor of Dawn news website in Pakistan and and a former entertainment journalist. "It also encouraged Pakistani filmmakers to start producing films."
But these Pakistani movies didn't always match Bollywood in budget or star power.
That could explain why Bollywood has accounted for more than 60% of film screenings in Pakistani cinemas in recent years, followed by Hollywood, according to a cinema business source.
In fairness, the two recent bans on Indian content in Pakistan were reciprocal - the current one was imposed after the All India Cine Workers Association (AICWA) announced a total ban on Pakistani actors and artists working in Bollywood following the Kashmir attack.
And it wasn't the first time India had announced such a ban: Pakistan's Fawad Khan was banned from acting in Bollywood films after an Indian right-wing group demanded that all Pakistani artists leave the country after the "surgical strikes" in 2016. Khan had acted in a few Bollywood films by then and continues to enjoy a fan following in India.
There was also a huge uproar when Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan starred in a movie alongside Pakistani actress Mahira Khan in 2017. The movie's release was punctuated by controversies as right-wing Hindu groups in India demanded for it to be banned. Its release date was delayed in India - but it did not screen in Pakistan, where the censor board claimed the film had "objectionable content".
Nadeem Mandviwala, a Pakistani film producer, hopes that this ban is temporary.
"Hopefully better sense will prevail between the two countries," he added.
And let's not forget, these days Bollywood enthusiasts can stream films on Netflix, YouTube and other platforms - reducing the ban to little more than symbolism.
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A car has rolled into the canal near Wrexham's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct for the second time in months. | No-one was injured when the red vehicle plunged into Llangollen Canal, Froncysyllte, leaving its roof visible above the water line.
It was parked in Woodlands Grove half a mile south of the aqueduct.
In April, Tomos Williams's Toyota Avensis needed to be pulled from the canal after it rolled down a slipway after the handbrake failed.
Mr Williams had been on a walk with girlfriend Jayne Roberts when the accident happened.
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Notorious Australian con artist Samantha Azzopardi has been sentenced to prison in Melbourne for child stealing. Having created a trail of false identities around the world, she has a history that runs deep. | By Vicky BakerBBC News
Emily Peet, Lindsay Coughlin, Dakota Johnson, Georgia McAuliffe, Harper Hernandez, Harper Hart. Behind all these names - and many more - was just one woman: serial fraudster Azzopardi, 32, from Sydney. Over the past decade, she has been caught under assumed names in Ireland, Canada and various states within her home nation.
She was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday, having faked qualifications to get a job as a live-in nanny and taken the two small children across the state of Victoria without permission.
Melbourne Magistrate Johanna Metcalf said the motive behind the "bizarre crime" remains unclear.
In the past, Azzopardi has posed as a victim of sex trafficking. She has claimed to be Swedish royalty and a Russian gymnast whose whole family died in a murder-suicide incident. Throughout her 20s and early 30s, she repeatedly pretended to be a young teenager. And with her slight figure, soft voice and a tendency to nervously chew her fingers, she often got away with it.
For years she has been running into trouble with authorities. She has been deported from foreign countries, she has been jailed for short periods. Yet, the saga seemed never-ending.
As the magistrate pointed out, there has been no monetary motivation for her actions and she does not appear to be actively seeking fame.
During the trial, the court heard that she had been diagnosed with a severe personality disorder and a rare condition called pseudologia fantastica, which manifests itself in compulsive lying.
Care issues have delayed the trial repeatedly.
The fake au pair
The latest court case hinged on a 2019 incident in Victoria involving a French couple, who have remained anonymous.
Azzopardi told them she was an 18-year-old au pair called Sakah. During her brief period of employment, she asked to take the children out on a picnic, but instead of staying locally in Geelong, she took them to Bendigo, some 200km (120 miles) away, where she was eventually spotted by a police detective.
Before she was intercepted in a department store, she had visited a nearby counselling service and presented herself as a pregnant teenager. She had dressed in school uniform and even arranged for an unknown person to call the service, pretending to be her father.
Previously, Azzopardi also spent almost a year working as a nanny for Tom Jervis, a Australian professional basketball player, and his wife, Jezze, an ex-lawyer turned life coach.
The couple said they found her through a web service for au pairs and trusted her at first. She moved into their house and relocated with them from Brisbane to Melbourne. But her story started to unravel when the couple received reports about her using Mrs Jervis's identity to pretend to be a casting agent. She had befriended a 12-year-old girl, telling her she could get her a job as a voiceover artist in a Pixar movie.
"I treated her like my daughter," Mrs Jervis told Australian website MamaMia, saying she felt violated when she found out the truth. "We knew she'd lied to us. It just didn't make any sense."
Playing mute in Dublin
Irish police detective David Gallagher also had a strange encounter with Azzopardi, when she turned up in Dublin in October 2013.
He did not know her name then. No-one did. In the local media, she later became known as GPO girl, because she had been found outside Dublin's General Post Office, which is often referred to by its initials. The Garda Síochána (Irish police force) found her pacing back and forth, looking distressed, but refusing to speak.
Two officers took her to hospital and for weeks she did not say a word, leading authorities to fear she was a victim of human trafficking.
Though she never told them her age, she indicated through hand signals that she was 14.
Police investigators examined CCTV footage and carried out door-to-door enquiries. They worked with child welfare specialists and reached out to missing persons services, Interpol, a forensic science laboratory, the immigration bureau, the domestic violence and sexual assault unit.
Noticing that braces on her teeth had been recently fitted, they contacted paediatric orthodontists across the country to see if they remembered her.
Det Supt Gallagher said there were always questions over her age but he never expected her to be entirely ungenuine. "There was no endgame," he told the BBC. "She was put in a children's hospital, not eating, not talking. It wasn't fun."
His investigations unit ended up seeking special permission from the high court to share her picture during a public plea for information, as she was deemed a minor.
Nonetheless, someone recognised her: a family contact she had been staying with at the start of her trip to Ireland. Azzopardi was identified and put back on a flight to Australia, escorted by police. She never spoke on the journey.
"When the truth of her situation and age became known, this divided opinion within those on the investigation team and those managing this investigation," said Det Supt Gallagher.
"There were calls from some to move to a criminal investigation for wasting police time by making a false report, while others, including myself, felt that in a legal sense she in fact never made any statement or false report as she had never spoken. The matter should be treated as a mental health and welfare issue."
She under went a mental health assessment but her issues were not deemed to be of a level to require intervention.
An invented kidnapping in Calgary
The following year, Azzopardi turned up in Calgary, Canada. A similar story played out but this time she vocalised it. She claimed she was Aurora Hepburn, 14-year-old victim of abuse, who had escaped a kidnapper. She was 26 at the time.
Again, investigators and health care workers spent weeks on the case, until someone discovered the Dublin story and made a connection.
This time she was convicted on a mischief charge for misleading Calgary police.
Kelly Campbell, of the police's child abuse unit, said: "There was considerable impact to a lot of the professionals that were working on this investigation as we were led to believe that this was an actual occurrence and our concern was that there were victims that were out there, more victims."
The Calgary Herald reported that documents submitted at the hearing showed that, just six months after Azzopardi was deported from Ireland, she was back in that country again working as an au pair, after managing to get another passport from Australian authorities.
Azzopardi was deported from Canada and, again, given a police escorted flight back to Australia.
There have been countless other stories, countless other identities. A US backpacker, Emily Bamberger, told the Courier newspaper how Azzopardi manipulated her in Sydney in 2014, just before the Canadian episode. She told her she was a Swedish royalty, Annika Dekker, and she had been kidnapped when she was a young girl.
On another occasion, Azzopardi led a Perth family to believe she was a Russian gymnast, whose entire family had died in murder-suicide incident in France.
In one of the most extraordinary incidents, she convinced social services in Sydney that she was a teen victim, and managed to get enrolled in a school and put into a foster home.
The sentencing
Wearing prison blue clothes and a matching face mask, her blonde hair piled on her head in a bun, Azzopardi looked at the ground as her sentencing played out via video link, due to Covid restrictions.
This time, she had pleaded guilty.
Defence lawyer Jessica Willard said her client had not planned to keep the two children - aged four and 10 months - from their parents, or to harm them.
The magistrate agreed that they had not been harmed physically, but expressed concerns about emotional damage to the family and the separate 12-year-old, whom she had manipulated and promised a film role.
She also acknowledged the concerns over Azzopardi's mental health. The court had heard how she had been subjected to severe trauma and abuse in her past.
Psychiatrist Jacqueline Rakov recommended she be released if she received voluntary treatment and case management under specialist services, yet the prison refused to give the necessary referral.
Azzopardi has already spent more than a year and a half in pre-trial detention, meaning she may be eligible for parole. The prosecution claimed there was high potential for reoffending.
Det Supt Gallagher said he had been following her case from afar for the past eight years. People sent him clips every so often, whenever she turned up somewhere new.
On the huge, costly hunt she sparked in Ireland, he said: "If I was involved in a similar type situation again, I would take the same approach again and err on the side of a person being a traumatised and vulnerable victim of crime."
"The problem," he said, "is whether prison is a suitable place for her. Is a mental health institute? Is she a danger to herself, or is she a danger to others? In Ireland, she wasn't a danger to herself or others, albeit she was a considerable nuisance."
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Over the last month, Dalits (formerly untouchables) across India have been threatened, beaten and killed for seemingly mundane reasons, highlighting again how vulnerable the community is. On Sunday, a groom was threatened for riding a horse to his wedding - because doing so is considered an upper caste privilege. | Here are five reasons why Dalits have been attacked and threatened in the last month alone.
Threatened for riding a horse
On 17 June, Prashant Solanki, a Dalit man in his late 20s, was on his way to his wedding riding a colourfully decorated horse, as is common practice, when he was ambushed by a group of upper-caste villagers. They insisted that riding a horse was an upper-caste privilege and threatened to attack Mr Solanki and his family.
Fearing for his life, Mr Solanki had the police accompany him to his bride's home and also to his wedding.
This is not the first time a Dalit riding a horse to his wedding has been threatened. A similar incident occurred in 2015 when villagers hurled stones at a Dalit groom in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
Killed for sitting cross-legged
Two Dalit men in the southern state of Tamil Nadu were killed by upper-caste Hindus after a Dalit man sat cross-legged in front of them during a temple ritual.
The upper-caste Hindus called it a "dishonourable and insulting" gesture. About 15 of them went to the Dalits' neighbourhood and mounted an ambush. In addition to the two men killed, six others were injured and houses were damaged, according to police.
"The men who suffered injuries had deep cuts on their bodies made with sickles," a senior police officer is quoted as saying in the Indian Express newspaper.
Stripped and beaten for swimming
Three Dalit boys were stripped, beaten and paraded naked by villagers in the western state of Maharashtra last week for swimming in a well that belonged to an upper-caste family, police said.
In a video that was posted online, two of the boys are seen covering themselves with leaves as a man hits them with a stick and a belt. Laughter can be heard in the background.
"We are still afraid of further attacks," one of the victims' mothers told BBC Marathi. She learned about the incident when she saw the video online.
Police have arrested two of the men accused of involvement in the assault.
Beaten for wearing 'royal' shoes
Mahesh Rathod, a 13-year-old Dalit boy, was allegedly attacked in the western state of Gujarat for wearing a pair of "mojris" - leather shoes traditionally seen as royal footwear and worn by upper-caste members in some parts of India.
According to local media, he was approached by a group of men who asked him which caste he belonged to and when he said he was a Dalit, they abused him for "posing as an upper-caste member by wearing jeans, mojris and a gold chain".
In a video that went viral last week, a group of men can be seen beating Mahesh with a stick while he pleads for mercy.
He is reported to have been given police protection after that.
Violence over a Facebook name
Dalit and upper-caste men attacked each other in a town in Gujarat after 22-year-old Maulik Jadav decided to add a suffix to his first name on his Facebook profile.
Mr Jadav, a Dalit, changed his name to include "sinh" - a suffix that is traditionally used by an upper-caste community in the state.
"I changed my name from 'Maulik' to 'Mauliksinh' thinking we are free to keep the name of our choice," Mr Jadav is quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times newspaper. He added that he received threats on Facebook and over the phone. "They told me to remove 'sinh' from my name or to face the consequences."
The threats turned into violence when a group of men attacked Mr Jadav at his home the following day, leading to Dalit residents retaliating by storming the house of an upper-caste Hindu man.
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Juliane Koepcke was flying over the Peruvian rainforest with her mother when her plane was hit by lightning. She survived a two-mile fall and found herself alone in the jungle, just 17. More than 40 years later, she recalls what happened. | It was Christmas Eve 1971 and everyone was eager to get home, we were angry because the plane was seven hours late.
Suddenly we entered into a very heavy, dark cloud. My mother was anxious but I was OK, I liked flying.
Ten minutes later it was obvious that something was very wrong.
There was very heavy turbulence and the plane was jumping up and down, parcels and luggage were falling from the locker, there were gifts, flowers and Christmas cakes flying around the cabin.
When we saw lightning around the plane, I was scared. My mother and I held hands but we were unable to speak. Other passengers began to cry and weep and scream.
After about 10 minutes, I saw a very bright light on the outer engine on the left. My mother said very calmly: "That is the end, it's all over." Those were the last words I ever heard from her.
The plane jumped down and went into a nose-dive. It was pitch black and people were screaming, then the deep roaring of the engines filled my head completely.
Suddenly the noise stopped and I was outside the plane. I was in a freefall, strapped to my seat bench and hanging head-over-heels. The whispering of the wind was the only noise I could hear.
I felt completely alone.
I could see the canopy of the jungle spinning towards me. Then I lost consciousness and remember nothing of the impact. Later I learned that the plane had broken into pieces about two miles above the ground.
I woke the next day and looked up into the canopy. The first thought I had was: "I survived an air crash."
I shouted out for my mother in but I only heard the sounds of the jungle. I was completely alone.
I had broken my collarbone and had some deep cuts on my legs but my injuries weren't serious. I realised later that I had ruptured a ligament in my knee but I could walk.
Before the crash, I had spent a year and a half with my parents on their research station only 30 miles away. I learned a lot about life in the rainforest, that it wasn't too dangerous. It's not the green hell that the world always thinks.
I could hear the planes overhead searching for the wreck but it was a very dense forest and I couldn't see them.
I was wearing a very short, sleeveless mini-dress and white sandals. I had lost one shoe but I kept the other because I am very short-sighted and had lost my glasses, so I used that shoe to test the ground ahead of me as I walked.
Snakes are camouflaged there and they look like dry leaves. I was lucky I didn't meet them or maybe just that I didn't see them.
I found a small creek and walked in the water because I knew it was safer.
At the crash site I had found a bag of sweets. When I had finished them I had nothing more to eat and I was very afraid of starving.
It was very hot and very wet and it rained several times a day. But it was cold in the night and to be alone in that mini-dress was very difficult.
On the fourth day, I heard the noise of a landing king vulture which I recognised from my time at my parents' reserve.
I was afraid because I knew they only land when there is a lot of carrion and I knew it was bodies from the crash.
When I turned a corner in the creek, I found a bench with three passengers rammed head first into the earth.
I was paralysed by panic. It was the first time I had seen a dead body.
I thought my mother could be one of them but when I touched the corpse with a stick, I saw that the woman's toenails were painted - my mother never polished her nails.
I was immediately relieved but then felt ashamed of that thought.
By the 10th day I couldn't stand properly and I drifted along the edge of a larger river I had found. I felt so lonely, like I was in a parallel universe far away from any human being.
I thought I was hallucinating when I saw a really large boat. When I went to touch it and realised it was real, it was like an adrenaline shot.
But [then I saw] there was a small path into the jungle where I found a hut with a palm leaf roof, an outboard motor and a litre of gasoline.
I had a wound on my upper right arm. It was infested with maggots about one centimetre long. I remembered our dog had the same infection and my father had put kerosene in it, so I sucked the gasoline out and put it into the wound.
The pain was intense as the maggots tried to get further into the wound. I pulled out about 30 maggots and was very proud of myself. I decided to spend the night there.
The next day I heard the voices of several men outside. It was like hearing the voices of angels.
When they saw me, they were alarmed and stopped talking. They thought I was a kind of water goddess - a figure from local legend who is a hybrid of a water dolphin and a blonde, white-skinned woman.
But I introduced myself in Spanish and explained what had happened. They treated my wounds and gave me something to eat and the next day took me back to civilisation.
The day after my rescue, I saw my father. He could barely talk and in the first moment we just held each other.
For the next few days, he frantically searched for news of my mother. On 12 January they found her body.
Later I found out that she also survived the crash but was badly injured and she couldn't move. She died several days later. I dread to think what her last days were like.
Juliane Koepcke told her story toOutlookfrom theBBC World Service. Listen to the programmehere.
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A man has appeared in court charged with the murder of a 33-year-old man who was found dead in Oxford. | Anthony Joyce was found unresponsive at a property in Redbridge Hollow on Saturday and pronounced dead at the scene, Thames Valley Police said.
John Francis Joyce, 30, of Redbridge Hollow, appeared at Oxford Magistrates' Court earlier charged with murder.
He was remanded in custody and will next appear at Oxford Crown Court on 31 July.
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A man has admitted knowingly infecting his sexual partners with HIV. | John Nehemiah Rodney, 60, from Swindon, initially denied three counts of inflicting grievous bodily harm against three women.
He changed his plea to guilty at a hearing at Bristol Crown Court on Tuesday.
Police interviewed more than 50 women as part of their investigation into Rodney, who they described as "reckless".
Inquiries began in 2017 when a woman complained she had contracted HIV after having unprotected sex with Rodney, of Toothill.
Officers discovered he was aware he had the virus but had unprotected sex with "numerous women over several years" without telling them about his condition.
More than 50 women were approached as part of the investigation, which involved Swindon Borough Council, Great Western Hospital and Public Health England.
Three women who had slept with Rodney were found to have been infected with HIV as a result.
Det Insp Helen Jacobs from Wiltshire Police said: "This has been an extremely complex investigation which has required close partnership working with our health colleagues in Swindon to determine the full extent of Rodney's offending and the potential implications on the health of those living in Swindon.
"I am pleased for the victims that Rodney has now pleaded guilty."
Rodney will be sentenced at Bristol Crown Court on 6 March.
Related Internet Links
HM Courts & Tribunals Service
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Orkney's Scapa Distillery has opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 130-year history. | Chivas Brothers has unveiled a visitor centre to "educate malt connoisseurs about its unique production process, provenance and quality".
Two permanent and two seasonal jobs have been created.
Scapa Distillery manager Brian MacAulay said: "I have personally taken the pleasure in removing our 'No Visitors' sign."
VisitScotland island manager Barbara Foulkes said: "As this new attraction clearly demonstrates with the creation of four positions, tourism is a vital part of Orkney's economy, creating jobs and sustaining communities."
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Three people have been arrested on suspicion of murder following the death of a 21-year-old man in Sheffield. | Jordan Hill was found with stab wounds at a flat in Southey Avenue in Longley, at 21:45 GMT on Thursday.
South Yorkshire Police said Mr Hill was taken to hospital but died as a result of his injuries.
A 31-year-old man and 24-year-old woman were arrested earlier and a 29-year-old man was arrested on Tuesday. All remain in police custody.
A post-mortem examination concluded Mr Hill died as a result of stab wounds.
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Passengers from Cornwall will be able to fly direct from Newquay to two additional UK destinations this summer.
| Newquay airport is launching weekly flights to Newcastle and Belfast from May.
The Exeter-based airline, Flybe, said the routes would operate on Saturdays from 5 May.
In December the Cornish airport announced weekly flights from Newquay to Norwich would also be starting in May.
Newquay airport said the flights would be a boost for Cornish tourism despite the current state of the economy.
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One Direction are to release a new song called Best Song Ever. | The single appears on a full-length trailer for the boy band's 3D documentary film called This Is Us.
Super Size Me and 30 Days director Morgan Spurlock is behind the movie, which is due for release in August.
The trailer, which lasts more than three minutes, shows the group travelling around the world on tour and also features interviews with each member and their families.
Fans will see Niall Horan pouring miso soup over his rice in Japan, Zayn Malik buys a house for his mum and Harry Styles visits the bakery where he used to work.
Spurlock, 42, has been following the fivesome to events including this year's Brit Awards, where they won in the global success category.
The director called the film "an incredible opportunity and an amazing moment in time for the band" with Simon Cowell, boss of One Direction's record label Syco, describing it as an "access all areas, behind the scenes" look at the group.
One Direction is made up of Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson.
They finished third on The X Factor in 2010 and have since had three number one singles in the UK with both their albums topping the Billboard 200 chart in America.
They are on tour in North America with dates to follow in Australia and New Zealand.
One Direction announced a world stadium tour for 2014 in May with five dates in the UK.
The single Best Song Ever is available on pre-release from midnight on Wednesday.
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter
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Documents released in the High Court this week reveal for the first time some of the behind-the-scenes debates in Whitehall over whether the UK should work with the US on Guantanamo Bay - and how the decision was taken to allow British citizens to be taken to the camp. | By Dominic Casciani and Steve SwannBBC News home affairs team
Somewhere in London, there is a secure room where some 80 lawyers and officials are reading through 500,000 documents - and deciding which will see the light of day.
The work, with no clear end in sight, is part of what is fast becoming one of the largest actions in English legal history: an attempt by former Guantanamo Bay detainees to sue the British government.
The men say MI5, MI6 and three government departments could have prevented their detention and mistreatment.
The former Labour government rejected the allegations and promised to defend itself in the courts - but Prime Minister David Cameron is trying to get the six men to enter settlement talks to run alongside a judge-led inquiry into allegations of complicity in torture.
On Wednesday, the High Court rejected a government plea to suspend the men's legal action for three months in the interests of a potential settlement.
And on Thursday the government agreed to a demand by Mr Justice Silber to disclose more documents relating to the alleged mistreatment of British terror suspects in the months following the 9/11 attacks.
To be released by 3 September, they will include material from departments including Downing Street and the Home Office, as well as the police, Crown Prosecution Service, and MI5 and MI6.
The judge said he particularly wanted to see any emails relating to the men who are suing the government, and "any information showing actual knowledge on the part of any of the defendants of a serious risk of incommunicado or arbitrary detention, rendition, ill-treatment or torture of terrorist suspects by or at the behest of the United States authorities".
Redacted
The detainees' decision to fight on came as the High Court released the first documents covering what was going through the minds of British officials during Guantanamo Bay's opening in 2002 - and what happened next.
The hundreds of pages of documents are heavily redacted with a censor's black pen.
But what we can see indicates tensions in Whitehall, developments in the rules of engagement for intelligence officers overseas and the role of former Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street.
One series of documents suggests a row took place between Number 10 and Foreign Office consular staff over the future of one detainee, Martin Mubanga.
His lawyers say he could have been brought back to the UK but the government denies wrongdoing.
Emerging policy
Guantanamo Bay received its first 20 al-Qaeda suspects on 11 January 2002.
In London, officials were locked in debate over what to do with about a dozen men, who were thought to be British, being held by the US in Afghanistan.
Each was suspected of being a dangerous extremist - and the UK did not want them back.
A partially censored Foreign Office document dated 10 January 2002 reveals the developing thinking. At this time, there were no public pictures of the detention camp - and no indication of what conditions would be like.
"Transfer of UK nationals held by US forces in Afghanistan to the US base in Guantanamo is the best way to meet our counter-terrorism objectives by ensuring that they are securely held," it reads.
"Our line [for the media] - that we are seeking information and reassurances and that the US is aware of our opposition to the death penalty - is not strong, but a stronger line is difficult until policy is clearer."
A telegram in the name of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was sent to diplomats including Sir Christopher Meyer, the ambassador to Washington. It approved allowing the US to take British detainees to the US naval base - providing MI5 had finished interviewing the men in Afghanistan.
"No objection to American plans to transfer UK detainees… we hope that UK national will not be included in the first group of transfers," it said.
"We should also insist on consular access and full information on future handling. The UK approach on the repatriation and prosecution of UK nationals is still being considered."
Men transferred
Within weeks, British nationals were arriving in Guantanamo Bay but there had still been no decision on repatriation.
Washington wanted to know what would happen to the suspects if handed back to the UK. But officials in London knew the men could not be prosecuted unless there was evidence against them.
Home Secretary David Blunkett was reported to be concerned about prosecuting suspects who could turn out to be "young and ill-informed individuals" who may have been manipulated into travelling to Afghanistan.
A minute from a 26 February 2002 inter-departmental meeting reveals the anxieties.
"The meeting agreed that UK should not be in any hurry to take back the detainees though the FCO was quiet on that point," it says.
"If the difficulties we face steers the Americans to make more use of military tribunals, FCO will have some obvious problems of public presentation… but these are likely to be preferable to those associated with the detainees being released in the UK."
Requests for return
Nine British citizens ended up at Guantanamo Bay, alongside five other men who had been UK residents.
But the first formal request for the release of any of them was not made until 8 January 2004, the papers say.
Policy and guidance was also shifting behind the scenes.
The detainees involved in the legal action claim the security and intelligence services knew they faced mistreatment or torture but did nothing to stop it. This second prong of the action is also denied by the government and it will be the focal point of the judge-led inquiry launched by Prime Minister David Cameron last week.
In early 2002, officers from the agencies told London that some prisoners were being mistreated. They asked for legal advice.
They were told: "Given that they are not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this."
But the guidance developed in the years that followed. One MI6 document, released to the courts this week, called Detainees and Detention Operations, demonstrates how complicated the rules became as lawyers explained the responsibilities that officers faced.
The document, dated April 2005, covers in minute detail what officers should consider before joining a detention operation run by a foreign power - the kind of situation that officers may have found themselves facing if working alongside the CIA in Afghanistan.
Most of the warnings are nuanced, reflecting the difficult work of intelligence and the need to gather life-saving information. Other questions officers are told to ask themselves are stark: "Is it clear that detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation?" reads one paragraph.
It tells officers that "ministers may need to be consulted" if there is a real possibility that a suspect will be tortured.
Later, MI6 produced a simplified flowchart, also released to the courts, telling officers how to uphold the law.
The document looks at what officers should do if a foreign power ignores pleas from London to treat a detainee humanely. The guidance to the field officers, in that situation, remains redacted.
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Sapper William Arthur Lloyd was killed by a German mine while tunnelling below the Somme battlefield in 1915. Now his great granddaughter has retraced his steps to stand just feet from where he died - and where his body still lies. | By Trystan JonesBBC News
The Somme, in northern France, was not only one of the bloodiest battles of World War One, but one of the bloodiest in history.
More than 1.2 million men are believed to have been killed or injured during the main battle but below ground a group of soldiers, including Sapper Lloyd, fought their own private, hidden war.
Sapper Lloyd's family, back home near Wrexham, knew little about what happened to him, other than he was killed by a German mine.
His great granddaughter Lesley Woodbridge, of Telford, Shropshire, spent seven years investigating his death.
On Sunday, with the help of a team of archaeologists studying the La Boisselle tunnels below the Somme, she descended 80ft (24m) and crawled along tunnels that in all likelihood her great grandfather had helped dig.
"We've just made the very last journey that he ever made and now we're standing where he actually rests. That has to be emotional," she said.
"I never even thought I would even find out what part of France he was in, so to be standing here, just a few metres away from him, is just incredible."
'Historical first'
Ms Woodbridge, 59, said it marked the end of what at times felt like a futile search for her relative.
But it is also a historical first, according to Peter Barton, who led the group studying the network of tunnels at La Boisselle.
"This is hugely significant. I've just shivered thinking about it, because this is the first time ever that a relative has been able to visit these places," he said.
"You can't do that for men on the surface, who are lost in battle, because you simply don't know where they are.
"But of course in the tunnel wars it was so constrained and constricted and so well documented, we know exactly what happened, at what time and what the results were."
Sapper Lloyd was a miner from New Broughton in north Wales, who joined the 179th Tunnelling Company in 1915.
In October of that year he was sent to the Somme, only to die six weeks later in a German explosion far below No Man's Land.
Aged 37, he left behind a wife and six children.
'An obsession'
Ms Woodbridge said he had time to write one letter back home, although he was not allowed to explain what he was doing, nor where he was.
In a section of it, he wrote: "Dear wife, children and mother, just two or three lines to let you know that I am quite well.
"All I can tell you is I wish the war was over. It's a monstrous one. I am still thinking of home, the weather here is awful and cold.
"Wishing you all a merry Christmas, but I shan't be home for it. From your husband William Arthur."
Sapper Lloyd was not to see Christmas.
The family received a letter confirming his death, but little else.
Almost a century later, Ms Woodbridge said the search for her great grandfather had developed into an "obsession".
"You can spend so much time looking, just trawling through information and finding nothing and getting really fed up with yourself and then suddenly you find something and it's just such a great feeling.
"I just wish my grandmother and other members of the family were still around so they could see the results."
One member who is still alive, but not able to make the trip herself, is Lesley's 88-year-old mother Thelma Roberts, who still lives in Wrexham.
She broke down in tears as her daughter made her way along the tunnel and spoke to her on the phone.
Ms Woodbridge's hunt began in 2005. Searching online she discovered that Sapper Lloyd was named on the Thiepval Memorial, among some 70,000 men lost at the Somme.
However, her enquiries were proving fruitless until she got in contact with Simon Jones at the University of Birmingham.
An expert on WW1 tunnelling, Mr Jones was also connected with the archaeological dig at La Boisselle.
Mr Jones quickly confirmed that Sapper Lloyd was one of five men who died in a counter-tunnelling operation.
'Hidden battlefield'
Members of what became the La Boisselle Study Group were invited, by the landowners, to investigate the site two years ago.
"There was a little hole in the field and we slipped into the hole and it opened up into this labyrinth of tunnels," Mr Barton said.
"We found that rather than being completely destroyed they were very well preserved."
Today, the team can access almost four miles of tunnels, on four levels, beneath what is just a five acre site.
Among those now accessible is W1 shaft, where, in a small gallery, Sapper Lloyd died.
"It's a sobering experience, because they're not just tunnels, but a hidden battlefield," Mr Barton said.
"We have a perception of a World War One battlefield, but this is an underground, private, clandestine war and William Arthur was a part of it."
Using documents from the British, French and German archives, the study group was able to piece together what happened.
In one German report on 23 December 1915, a deputy company commander wrote that a microphone first detected British miners working nearby on 18 December.
A 750kg explosive charge was detonated immediately, presumably killing one group of miners. The company then started to prepare a 12,000kg charge.
Oberleutnant Sihler wrote: "After six and a half hours' work, the charge had been laid in the mine chamber, and by 12:30 tamping and timbering had been completed and the mine was ready to be fired."
It was detonated at 16:00, killing Sapper Lloyd and his fellow miners. Despite its depth, it created a crater 40m wide on the surface.
The war underground has gone largely unrecognised, while history has focused on men pouring over the tops of trenches into a hail of bullets and artillery shell explosions.
The La Boisselle Study Group hopes to remedy that, although there are no plans to open up the gallery that is now a grave for Sapper Lloyd and his four colleagues.
For Ms Woodbridge, the group has given her a unique insight into her great grandfather's brief war and death almost 100 years ago.
Down in the tunnels she left behind an urn containing soil from the colliery where her great grandfather first worked - "a little bit of home for him".
"This is the end of the journey for me. There's nowhere else I can go is there?" she added.
"I can't get any closer to him."
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A British team is developing a car that will be capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h). Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the vehicle will first mount an assault on the world land speed record (763mph; 1,228km/h). Bloodhound will be run on Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape, South Africa, in 2016.
Wing Commander Andy Green, the current world land-speed record holder, is writing a diary for BBC News about his experiences working on the Bloodhound project and the team's efforts to inspire national interest in science and engineering. | By Andy GreenWorld Land Speed Record Holder
After the hugely successful public launch, we're busy planning for next year's trip to the desert.
The target for 2016 is 800+ mph, after which we'll upgrade the car (principally with bigger rockets) for our 1,000mph record attempt in 2017.
From my point of view, a key part of the planning now is around operating the car.
In other words, when I climb into the world's fastest race car next year, exactly what do I do next?
This might sound like an easy question to answer, along the lines of "start the engines, drive really fast, then stop". However, it rapidly gets more complicated than that.
For example, I've got three engines to start up (the Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine, the Nammo hybrid rocket and of course Jaguar's very fine five-litre V8 "auxiliary power unit", or APU, which powers the rocket pump).
All of these engines have got specific requirements and restrictions.
The Jaguar APU needs to be warmed up (to a minimum of 40C) before use, but the coolant system is only designed to support 20-30 seconds of rocket firing, so it will overheat if we leave the Jaguar engine "hot" for too long.
Starting the jet engine heats the inside of the car, which won't take long to start overheating the bodywork and the electronics, and in any case there isn't much spare jet fuel on board.
However, the jet provides hydraulic power to the car, so we have to start the jet before we can power up the safety-critical items like airbrakes and winglets. The hybrid rocket works by forcing concentrated hydrogen peroxide (known as HTP) through a silver oxide catalyst pack, which operates at 600-700C, and needs pre-heating to around 400+ C before the car starts moving.
There are a number of other systems that need turning on and testing as the car is getting ready to launch off down the desert.
These also need a specific start-up sequence, from the on-board video and data broadcast systems, which are transmitting even before I get to the car, to the brake chute systems, which are armed just before the car sets off.
Before writing the start-up and shut-down procedures for the car, I need a clear idea of how the car's systems work.
To make sure that my understanding is the same as the systems engineers, I'm working on some simple "Driver's Notes" to remind me of how everything should work and, in one or two places, to remind the engineers of how I'd like it to work!
For each system, there's a simplified diagram to show how things connect up and where the cockpit readouts come from.
This is what we mathematicians call a topological map.
Perhaps the world's best-known topological map is the London Underground.
The "Tube Map" is a very different shape to the underground tracks around London, but it shows you how it all connects and how to get to places. Aircraft systems diagrams take the same approach to teach pilots, so I'm copying this well-proven route.
I don't need to know the real shape of the systems as they thread their way through Bloodhound, just how they connect and how they operate.
This process is also useful to highlight areas where we might want to add extra sensors into the car.
For example, Bloodhound carries about 600 litres of jet fuel for a high-speed run.
This is quite difficult to fit into our narrow chassis (600 litres is about twice the volume of a domestic bath), so the fuel is split into three tanks.
The main tank holds 400 litres, with two auxiliary tanks holding 100 litres each. The fuel is pumped from the auxiliary tanks to the main tank, then from the main tank to the jet engine.
The main jet fuel tank holds more than enough fuel for a full high-speed run, with the auxiliaries providing the extra fuel for engine start, warm up and cool down after the run.
In the cockpit, I'm only interested in the main tank contents and the main tank pump, which feeds the jet engine.
As long as the main tank remains full with the jet running, then the transfer pumps from the auxiliary tanks must be working.
The jet is able to "suck" fuel from the main tank, using its own low-pressure mechanical pump, which will provide just enough fuel for the jet to run at idle power. It's only when the car sets off, and I push my right foot down on the accelerator pedal, that we'll find out if the main tank pump is delivering enough fuel pressure. To make sure it's working properly before setting off, we're going to add a fuel pressure sensor into the main fuel line.
The operating sequence for the car is still being developed, but here's the first draft. Please don't write in just yet to point out any errors, this is work-in-progress and our engineers haven't even seen it yet.
Before the car is rolled out of the hangar and on to the track, I'll switch both batteries on to check that they are fully charged.
The car has two separate electrical 24 volt DC (direct current) systems, each with its own battery. Twenty-four volts is the standard aircraft DC voltage, twice that of a normal car (partly for weight-saving reasons: double the voltage and you halve the current, making the wiring thinner and lighter).
With power on, I can also check the readings on all three cockpit screens, and the "emergency" screen setting - if one of the screens fails, I can push a button to move the central display on to the left hand screen.
Before the car is declared ready to go, the video system is fired up to check that all 12 onboard cameras are giving good pictures.
It's amazingly easy for one of us to dislodge a camera when we're working on the car, so now's the time to fix it.
Before roll-out, I'll also check the cockpit breathing air system, the radio and the fire extinguishers (a total of seven along the length of the car).
If you haven't had a look inside the cockpit yet, have a look at the cockpit introduction video and the cockpit 360 view.
Once the car has been towed to the end of the track, we'll switch the power on again, turn the computers on (the car has five, which control different bits of the car, as well as checking each other) and turn on the video transmission system.
This is a key bit of sharing our "Engineering Adventure".
We're going to broadcast live video and data over the internet, every time we run, so that you can ride onboard the world's fastest car as it runs, wherever you are in the world.
After checking all the support equipment is ready to go, I'll climb into the cockpit and strap myself in.
First thing will be to start the onboard video recorders, so we've got our own record for both engineering review and later TV use.
Power assisted steering will be turned on if I intend to use it (we don't think I'll need it, but it's there just in case).I'll check that the Rolex instruments have a good GPS lock and re-check all of the readings on the cockpit screens.
Next is the pre-run data entry, to tell the car exactly how long the run is going to be, how fast I'm intending to go, etc.
This will allow the car to calculate and display the optimum points for me to fire the rocket, deploy the airbrakes or a brake chute, and monitor the track distance remaining.
Back in 1997, I had to do a lot of this in my head, so I'm REALLY glad that modern technology can now do most of the work for me.
Once the data has been entered, we're ready to start the car.
With the fire extinguishers armed, I can start the Jaguar APU and let it warm up.
It will shut itself off when it's warm enough, so I'll just keep an eye on it.
Next I'll double-check the canopy hatch over my head is firmly locked down, then apply the wheel brakes with my left foot and check that both circuits produce the correct pressure, as it's time to start the jet engine.
The ground crew will connect the air starter that winds up the jet, then I'll select low-pressure fuel pumps on, low pressure fuel cock open and engine on: the start sequence then completes automatically (I love modern technology).
Stabilised idle is about 40% (jet engines measure output as a percentage of max RPM). The generator will now be online, providing AC (alternating current) power for the fuel pumps and, through something called a transformer-rectifier unit, converting that AC power into 28 volt DC to top up the batteries.
At this point, you may be wondering why I have to move so many switches to make all of this happen.
Why can't we just have a big "start button", which does all of this automatically?
The simple answer is that we could. However, a quick look at some of the systems shows some good reasons for doing it the long way.
The Rolex instruments have their own internal power supply, to give me guaranteed, accurate, speed readings, even if the main car power fails.
Leaving the Rolex instruments on would flatten their battery, so they are only switched on once the car is powered up.
If the video recorders were on all the time, we'd have a hard disk full of workshop footage and probably none of the actual runs.
Power-assisted steering? Until we start driving, we don't know exactly what the steering loads will be. Leaving the airbrakes, brake chutes, rocket system, etc. permanently on has obvious safety implications. The list goes on.
Having switches to control each bit is the best way to make sure that things happen (or don't happen) when you want them to, in the right order, at the right time.
It's the way aviation works and it's a system I know and trust: pilots have been doing it successfully like this for a long time.
With the jet engine running, the hydraulic system is at idle pressure, which is still a healthy 90 Bar (1,350 psi, which is about 40-45 times the pressure inside a car tyre). Selecting full pressure bumps this up to a massive 200 Bar (3000 psi).
Now the safety procedures really kick in.
Up to this point, the airbrakes have been manually isolated from the hydraulic system.
As the start team turns the valves to connect them, the airbrakes immediately start to deploy - they are designed to "fail" to the fully extended position, which is where I need them if there's a problem with the hydraulics when the car is running.
Once the airbrakes have deployed, I'll select them back in and then test the normal system (the blue button on the left of the steering wheel), checking that each deployment and retraction meets the target time of four seconds.
Once they're fully tested and back in, I'll power up the winglets and test them.
Nearly ready now. Arm the brake chutes, enable the rocket firing and jet throttle circuits, re-tighten my seat harness, and then ask the Run Controller for clearance to roll.
While I've been starting up the car, RAF Air Traffic Controller John MacLeod will have checked that everyone is ready, and the track is clear, so I'm expecting a quick response of "Bloodhound, you are clear to roll".
Almost ready. The final bit is the rocket catalyst pack pre-heat.
A quick stab of the pre-heat button on the steering wheel (middle button on the right) and the Jaguar engine pumps a small amount of HTP into the catalyst pack.
This will immediately break down into steam and hot oxygen when it hits the silver oxide mesh: 2H2O2 -> 2H2O + O2 + lots of heat.
The cat pack should be above 400C in a few seconds.
NOW we're ready to roll… what happens next is another story.
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Four men who secretly boarded a ship from Nigeria to Wales have been detained by immigration officials. | The Nigerian nationals, aged between 18 and 25, were discovered on board the ship at Milford Haven on 26 October after the captain raised the alarm.
The men, who had sailed from Lagos, were detained and interviewed by Border Force officers.
The Home Office is investigating whether they have a right to remain in the UK.
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Theresa May's plans to begin formal Brexit talks with the EU by the end of March 2017 have been widely discussed by the press on the Continent. The papers expect difficult talks on "operation Great Divorce", wondering whether the British prime minister has a clear vision of what she wants to achieve. | The French conservative daily Le Figaro welcomed Mrs May's "firmness" on the issue of negotiations "that promise to be tough", in particular with regard to migration control and the single market.
But Liberation said she had "set the bar extremely high" ahead of the lengthy talks with 27 EU member states.
"By actually ruling out free movement, Theresa May appears to be heading towards what some call 'hard Brexit', which would mean a complete exit from single market," the paper said.
The centre-left daily Le Monde is sure Mrs May is a "hard Brexit advocate, wrapped in the flag of a 'Global Britain' that will sever its ties with the EU".
It welcomes the clarity she has brought to the process, but asks for more detail from both London and Brussels.
"If Britain aims to be 'Singapore across the Channel', then World Trade Organisation rules will apply. But if London wants a deal, then the EU faces the challenge of devising a status that doesn't encourage other member-states to act like the British," and opt to leave, the editorial says.
German Sueddeutsche Zeitung agreed the Conservatives were lacking "a common line on the forthcoming negotiations".
"There are heated discussions even within the cabinet itself on whether the UK should renounce access to the EU single market in favour of stricter migration rules for EU citizens," it added.
The Romanian paper Revista 22 said: "In the course of negotiations London is counting on getting unlimited access to the single European market, although it is reluctant to accept free movement of European workers."
The Italian economic daily Il Sole 24 Ore asked: "Will London be ready for a reasonable exchange of the movement of workers for access to parts of the single market?
"She appeared firm but also aware that these are the real crucial issues in the talks that the UK has decided to open sooner than expected."
The "timetable for operation Great Divorce" came as a surprise to Rzeczpospolita, a leading Polish daily.
It said no-one had expected any such moves before next year's elections in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy.
"Until then the EU's most important capitals will not want to agree on any concessions for the British, because… their departure from the EU could boost support for the populists", Rzeczpospolita added.
The Italian paper Corriere della Sera envisions a painful "separation of property like in any divorce".
"Given the aggravating circumstance it will be very difficult… to disentangle the financial complexities of a very crowded marriage such as the European one is," it said.
"London certainly does not want to make concessions and demands everything it deserves. Starting with wine and artwork.
"It is not a joke. There are 42,000 bottles of fine wines, cognac and other spirits in the cellar of the European Commission.
"Of all of this, the British negotiators demand their share. As is the case for the rich contemporary artwork collection of the European Parliament."
Holger Steltzner, the editor of Germany's conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, agrees a hard Brexit will be painful - but for the EU rather than Britain.
He warns that tariffs on British goods would "hit the EU harder, because of our larger budget deficits", and the City of London would still be competitive as the "world's greatest financial centre".
He calls on the EU to explain "how it will deliver on its promises of prosperity, instead of watching Britain prove that a medium-sized country can succeed on its own in a globalised world" and possibly encourage other EU states to follow its example.
Some East European media pick up on Home Secretary Amber Rudd's pledge to make firms do more to employ British people.
Hungary's Index news site notes the large numbers of Hungarian workers that this may affect, and warns that "some people are already saying the government is making racism almost compulsory in Britain".
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
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Behind the smiles there is a lot of resentment. | Chris JacksonPresenter, Inside Out, North East & Cumbria
When I met Stuart Hyde to talk about his rise and fall at Cumbria Police he was measured in his responses but his wife Caroline, unfettered by loyalty to the uniform, was damning in how she feels they were treated.
On the morning of 13 September 2012 Stuart Hyde was Temporary Chief Constable and had been in post since being promoted from Deputy Chief Constable at the start of the year.
By that evening he was being sent home in shock. He'd been suspended yet he didn't really understand why.
Five allegations of misconduct had been levelled at him, but that was pretty much all he knew.
For nearly a year he was left with nothing to do except walk the fells and contemplate just what was going on.
He was nearing 30 years' service with plenty of achievements along the way, including a Queen's Police Medal.
Natural justice?
Now there was rumour and suspicion that he was somehow corrupt.
If you or I were charged with an offence we'd expect to be told exactly what the charge was.
We'd be given details of the evidence against us and that would give us a fighting chance of mounting a defence.
But when a Chief Constable is removed from duty, Stuart Hyde says natural justice does not apply.
When South Wales Police officers, charged with investigating the allegations, came to interview him, he says he was still not given the details of what he was supposed to have done wrong.
Nor did he know who his accusers were.
When the investigators reported their findings they made 23 recommendations to Cumbria Police to tighten up policy and procedures and 12 to Mr Hyde, including that he should receive advice about performance issues such as transparency and his "unconventional and unprofessional approach".
Although the investigation team decided there was room for improvement Stuart Hyde was cleared of any allegations of misconduct.
In his words, he was told to get a grip on being more open and sorting out his paperwork, but he was not found to be a bent copper. He expected to return to work.
When I interviewed him he was adamant he'd neither done anything wrong nor had he overstepped the mark as the most senior officer in the county.
Many might question his judgement, but others might question the need to remove him from office.
Cleared and re-suspended
In the end the Chief Constable was suspended for close to a year and the inquiry costing hundreds of thousands of pounds ended with no one happy at the outcome.
Cumbria's Police and Crime Commissioner disagreed with the findings. He insisted there was a case for Stuart Hyde to answer and immediately re-suspended him.
However there was no further disciplinary hearing to test the evidence and reach a conclusion.
Commissioner Richard Rhodes declined to be interviewed for our programme and pointed to his earlier statement about the investigation.
So what happened to Stuart Hyde?
In the end he returned to work in his former role as Deputy Chief Constable. It was just for a few months until he retired.
Stuart and Caroline are determined not to let the episode colour their time in Cumbria and they insist they'll continue to enjoy the delights the county has to offer.
Caroline says as a partner of a serving officer you were always made to feel part of the police family.
On the day he was suspended Caroline felt she and her husband were cut adrift by senior colleagues.
I imagine no amount of relationship counselling is going to patch up his "family" rift.
Mr Hyde is still seeking more details about who said what about him so that he can try and answer his accusers directly.
The public are left wondering.
Mud has been flung. It stuck while the inquiry went on.
Most has been washed away, but Stuart Hyde believes with a system that allows for such an inconclusive outcome there is still the trace of an ugly stain that stubbornly refuses to go away.
Inside Out can be seen on Monday, 3 February, 2014 at 19:30 GMT on BBC One in the North East & Cumbria and for seven days on the BBC iPlayer.
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Obesity is described as one of the biggest problems facing mankind. The small US territory of Puerto Rico is debating whether to fine parents who fail to get their children to lose weight. But would this work elsewhere? | By Justin ParkinsonBBC News Magazine
More than 600 million people, or 13% of the world's adult population, are obese. The rate more than doubled between 1980 and 2014, according to the World Health Organization. The estimated cost to the global economy is $2tn (£1.3tn), including £47bn to the UK.
National and local governments have struggled to address obesity, defined as having a body mass index - based on the ratio of height to weight - of more than 30. They often face accusations of nanny-statism and opposition from food and drink companies if they do so. Attempts have been patchy and experts are divided on what, if anything, works.
In 2011, Denmark brought in a "fat tax" on foods containing more than 2.3% saturated fat, but the inflated prices drove consumers over the border to Germany. The policy was dropped a year later and the government cancelled plans for a tax on sugar.
In 2012, France quadrupled the tax on saturated fat-rich palm oil, dubbed the "Nutella tax" because the popular hazelnut spread contained the ingredient.
Voters in Berkeley, California, backed calls for a one-cent-an-ounce tax on fizzy drinks, in a referendum last year. The beverages were banned from schools in New South Wales, Australia, in 2007, but this has sometimes been ignored.
Meanwhile, families in England and several US states are sent warning letters warning if tests in schools show children are overweight.
So far, anti-obesity policy has focused largely on taxation or providing information. But, on Friday, politicians in Puerto Rico, a self-governing US territory, start debating whether the government should get more involved in one of the main perceived reasons for the growth in childhood obesity - irresponsible parenting.
If the legislative assembly approves Senator Gilberto Rodriguez Valle's plans, teachers will be told to look out for students they think are obese. They would refer those detected to a counsellor or, in severe examples, to a social worker. Health department officials would meet parents and decide whether the obesity comes from overeating or a medical condition.
If food is the problem, it would be up to parents to set a diet and exercise programme, with monthly visits by officials to make sure it's being kept up. After six months, they would examine the child again. Parents would face fines of up to $800 (£525) if there was no improvement within a year.
Opponents say that, in a society where thinness has become a status symbol perpetuated by glossy magazines and media images, the idea of teachers acting as body police will further stigmatise the overweight. There is also a large question mark over whether this approach, very much "stick" rather than "carrot", can work.
But Rodriguez Valle and his supporters insist families will be informed in confidence, meaning no humiliation for children in front of classmates. Fines are "necessary for society", argues a colleague, saying: "The obese child is a health problem that can become a financial burden because the child can develop diabetes, heart ailments and other diseases."
In 2013, 27.9% of adults in Puerto Rico were described as obese, upper to middling by rates across the US. However, the figure for children under the age of four - 17.9% - is the highest of all US states and territories. If parents are failing to do their job from the start, schools have to ensure standards instead, backed by financial penalties, it is argued.
Denmark's fat tax
There is a sense of helplessness in the face of the world's weight gain, largely attributed to rising food intake and falling activity levels. "Not only is obesity increasing," a study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, published last year, said, "but no national success stories have been reported in the past 33 years. Urgent global action and leadership is needed to help countries to more effectively intervene."
The latest UK figures show 24.7% of adults are obese, lower than Puerto Rico, but still the among the highest in western Europe. The rate was 14% for children aged two to 15 in England, 17% in Scotland and 19% in Wales in 2012. In Northern Ireland in 2011-12, it was 10%. So, does Puerto Rico's proposal appeal?
"Obesity isn't like smoking, the cutting of which has been a public health success in recent years," says Andrew Hill, professor of medical psychology at Leeds University. "Smoking is a single behaviour that's really explicitly linked to a number of adverse health conditions, whereas obesity is a state of body,
"The causes are driven by environment. You live in an environment which encourages you to eat lots of food and discourages physical activity. To then apply a penalty to punish something that people have varying degrees of control over seems to be not just counterproductive but morally dubious."
Obesity is more of a problem among poorer groups, who live in an "obesogenic" environment, according to Hill. He argues that exercise is less available and, given the higher proportion of household income spent on food, leads to the purchase of cheap, highly calorific products, sugary or fatty, with limited nutritional value.
Hill dislikes the Puerto Rican proposal. "We need to move the argument away from saying it's all about individual responsibility and 'it's you to blame'. People do have some responsibility but we must recognise the power of environment and how difficult it is to change for the rest of your life."
Philadelphia - the most overweight of America's major cities - has cut the obesity rate among children. The city authority has persuaded shops to stock more fruit and vegetables in areas once described as "food deserts" because of a lack of nutritious offerings. It has also banned full-fat milk from school canteens, as well as deep-fat frying, while sugary drinks have disappeared from vending machines.
"None of these efforts involved stigmatising or penalising parents," says Rebecca Puhl, deputy director of the Connecticut-based Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. "In contrast, these changes exemplify ways to support and empower parents to make it easier to improve the health of their children."
Puhl argues that a more integrated approach. involving schools encouraging better eating and more exercise, is needed.
But the Puerto Rico obesity plan has echoes of the action taken in the UK and elsewhere to combat persistent truancy from school. In March last year, it was revealed that a record number of truancy fines had been handed to parents but that persistent truancy was falling. But there has been criticism that there is no link and that fines do not work. Some critics believe fines disproportionately affect poor parents.
For a study published in 2000, the economists Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini tested the effects of fines on parents who consistently picked up children late from daycare centres in Israel. Rather than deter the behaviour, lateness increased because they started to regard the fine as a reasonable fee for extra childcare, rather than a punishment. "A powerful, intrinsic motive was crowded out by a weaker, extrinsic one," they concluded.
"That's unlikely to happen with obesity because there's a stigma surrounding it," says Peter Ayton, professor of psychology at City University. "But there's definitely room for thinking more about incentives, maybe some sort of rewards for losing weight, especially as obesity tends to affect the poor most.
"People respond to incentives and deterrents. There needs to be more discussion of what works."
More from the Magazine
Why do parents let their kids get fat?
10 of your child obesity stories
Children who can't stop eating
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With food allergies on the rise we probably all know someone who has to avoid one foodstuff or another for medical reasons. Now, though, there is also the rise of the "gluten-free" lifestyle, removing most breads, pastas and cakes from the menu, writes Dr Chris van Tulleken. | It's estimated that 8.5 million people in the UK have now gone "gluten free" and it's a very fast-growing section of the supermarket with an expanding (and expensive) range of gluten-free alternative foods on sale. So, what's behind it all?
If you're one of those who sigh and tut at the perceived fussiness of the new gluten-free brigade, spare a thought for the 1% of the population who suffer from coeliac disease.
Find out more
Chris van Tulleken presents Trust Me, I'm A Doctor which is on Thursday 8 September on BBC Two at 20:00 BST - catch up on BBC iPlayer
Is going gluten-free good for me?
Coeliac sufferers have a lifelong autoimmune disease which means that gluten causes their immune system to turn on their own bodies, destroying the delicate linings of their guts and causing painful digestive symptoms as well as malnutrition and serious complications. The current boom in gluten-free products and gluten-awareness from restaurants is a huge benefit to them.
The vast majority of gluten-avoiders today, though, are doing it either as a diet to lose weight (not being able to eat most bread, pasta or cakes limits snacking options), or because they believe that avoiding gluten makes them feel better. What, then, is the evidence for that?
"Non-coeliac gluten sensitivity" is not a widely-recognised medical condition. Although many people who do not have coeliac disease claim to suffer gut symptoms like bloating and nausea when they eat gluten - and even other things like "brain fog" and tiredness - these have not been linked to any physiological changes that can be measured and hence used to make a clinical description and diagnosis.
The Trust Me, I'm a Doctor team signed up 60 (non-coeliac) volunteers willing to go gluten-free in the name of science. These included a good proportion of people who felt that they suffered symptoms when they ate gluten, and a good proportion of cynics, happy to go gluten-free in the hope of discovering that those who complained were merely hypochondriacs.
By performing the trial "double-blinded", we tried to stop either camp from being able to influence the results. That meant that although all 60 volunteers were asked to remove gluten entirely from their everyday diet, we provided them with a daily meal of pasta.
Most of the time this was gluten-free pasta, but we secretly slipped each of them gluten-containing pasta for two weeks within the trial period - but no one knew which two weeks each volunteer had been eating gluten, until the results were analysed. This meant that we could compare the volunteers' symptoms in the weeks they were eating gluten and the weeks they were gluten free and see whether they differed.
What, then, could we measure to try to determine whether some people really do suffer when they eat gluten?
Firstly, of course, there are the symptoms they felt - so we asked each volunteer to fill out a questionnaire each fortnight assessing the state of their gut and of their general health and wellbeing.
Then we wanted to measure any physiological markers that might indicate a cause for their symptoms.
Allergies are caused by a reaction in the immune system, specifically antibodies called IgE. Therefore, in order to check whether there might be any allergic reaction to gluten, we tested their IgE antibodies and other immune system markers every fortnight.
Intolerances, such as lactose intolerance, are quite different. Food intolerances are often due to a person not having the enzyme necessary to break down certain foodstuffs, although they may also be caused by substances in the foods themselves such as histamine content or additives.
A reaction because of intolerance is usually a slower onset than an allergy, sometimes taking hours or even days to manifest, and can lead to symptoms such as diarrhoea and bloating.
Many people feel that their problems with gluten are down to some kind of intolerance. These sort of gut symptoms usually cause some inflammation in the gut.
Recently Italian and American research groups claimed to have found biochemical markers of gut inflammation that were higher in people with "gluten sensitivity", when they ate gluten. We therefore measured three different markers of gut inflammation in our volunteers each fortnight.
So, how did our volunteers get on?
Well, they almost universally enjoyed the experiment. Many found it made them eat more healthily, lose weight and feel better. None of that, though, could definitively be ascribed to the lack of gluten in particular - it's possible we were just forcing them to consider what they ate more carefully.
Most, though, also felt that by the end of the experiment they could tell which weeks they were eating pasta containing gluten - overall, they reported significantly more gut symptoms in the fortnight that each was given gluten compared with the weeks when they were truly gluten-free.
As for the "health" symptoms such as tiredness and low mood, many did also report more adverse effects in the weeks they were being given gluten, but overall this was not statistically significant.
Admittedly it's difficult to find gluten-free pasta that is indistinguishable from "normal", and the Trust Me team had to have a few team dinners to road-test different options. The participants certainly couldn't have been sure which was which, but their guesses may well have influenced their self-reported symptoms.
What, then, of the objective blood test results? Well, here there were no significant differences between any of the markers we measured in the weeks they were having gluten and the weeks they were gluten free.
Nor were the levels of inflammatory markers higher in people who reported symptoms when eating gluten than those who didn't.
So, does "non-coeliac gluten sensitivity" exist?
Well, many of our participants clearly thought so - but their guesses at which pasta contained gluten may have biased their opinions of their symptoms.
Our biochemical measures showed nothing at all - but that could mean that we were just measuring "the wrong things". The immune and inflammation systems are, after all, among the most complex aspects of the human body, and we have much yet left to understand.
On top of that, we are only just scratching the surface about understanding our relationship with our gut bacteria. There is the possibility that some people have gut bacteria that create symptoms when fed gluten-containing foods - something that might not have shown up in the markers we tested.
We, then, have found no test that could be used to diagnose "gluten intolerance" or "non-coeliac gluten sensitivity" and equally there is no evidence from any study anywhere to back up the use of popular home testing kits for "intolerances" - many expert groups around the world have spoken out against their marketing. Whatever they claim to measure, it hasn't been shown to be strongly linked with symptoms, so don't waste your money on them.
If you feel that you definitely suffer, then the advice is to first rule out coeliac disease. It is vital you continue to eat gluten before visiting your GP for this test.
Once coeliac disease and wheat allergy have been ruled out, the next step would be to try an "elimination diet", ideally under the supervision of your GP or trained practitioner. This involves cutting gluten out of your diet for at least two weeks and then reintroducing it - at the same time monitoring symptoms (and this is true of any food that you feel might be causing you problems). You may feel better simply because it makes you eat more carefully and healthily, but that's no bad thing.
It's important that if you are excluding foods from your diet that you do so under the supervision of your GP, a dietician or a trained practitioner. There is a danger when eliminating food groups that vital elements of nutrition are lost. This is especially important in growing children. Another concern is that without expert advice, you may end up eliminating particular food groups unnecessarily.
So, whether you are convinced non-coeliac gluten sensitivity exists, or think that the 6% of the population who claim to suffer from it are purely hypochondriacs, then the Trust Me, I'm a Doctor study will probably give you something to discuss over the dinner table with your friends - whilst you argue over the gluten content of the bread.
Chris van Tullekenpresents Trust Me, I'm A Doctor which is on Thursday 8 September on BBC Two at 20:00 BST
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A man has denied the murdering another man who was found dead in a burnt-out car three years ago. | Joseph McKeever's body was discovered in Whitehaven Road in the Everton area of Liverpool on 15 June 2017.
Lee Knox, who was arrested in Belfast, denied murdering the 54-year-old at a hearing at Liverpool Crown Court.
Mr Knox, 42, of Canal View, Liverpool, was remanded in custody ahead of a trial date set for 14 September at the same court.
The suspect was arrested in Belfast on 25 April after a joint operation by Merseyside Police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Related Internet Links
HM Courts Service
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About 1kg (2.2lb) of suspected Class A drugs and £200,000 has been seized during police raids in Merseyside. | Four men, aged 24 to 46, and a 24-year-old woman were arrested in Fazakerley, Melling, Anfield, Huyton and Fazakerley on suspicion of several drug offences.
The raids were part of an an ongoing operation to target crime and drug dealing, Merseyside Police said.
Det Ch Insp Allison Woods said the force would "continue its fight" against serious organised crime.
Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to [email protected]
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Thousands of women in Russia die each year as a result of domestic violence, according to official estimates. But despite many years of discussions, domestic abuse is still not recognised as a crime and this hampers help for the victims, reports BBC Russian's Oleg Boldyrev in Moscow. | Anya has a lot on her mind. In a small, sparsely-furnished room, she is trying to get her two boys, aged four and seven, to take their afternoon nap.
It is not the easiest of tasks at the best of times, and is even more difficult in her temporary home - a room in a shelter for women victims of domestic violence.
Her story is typical. During her seven-year marriage, she was frequently beaten or verbally abused.
She lived in fear, not knowing where to seek help. When at last she decided to lodge a complaint with the police, several years ago, she was told little could be done about her husband as "it was his home".
"It's been a nightmare, but a silent one," she says.
"For a while, I couldn't leave my children alone, and couldn't go to the hospital to report my injuries. Then I was waiting for the children to grow up, so they could confirm to the police what had been happening. Then I started to make recordings, I taped what was going on.
"But it's no use. The police don't want to deal with it. Once, a policewoman came in and said: 'Why don't you just run away like I did?' So even policewomen have to deal with this…"
Anya divorced her husband two years ago, but, unable to afford her own home in Moscow, continued to share the family flat with him.
The last rounds of beatings came in mid-January: "I came back with the children from a circus performance. I was really tired, but he wouldn't let me sleep. I told him to stop, and that's when he started beating me."
Widespread
The 35-room refuge on the edge of Moscow is the only option for her and many others who find themselves in a similar situation.
No-one knows exactly how many Russian women need a shelter like this. Despite almost two decades of discussion and debates, domestic violence is not classified as a crime and there are no national statistics.
But according to estimates, based on studies in a few selected regions conducted by the Russian interior ministry, a shocking 600,000 women in Russia are facing physical and verbal abuse at home every year.
Out of those, 14,000 die from injuries inflicted by husbands or partners. That is almost 40 a day.
Given these figures, demand for safe houses like the one Anya went to must be very high. Yet, in Moscow, a city of 12 million, there is only one state-funded refuge.
It is surprising to hear its managers say that capacity is not a big issue. They argue that with another shelter like theirs coming in the near future, Moscow's demand for safe houses will be met.
The bigger problems, according to them, are the women's confusion and lack of information.
During their time in the shelter - each visitor is allowed to stay for two months - the women have to find a way out of the crisis they face, while dealing with often complicated legal procedures.
"We can help them with the legal paperwork, we provide psychological assistance, but first and foremost it's the person's responsibility to decide on a way forward," says Natalia Pazdnikova, the shelter's director.
"We're here to help in a crisis, but we meet women who are perpetually in crisis and who are waiting for us just to keep giving them something."
Burden of proof
But it comes as no surprise that, while trying to find justice, abused women are left feeling bewildered or powerless.
Getting proof of abuse can be difficult both emotionally and in obtaining documented evidence - and, as in Anya's case, police can be of little help.
Victims say that, very often, instead of registering a complaint for assault, officers will ask the woman to "think it over" to ensure she does not withdraw it a day or two later, following pressure from husbands or relatives.
But police inspector Andrei Levchuk disagrees, saying that he and his colleagues follow all procedures. Inspector Levchuk's patch covers around 30 apartment blocks in the north-west of Moscow. Domestic violence, along with burglary and car theft, is one of the most common issues in the area.
Capt Levchuk says that typically, not witnessing violence at the spot, all policemen can do is to caution the presumed offender. This caution does little to prevent future aggression.
"Sometimes the wife says 'Please, frighten him so he won't do it again'.
"Well, we're not scarecrows to frighten people like that. We can tell the husband that he'll be in trouble if he does it again, he would nod, he would say he understands, but God knows what goes on when they close the door," he says.
He thinks the now defunct Soviet system of cautioning, which allowed courts to remove offenders for up to two weeks for a form of community service, would serve as a good deterrent.
The inspector admits that in a majority of cases the injuries sustained by victims of abuse are not sufficient to launch criminal investigation and the best the police can do is to advise a victim to file a petition for a private case.
'Too late to help'
And for human rights activists this is one of the most pressing issues.
According to Russian law, in private cases it is the claimant's responsibility to prove that she has been abused.
"This violence happens in cycles, becoming more severe with each cycle. At that point many women suffer from battered-person syndrome which means that they will not seek help," explains Marina Pisklakova, founder of Anna, Russia's oldest non-governmental organisation dealing with the issue.
Cases of domestic violence only become criminal cases if the police are able to establish that injuries have been serious or severe - or that death has occurred: "It becomes a criminal case when it's almost too late to respond to domestic violence," Ms Pisklakova says.
Slowly, the public perception of this issue is changing, says Ms Pisklakova: "Twenty years ago, in every chat show which raised this issue, the audience or hosts were asking: 'What's wrong with those women, what have they done to deserve this beating?'"
There has been a change in the mentality, she says: "Now every journalist I talk to asks: 'What do we do to change this?'"
But years of campaigning for a law which would recognise domestic abuse as a specific crime have so far brought no result.
After more than a decade of discussion, the draft law on domestic violence has still not been introduced in parliament. Ms Pisklakova hopes the Duma may start discussing it this year.
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Four men have been arrested after police traced a stolen motorcycle which was fitted with a tracking device. | The discovery led to a further three stolen bikes being recovered from a garage, Northamptonshire Police said.
Officers were initially responding to a report of theft from Leyside Court in Blackthorn, Northampton on Saturday.
Once the bikes were found, a police dog was used to find the men nearby. They were arrested on suspicion of theft of motor vehicles.
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A major redevelopment of an Oxfordshire town centre has begun. | The £70m project will see new shops, restaurants, a cinema and a supermarket built in Bicester, along with new bus lay-bys and improved parking.
The work will be done in three phases and is due to be completed in early 2012.
Cherwell Councillor Norman Bolster said he hoped it would improve business for existing retailers by attracting more customers.
"The new seven-screen cinema will also provide more entertainment and hopefully improve the night economy," he added.
Ben Jackson, chairman of the Bicester and District Chamber of Trade, said it was "vitally important" to improve the infrastructure in Bicester.
"We lack a theatre, we lack a cinema, we lack a decent-sized library. This all needs to be redressed as the town grows," he added.
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Want to see how equipping every child with a tablet can transform the way they learn? Want to meet leading tech firms which promise that their products are the key to your school's future? Then come to BETT, the educational technology fair in the vast Excel complex in East London. | Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter
But here's another thought - what if all of this is a huge waste of money which would be better spent on employing more teachers?
That was the provocative question posed in a blog on the eve of BETT by the General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. According to one newspaper headline Russell Hobby said "money spent by schools on fad iPads could have funded 8,000 teachers". Another translated it as "Schools should stop wasting money buying iPads and 'shiny gadgets' for pupils."
When I caught up with Mr Hobby - on the phone rather than at BETT - he said his message had been somewhat exaggerated by those headlines. But he had wished to start a debate about the priorities for schools. "We're facing some very difficult spending decisions," he said, "we've got to ask ourselves, if we lost all the technology we have now would we actually go backwards?"
He insisted that he was no Luddite - "it's the uncritical purchase of gadgets that worries me," he said. I pressed him for an example and and he came up with interactive whiteboards, rather than tablets. These expensive pieces of kit are now in just about every classroom in the country, and Mr Hobby is far from alone in his criticism.
Plenty of teachers question their usefulness, and I have seen them employed in one school recently as surfaces on which to stick paper notices. Not exactly hi-tech…
I took these criticisms to the man who has probably done more than anyone to promote the use of technology in British education. Dominic Savage is the founder of BETT and the director general of the British Educational Suppliers Association, which represents the companies selling technology into schools.
"What an unfortunate message to be putting out," he said of Russell Hobby's attack on his life's work. We're asking teachers to do more and more every day. It's not a question of throwing teachers at the problem - it's asking how do we provide the technology that enables them to do what we are asking of them?"
I challenged him to defend the investment in those whiteboards and he admitted that these had not really worked. He said early users who'd had extensive training had produced good results, But then a cost-cutting exercise by BECTA, the now-disbanded school technology quango. "It does not surprise me in the slightest that it did not have the impact it should have, but it's not the problem with the technology in that case."
Where both men agree is that simply throwing money at technology without investing in teacher training does not work. And there's an issue of scale - bigger often isn't better. What often seem clever initiatives in a few well-funded schools then prove to be pretty useless when implemented wholesale by local councils or academy chains.
Still, with little money to fund the big technology schemes we've seen over the past two decades, the problem may be solving itself. While the major tech companies still turn up in strength at events like BETT, their stands seemed sparsely populated.
Creative teachers are turning to free software, cheap devices like the Raspberry Pi or even their pupils' mobile phones as they work out how to use technology to enhance their lessons. The digital transformation of education continues - but it's a much more decentralised and low-budget revolution.
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Can Jewish people walk the streets of Paris in peace? | BBC Trending What's popular and why
That's the question Zvika Klein - a journalist at an Israeli news website - says he set out to answer. He borrowed the "10 hours in...." YouTube format, in which a hidden camera is used to show what it's like to walk a city's streets. It first appeared back in October, when hidden camera footage of a woman facing sexist abuse as she walked the streets of New York was watched almost 40 million times. It spawned a raft of of copycat videos.
Klein's version takes place in the French capital. In the film he dons a kippah - the traditional Jewish skullcap - in front of the Eiffel Tower, and wanders the streets of the city. He appears to face significant abuse as he walks around. Residents are seen staring and spitting at him, while others apparently shout "Jew" and "Viva Palestine". The footage was gathered over 10 hours at the beginning of February, says Klein, and edited down into a clip lasting just over 90 seconds. It's been watched more than 100,000 times in less than 24 hours, and the number is climbing fast. He told BBC Trending he flew to Paris to conduct the experiment for NRG, a news website based in Israel.
It's impossible for us to verify Klein's video, and like other "10 hours in..." videos there has been a large amount of editing - which critics say conveys a false impression. The clips featured appear to be shot in poorer and predominantly Muslim neighbourhoods. Could he be accused of deliberately seeking out negative comments? He doesn't see it that way. "If I was walking around with an Israeli flag, I understand it might create negative feelings. But I don't think [wearing a kippah] should generate that kind of thing."
So are Jewish people confronted with this kind of abuse throughout the city? No, not everywhere, Klein tells BBC Trending. In its more famous neighbourhoods - around the Champs Elysees and the Eiffel Tower - he saw "a little bit, but nothing worth putting in the video". "As we went to the suburbs, or certain neighbourhoods in the city, the remarks became more violent," he says.
Although a bodyguard was trailing Klein and his secret cameraman, he was not called into action. "I did think that there might be some violence, but there was none," Klein says. In fact some locals spoke out in his defence when heckled, and there was a friendly conversation as well, but these were not filmed and included in the video.
With an apparently anti-Semitic murder among two killings in Copenhagen this weekend, and last month's Paris attacks including four murders at a Kosher supermarket, some Jews in Europe are feeling vulnerable. Marc Konczaty, president of MJLF, a Jewish community organisation in Paris, says he is not surprised by the video, and that anti-Semitic abuse in the city is "getting worse". "People are no longer bothered about saying things in public," he says. But he agrees with Klein's observation that it is usually confined to certain neighbourhoods in the north and east of Paris. He is keen to point out that Muslims and other minorities in the city can face similar problems.
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending
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It was the programme that shocked the nation. | By Rebecca CafeBBC News
BBC One's Panorama showed patients at a residential care home near Bristol, being slapped and restrained under chairs, having their hair pulled and being held down as medication was forced into their mouths.
The victims, who had severe learning disabilities, were visibly upset and were shown screaming and shaking.
One victim was showered while fully clothed and had mouthwash poured into her eyes.
Undercover recordings showed one senior care worker at Winterbourne View asking a patient whether they wanted him to get a "cheese grater and grate your face off?".
The abuse was so bad that one patient, who had tried to jump out of a second floor window, was then mocked by staff members.
Andrew McDonnell, who works with adults with mental disabilities, labelled some of the examples seen on film as "torture".
Dr Peter Carter, head of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "The sickening abuse revealed in this programme is more shocking than anything we could have imagined."
'How could this happen?'
One of the victims, Simon Tovey, was seen being repeatedly assaulted and mentally abused by the care workers.
His mother Ann told the programme: "They're just having their amusement and their fun. How can that ever be allowed to happen?"
That is a question the authorities were not able to answer.
The programme told a story that former Winterbourne View nurse Terry Bryan never could.
He had contacted the private hospital's bosses and the regulator, Care Quality Commission (CQC), about the abuse - however his concerns were ignored.
"I know the way it works, other people don't have that knowledge. So if I can't get anything out of the people at the CQC, then I worry that others won't get anywhere near them," he said.
'Sheer horror'
Eleven care workers were sentenced after admitting 38 charges of neglect and abuse. Six were jailed for between two years and six months, while the others received suspended sentences.
Castlebeck, the care home's owners, apologised and its new chief executive said he was "ashamed" to be associated with a company where abuse had happened.
The CQC said it was a "misjudgement" that Mr Bryan's concerns had not been investigated.
The home has now closed and the building's new owners have stripped it bare. There is not one reminder of the abuse that happened.
Although horrific, the programme encouraged others to speak out about concerns of private hospitals.
The CQC says more than 4,300 whistleblowers have come forward in the past 20 months to complain about the treatment of elderly and disabled people in care.
It added this was partly down to the impact of the programme.
'Out of sight, out of mind'
Beverley Dawkins, the national manager for profound and multiple learning disabilities for Mencap, said the charity had noticed a surge in inquiries from families concerned about this type of abuse.
"I don't think there are more and more awful things happening, but awareness has been heightened.
"People know who to contact and to do it as soon as possible when they become concerned."
She said families who may have reported concerns before which were not looked at now know that now is the time to raise them again.
"The sobering thing about Winterbourne is that it took a secret camera to find out what really was going on.
"We know spotting abuse can be pretty challenging and even with increased unannounced inspections, some of this stuff goes on behind closed doors."
Vivien Cooper from the Challenging Behaviour Foundation said: "The programme shone a light on a particular type of service and it raised the profile of individuals who had been hidden, who were out of sight and out of mind."
She added: "When the programme came out people were very shocked by the abuse they saw. It was shocking for the general public but for people with families of learning disabilities it was worse, as they would have thought 'that could be my son or my daughter'."
The two charities are now campaigning for people with learning disabilities to be supported to live in their local communities close to their families.
An independent report said fundamental changes were needed in how care of vulnerable adults was commissioned and monitored.
An interim report by the Department of Health into Winterbourne View said commissioning across health and care services should aim to reduce the number of people in treatment and assessment centres.
The full report is due to be published.
In Parliament, Tom Clarke, Labour MP for Coatbridge Chryston & Bellshill, said the current care model, and the regulation of it, led to these abuses, and urged the government to close large assessment and treatment centres like Winterbourne View and instead offer support for individuals to live in their communities.
"We cannot erase the evidence of abuse, where and when it happened," he said.
"We cannot undo the pain, the suffering and humiliating experience endured by people with learning disabilities, and we most certainly cannot leave it to the monolithic bureaucratic machine to ensure that such abuses never occur again."
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A year ago, a German teenager was murdered, and her death quickly became a rallying point for anti-foreigner feeling. Rumours circulated online that she had been murdered by a Muslim immigrant. But the truth of what happened was very different from the wild speculation. | By Ant AdeaneBBC Trending
Karin Gross lives in east Berlin. On 7 March 2018 she received a phone call at work from her 14-year-old daughter Keira.
"She said to me: 'OK, Mama I'm at home, give me a ring when you are coming back.' So when I finished work I got in my car and phoned her. But she didn't answer."
Karin called again, and again. No one picked up. She sent a WhatsApp message, but it didn't go through. She assumed that the network was down, or that her daughter had turned off her phone to have a nap.
Karin drove home. When she entered her flat, she saw that the living room door was closed.
"That was unusual," says Karin. "I searched the apartment for my daughter. I went to her bedroom. She wasn't in there."
She entered the living room. "I saw her sitting in front of the couch, gagged with a scarf full of blood."
Keira had been stabbed more than 20 times.
Ice skating star
I meet Karin at her lawyer's office on a bitterly cold day in Berlin. She has a naturally cheerful disposition and, under normal circumstances, is quick to laugh.
"The daytimes aren't so bad," she says. The nights are a lot harder.
Karin speaks about the most traumatic experience imaginable with astonishing clarity. She is determined that people understand what losing her daughter has been like.
"I want everyone to remember what happened to her," she tells me.
Keira was a popular, charismatic girl and already an ice skating star in Berlin at 14. Karin was a single mother and Keira her only child.
While the police investigation continued, a very different process was taking place online. Keira's death was swiftly exploited by activists hostile to migrants.
"It only took hours for there to be posts from far-right actors with the hashtag 'Keira' on Twitter and on Facebook," says Oliver Saal, a researcher at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, an anti-extremism organisation. "Posts appeared about the case suggesting that immigrants had committed this crime.
"The perpetrator was still unknown, and they knew it. But because Keira had been murdered with a knife, (they assumed) it had to be a non-German who had done it.
"Far-right actors claimed that no German could ever do such a thing."
This speculation appeared to confirm the worst fears of many Germans who opposed Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees in the summer of 2015.
Concerns about mass immigration have fuelled the success of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which entered the German parliament as the third biggest party in September 2017.
Keira's death also followed two other widely-discussed murders in Germany: Maria Ladenburger, a student murdered in 2016 by a refugee who claimed to be from Afghanistan; and a 15-year -old girl known as Mia V, who was killed by her Afghan ex-boyfriend in the town of Kandel in 2017.
There has been an increase in crime committed by migrants in Germany since 2015. Some researchers put this down to the high proportion of refugees who are young and male. Young men commit more crimes than any other demographic.
Overall, however, crime in Germany is falling - down to its lowest level since 1992. While violent crime rose between 2014 and 2016, there was a 2.5% decrease between 2016 and 2017.
'Beast from the Caucasus'
Four days after Keira's murder, the police announced they had arrested a 15-year-old boy. When the police told Karin the suspect's name, she was shocked.
"I didn't know him personally, but I had heard a lot about him," she says. "Keira had photos in her room of him. She was a little bit in love with him but they were not together. She always spoke about him like he was her brother."
Initially, neither the boy's ethnic or religious background was revealed to the public. Despite this being normal police procedure, posts criticising the authorities erupted across social media.
The criticism leaked into more mainstream politics and media as well.
An AfD state representative in Berlin tweeted asking why the perpetrator's "origin" had not been made public. The editor-in-chief of Bild, the most popular tabloid in Germany, called for the "regular information" about the perpetrator to be revealed.
The suggestion that important information was being withheld from the public fed into a narrative that "the establishment" was covering up evidence of a migrant crime wave.
Oliver Saal says one man played a key role in promoting this conspiracy theory. Lutz Bachmann is the founder of Pegida - otherwise known as the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident - a far-right, anti-Islam organisation.
He's now an influential social media personality on the German far right. Following Keira's murder, Bachmann posted online that he knew the identity of the suspect.
He claimed that the culprit was a "beast from the Caucasus", a "Chechen Muslim" and a "former refugee". Chechnya has historically been a source of Muslim immigrants to Germany.
Bachmann posted a picture of a boy online. He included the boy's full name and linked to his Facebook profile. The post was shared widely. The culprit, as far as many of Bachmann's followers were concerned, had been identified.
Except it wasn't him.
The boy that Bachmann had discovered online had nothing to do with the crime - he just happened to have the same first name and surname initial as the real suspect.
With posts accusing him of murder proliferating across the internet, the boy made his social media accounts private. The BBC's efforts to contact him were unsuccessful.
We tried to contact Lutz Bachmann through Pegida. They said they had "no interest" in speaking to us.
Bachmann's post was so wide of the mark that the police felt compelled to take the unusual step of responding online. They posted a screenshot of Bachmann's tweet, and called it "fake news".
In Germany a victim's relatives are entitled to be represented at court proceedings. A few days after Keira's murder, Karin Gross contacted Roland Weber, a well-known criminal lawyer, to represent her.
"This case for me was like a puzzle," says Weber. "We had many little pieces and then, step by step, I began to see the bigger picture."
The boy who had been arrested was neither a refugee nor a Muslim, as Bachmann had claimed.
He was a white church-going German-born teenager, who because of his youth was given the legal pseudonym "Hannes".
"When he was first arrested he told the police a (particular) story," Weber says. "He said that the daughter of my client wanted to commit suicide and that she begged for him to do this for her."
However, Keira's behaviour with friends and family in the days before she died did not suggest that she had been planning to kill herself. Her calendar was filled with plans she had made for the coming months.
As the investigation proceeded, a different picture began to emerge, one which indicated there was a greater degree of premeditation in Hannes' actions than he had first admitted.
Hannes had brought a backpack with him to Keira's home. It contained a change of clothes, gloves and a mask. Some of his schoolmates told police that in the days before the crime Hannes had spoken, in detail, about what he was going to do. In fact, he had even called one of them minutes after the murder to confirm that he had gone through with it.
'The hardest thing in the world'
Karin attended every day of the trial. Hannes sat with his mother on the opposite side of the room.
"I think it was the hardest thing in the world that I have ever been through," Karin says. "I didn't get any regrets or any apologies - not from his family. Nothing. Even when they were talking about what he has done, he didn't apologise. He talked about it like stealing a car."
Teachers described Hannes as a friendly, popular boy, but there was a very different side to his personality.
"He wasn't sure if his friends were real friends," Roland Weber says. "One day he decided that if he couldn't have real friends then maybe it would be better to be the bad guy: the Joker, the opposite character to Batman."
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The court heard that for some time before the killing, Hannes had dyed his hair green and even wore white face paint to look like the Joker.
Evidence about his actions after the murder also suggested a chilly detachment.
Knowing that he needed to destroy Keira's phone - so there would be no trace of the WhatsApp messages they had exchanged - he went to a nearby lake and threw it in.
He went home and returned the knife to a block in his parents' kitchen.
Then he turned on his computer and began to play League of Legends.
A court-appointed psychiatrist concluded that there was no indication that Hannes had a personality disorder or a mental illness.
"In the end," Roland Weber says, "all of us - not only the judge, but also my client and me - we were very sure that he just did it for fun. To see how it is when someone is dying."
Hannes was convicted of murder and sentenced to nine years juvenile detention.
The story was very different from the narrative being promoted by far-right activists online. A Berlin police spokesperson told the press that they had "never experienced a murder case being politically exploited in such a way."
On a January afternoon, Karin takes me to the cemetery where Keira is buried. She comes almost every day.
Trimming the leaves of an orange rose to lay on the grave, Karin describes how on one visit, a few months earlier, she made a disturbing discovery. Keira's grave had been desecrated.
On the gravestone someone had written the name of the murderer and described him as "Russian." The myth of the "beast from the Caucasus" persisted.
"It was a shock for me," says Karin, "because I never thought there would be someone who would write something like that on my daughter's gravestone.
"For me it doesn't make any difference if it was Russian or Japanese or anything like that," she tells me. "My daughter is still dead."
Karin tried to get rid of the graffiti with water, but it wouldn't come off. She went home to get nail polish remover. Even with that, it took two hours to scrub the marble clean.
Karin still lives in the same flat where her daughter was murdered.
"People wonder how I can bear it," she says. "I haven't changed anything. OK, I have a new couch. But all the blood and evidence of what happened are gone."
"I can't imagine moving away. It was one day that was not good. But there are so many years of memories there."
Recently she has taken her first tentative steps onto the ice at the hall where Keira practised. She wears her daughter's skating clothes.
"They fit me, although we have a different figure - her shoes too," Karin says.
"Perhaps in 10 years I will also be a speed skater. I am just doing it because I want to be near her. I go there to have fun.
"I am not alone. So many friends of hers come ice skating with me. We do it together, in memory of her."
If you need support for mental health issues, advice is available via the BBC Action Line.
Do you have a story for us? Email BBC Trending.
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As Thomas Mair is sentenced to life with a whole life term for the murder of Jo Cox, the Labour MP's friends and colleagues pay tribute to the 41-year-old mother of two and give their reaction to the trial's verdict. | Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader
Jeremy Corbyn said the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by Thomas Mair was "an attack on democracy, and has robbed the world of an ambassador of kindness and compassion".
"Jo Cox believed passionately that all people can achieve their full potential given the opportunity," he said.
"Jo's values were lived out in her last moments, when she bravely put the safety of her staff before her own. Jo is someone the Labour Party will forever be extremely proud of.
"The single biggest tribute we can pay to Jo and her life will be to confront those who wish to promote the hatred and division that led to her murder."
Home Secretary Amber Rudd
Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Jo Cox was a "committed and passionate politician".
"The shocking and senseless murder of Jo was an attack on all of us and the values we share of democracy and tolerance," she said.
"As home secretary I am determined that we challenge extremism in all its forms including the evil of far right extremism and the terrible damage it can cause to individuals, families and communities.
"Jo knew that tackling hatred and division is not something that can be done by government alone but only by working in partnership with local people and groups, getting involved and speaking up for the values that make us the country we are proud to be.
"Jo's life was brutally taken away. It falls on all of us to redouble our efforts to make sure the principles that she stood for live on."
Labour MP Stephen Kinnock
Labour MP Stephen Kinnock was a close friend of Mrs Cox and said he welcomed the sentence.
"I think that it is the right and due and fit punishment for this heinous, twisted crime, and I hope that as you say the family will feel some sense of justice," he said.
"The trial has been an awful process of hearing in detail, which of course Thomas Mair forced us to do by refusing to plead guilty. He forced the family to go through this."
Labour peer Lady Glenys Kinnock
Mrs Cox worked for the Labour peer, Lady Glenys Kinnock, before she became an MP.
Lady Kinnock told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme: "I'm afraid that there's a growing willingness and encouragement in some ways of terrible violence and undermining of the rights, the fundamental rights of people to a quiet, peaceful life or a life that involves political advocacy such as was Jo's life."
Fellow West Yorkshire Labour MP and friend Hilary Benn
Hilary Benn, the MP for Leeds Central, said: "This was a political assassination of a public servant who was going about her work.
"Jo was turning up for one of her constituency surgeries where she would sit and people would come and see her and she would do her best to help them."
He added: "I think it is the right sentence, reflecting the horror and brutality and as we've just heard the cowardice of this crime.
"But I don't really want to dwell on the man who did this. I think today above all is a day to remember Jo and the person that she was."
Labour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell
Speaking to the House of Commons after the verdict and sentencing, Mr McDonnell said: "Jo Cox's murder robbed this House of a fierce advocate for social justice and a passionate campaigner.
"Her killing was an attack on democracy itself.
"Our thoughts are with her family."
Other Labour MPs
Anna Turley, MP for Redcar, tweeted:
Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central, tweeted:
Yvette Cooper, MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, tweeted:
Dan Jarvis, MP for Barnsley Central, tweeted:
Stephen Doughty, MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, tweeted:
Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, tweeted:
Former colleague Nick Grono, chief executive, Freedom Fund
Nick Grono said Jo Cox helped him set up the Freedom Fund organisation to help fight modern slavery.
"Jo was deeply committed to humanitarian causes and to human rights causes and deeply, passionately believed in our mission about fighting slavery," he said.
"Jo's legacy is one of this outpouring of love and tolerance against an act of utter hatred and intolerance.
"It has been just remarkable, for us that are close to Jo and her family , to see how people across the country and across the world have responded to this act of hatred - and Jo would have been so desperately proud of that response."
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For critics of US President Donald Trump, escalating tensions between two long-standing American allies, Egypt and Ethiopia, over a mega dam on a tributary of the River Nile marks the biggest diplomatic failure of his administration in Africa. | By Farouk ChothiaBBC News
Mr Trump said last week that Egypt might "blow up" the Ethiopian-built dam, despite boasting in January that he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize because he had "made a deal".
"I saved a big war. I've saved a couple of them," he said, shortly after Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abi Ahmed was awarded the prize.
Mr Trump's comments were vague, but seemed to be a reference to his intervention - at the request of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whom he once reportedly called his "favourite dictator" - to resolve the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd).
Egypt sees the dam as an "existential threat" to its survival, a concern shared, albeit to a lesser extent, by Sudan. Ethiopia, on the other hand, regards the dam as vital for its energy needs.
Trump a 'hate figure for Ethiopians'
Kenya-based Horn of Africa security analyst Rashid Abdi said US mediation over the dam had worsened tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia.
"Ethiopia is stepping up security around the dam," Mr Abdi said.
"Its defensive measures include declaring the Benishangul-Gumuz region, where the dam is located, a restricted airspace, and there are also reports that Ethiopia is putting up anti-aircraft batteries around the dam. It probably fears reconnaissance flights by Egypt."
He said this showed Mr Trump's failure to understand how global diplomacy worked.
"He has this misconceived notion that you can cut a deal like in business. So he left the US Treasury to play the lead role in negotiations, when foreign policy is supposed to be conducted by the State Department. The consequences have been to aggravate an already bad situation," Mr Abdi added.
Accusing Ethiopia of negotiating in bad faith following its decision to press ahead with filling the dam before addressing Egypt's and Sudan's concerns about the flow of water to their countries, the US has decided to cut a reported $100m ($$77m) in aid to Ethiopia - Africa's second most-populous state, and a key US ally in the fight against militant Islamists in the volatile Horn of Africa.
"Ethiopia feels betrayed by America, and Trump is now a hate-figure for many Ethiopians," Mr Abdi said, adding that they would be hoping for a Joe Biden victory in the 3 November presidential election.
Explore the Nile with 360 video
Alastair Leithead and his team travelled in 2018 from the Blue Nile's source to the sea - through Ethiopia and Sudan into Egypt.
W Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the US-based Center for Global Development, said the Trump's administration decision to side with Egypt was not surprising as its most prized international goal was rapprochement between Israel and Arab League nations.
Trump's diplomatic coup
As Egypt had long-standing diplomatic relations with Israel, the Trump administration was not going to antagonise it at a time when it needed Mr Sisi's help to lobby other Arab states to recognise Israel, Mr Moore said.
"So, the administration became a party in the dispute over the dam, on the side of Egypt," he added.
Its focus on achieving Arab-Israeli rapprochement also shaped its policy towards Sudan, which gave Mr Trump a major diplomatic coup by agreeing, less than two weeks before the US election, to the normalisation of relations with Israel.
Although Sudan's acting foreign minister later said that the decision was subject to ratification by a still-to-be-formed legislative body, the announcement was particularly significant as the East African state had hosted an Arab League meeting in 1967 which famously declared that there will be "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it".
In exchange, Mr Trump, if he wins a second term, is expected to keep pushing Ethiopia to address Egypt's and Sudan's concerns over the dam, while also ensuring that Sudan is removed from the US list of "sponsors of terrorism", opening the way for the country to get badly needed economic aid.
Mr Moore said that while the Trump administration would deserve credit if the US Congress removed Sudan from the terror list, its decision to link this to the recognition of Israel was risky for Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's government, which took power last year following the overthrow of long-serving ruler Omar al-Bashir.
"The issue of regularising relations with Israel has deeply divided Sudanese society. It could be a destabilising factor at a time when the government already has its own security challenges, and the peace is fragile," Mr Moore added.
Tensions with China
For Mr Abdi, a further concern about the effects of Mr Trump's policies on Africa was "the new Cold War" between the US and China.
One example was the fact that China has put up its first foreign military base in Djibouti, near the American base used for air strikes against militant Islamists in Somalia, the focal point of its counter-terrorism operations in Africa, and Yemen.
"Recently, American fighter jets were coming to land. The Chinese beamed experimental laser weapons that temporarily blinded the American pilots. It was what you'd expect in a James Bond movie," Mr Abdi said.
"Under Trump, the US has pursued an aggressive anti-China policy while China is increasingly becoming an assertive power. It has created a dangerous situation in the Horn of Africa," Mr Abdi added.
As part of its efforts to counter China's growing economic influence on the continent, the Trump administration unveiled Prosper Africa in 2018 as the centrepiece of its policy for the continent.
"They want to double the amount of trade between the US and Africa, both ways. So it is a very notable objective and could be of huge benefit to Africa, more than what any other administration did, but they are still trying to figure out among themselves how it is going to work," Mr Moore said.
He added that US investments in Africa used to be primarily in Africa's oil and gas sector, but this has fallen sharply because of the growth of fracking in America.
The Trump administration set up a state-funded Development Finance Corporation in 2019 to help American companies gain a foothold in Africa.
"They want to provide financing to US firms, which have been complaining that they can't compete because Chinese firms come with financing. If you just look at the IT sector, almost 70% of Africa's IT backbone is built on Chinese components," Mr Moore said.
'Undermining' the African Union
The Trump administration has also decided to scrap the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) when it expires in 2025. It was the signature Africa policy of US Democratic President Bill Clinton, and gives African states preferential access to the US market.
Mr Moore said the administration's focus was on bilateral trade deals, and it is already in talks with Kenya - the economic powerhouse of East Africa which is part of China's Belt and Road Initiative that the US believes is aimed at building a series of trade routes that will link the Asian giant with Africa, thereby strengthening its global dominance.
"The Trump administration wants a deal with Kenya, which it will then use a template for a plethora of deals with other African states," Mr Moore said.
"Kenya has agreed to it because it has exploited Agoa to its advantage, and does not want to lose out on trade with the US," Mr Moore said.
This is despite the fact that African Union (AU) Trade and Industry Commissioner Albert Muchanga has expressed a preference to negotiate with "one voice" an "agreement between the whole of Africa and the US".
Mr Moore said the US' decision could undermine AU efforts to integrate the economies of African states with the aim of turning the continent into the world's largest free trade area.
"It's an extension of the Trump administration's policy of not working within multilateral framework agreements."
Kenya's decision to enter into bilateral talks was not a surprise either, Mr Moore said, adding: "The US holds the cards here because it is the market that African states want to access. No matter who is in power [after the 3 November election], Kenya will push its case for a bilateral deal unless its current access to the US market is guaranteed."
He added that Mr Biden, who served as Mr Obama's vice-president, had not yet spelled out his policy towards Africa if he won.
"A Biden administration might revert to what existed under Obama. But compared to China, whose foreign minister has started each year since 2000 with a visit to Africa, there are few high-level exchanges between the US and Africa.
"The Trump administration is not new in giving this low priority to Africa. It has just been worse," Mr Moore said.
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Two men have appeared at court charged with conspiracy to commit murder after a double shooting in West Yorkshire. | The victims, aged 22 and 27, were seriously injured on Huddersfield Road, in Liversedge, on 4 November.
Umar Ditta, aged 32, of Larkspur Way, Wakefield, was remanded by magistrates in Leeds and will appear at the city's Crown Court on 10 December.
Khamier Masood, aged 30, from Dewsbury, was also remanded in custody to appear before a judge on the same day.
Two other men, aged 24 and 25, have been released under investigation as West Yorkshire Police continue their inquiries.
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HM Courts
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The devastation caused by the Shoreham plane crash is still sinking in for many people. Less than a week later, spectators are gathering for the country's first major air show since the disaster - to what extent are the events of Shoreham playing on their minds? | By Jodie SmithBBC News
Up to 100,000 people a day are expected to attend this year's Clacton Airshow.
Now in its 24th year, the two-day event takes place place predominantly over the waters of Essex's northern coastline.
And that is something at the forefront of visitors' minds as they stand to watch vintage planes take to the skies, daring aerobatic displays and flypasts.
"We have thought about what happened last weekend, but as everything is planned over the sea here, it's a lot safer. I've got no concerns - I'm looking forward to it."
Barry Wild, 68, from Colchester, said he came to the air show every year with his family.
Although he is comfortable with the idea of planes taking part in displays above water, he thinks shows should not be held over land.
"If there's water nearby, do it over that. If there's a big airfield, keep the crowds outside the perimeter and do it over the airfield. But I wouldn't do it over land, not after the events of last week."
The number of people killed when a jet taking part in a display at the Shoreham Airshow on Saturday crashed into traffic has not yet been confirmed, but police believe 11 people died.
Maureen Jones, 69, said although she would be thinking about what had happened last weekend, it had not put her off of coming to Clacton's event.
"I think those people were in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Mrs Jones. "It does worry me in a way, but it's safer here because they fly over the sea. I think all air shows should be over the sea."
Barbara James, 64, agreed: "What happened in Shoreham was a freak accident. These things happen.
"We always come for the air show. We like the planes, and it's the Vulcan's last year so we've got to see that."
Many of the spectators had arrived early to grab a little piece of the seafront as the ideal vantage point.
Aviation enthusiast Matthew Willis, 38, travelled from Southampton to see the final appearance of the Vulcan bomber.
He had been due to go to the Shoreham Airshow on Sunday.
"It is an indescribable tragedy. The fact it's the first time non-participants have been killed in an air show in this country since 1952, you just can't underestimate how devastating that is to the air show community, to the aviation community and to the people involved," he said.
His father Brian, 71, from Great Oakley in Essex, said he was not concerned about the safety of the seaside event.
"I know that safety is always a very high priority, and one of the things about a seaside show like Clacton is that, of course, all the flying is over the sea. So all the crowds are even safer than the normal protection at land-based air shows."
He said the Shoreham crash had not made him think twice about coming, but he added he would think about the families who have been devastated, and the pilot who is still in a critical condition in hospital.
Mr Willis continued: "If you were to do what some have suggested and cancel air shows, that would be the wrong reaction, because some of those wonderful old planes deserve to be seen by people.
"They're part of our history - when you think particularly of World War Two, for people to see the aircraft flying which helped our country gain the freedom that we we enjoy today - I think it would be an awful shame if people couldn't see that any more."
Over the course of two days, spectators will see displays by the Red Arrows, the RAF Battle of Britain memorial flight and Sally B.
Nigel Brown from Tendring District Council, which organises the Clacton event, said it had been decided the commentator should say a few words about the Shoreham plane crash over the PA system before flying got under way.
"It will give those attending the opportunity to pay their respects and perhaps spend a moment or two reflecting on that horrific and very sad incident," he said.
Ian Sheeley, the flying display director for the Clacton Airshow, said organisers were "acutely aware" of sensitivities following the devastation of events in Shoreham.
He said: "We still believe there is a role for air shows and that air shows should continue. They are a major form of entertainment in the UK but the focus constantly, before last weekend and into the future, will be to deliver safe shows."
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Thieves have made off with a haul worth a five-figure sum from a south of Scotland business park. | The break-in took place some time between 16:30 on Friday and 09:40 on Saturday.
Staff are still compiling a list of items taken from the Annan Business Park but one piece of equipment alone is estimated to be worth £10,000.
Anyone who was in or around the site at the time of the break-in has been asked to come forward.
Police have been reviewing CCTV in the area as well as carrying out a scenes of crime examination.
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Condor Ferries has admitted delayed sailings have damaged its own and Guernsey's reputation, the Commerce and Employment minister has said. | Delayed services, caused by technical problems, have seen Condor Ferries face strong criticism in recent months.
Deputy Carla McNulty Bauer said the priority for her department and Condor was to resume normal services.
The company is the only service to run daily between the UK and France and the Channel Islands.
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The Jatika Hela Urumaya (JHU) has praised President Mahinda Rajapksha’s stand on the ethnic issue while saying that it disagrees with the President's decision for Norway to continue as the facilitator of peace talks. | Speaking at a press conference in Colombo Venerable Omalpe Sobitha thera said that President Rajapaksha has taken a firm stand on the issue. Preventing foreign dignitaries visiting the Tamil Tigers in Kilinoachi is an indication with this reagard,said the parliamentarian.
Venerable Sobitha was referring to the recent visit of Japanese peace envoy Yakushi Akashi.
The Japanese envoy did not visit the Tamil Tigers and said that he took into account the wishes of the government.
The JHU said that it opposes former US President Bill Clinton or UN officials acting as mediators.
Asian mediator
JHU national organizer Patali Champika Ranawaka said “we need to find a mediator from Asia”
When Elmo Fernando from Sandeshaya pointed out that India has expressed its desire for Norway to continue as facilitator Ranawaka responded “we hope things will change after President Rajapaksha’s visit to India".
In response to another question on the commitment given by the Sri Lankan foreign minister while visiting India recently to devolve power within a united Sri lanka Ranawaka said that's not president Rajapaksha’s policy but the policy of India.
Ranwaka said that India needs to change its stand or else Sri lanka will have to find other alternative.
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David Stuurman, who has just had an airport named after him, was one of the first leaders of resistance to colonial expansion in South Africa, yet few people in the country know much about him, as Mohammed Allie reports. | To the colonial establishment of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, David Stuurman was a criminal and a threat, but to the Khoi and Xhosa people (or amaXhosa) he achieved hero status for his brave and continued resistance to forced removals and subjugation.
Stuurman also has the distinction of being the only person to have twice escaped from Robben Island - later known as one of the places where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated - off the coast of Cape Town.
In 1809 he was among the first political prisoners to be banished there.
First escape
"He was arrested and charged for resisting colonial rule as well as opposing the conscription of the Khoi into militias that were created to defend the colony and to attack the San and amaXhosa," cultural activist Stephen Langtry told the BBC.
"By December of 1809 Stuurman and a few others were the first to escape from the island using one of the whaling boats that was anchored in the harbour.
"He made it out of the colony and was given refuge amongst the amaXhosa. He was recaptured [a decade later] and put to hard labour on Robben Island. On 9 August 1820, he escaped again," Langtry added.
Even though the getaway boat capsized, Stuurman survived only to be caught once more and sent back to the island in December for a third stint.
Death in Australia
This time he was chained to a wall until he could be transported in February 1823 to Australia.
Stuurman was then put to work at the military barracks in Sydney for six years before he was granted a ticket to leave. But by that time he had become lame in his right leg and was unable to return home, according to Sydney Living Museums.
He died in Australia in 1830 and was buried in a cemetery which was later redeveloped as Sydney's central railway station, meaning that Stuurman's remains could not be located.
After negotiations with the Australian authorities that lasted several years, a traditional ceremony was conducted in Sydney in 2017 to repatriate the spirit of Stuurman. Three days later a second spiritual repatriation was conducted at the Sarah Baartman Heritage Centre in the South African town of Hankey, Eastern Cape province.
Born around 1773, near the Gamtoos River in what is now Eastern Cape, Stuurman took over the leadership of his Khoi clan from his brother Klaas who died in 1803.
He got involved in the anti-colonial fight after his people were dispossessed of their land by the Dutch and British colonisers, forcing him and other indigenous people to live and work on their land as labourers.
'Tied up and beaten'
Stuurman himself worked for a farmer, Johannes Vermaak, but his brutal treatment led him to abandon his job.
At one point it was alleged that he had threatened Vermaak.
"[After the disagreement] Vermaak had first demanded that he be shot but settled for having him tied to a wagon and beaten with sjamboks [whips]," historian Vertrees Malherbe has written.
"After that he was salted and left in the burning sun, for some hours."
Early 1770sStuurman born in what is now Eastern Cape
1795 British forces seize Cape Colony from the Dutch, then return it in 1803 and finally gaining control in 1806
1799Khoi rebellion, which Stuurman helps lead, begins
1809Stuurman arrested and held on Robben Island but later escapes
1820Stuurman recaptured after second escape
1830Stuurman dies in Australia after being transported there in 1823
Stuurman's active career as Khoi leader spanned a tumultuous period in the first two decades of the 19th Century, when the Xhosa, Boers, Khoikhoi, San and the British clashed intermittently in the Eastern Cape.
The conflict was largely due to colonial expansion which dispossessed Xhosa and Khoi people of their land, cattle and other belongings.
In 1799 the Khoi on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony rebelled. Hundreds left the farms which, in many instances they were forced to work on, and went to live with the Xhosa, according to South African History Online. Together the Khoi and the Xhosa attacked the colonialists.
Stuurman helped lead the expeditions to recapture cattle from Dutch colonists between 1795 and 1803.
By all accounts, Stuurman was a thorn in the side of both the frontiersmen and the new British authorities in the Cape as he refused to be coerced into giving up his clan's independence.
'For us, he's a legend'
"He was important for his contributions in resisting colonial occupation. He was also a formidable resistance fighter," cultural activist Shepi Mati told the BBC.
"At one point he received refugees - people who ran away from slavery and forced conscription into farm labour and offered them a safe haven among his community who resided in the area now called Hankey in the Eastern Cape.
"Stuurman himself was highly regarded in the community. He was not afraid to take on the colonialists. He took back land and cattle that was forcibly taken from his people."
Mati added that Stuurman also played an important role in fostering unity between the Khoi and the Xhosa.
"For us he's a legend. He's one of the Khoi and San heroes who was the first, together with his brother Klaas, to fight colonialism, land dispossession and slavery at the time," says Christian Martin, an Eastern Cape-based Khoi and San activist. In 2016, he proposed that Port Elizabeth's airport should be named in Stuurman's honour.
"Stuurman was way ahead of his time when it comes to unity and nation building.
"There's a white people's version of Stuurman where he is painted as a murderer. Remember some people also thought of Nelson Mandela as a terrorist - but to millions he was a hero."
The colonists saw him as a bandit and unwilling to cooperate and in 1809 Stuurman was arrested and held on Robben Island.
'First revolutionary'
Martin reveals that he received several messages from white South Africans after the renaming of the international airport in Port Elizabeth (which itself has got a new name - Gqeberha).
One, written in Afrikaans, called Stuurman "a notorious robber and murderer" who had settlers killed, stole their cattle and "chased their women and children, barefoot and wearing only their nightclothes into the field in the bitter cold".
Perhaps part of the source of the anger was that the airport was once named after former Prime Minister HF Verwoerd, considered to be one of the architects of apartheid, which legalised racial discrimination.
According to Errol Heynes, a former deputy mayor of Port Elizabeth, Stuurman, by opposing forced removals, became "one of the first revolutionaries in the country".
"It was important to highlight those who had fought the first settlers and fought colonisation before the advent of apartheid," he adds.
Stuurman has been honoured in other ways. In 2015 a life-size bronze sculpture of him, created by Cape Town-based artist Keith Calder, was erected at the National Heritage Monument in Tshwane.
Despite this and having played a key role in resisting colonialism it has taken the renaming of the airport for many South Africans to learn more about him.
With this move and the tales of his heroism, including the double escape from Robben Island, there is now likely to be more interest.
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An Afghan flag flutters above the busy roundabout which marks the centre of Kunduz city. Pointing up to it, a policeman standing guard nearby tells me that whenever the Taliban have briefly captured the city, one of their first actions has been to replace the flag with their own white and black banner. They've done so twice in the past five years. | By Secunder KermaniBBC News, Kunduz
Behind us, in a corner of the square, a poster displays the pictures of senior police officials killed here in a suicide bombing during another assault by the insurgents last August.
For now though, the roundabout is host to a small demonstration in support of peace by about 100 young men. Patriotic songs blast out from a speaker - someone in the crowd is holding a large bunch of balloons with "I love you" written on them.
"We've come out in support of peace," says Zahid, one of the demonstrators. "I'm so happy. In the past few days it's been calm in Kunduz and across the country. We want a ceasefire that lasts forever."
A week-long "reduction in violence" is coming to an end in Afghanistan after the Taliban, Afghan army and US-led international forces agreed not to launch attacks against each other for seven days.
The period has passed off largely successfully, and the US and Taliban look set to sign an agreement on Saturday in Qatar. It will establish a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops in exchange for guarantees from the Taliban not to allow groups such as al-Qaeda to operate in their territory.
It's a key development in the peace process, aimed at bringing an end to America's longest-ever war, and it has boosted hopes amongst a war-weary Afghan population.
The rural areas on the outskirts of Kunduz have witnessed fierce fighting. We travel to the village of Taluka, recently re-captured by the government after being in Taliban hands for the past three years.
The local school has been obliterated by an air strike, targeting the militants who used it as a base.
Nasirullah, an elderly man living next door, saw part of his property destroyed too.
"Four Taliban fighters climbed over the wall to hide," he says, "I told them, 'go away or the house will be hit in an air strike', but they refused."
Everyone in the village wants to show us the devastation in their homes. Many of the residents are yet to move back in. The Afghan army has been helping to clear landmines but some still remain.
Another elderly resident points to a huge dent in a wall of his house caused by a mortar shell.
"I was sitting there with my wife. She was hurt here," he says, grabbing his neck. "Another rocket landed over there. I don't have the money to rebuild all this."
Nevertheless, he is hopeful. "I have a TV, and I follow the news," he tells me. "Whenever I hear there will be peace, my heart fills with joy."
The US-Taliban agreement is a step towards peace, but a full ceasefire, along with the political future of the country, is something that will have to be established in separate discussions between the Taliban and other Afghan leaders. Those talks will follow the signing in Qatar and could last for months, if not longer.
Adding to the complication is an ongoing dispute over the results of the presidential elections. Ashraf Ghani was narrowly declared the winner, but his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has alleged fraud and threatened to form his own, parallel government.
Whether or not the "reduction in violence" will continue throughout the "intra-Afghan" talks as they're known, has not been made public. At an army checkpoint by the eastern entrance to Kunduz city, soldiers check for Taliban infiltrators, worried they might be using the partial truce to smuggle explosives inside.
Salahuddin Safai, 32, lives nearby with his extended family. On average, he tells me, the Taliban attack the checkpoint at least every fortnight, surging forward from the fields just beyond his home.
Mr Safai says his young children have grown accustomed to the sounds of gunfire, but he worries about the effect on their mental health.
He is hopeful that peace will come, but cautious at the same time. The family have seen false dawns before. After the US overthrew the Taliban in 2001, they moved back to Afghanistan from neighbouring Pakistan where they had been living in a refugee camp, thinking the country would prosper. Instead, they found themselves caught along the fluid front lines of a war in which tens of thousands of Afghans have died.
"If we look at our past, similar things have happened," he says. "When the Soviet Union pulled out from Afghanistan, there were peace negotiations, but they failed. A civil war started and the country became what it is now."
He's referring to what many see as one of the worst episodes in Afghanistan's history, when the rival "mujahideen" groups that had successfully battled against the Soviet invasion, fought against both the local Afghan communist government and each other in a brutal quest for power.
"We are a little sceptical of this process but, God willing, history won't repeat itself," Mr Safai tells me.
There are concerns, too, about what price Afghans might have to pay for peace. Whether the Taliban will accept the country's current democratic system, and the advances in women's rights made in the past two decades.
The group have insisted that they believe women should be allowed to study and work, but local residents tell us that in some villages close to Kunduz under Taliban control, girls are prevented from attending school once they become teenagers.
For others, though, the priority is an end to the violence. Ghayasuddin, in his 70s, from the village of Taluka, lost both his legs when he stepped on a landmine laid by the Taliban.
Could he ever forgive them, I ask?
"If they become our neighbours I'll have to accept them," he responds. "Everything I have is in this village, there's no choice but to learn to live with them."
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The deaths of Russian fighters in Syria on 7 February exposed the operations of a shadowy group of mercenaries there. Some reports speak of more than 100 Russians killed in one battle; officially it is "several dozen" Russians killed or wounded.
The BBC Russian Service has investigated how and where Russian guns for hire have been killed in Syria. | By Nina Nazarova and Ilya BarabanovBBC Russian Service, Arkhangelsk
Last September, Nina Atyusheva, a pensioner in the small town of Severoonezhsk, received a phone call telling her that her son Yevgeny Alikov had died in Syria.
A week later a man arrived with a coffin and 5m roubles (£63,050; $90,000) in insurance money. He had driven 2,100km (1,305 miles) to Russia's far north to return Nina's "little boy".
The man placed the money on the kitchen table in stacks of 5,000-rouble notes.
The BBC attempted to contact the man, but whoever answered the phone claimed to be someone else and said he knew nothing about Russian volunteers in Syria.
'Mum, I'm off to the front'
There is not much to Severoonezhsk in the Arkhangelsk region. It's a remote mining town where the only landmarks are the five-storey apartment blocks by the River Onega.
Yevgeny studied in St Petersburg and, after getting married, moved to Moscow to live with his wife and three children.
Nina says that between 2014 and when he left for Syria, her son went to eastern Ukraine several times. He fought for the pro-Russian separatists in Luhansk.
After Ukraine, he spent a month at a training base in Rostov-on-Don before he was sent to Syria.
There are frequent media reports that fighters for Private Military Companies (PMCs) are trained at a base in the Krasnodar region and are sent to Syria on military planes from Rostov.
Yevgeny arrived in Syria last summer, on a passport given to him on 16 June. One of the documents his mother received after his death shows his identification number: M-3601.
The numbers given to soldiers by the defence ministry usually have a single letter of the Russian alphabet followed by a six-digit number. The numbers given to PMC fighters in Syria only have four.
Yevgeny sent his mother letters from Syria. "Mum, I'm off to the front," he wrote, adding that the sand was so bright, he couldn't walk around without sunglasses.
He was there for just two months. On 2 September he was killed near the town of Tiyas in Homs province. On the death certificate it says he died from "a gunshot wound to the abdominal cavity".
Nina was also given two medals from from the PMC known as Wagner, that employed her son. One for "heroism and valour" and the other for "blood and bravery".
She describes her son as a kind man and a good father: "Everyone cried when they brought him home."
The insurance money went into accounts for her grandchildren because she thought Yevgeny would have wanted that.
Last year the US government added PMC Wagner to its list of Russian individuals and entities subject to sanctions for involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
Read more on Russia's Syria campaign:
Soldier No 77
The documents which Nina received and gave to the BBC Russian Service show that at least 54 Russian citizens died in Syria in September 2017. This is more than the official number for the entire three-and-a-half years of Russia's Syrian campaign.
A Reuters investigation showed that in the first nine months of 2017, at least 131 Russians died in Syria. That investigation cites the death certificate of another fighter from a Russian PMC, Sergei Poddubny.
Poddubny died on 28 September in the same town where Yevgeny was killed: Tiyas. The death certificate, signed by Embassy Secretary Zaur Guseinov, says that he burned to death.
The Syrian Air Force has a base at Tiyas and there have been multiple reports of fighting in the area.
Poddubny's certificate is number 131. According to Russian justice ministry guidelines, death certificates are issued by embassies in numerical order, starting from zero at the beginning of each year.
The death certificate of Yevgeny Alikov, killed on 2 September, is number 77. That means a Russian death toll in September of at least 54 (the difference between 77 and 131).
Russian consulates do not register the deaths of military personnel. A small number of Russian nationals - non-military - are based in Syria, but there have been no incidents to explain such a high number of civilian deaths.
According to the Russian defence ministry, only 44 official military personnel have died in Syria.
The Russian government recently acknowledged the deaths of "probably five" Russian volunteers for the first time, after a US air strike on 7 February.
Then on 20 February the government spoke of "dozens" of Russians killed or wounded in "a clash", stressing that they were not regular soldiers, and avoiding any details.
Struggle for recognition
On Nina's kitchen table is a heap of requests for information and official replies with blue seals. She now has one goal: to get the government to officially admit that her eldest son died for his country.
Her jaw trembles: "I want to ask this question: in what way are the children sent by the armed forces different from those like mine, who went as a volunteer?"
Despite the Kremlin's refusal to acknowledge her son's death, Nina has the support of local leaders. Joining her at the table is district councillor Galina Staritsyna.
"He's one of us. We are taking measures and providing support, this isn't even a matter of discussion," Ms Staritsyna explains.
Yevgeny's picture now hangs in the local museum alongside images of townspeople killed in Chechnya and Afghanistan.
The town council also helped publish a short obituary in the local newspaper - on the final page, among the classifieds, next to an offer of free puppies.
Nina hopes the government will recognise not only the death of her son, but all PMC deaths in Syria.
"This isn't fair, after all. He didn't die in a brawl in an alleyway, but in battle," she says. "I want some sort of appreciation or gratitude for him from the government.
"I'm not asking for anything out of the ordinary. Or maybe he died for nothing? I don't know any more."
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Inaki Urdangarin, the husband of Spain's Princess Christina and son-in-law of King Juan Carlos, is to testify in court over allegations he misused millions of euros of public money.
He has not been formally charged but, as the BBC's Tom Burridge in Madrid explains, the case has brought a lot of unwelcome attention to Spain's royal family. | At 09:30 on Saturday, the son-in-law of Spain's King Juan Carlos is scheduled to appear in a court on the island of Mallorca.
Inaki Urdangarin will testify in a corruption scandal in which he is being investigated for allegedly embezzling millions of euros of public money.
The case involves two regional governments, several individuals and a total of 5.8m euros (£4.9m; $7.8m)of public money.
Mr Urdangarin, who also holds the title of Duke of Palma, ran a non-for-profit consultancy firm called Noos, with his business partner, Diego Torres.
In 2005 and 2006, Noos received 2.3m euros of public money from the regional government of the Balearic Islands, for organising sports and cultural events.
The allegation is that the price was hugely inflated and public money went missing or ended up in the accounts of private companies, linked to Mr Urdangarin and Mr Torres. The two men also signed contracts with the government of Valencia.
This week, Mr Urdangarin's lawyer said his client had made "administrative errors".
Public 'decided'
Neither of the two men has been charged with any offence, and both deny any wrongdoing.
Journalist Ana Romero has written extensively on the story for El Mundo, the Spanish newspaper that first started investigating the case in 2007.
In her opinion, people in Spain have already judged Mr Urdangarin through the detailed and almost daily coverage in the Spanish media.
"Unfortunately, even if Inaki Urdangarin is declared innocent by the court, the majority of Spaniards have already decided that he did use public funds to enrich himself and his family in a way he shouldn't have done," she said.
What the royal household is said to be most worried about is whether Mr Urdangarin's wife, Princess Cristina, will be called to give evidence in the case.
The princess was a co-owner of one of the companies being investigated.
A source with close links to the royal family, who has met Mr Urdangarin on several occasions, described a possible appearance by the princess in court as "unchartered territory".
King Juan Carlos made clear references to the case in his Christmas address, without mentioning it directly.
"Justice is the same for everybody," he said.
Early in the new year the royal household published for the first time details of the royals' earnings and expenses.
According to official figures, Spain's royal family costs the Spanish taxpayer between 8m and 10m euros a year. That is relatively cheap compared to most other European monarchies.
But unemployment in Spain has reached nearly one in four of the active working population and in this context the allegations look particularly bad.
The intense coverage of the case has changed the relationship between the Spanish media and the monarchy and, Ms Romero said, the royal family is being scrutinised in a way that has never happened before.
"It has been a very cosy relationship. Historically they have enjoyed a really nice treatment from the Spanish media, because of the role the king played during the transition to democracy."
King Juan Carlos's defining moment was his backing of Spain's then relatively new democratic government, during a failed military coup in 1981.
His support, which was crucial at the time, is one of the reasons why he remains largely popular in Spain.
However the scandal involving his son-in-law could have a detrimental affect on the Spanish royal family's popularity.
Even before many of the allegations against Inaki Urdangarin were reported in the Spanish media, an opinion poll carried out in October showed that the royal family's approval rating had dropped to 4.8 out of 10.
It was the first time the institution had scored less than five.
According to Ms Romero, Spain is a naturally Republican country. "We are monarchists in our head, and not in our heart," she said.
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Ukraine's two eastern regions have been split in two. | By Tom BurridgeBBC News, Donetsk, Ukraine
Families have been divided by the war's frontline, and some relationships have been torn apart on political lines: between those who support the self-proclaimed pro-Russian republics to the east, and those who believe in a united Ukraine.
Yelena Malyutina faced a dilemma when the city where she lived in eastern Ukraine was taken-over by pro-Russian rebels: Her husband and home, or her political beliefs.
She chose the latter.
Yelena describes herself as very pro-Ukrainian, and her husband as pro-Russian.
So she and her 15-year-old daughter, Katya, swapped their comfortable family home in Donetsk for a small room in an apartment they share with 13 other people.
It is in a grey Soviet-era apartment block in the town of Kramatorsk, on the other side of this war's arbitrary frontline.
"I have nothing to lose any more," she says.
"My home is 300km (185 miles) from here, my family is divided and all I have is my daughter and my work."
But the "pain deep inside" that she describes is, in a way, a result of her choice.
Does she think it is a worthwhile sacrifice?
"I think so. I have no reason to change my mind, because it is my belief."
Yelena's belief is that "Russia kicked me out of my home".
'Different countries'
For many in eastern Ukraine, returning home means passing through Ukrainian and rebel checkpoints.
Liza Adonyeva, 20, is unfazed by the weekly journey she has to make across the war's frontline.
During the week she studies in the town of Artemivsk on the Ukrainian side of the divide.
At weekends she travels to see her family in Horlivka, a town in the hands of pro-Russian rebels.
"Now it is like two different countries," she says.
I meet Liza outside a local government building in Artemivsk.
By the door, a crowd of mainly elderly people is trying to squeeze in.
Inside, people are being issued with a pass which, since January, is needed to cross into rebel-controlled Ukraine.
Clutching a notebook, Olga Yurchenko tells us she is trying to get to her home in Debaltseve, a town captured by pro-Russian forces just after the ceasefire came into effect last month.
But this is the seventh time she has come here and she is yet to get the pass she needs to cross to her home on the rebel-held side.
Yuri Rabinovich is another frustrated person standing outside the building.
"I have a Ukrainian passport," he cries out.
But he too cannot get to his home in Debaltseve, which he and most Ukrainians believe is still part of Ukraine.
'Inhumane'
The Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where most of the fighting has been concentrated, is split in two.
The governor of the region on the Ukrainian side, Oleksandr Kikhtenko, describes the new restrictions, and the fact that people cannot cross into rebel-held territory without a special pass, as "inhumane".
He says thousands of people are affected, and tells the story of a 14-year-old boy who broke his leg playing basketball in the coastal city of Mariupol, on the Ukrainian side of the frontline.
Mr Kikhtenko says the best doctors for the boy's condition were in rebel-held Donetsk, but it was hard for him to get there because he did not have a pass.
However, some people lucky enough to obtain the necessary documentation are moving back to their homes, to be with their relatives.
After six months apart, we watched as Alla Pleshakova was reunited with her three young grandchildren, and her daughter Tatiana.
Tatiana had moved her family away from Debaltseve to escape the fighting, but with the current ceasefire generally holding they decided to return.
"It's so hard," she tells me as she wipes away the tears.
"While they were away, my granddaughter's first tooth came through, and she took her first steps."
Precious moments that a grandmother missed, because of the war.
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US oil giant Exxon Mobil has said its profits fell 58% to $2.78bn (£1.93bn) in the three months to the end of December, compared with $6.57bn for the same period a year earlier. | It saw annual profits halve to $16.2bn, from $32.5bn in 2014.
Exxon Mobil's results come after rivals Chevron and BP both reported large losses for the fourth quarter.
Oil prices fell sharply on Tuesday, with Brent crude down 5.3% to $32.42.
Crude oil prices have dropped about 70% from the 2014 high of more than $100 a barrel.
A period of adjustment
Oil companies have been trying to cut costs and investments in new projects as they adjust to the sustained fall in prices.
Exxon says its capital spending will be about $23.2bn in 2016, a cut of 25% compared with 2015.
Upstream earnings, which means exploration and production, slumped to $857m in the fourth quarter compared with $4.6bn during the same time last year.
Lower commodity prices in the upstream section of the business were partly offset by higher downstream earnings.
Downstream earnings, which mean refined oil products, were $1.4bn, up $854m from the fourth quarter of 2014.
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A senior Aberdeen councillor has predicted local authorities may have to merge as one way of making cost savings in the public spending squeeze. | Kevin Stewart - the city's deputy leader and head of the SNP group on the authority - is raising the issue in a motion to be debated next week.
He said there should be no "sacred cows" in the drive to protect services.
The Scottish government earlier ruled out any mergers of local authorities during this parliament.
Aberdeen City Council is trying to make about £120m of savings over the next five years.
Earlier this week, Grampian's chief fire officer said a prediction that the north east brigade would merge with Tayside was premature.
The new Lothian and Borders fire chief, Jimmy Campbell, had said a merger of the country's fire and rescue services was "inevitable" in the face of public sector cuts.
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The first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960 was a disorganised and undignified affair, symptomatic of attitudes in the 1950s and 60s. Soldiers carried competitors to and from the athletes' village, and score-keeping was haphazard. | By Peter WhiteNo Triumph, No Tragedy presenter, Radio 4
When archer Margaret Maughan won Britain's first-ever gold medal in the Paralympics, there was no crowd, no podium and almost no Maughan.
She had to be dragged off the coach going back to the rudimentary Olympic village to be presented with her prize. As no-one was keeping the score in the archery competition, she had no idea she'd won, let alone the fact there was a ceremony.
The incident was typical of the first Paralympics which took place in Rome in 1960, which, as Maughan acknowledges, had something of a sports day feel about it.
Maughan's other event was a swimming race, in which she was the only competitor.
It is hard to imagine this when you see more recent glitzy events, with their hours of TV coverage, their sports equipment costing thousands of pounds, and complete with the darker side of big-time competitive sport, drug-testing and classification disputes.
Paralympic villages these days are fully wheelchair accessible, each athlete has an assistant to help with any special needs, and they can get advice about anything from diet to the very latest equipment.
In Maughan's first games, the accommodation was borrowed from the Italian army and was on stilts - so competitors had to be carried in and out by soldiers.
Undignified it might have been, but Maughan didn't seem to mind. Indeed, she rather coyly admits that some of the soldiers were "quite dishy".
In any case, they'd been prepared for such indignities when they were all loaded onto their flights out to Rome from a forklift truck.
"People just took it for granted in those days," Maughan says. "We were just glad to be going."
It was a sign of the times and Maughan, now in her 80s, tells her story with the laconic acceptance of her generation. It had been typical of her treatment since a road accident in Malawi in 1959 left her paralysed and in a wheelchair.
After being flown home, she was taken to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, then more or less just a row of huts, but offering what was at the time the most sophisticated treatment around for those with spinal injuries.
It was run by Ludwig Guttmann, one of the leading experts in the field, whom Maughan greatly admired, even though he conducted the place a bit like an army camp.
Maughan once had the temerity to tell Guttmann that she was bored. Far from getting the sympathy someone so recently paralysed might have expected, she was told to pull herself together - there were still plenty of interesting things to do in life, he told her.
Discipline was tough, trips to the local pub which got out of hand were greeted with a firm dressing-down by the doctor, and accompanied with threats that you might have to leave the hospital.
It was Guttmann who decreed that sport was therapy, and turned what began as sports days into the start of an international phenomenon - the Paralympics.
A few hundred competitors went to the first Games. Now it's about 4,000. Then, hardly anyone noticed the athletes go. Now, there is hour upon hour of television coverage.
Then, competitors begged time off work, if they were lucky enough to have a job. Now athletes such as South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius and Britain's former wheelchair racer Tanni Grey-Thompson are household names.
But Maughan's story shows how the rudimentary 1960 event was symptomatic of attitudes back in the 1950s and 1960s.
On her return from Rome, she and her wheelchair had to travel in the guard's van on the train back to her home town in Preston.
Although she was a qualified teacher, it was assumed that she would be unable to control a class and instead she was offered a job stamping cards in an office.
There was no financial support. No anti-discrimination legislation. But Maughan wonders whether present generations had the same get-up-and-go as she and her friends had.
While she is delighted that the modern Paralympics is now a major international festival, she wonders whether some of the camaraderie has been lost along the way.
She intends to go to the Games to enjoy a bonanza of sport which could not have been imagined 50 years ago - and where Team GB will be fully expecting to equal, and perhaps succeed, the medal haul of their Olympic compatriots.
Peter White interviews Margaret Maughan on No Triumph, No Tragedy on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 26 August at 13:30 BST, or listen via the Radio 4 website
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Two teenage boys have been hurt in a shooting in Birmingham. | A 15-year-old was shot in the back and a 14-year-old was hit in the arm in the incident in Handsworth on Friday night.
The older boy is in a serious but stable condition in hospital, while the younger boy was not thought to be seriously injured.
The gunshots are believed to have been fired from a car which left the scene in Victoria Road at about 20:15 GMT, West Midlands Police said.
Det Sgt Matt Marston said: "We are still piecing together the circumstances around what happened, but we will not tolerate anyone being shot, especially not teenagers."
The force's chief constable referred to the victims as "children" on Twitter.
The road has been cordoned off for a police investigation.
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MPs have voted to authorise air strikes against so-called Islamic State in Syria, following a ten-hour debate in the House of Commons. Here are some of the key contributions, plus a couple from the House of Lords, which also held a debate. | Prime Minister David Cameron
"This is not about whether we want to fight terrorism, it's about how best we do that. The question is this: do we work with our allies to degrade and destroy this threat and do we go after these terrorists in their heartlands, from where they are plotting to kill British people. Or do we sit back and wait for them to attack us."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
"For all members to take a decision that will put British servicemen and women in harm's way and almost inevitably lead to the deaths of innocents is a heavy responsibility. It must be treated with the utmost seriousness and respect given to those who make a different judgment about the right course of action to take."
Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn
"We must now confront this evil. It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria. And that is why I ask my colleagues to vote for this motion tonight."
Conservative MP Sir Alan Duncan
Sir Alan told the House if it chose to "remain on the sidelines" it would signal to the world that the UK had chosen to "withdraw". He said MPs should not be in the business of "national resignation".
Angus Robertson, the SNP's Westminster leader
"I appeal to colleagues on all sides to make sure that we do not ignore the lessons of Afghanistan, ignore the lessons of Iraq, ignore the lessons of Libya. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past, let's not give the green light to military action without a comprehensive and credible plan to win the peace."
Gerald Kaufman, Labour MP and Father of the House
"There's absolutely no evidence of any kind that bombing Daesh, or bombing Raqqa, will result in an upsurge of other people in the region to get rid of them."
Liam Fox, Conservative MP and former defence secretary
Margaret Beckett, Labour MP and former foreign secretary
"Some say simply innocent people are more likely to be killed. Military action does create casualties, however much we try to minimise them.
"So should we on those grounds abandon action in Iraq, even though undertaken at the request of Iraq's government and it does seem to be making a difference?
"Should we take no further action against Daesh, who are themselves killing innocent people and striving to kill more every day of the week? Or should we simply leave it to others?"
Crispin Blunt, Conservative MP and chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee
"Whilst the defeat of ISIL and its ideology will be the work of many decades, the retaking of this territory is an urgent and immediate requirement."
Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi
Julian Lewis, Conservative MP and chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee
"I shall vote against air strikes in the absence of credible ground forces, as ineffective and potentially dangerous, just as I voted against the proposal to bomb Assad in 2013.
"Indeed, the fact that the British government wanted to bomb first one side and then the other in the same civil war, in such a short space of time, illustrates to my mind a vacuum at the heart of our strategy."
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas
Alan Johnson, Labour MP and former home secretary
Labour MP Yvette Cooper
The former shadow home secretary said she did not think coalition air strikes on so-called Islamic State in Syria should stop.
"And if they're not to stop and France asks for our help, I don't think we can say no," she added.
Nigel Dodds, the DUP's Westminster leader
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron
"If we were just being asked to bomb Syria I'd be voting no, I'd be out there demonstrating in between the speeches, I'd be signing up to those emails from the Stop the War Coalition.
"But this is not just a case of bombing, this is standing with the United Nations and the international community to do what is right by people who are the most beleaguered of all."
Conservative MP David Davis
Plaid Cymru MP Hywel Williams
SNP foreign affairs spokesman Alex Salmond
Conservative MP Caroline Spelman
Labour MP Dan Jarvis
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby
"Our bombing action plays into the expectation of Isil and other jihadist groups in the region, springing from their apocalyptic theology.
"The totality of our actions must subvert that false narrative because by itself it will not work."
William Hague, former Conservative foreign secretary
Labour MP Alison McGovern
SNP MP Philippa Whitford
Labour MP Shabana Mahmood
Labour MP David Lammy
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Jussie Smollett has been charged with six new counts of lying to police. | The TV actor claimed he was the victim of an alleged racist and homophobic attack in Chicago last year.
Authorities accused him of staging the attack for publicity, something he has always denied.
Now, he is due back in court on 24 February - accused of disorderly conduct.
The story has taken quite a few twists and turns since he was first charged with filing a false police report in February 2019.
Here's a full timeline of what's happened since January last year.
29 January 2019: The alleged incident takes place
Chicago police say they're investigating a suspected racist and homophobic attack of Jussie Smollett by two masked men which happened at about 2am.
They say the actor was punched in the face, had an "unknown chemical substance" poured on him and a rope wrapped around his neck.
Jussie Smollett tells police the two attackers also made reference to MAGA (make America great again) - the slogan often used by President Donald Trump and his supporters.
He goes to a doctor and police describe his condition as "good".
30 January: An outpouring of support from celebrities
Stars including Viola Davis, Janelle Monae and TI come out with messages of support for the actor.
His Empire co-stars including Grace Byers and Naomi Campbell also show support.
Grace Byers says: "This despicable act only shamefully reveals how deeply the diseases of hatred, inequality, racism and discrimination continue to course through our country's veins."
Empire creator Lee Daniels posts and emotional video on Instagram, syaing: "Hold your head up Jussie. I'm with you."
Comedian Steve Harvey says: "This is about coming to the aid of another brother that has tasted the brutality of hatred and racism and bigotry."
31 January: Refusing to hand over his phone
Jussie Smollett refuses to hand over his phone to police investigating the attack.
They wanted it to confirm details - including the MAGA references made - as the actor says he was on the phone to his manager at the time.
A day later, the police say: "He's a victim. We don't treat him like a criminal."
They say they won't demand the phone.
1 February: Jussie Smollett speaks for the first time
The actor says he's "OK" after the incident.
In a statement, he says: "The outpouring of love and support from my village has meant more than I will ever be able to truly put into words."
He adds: "I am working with authorities and have been 100% factual and consistent on every level."
Chicago police also release pictures of two "people of interest" they want to speak to.
Chief Communications Officer Anthony Guglielmi says "detectives are taking this development seriously".
2 February: 'I'm the gay Tupac'
At a concert that had been planned for a long time, Jussie Smollett makes some more comments on the incident.
"I'm not fully healed yet, but I'm going to," he says, reading from a piece of paper.
"Just because there has been a lot of stuff said about me that's absolutely not true."
Glancing at the balcony, he adds: "I'm sure my lawyer's sitting up there like 'No, Jussie, no'."
He says: "Above all, I fought... back."
"I'm the gay Tupac," he finishes, without explaining what he means.
11 February: Phone records submitted
Jussie Smollett gives police a PDF file of his phone records, after they had originally asked for his phone and he'd refused.
But the files are redacted - some bits have been covered up.
The police says there's no reason to suspect any wrongdoing from Jussie Smollett and are "not even looking at charges regarding filing a false report".
14 February: 'Persons of interest' arrested by police
The two people of interest are arrested and interviewed by the police, but not charged and not treated as suspects.
They are Obabinjo (Ola) and Abimbola (Abel) Osundairo, brothers originally from Nigeria.
They had worked as Empire extras, sometimes going to the gym with the actor, their lawyer says.
Some of the items seized from a police raid of their home include a black face mask, an Empire script, phone, receipts, a red hat and bleach.
On the same day, an interview with Jussie Smollett is shown on Good Morning America.
He suggests the alleged attackers were white, saying: "If I had said [the attackers] was a Muslim, or a Mexican, or someone black, I feel like the doubters would have supported me a lot much more."
On his refusal to hand over his phone, he says: "I have private pictures and videos and numbers... my private emails, my private songs, my private voice memos."
And speaking through tears, he says gay people should "learn to fight" these kinds of attacks.
Chicago police say they have "no evidence to support" reports that the attack was staged.
17 February: 'Trajectory of the investigation' has shifted
Chicago police say there have been "some developments in this investigation," a day after they release the Osundairo brothers without charge.
They say they want to speak to "the individual who reported the incident" - Jussie Smollett.
The actor's lawyers say in a statement: "Jussie Smollett is angered and devastated by recent reports that the perpetrators are individuals he is familiar with."
They add it's "impossible to believe" that the Osundairos "could have played a role in the crime against Jussie or would falsely claim Jussie's complicity".
20 February: Jussie Smollett is charged by police
Chicago police say the actor is charged with "disorderly conduct/filing a false police report".
Earlier in the day, a reporter in the US obtains footage appearing to show the brothers buying materials, including ski masks, that had allegedly been worn by the people who attacked the actor.
Mr Smollett's lawyers say they will "conduct a thorough investigation and mount an aggressive defence".
The rapper 50 Cent, who had previously come out in support of Jussie Smollett, posts a picture on Instagram referencing the actor's "gay Tupac" comment.
In the picture, he's put Jussie Smollett's face over Tupac's on the album cover for All Eyez On Me - and changed the album name to "all liez on me".
21 February: Jussie Smollett is arrested
Jussie Smollett hands himself into police and is arrested.
At a press conference, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says that Smollett "took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career".
He adds that the actor did it because he was "dissatisfied with his salary".
Police claim he also had sent a racist letter to himself at a Fox studio and paid the Osundairo brothers a cheque for $3,500 (£2,600) to stage the attack.
Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox, the makers of Empire, issue a statement regarding the future of Jussie Smollett on the show.
"We understand the seriousness of this matter and we respect the legal process. We are evaluating the situation and we are considering our options."
President Donald Trump tweets about the incident, calling the actor's comments "racist and dangerous".
When asked about the alleged attack previously, the president had said: "I think that's horrible. It doesn't get worse, as far as I'm concerned."
Later that day in court, Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke says that the "most vile" part of the incident was the use of a noose.
Smollett's lawyers issue a strongly-worded statement after the hearing, calling it an "organised law enforcement spectacle".
22 February: Jussie Smollett is suspended from Empire
The TV show's executive producers release a statement saying the actor won't be in the final two episodes of the latest series.
They add that the allegations against him are "disturbing".
25 February: Cheque called into question
Reporters in the US get hold of a copy of the $3,500 cheque allegedly paid to Abel Osundairo for the attack.
It's dated 23 January and says: "5 week Nutrition/Workout program (Don't Go)."
ABC News reports that Don't Go is the name of a music video Smollett was planning to shoot - which is why he paid the brothers to get him in shape.
1 March: Osundairo brothers 'regret' getting involved
A statement from the brothers' lawyer Gloria Schmidt says they have "tremendous regret over their involvement in this situation".
It adds: "They understand how it has impacted people across the nation, particularly minority communities and especially those who have been victims of hate crimes themselves."
13 March: Empire returns
The first new episode of Empire is aired since the alleged attack.
Jussie Smollett's character Jamal Lyon features in the episode, which is down in the ratings, according to Variety.
He is scheduled to appear in seven of the remaining nine episodes of season five.
14 March: Jussie Smollett pleads not guilty
Jussie Smollett appears in court charged with 16 counts of disorderly conduct and pleads not guilty.
He must tell the court if he plans to leave the state of Illinois and is due back in court in mid-April.
20 March: Empire creator speaks out
Lee Daniels, the creator of Empire, speaks about the 'Pain and anger' over Jussie Smollett he and his cast have gone through over the saga.
In an Instagram video, he adds that he and his team "really don't know how to deal with it."
He adds that Empire "was made to bring America together" and to "talk about the atrocities that are happening right now in the streets."
26 March: Smollett cleared of all charges
After an emergency court appearance, all charges against Jussie Smollett are dropped.
In a statement, his lawyer says: "He was a victim who was vilified and made to appear as a perpetrator."
They add that his record "has been wiped clean."
But Chicago Police and the city's mayor stand by their case against Jussie Smollett, criticising the latest development in a joint news conference.
Superintendent Eddie Johnson says: "At the end of the day, it is Mr Smollett who committed this hoax, period.
"If he wanted to clear his name, the way to do that is in a court of law so that everyone can see the evidence... I stand by the facts of what we produced."
Mayor Rahm Emanuel says Jussie was "let off scot-free, with no sense of accountability for the moral and ethical wrong of his actions".
27 March: Lawyer says 'case is closed'
Jussie receives more criticism from Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.
He calls the dropping of the charges "a whitewash of justice" and lashes out at Smollett for dragging the city's reputation "through the mud".
Illinois prosecutor Joe Magats, who decided to drop the charges, tells CBS he thinks Smollett is guilty.
But he explains the charges were dropped because Jussie forfeited a $10,000 (£7,600) bond payment and carried out community service.
Jussie Smollett's lawyer Patricia Brown Holmes says "the case is closed" and "no public official has the right to violate" her client's rights.
In a statement she says: "We respectfully request all government agencies involved live up to the ethical tenets of their office.
"The case was dismissed. We should all allow Mr Smollett to move on with his life as a free citizen."
28 March: Trump calls case 'embarrassment to nation'
US President Donald Trump tweets his thoughts on the case, calling it "outrageous" and an "embarrassment to the nation".
He also reveals the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) will now be investigating.
29 March: Jussie is ordered to pay for police overtime
Chicago police orders Jussie to pay $130,000 (£99,000) to cover the cost of police officers, including overtime worked on the case.
Officers say the time spent reviewing video and physical evidence could have been spent on other investigations.
In a letter to the actor, they repeat accusations that Jussie "orchestrated" the attack.
12 April: The actor is sued by the City of Chicago
After Jussie Smollett refused to pay the $130,000 demanded by the Chicago police, he has been sued for "three times" that amount.
Police still want to be compensated for the manpower used investigating his alleged assault.
They still believe Jussie staged the attack.
23 April: Brothers suing actor's lawyers
It's revealed that Jussie Smollett's legal team is being sued for defamation by the Osundairo brothers - who say they continue to be accused of carrying out a racist and homophobic attack against the actor.
Olabinjo Osundairo and Abimbola Osundairo say their reputations have been damaged as a result of the claims.
Smollett's lawyers Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian described the lawsuit as "comical" and "ridiculous".
30 April: 'No plans' for Jussie Smollett's Empire return
TV Network Fox confirms Empire has been renewed for a sixth season but said there were "no plans" for Smollett's character, Jamal, to return.
In a statement it said: "By mutual agreement, the studio has negotiated an extension to Jussie Smollett's option for season six, but at this time there are no plans for the character of Jamal to return to Empire."
Smollett has worked on the show since season one in 2015. His character was removed from the final two episodes of season five after the allegations against him surfaced.
5 June: Jussie Smollett 'will NOT be returning to Empire'
There it is - confirmation from Empire co-creator Lee Daniels that Jussie Smollett will definitely not feature in the show's final season.
24 June: Noose footage released by police
Chicago Police release footage taken about seven hours after the alleged attack.
Taken from a police officer's bodycam in Jussie Smollett's apartment, it shows the actor with a rope still around his neck.
An officer says: "Do you want to take it off or anything?"
Smollett replies: "Yeah I do, I just wanted you to see it."
The footage is part of hundreds of files released by Chicago Police from their investigation into the case.
Another video appears to show Abel and Ola Osundairo in a cab on the night the police were called.
12 February 2020: Six new charges
Special prosecutor Dan Webb, who was assigned to investigate how the case was handled, says in a statement he is going to further prosecute Smollett.
The actor is charged with six counts of lying to police.
A court date of 24 February is set.
This article was originally published on 25th June 2019.
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Singapore is a wealthy city state in south-east Asia. Once a British colonial trading post, today it is a thriving global financial hub and described as one of Asia's economic "tigers". It is also renowned for its conservatism and strict local laws and the country prides itself on its stability and security. | Chinese account for more than 75% of Singapore's multi-racial population, with Malays and Indians making up much of the remainder.
Densely-populated, most of its people live in public-housing tower blocks. Its trade-driven economy is heavily supported by foreign workers. In 2013, the government forecast that by 2030, immigrants will makeup more than 50% of the population.
The People's Action Party has dominated politics since the country declared independence from Malaysia in 1965. Issues such as the rising cost of living, immigration and income inequality are major challenges facing the government.
KEY FACTS
Republic of Singapore
Capital: Singapore
Population 5.3 million
Area 660 sq km (255 sq miles)
Major languages English, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil
Major religions Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism
Life expectancy 79 years (men), 84 years (women)
Currency Singapore dollar
LEADERS
President: Halimah Yacob
Halimah Yacob was sworn in as Singapore's first female president in 2017. As a member of the Muslim Malay minority, she is also the country's first Malay leader in 47 years.
She became the sole contender when the two other prospective candidates failed to meet eligibility requirements. It's the first time the presidency has been reserved for a particular ethnic group, as authorities seek to foster harmony in a multicultural society dominated by ethnic Chinese.
She was the Speaker of parliament before taking up the largely ceremonial post of president.
Presidential candidates run as individuals because Singapore's head of state is supposed to be non-partisan.
Prime minister: Lee Hsien Loong
The eldest son of Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Hsien Loong has been in office since August 2004.
A former army officer and Cambridge-educated mathematician, he followed his father into politics in 1984 at the age of 32.
As prime minister, Mr Lee has launched policies to build a competitive economy, introducing new programmes to upgrade the education system, investing in research and development and transforming the city-state.
Mr Lee has been involved in a very public feud with his siblings over their father's will.
MEDIA
As the media hub for south-east Asia, Singapore is a strategic centre for the region's English-speaking audience.
Its tightly-controlled media environment means self-censorship among journalists is common. There are also curbs on online content.
TIMELINE
Some key dates in Singapore's history:
1819 - Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles establishes Singapore as a trading post for the British East India Company.
1942 - Singapore falls to Japan during Second World War. The island is renamed Syonan-to or "Light of the South Island" in Japanese.
1945-46 - Japanese forces surrender. Singapore becomes a British colony.
1959 - Singapore holds first general election.
1963 - Singapore joins the Federation of Malaya, Sabah (North Borneo) and Sarawak in the Federation of Malaysia.
1965 - Declares independence from the Federation of Malaysia.
1990 - Singapore's founding father Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew stands down after 31 years.
1993 - Singapore holds its first presidential election.
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A 19-year-old man arrested on suspicion of right-wing terror offences has been released under investigation.
| East Midlands counter-terrorism officers detained the man, from Lincoln, in Leicester on Tuesday.
Ch Supt Jon McAdam said: "The alleged offences relate to the encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of a terrorist publication."
Lincolnshire Police said the man had been released under investigation on Thursday.
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It's 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexual sex in England and Wales. How did the law change society? | By Rachel Schraer & Joey D'UrsoBBC News
1. Social approval of same-sex relationships has risen rapidly
The proportion of the British public who say they approve of same-sex partnerships has soared over the past 30 years.
Since 1983 the British Social Attitudes survey has asked people whether they think sexual relationships between two adults of the same sex are "always wrong, mostly wrong, sometimes wrong, rarely wrong or not wrong at all".
The group of people answering that they thought same-sex partnerships were "not wrong at all" has almost quadrupled from 17% when the survey started in 1983, to 64% in 2016.
Approval fell in the 1980s when the Aids crisis and the introduction of section 28 - a law prohibiting the promotion or teaching of homosexuality in schools - could have swayed public opinion according to NatCen, the think tank which runs the survey.
But a steady and rapid rise from the early 1990s reflects a wider trend of social liberalisation, something also seen in changing attitudes to pre-marital sex.
Approval of pre-marital sex grew initially among the young - as they got older they retained that belief, and soon both old and young were more liberal on the issue.
For same-sex relationships the shift in attitude has been quicker - not only did young people with liberal views get older, but older people changed their minds, too.
This might in part be because changes in the law, such as the legalisation of civil partnerships and then gay marriage, have a powerful influence on people's views, a NatCen spokesman suggests.
2. 1967 was not the end of the story
While the 1967 act was a milestone in equality, it was far from the end of the story - and it chiefly benefited men who had sex with men.
There have been a number of other key dates on the journey towards sexual and gender equality, not just for gay men but for the rest of the LGBT community.
For example, gay sex remained illegal in Scotland and Northern Ireland until 1982 while transgender people weren't protected in equality legislation until 2010.
50 years of legislation
1967 - Sex between two men over 21 and "in private" is decriminalised
1980 - Decriminalisation in Scotland
1982 - Decriminalisation in Northern Ireland
1994 - The age of consent for two male partners is lowered to 18
2000 - The ban on gay and bisexual people serving in the armed forces is lifted; the age of consent is equalised for same- and opposite-sex partners at 16
2002 - Same-sex couples are given equal rights when it comes to adoption
2003 - Gross indecency is removed as an offence
2004 - A law allowing civil partnerships is passed
2007 - Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is banned
2010 - Gender reassignment is added as a protected characteristic in equality legislation
2014 - Gay marriage becomes legal in England, Wales and Scotland
3. Criminalisation of gay people continued into this century
In 1967, homosexuality was only partially decriminalised.
Those keen to criminalise any public displays of consensual homosexual activity still had tools to do so through the offence of "gross indecency", which had a broad interpretation.
Prosecutions for relationships between two consenting men over the age of 16 continued until 2000 when the age of consent was equalised. In the years following the 1967 law change, even public displays of affection could be criminalised as "procuring" or "soliciting".
Gross indecency covered activities ranging from having sex in public, to sexual activity in private involving more than two men. Hotels were counted as public and so men could be prosecuted for meeting there while others were convicted as recently as 1998 for having group sex in private.
After the 1967 Act, activities that had not been decriminalised were prosecuted far more strictly than before, according to human-rights barrister Alex Bailin QC. This led to a steep rise in offences of gross indecency. After a decline there was another spike in the 1980s amid a moral panic over the Aids epidemic.
Sexual activity in a public toilet remains a specific offence to this day - for opposite-sex couples as well. Prosecutions were far more common until the 1990s but have tailed off since, partly because of social attitudes to gay relationships, says Kate Goold, a solicitor at Bindmans.
4. Government has attempted to redress this legacy
Given this legacy of criminalisation, the government introduced a scheme in October 2012 allowing those prosecuted under defunct gay-sex-related laws, to have their convictions removed from police and court records.
The Home Office estimates that there were about 50,000 such offences recorded on the system from the 1950s until 2000.
But of these 50,000, only an estimated 16,000 are for people who are still living and so able to apply.
Not all of the 16,000 offences are eligible to be "disregarded". They include some where the activity was non-consensual, with a person under 16 years of age, or involving other activity which would still be a crime today - for example having sex in a public toilet.
Between October 2012 and April 2016, only 242 people applied for a disregard and only 83 were granted, according to a written answer in parliament.
The law changed further in 2016. Family members can now apply for posthumous pardons.
5. Recording of homophobic hate crimes has risen
A steep rise in homophobic hate crimes has been recorded over the past five years, but this is thought to be in large part down to an increase in people reporting incidents rather than a genuine rise in crime.
The National Police Chiefs Council's lead on homophobic crimes, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton, says: "Traditionally, homophobic hate crime has been significantly under-reported and we do not believe that current statistics accurately reflect actual levels of abuse.
"However, higher reporting rates indicate that the LGBT community feels increasingly confident to come forward and report incidents."
The Home Office's report on the latest figures says that "these could be genuine increases in hate crimes or increases in the numbers of victims coming forward to report a hate crime".
6. Young people are more likely to identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual
Public opinion has shifted hugely on same-sex relationships over the past decade.
It's striking that people aged 16-24 are more than five times more likely than those aged over 65 to identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual.
The Office for National Statistics keeps records of people who identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual - 1.7% of the adult population (2% of men and 1.5% of women). This is likely to underestimate the real numbers as the survey doesn't capture sexual attraction or behaviour.
In 2005 the government tried to estimate the size of the lesbian, gay and bisexual population and came up with a larger number - 5-7% of the population.
7. Gay people say they feel less happy than their straight peers
People who identify as gay, lesbian and bisexual report lower levels of well-being than heterosexuals in the UK.
The ONS looks at happiness, life satisfaction, and the extent to which people feel their life is worthwhile. For all three of those categories, gay, lesbian and bisexual people report much lower levels.
Data is also collected on anxiety, which has the biggest sexuality gap. Gay and lesbian people report higher levels of anxiety than straight people, but bisexual people are even more likely to suffer from the condition.
Young lesbian, gay and bisexual people are also more likely to suffer from suicidal thoughts than their straight friends, according to a 2014 survey by LGBT support charity Metro. The results also suggested higher rates of self-harm.
8. Same-sex couples have gained equal marriage rights
Civil partnerships were legalised in 2004 throughout the United Kingdom, with the first ceremonies taking place at the end of the following year.
Nearly 140,000 people entered into civil partnerships between 2005 and 2015, the last year for which figures are available.
Across the UK, gay and lesbian couples were granted many of the same rights as married heterosexuals, albeit with a few differences around issues like private-sector pensions.
It meant that couples could no longer be kept out of hospital rooms when their partner was sick, they would no longer lose their home or business because of tax laws, and they had parental rights over children.
Same-sex marriage was legalised a decade later, with the first ceremonies taking place in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014. It is still banned in Northern Ireland. According to official estimates about 60,000 people were in same-sex marriages in 2016.
9. Gay marriage is now legal in 22 countries
England, Scotland and Wales were far from the first places to legalise same-sex marriage. The Netherlands changed the law first in 2001.
Gay marriage is now legal in 22 countries worldwide, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). That's just 11% of UN member states.
Definitions can sometimes be tricky though - the UK is included despite Northern Ireland's ban. Brazil and Mexico are also on ILGA's list because "through one legal route or another, it appears to be possible to marry in most jurisdictions".
Germany is not included - MPs gave their approval to same-sex marriage earlier this year but the law does not come into force until October.
Countries where gay marriage is legal
2001 Netherlands
2003 Belgium
2005 Canada, Spain
2006 South Africa
2009 Norway, Sweden
2010 Iceland, Portugal, Argentina
2012 Denmark
2013 Uruguay, New Zealand, France, Brazil
2014 UK (excluding Northern Ireland)
2015 Luxembourg, Ireland, Mexico, USA
2016 Colombia
2017 Finland
A further 28 countries guarantee some civil-partnership recognition according to ILGA.
10. Being gay is still criminalised in many parts of the world
Britain is marking 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality but same-sex relations are still illegal across vast swathes of the world.
There are 72 countries which explicitly outlaw homosexuality, according to ILGA, but there are several others with some form of legal restriction.
For example, Russia is included even though same-sex relationships were formally legalised in 1993. This is because "a variety of repressive legal provisions" have come into force over the past decade, according to ILGA.
In eight countries same-sex relationships sometimes carry the death penalty - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and parts of Iraq and Syria held by so-called Islamic State.
The number of states that criminalise same-sex relations is decreasing annually, though, with Belize and the Seychelles repealing such laws last year.
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Russian environmental inspectors are trying to establish why a river near the Norilsk Nickel industrial complex in the Arctic has turned blood-red. | Dramatic pictures of the discoloured Daldykan river have been posted widely on Russian media.
The government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta says a leaking slurry pipeline carrying waste copper-nickel concentrate could be to blame.
Norilsk Nickel is the world's largest nickel and palladium producer.
Its vast furnaces were built on the Taimyr Peninsula, in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, in the Soviet era.
The mining group has a production facility called Nadezhda by the Daldykan river. But company officials said they were not aware of any river pollution from the plant.
Billionaire oligarch Vladimir Potanin is president of Norilsk Nickel.
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A new chief medical officer for Scotland has been appointed. | Dr Catherine Calderwood, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, takes over the position from Sir Harry Burns, who stepped down last year.
Dr Calderwood recently held the role of acting deputy chief medical officer in the Scottish government.
She has a special interest in maternal medicine, obstetric scanning and high-risk pregnancy.
She has also held various high-profile national roles, including that of national clinical director for maternity and women's health in NHS England.
As chief medical officer, she will be the top adviser to ministers on a wide range of issues surrounding the health of the country.
'Substantial challenge'
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: "Catherine's appointment will build on her already substantial achievements and reputation in Scotland and the UK. I very much look forward to working with her."
Dr Calderwood, a graduate of Cambridge and Glasgow universities, will formally take up the post shortly.
"The role provides huge opportunities to drive forward and improve the health of our nation," she said.
"We have a health service to be proud of and the professionalism and standard of medical practice is second to none.
"Driving forward further improvements and ensuring we have a health service fit to meet the challenges of the future is a substantial challenge - but something both myself, and I am sure the whole of our health service, is more than ready for."
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A man has been charged with two counts of kidnap and four counts of assault against women in Gloucestershire.
| Police said the alleged offences happened between July and October and included an incident in which a woman was allegedly hit with a hammer.
The force said the man, from Gloucester, had also been charged with two counts of attempted kidnap and possession of an offensive weapon.
He was remanded in custody to appear at Gloucester Crown Court on 7 November.
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There are two characteristics of BP's Russian joint venture: it has generated many billions of dollars of dividends for the company; and it has been a total nightmare to manage, largely because of years of appalling relations between BP and its billionaire oligarch partners. | Robert PestonEconomics editor
A new governance low has been hit with the resignation of one of the oligarchs, Mikhail Fridman, as chief executive of the joint venture. What is going on and why?
Well BP believes that at least two of the oligarchs, Victor Vekselberg and Leonard Blavatnik, would like out - or at least they would like to convert their holding in the joint venture into cash and BP shares.
This is consistent with the statement by Alfa-Access-Renova, the oligarchs' consortium, that they have "lost faith in BP as a partner".
BP's belief is that the oligarchs regret the way they frustrated last year's attempt by the British oil giant to form a joint venture with the Russian state-owned energy colossus, Rosneft, which could have involved Rosneft buying out the oligarchs.
So BP sees Mr Fridman's resignation as part of a new campaign to put pressure on BP to organise a whole or partial buyout of their holding in TNK-BP.
The problem for BP is that it fears it could end up losing all of this stunningly valuable asset if it were to take its stake above 50% - because of a Russian prohibition on foreign businesses acquiring majority control of strategic assets.
BP does not wish to lift its stake above 50%, for fear of damaging those all-important relations with Putin's Kremlin. And right now BP believes it is on pretty good terms with the Russian government.
There is an impasse, which means that TNK-BP will probably function on autopilot for a while, managed by five senior executives but without direction from its own board.
In those circumstances, dividends won't be paid to either BP or the oligarchs. Colossal amounts of cash running to billions of dollars will build up in the coffers of the joint-venture, until either the oligarchs or BP become antsy about having rights to all that lovely money but not being able to touch it.
In this corporate soap opera, the end is only predictable by those with a talent for outlandish fiction. I will let you know when I've constructed a denouement so absurd as to possibly be true.
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A 15-year-old girl who died when a car she was travelling in struck a tree in the New Forest has been described by her family as generous and intelligent. | Rebecca Marchant from Leatherhead, Surrey, was killed in the crash in Hordle on Wednesday evening.
In a tribute, her family said she was a "truly loved daughter, sister, granddaughter and good friend to all".
The teenager was a front passenger in a convertible Mercedes which crashed in Hordle Lane at about 20:45 GMT.
An eight-year-old and 10-year-old were taken to Southampton General Hospital.
The tribute said: "Her kind, bubbly, thoughtful generous and intelligent personality along with her constant happy smiling face will be sorely missed by everyone who knew and came into contact with her."
The 34-year-old driver, from Hordle, has been charged with causing death by careless driving while over the drink-drive limit.
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A caller phoned 999 to complain a bar was refusing to let their friend in because he was wearing trainers. | Nottinghamshire Police regularly shares details of inappropriate emergency calls in a bid to deter others from misusing the service.
It said the person told the call handler other people in the bar were wearing trainers.
Supt Paul Burrows, from the force, said unnecessary 999 calls could delay its response to real emergencies.
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Hungary's turn at the helm of the EU has been accompanied by a chorus of concern about a media law brought in by the centre-right government.
The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest examines how Hungary is likely to influence the EU's agenda this year. | "Maybe we should start to think about developing Hungarian soft power," George Schopflin, a Euro MP for the Fidesz party told a conference on Hungary's image in the world.
The country can start showing off some lesser-known treasures - for example its army of excellent, relatively cheap dentists, or its abundant thermal waters.
At the Szechenyi Thermal Baths in the Budapest City Park there is a lot of soft power on display.
Men and women in all shapes and sizes lounge in azure outdoor pools, kept at a steady 38C by springs from deep under the city. Some play chess - a favourite pastime here - shoulder-deep in the waters.
The air temperature is -2C, but the rosy-bodied adults and children do not seem to notice, as they stroll through steam clouds over heated cobblestones, past elegant Hapsburg yellow buildings.
The manager of the baths, Ferenc Kiss, is looking forward to the Hungarian presidency of the EU. "We're counting on many more visitors, from all over Europe this year," he says.
New EU priorities
Hungary has taken over the presidency with an ambitious domestic agenda of its own. There are plans to finalise the Danube Strategy - to develop the economic and ecological potential of Europe's most important waterway.
In April, a new all-EU strategy to better integrate the Roma (Gypsies) will be unveiled, drawing on positive examples from many countries, led by Budapest.
Hungary has also promised to help its neighbour Croatia close the last chapters of its EU membership procedure by the end of June.
But there will also be areas of conflict as European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso visits Hungary on Friday. Some he will bring with him, like the battles within the eurozone, to which Hungary does not yet belong - others are home-produced.
The Fidesz party came to power last June with a massive two-thirds of the seats in the Hungarian parliament.
That gives them the right to change the ground rules of the Hungarian state, including the constitution, drawn up during the peaceful transition from a single to a multi-party state.
The government argues that Hungarian democracy has been disfigured and often paralysed by the party-political battles of the past 20 years.
In the past seven months Fidesz has pushed through law after law, eroding many political checks and balances.
"A reform programme has to be implemented fast, effectively within the first 12 to 15 months of a government coming into power. After that it becomes increasingly difficult to launch serious reform," said George Schopflin.
Consolidating power
The government has lost no time. The wings of the constitutional court - until now one of the most powerful in Europe - have been clipped.
Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom has been replaced by a Fidesz loyalist, Pal Schmitt.
The penal code has been tightened to increase sanctions against repeat offenders. And a partly private pension fund with three million contributors has been tipped into the state coffers.
In its defence, the government argues that a strong but fair state is necessary, and that everything must be done to stimulate growth - including the creation of 100,000 jobs a year.
At present Hungary has the lowest rate of employment in the EU - under 55% of the working-age population. That means that 1.9 million taxpayers (plus 800,000 in the state sector) are struggling to fund a country of 10 million people.
Taxes on personal income and businesses are being cut, and swingeing taxes imposed on banks and large, mostly foreign-owned corporations to fund this.
On 1 January a new media law came into force in Hungary, which has been attacked by leading newspapers and media and human rights watchdogs across Europe.
"When some people use excessive language, they should also look into their own media laws and legislation, and they will find a striking similarity between the provisions they now violently criticise and those which exist in fact in their own country,'' said Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi.
Criticism has also been fierce at home. A requirement in the new law not to "hurt public morality" is one of many "vague provisions" attacked by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU).
"The only certain point is that it creates room for discretionary, arbitrary decisions by the media authority, and consequently it increases its authority to restrict free speech," the HCLU wrote.
The new media authority and media council replaced five previous bodies, which were often paralysed by party disputes.
Now Fidesz stands accused of using its parliamentary majority to appoint loyalists to both edit and regulate public service media, and to threaten commercial media with fines.
Risk of self-censorship
Staff at the national radio, two state television channels, and the state news agency MTI have been unsettled by plans to roll them into one massive newsroom, and by the possible loss of jobs.
"There is a danger or growing danger of self-censorship among certain colleagues, because they feel their job is less secure than it was. And that's why they might want to comfort those in power," says Gyula Csak, the news director of Hungarian Radio.
"From now on," quipped one comedian in the New Year's Eve radio cabaret, "all jokes will be centralised - there'll be a list of 40 jokes approved by the National Joke Authority, and we'll just have to choose between them!"
The first act of the new Media Authority was to launch an investigation into the commercial Tilos (meaning "forbidden") Radio, for broadcasting two songs, in English, last September by American gangster-rap artist Ice-T, judged to be obscene and to endanger minors.
Few young people "understand hardly comprehensible lyrics", Tilos Radio replied in a letter, "written in slang, full of words and expressions missing from their curriculum, after one hearing, in a musical environment".
In the outdoor pool at the Szechenyi Baths, the chess tournament is heating up.
A man with a handsome beard waves away the television cameras. His opponent - who appears to be winning - insists the cameraman may film as much as he wishes. This was ever a divided nation.
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They're known as the Three Brexiteers - the ministers who all campaigned to leave the EU and are now shaping the UK's foreign relations for years to come. Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox have been racking up the air miles to put the UK's case...
| By Gavin StampPolitical reporter, BBC News
The foreign secretary has been setting a furious pace in terms of globe-trotting, seemingly spending as much time abroad as he has at home - even during the general election campaign.
Of course, he has the edge on his cabinet colleagues as it is his job to be the UK's chief ambassador. His remit includes the full gamut of diplomacy and maintaining inter-state political relations, not just preparing the ground for Brexit and beyond.
His travels have taken him to Australasia, East Asia, West Africa and the Balkans among other parts of the world. He pulled rank by being the first British minister to travel to Washington after Donald Trump's election as president.
Notable omissions on his itinerary so far include Russia and China.
Mr Johnson was due to visit Moscow in April but this was called off amid tensions over Syria. Like his boss, Prime Minister Theresa May, the offer of a visit to Beijing has yet to come but this is expected later this year.
The list would be even longer but we've not included EU and Nato foreign ministers' meetings in Brussels and the Iraq and Syria conferences in Paris, and Shimon Peres' funeral in Israel
The international trade secretary is the man with the task of banging the drum for British business overseas, with at least one eye on negotiating free trade deals after the UK leaves the EU.
While not quite keeping up with Mr Johnson, he has covered plenty of ground himself.
As an unabashed Atlanticist who is very much at home over the pond, it was no great surprise that his first destination was the US and that he has also found time in his diary to visit Canada.
Other important strategic destinations include the Gulf - he has been on three separate occasions - and India - which in many respects is the biggest but most challenging prize for the UK in the post-Brexit trade scramble.
His visits to Europe have been notably and understandably less frequent, with Germany being his destination of choice.
The Brexit secretary has been limited in the amount of time he can spend overseas and also where he can go, as his focus is squarely on the negotiations with the EU.
He has had to devote much of his time to setting up his department from scratch, fighting Article 50 court cases, piloting legislation through the Commons and preparing for Brexit negotiations.
While the EU has specifically ruled out the UK pursuing bilateral talks with individual European countries, Mr Davis has still been out and about, taking his message to European capitals and seeking to deepen understanding of the UK's intentions and positions.
He has just about covered most of Scandinavia - but more important, strategically, were his early visits to the Republic of Ireland and Spain - two countries for whom Brexit will have major practical repercussions.
He has yet to make it to Paris but has spent plenty of time opposite his French negotiating counterpart Michel Barnier in Brussels.
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A US grand jury has charged a police officer over the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor earlier this year during a drug raid at her home. Here's a timeline of major incidents involving the deaths of black Americans since 2014. | 17 July 2014: Eric Garner
Eric Garner died after he was wrestled to the ground by a New York police officer on suspicion of illegally selling cigarettes.
While in a choke hold, Mr Garner uttered the words "I can't breathe" 11 times.
The incident - filmed by a bystander - led to protests across the country. The police officer involved was later fired, but was never prosecuted.
It came a year after the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in response to the acquittal of the man who killed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida.
9 August 2014: Michael Brown
Michael Brown, 18, was killed by a police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri, who was responding to reports that Brown - who was not armed - had stolen a box of cigars.
The exact circumstances of the encounter are disputed, but Brown was shot six times, according to autopsy reports.
The officer involved later resigned from the force, but was not prosecuted.
The incident led to multiple waves of protests and civil unrest in Ferguson, boosting the Black Lives Matter movement further.
22 November 2014: Tamir Rice
Tamir Rice, a boy of 12, was shot dead in Cleveland, Ohio by a police officer after reports of a male who was "probably a juvenile" pointing a gun that was "probably fake" at passers by.
Police claimed that they told Rice to drop the weapon - but instead of dropping it he pointed it at police.
The police confirmed that the gun was a toy after Rice had been shot dead.
There were no prosecutions after this case. The police officer involved was sacked three years later for lying on his job application form.
4 April 2015: Walter Scott
Walter Scott was shot in the back five times by a white police officer, who was later fired and eventually sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Mr Scott had been pulled over for having a defective light on his car in North Charleston, South Carolina, and ran away from the police officer after a brief scuffle.
The killing sparked protests in North Charleston, with chants of "No justice, no peace".
5 July 2016: Alton Sterling
Alton Sterling's death led to days of protests in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Mr Sterling was killed after police responded to reports of a disturbance outside a shop.
The incident was caught on mobile phone footage and spread online.
The two officers involved did not face criminal charges, but one was dismissed and the other suspended from the police.
6 July 2016: Philando Castile
Philando Castile was killed while out driving with his girlfriend in St Paul, Minnesota.
Timeline of US police killings
He was pulled over by the police during a routine check, and told them he was licensed to carry a weapon, and had one in his possession.
He was shot as he was reaching for his licence, according to his girlfriend.
She live-streamed the encounter on Facebook. The officer involved was cleared of murder charges.
18 March 2018: Stephon Clark
Stephon Clark died after being shot at least seven times in Sacramento, California, by police who were investigating a break-in.
The district attorney said that the police had not committed a crime, as the officers said they feared for their lives believing Mr Clark was armed.
Only a mobile phone was found at the scene.
The release of a police video of the incident sparked major protests in the city.
13 March 2020: Breonna Taylor
Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician was shot eight times when officers raided her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky.
The police were executing a search warrant as part of a drugs raid, but no drugs were found.
Louisville police said they returned fire after one officer was shot and wounded in the incident. Of the three offices who discharged their weapons, one has been dismissed from the force and the other two put on administrative duties.
The family filed a lawsuit which says that Ms Taylor's partner - who was with her at the time - fired in self-defence because the police did not identify themselves, and he thought the apartment was being burgled.
In September, the family reached a settlement of $12m (£9.3m) with the Louisville city authorities, which also includes a series of police reforms.
On 23 September a US grand jury indicted one police officer over the fatal shooting.
25 May 2020: George Floyd
George Floyd died after being arrested in Minneapolis, and held down by police officers, one of whom had his knee on Mr Floyd's neck.
He pleaded that he couldn't breathe.
Protests broke out in cities across the US, and there were demonstrations in other parts of the world.
One officer has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, and three others will face charges of aiding and abetting murder.
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With hairdressers closed for much of lockdown, silver streaks started to appear in women's hair far more often. While most rushed for a cut and colour as soon as salon doors opened, others embraced the change and are planning to make it permanent. | By Emma Clifford BellBBC Scotland The Nine
Before lockdown Ellen MacLauchlan had her grey roots touched up every two to three weeks.
She says she saw her stylist more often than some of her friends and "everything revolved around a hairdressers' appointment".
"If someone asked me if I wanted to go on a night out or if I was going to book a holiday, I would be working out if it fell within a two-week period of getting my hair done."
But two months into lockdown Ellen had a "wee lightbulb moment" and realised she suited her natural colour.
"As soon as I made the decision, I just knew there was no going back," she says.
"I actually quite liked the grey coming in. I was getting problems with my scalp and the chemicals probably weren't the best to be putting on my hair so often."
The 47-year-old housing officer, from Gartcosh in North Lanarkshire, is now planning to treat herself with the money she will save.
"It probably works out around £70 a month," she says. "I'm going to get myself a good cut and some new clothes to match my new look."
"I'm loving it. I think I quite rock it. I feel good. I feel 'me' actually."
Allison Gardner knows that image is everything on the red carpet and the chief executive of Glasgow Film Theatre can't wait to show off her new hair.
"I think women probably are judged on their age more than men. We do all get older and no-one is 21 forever," she says.
"I'm going to embrace my age. It's going to be grey and fabulous for me going forward."
The 57-year-old cinema boss worked throughout lockdown, barely noticing the change in her appearance.
"I had bigger things to worry about," she says. "But when it got longer, I threatened to get my children to shave my head in frustration. I'm glad I decided to sit it out."
Allison would encourage other women to give it a go.
"I would say grey is the new blonde," she says. "It's so on trend. The most important thing about it is how you feel, not what your friends and family think."
"This is nature's way of giving me highlights"
There is nothing Sue Thompson enjoys more than the open road and the wind in her hair.
The 56-year-old motorcyclist lives near Thurso, the most northerly town in mainland Scotland.
She says people are surprised when she takes off her helmet.
"First of all, people assume you're a man," she says. "When I shake my hair out, it's like 'oh, it's a post-middle-aged woman who has just got off that bike' and I love that."
After a botched attempt to dye her roots at home, she decided to embrace the change.
"I bought a colour that was meant to be opal blonde but it was actually farmyard brown. It was horrible," she says.
"I think this is nature's way of giving me highlights without all that bleach so I thought I should really just embrace it."
Although her daughters have been supportive, Sue says not everyone in the family is convinced.
"My husband's less happy but then he's mostly white himself now and it looks great on him," she says. "I don't see why it should be any different for me.
"Soon I will be mostly grey, and that's the way I'll leave it. I'd say just be happy with how you look."
As a university academic, Kathryn Waite is usually most comfortable with her head in a book but she has found a new confidence since she stopped colouring her hair.
"I feel it's very authentic," she says. "I've really started to grow into my hairstyle and I feel quite proud of myself for doing that."
The keen walker, from Edinburgh, started to notice her grey roots in April but couldn't get her hands on the products she needed.
"I would have bought a dye if I could but they were as hard to come by as toilet roll at that time. There just wasn't any to be had," she says.
Curiosity got the better of Kathryn, who is in her late 50s, and she decided to let her natural colour grow in. She thinks the trend will take off.
"It's really fashionable - young people are choosing grey hair," she says. "When I go for a walk, I meet eyes with other women and see that they're doing it too.
"Historically, for women in the workplace with grey hair, it was probably considered that you weren't coming across as well groomed as you could be. But I think people are much more accepting of it now."
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Wikipedia is written and maintained by tens of thousands of volunteers across the world. Those, in turn, are assisted by hundreds of "bots" - autonomous computer programmes that keep the encyclopaedia running. | By Daniel NasawBBC News Magazine, Washington
"Penis is the male sex organ," the Wikipedia page in question read.
While that statement is undeniably true and thus may merit inclusion in Wikipedia, it belongs nowhere in the site's article on national
supreme courts
and their legal roles.
When an anonymous Wikipedia reader in South Carolina offered that contribution to the globally popular online encyclopaedia last week, it took just seconds for the blemish to be discovered and deleted.
The
vandalism
was caught not by a reader, but by a simple artificial intelligence programme called a bot - short for robot.
Virtually invisible
ClueBot NG, as the bot is known, resides on a computer from which it sallies forth into the vast encyclopaedia to detect and clean up vandalism almost as soon as it occurs.
It is one of several hundred bots patrolling Wikipedia at any given time. Its role in repairing the Supreme Court article illustrates how bots have quietly become an indispensable - if virtually invisible - part of the Wikipedia project.
"Wikipedia would be a shambles without bots," a Wikipedia administrator known on the site as Hersfold writes in an email.
English Wikipedia alone surpassed four million articles this month. It contains an estimated 2.5 billion words, equivalent to millions of pages, and it is 50 times larger than the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Wikipedia is maintained across all languages by tens of thousands of editors - about 77,000 of whom make more than five edits a month.
But the project is so vast, and its maintenance so labour-intensive that it defies the capability of its human administrators and editors to keep it in order.
Zapping wiki-vandals
That is where the bots come in.
"We had a joke that one day all the bots should go on strike just to make everyone appreciate how much work they do," says Chris Grant, a 19-year-old student in Perth, Australia who is on the Wikipedia committee that supervises the bots.
"The site would demand much more work from all of us and the editor burnout rate would be much higher."
The bots perform a wide range of editorial and administrative tasks that are tedious, repetitive and time-consuming but vital.
They delete vandalism and foul language, organise and catalogue entries, and handle the reams of behind-the-scenes work that keep the encyclopaedia running smoothly and efficiently and keep its appearance neat and uniform in style.
In brick-and-mortar library terms, bots are akin to the students who shelve books, move stacks from one range to another, affix bar codes to book spines and perform other grunt tasks that allow the trained librarians to concentrate on acquisitions and policy.
Can bots write?
"Wikipedia has just grown so much that I don't know how well people would handle it if all the bots went away," says Brad Jorsch, a computer programmer in North Carolina who runs a bot that tracks the tags reminding editors to add citations to articles.
Bots have been around almost as long as Wikipedia itself.
The site was founded in 2001, and the next year, one called rambot created about 30,000 articles - at a rate of thousands per day - on individual towns in the US.
The bot pulled data directly out of US Census tables. The articles read as if they had been written by a robot. They were short and formulaic and contained little more than strings of demographic statistics.
But once they had been created, human editors took over and filled out the entries with historical details, local governance information, and tourist attractions.
In 2008, another bot created thousands of tiny articles about asteroids, pulling a few items of data for each one from an online Nasa database.
Today, the Wikipedia community remains divided on the value of bot-written entries. Some administrators say a stub of an article listing only a few points of data is of little value; others say any new content is good.
Rogue bot fears
The upshot of the disagreement is bots are no longer permitted to write whole articles. But their ability to perform rote maintenance frees up human editors to do research and write entries and check one another's work to ensure accuracy.
"I don't think people realise how much maintenance and meta work goes on in Wikipedia," says Grant.
Some administrators fear a renegade bot will one day inflict catastrophic damage on the encyclopaedia. Think Skynet in the Terminator films.
Those fears are unfounded, says Grant.
For one, a bot is not like an automobile - if a part fails while in operation it will shut down rather than careen into something.
"You'd have to have someone actually have someone programme the bot to go crazy and delete everything," Grant says.
Bots with the rights to delete pages, block editors and take other drastic actions could only be run by editors already entrusted with administrative privileges, Grant says.
The bots do make mistakes, however, if they encounter a new circumstance their programming cannot account for. ClueBot NG, the anti-vandalism bot, has a small rate of false positives - edits it mistakes for vandalism, but which are in fact legitimate.
Since Wikipedia closely tracks edits, however, mistakes can be repaired almost as quickly as they happened, administrators say.
Human writers need not fear they will one day be replaced by bots, the bot masters say.
"It takes human judgement to write an article or proof an article or even clean up grammar and spelling," says Jorsch.
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Millions of women rely on the contraceptive pill and many are happy with it - but some find it has a devastating effect on their mental health. Here Vicky Spratt, deputy editor of The Debrief, describes years of depression, anxiety and panic as she tried one version of the pill after another. | I sat in the GP's office with my mum and told her that I'd been having my period for three weeks. She told me that the contraceptive pill might help. She warned that it wouldn't protect me from sexually transmitted infections and told me that if I had unprotected sex I could get cervical cancer, so I'd best use it wisely. She had to say that, though I was 14 and sex was very much not on the agenda.
My prescription was printed in reception. And then, a three-month supply of the combined pill was mine. Picking up the green foil-covered packets full of tiny yellow pills felt like a rite of passage - I was a woman now. In the plastic pockets was the sugar-coated distillation of feminism, of women's liberation, of medical innovation.
This is where it all began, 14 years ago. I then played what I call pill roulette for more than a decade, trying different brands with varying degrees of success and disaster. It was around this time that I also developed anxiety, depression and serious mood swings which, on and off, have affected me throughout my adult life.
Relationships have ended and I had to take a year out from university - I thought that was just "who I was", a person ill-equipped for life, lacking self-confidence and unhappy. It wouldn't be until my early 20s, after graduating from university - when my mental health problems and behaviour could no longer be dismissed as those of a "moody teenager" - that I would seriously question whether it was linked to my use of the pill.
Pill varieties
One day in the early hours, sitting at my laptop, unable to sleep because of a panic attack which had lasted overnight, I began to Google. I had started taking a new pill, a progestogen-only pill (POP) which had been prescribed because I was suffering from migraines, and the combined pill is not safe for people who suffer from migraines with aura.
I tapped the name of the pill + depression/anxiety into the search engine and the internet did the rest. There it was: forum threads and blog posts from people who were experiencing the same symptoms as me.
At this point I had already seen my GP several times, following the sudden onset of debilitating panic attacks, which I had never experienced before. At no point had my contraceptive pill come up in conversation, despite the fact that the attacks had started when I switched to the new contraceptive. Instead, I was prescribed a high dose of beta blockers, used to treat anxiety, and it was recommended that I should undergo cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
I lived like this for somewhere between six and eight months - I can't tell you exactly because that year of my life is a blur, recorded by my mind in fast-forward because of the constant sense of urgency and impending doom that coursed through my veins.
Find out more
The Debrief carried out an investigation, surveying 1,022 readers, aged 18-30
The Debrief's investigation in full
I wish, wholeheartedly, that I could look back on this and laugh. That's how all good stories end, isn't it? But there was then, and is now, nothing funny about what I went through. It was terrifying. I was scared. I didn't recognise myself, I didn't like myself and I couldn't live my life. I didn't know what to do, who to turn to or whether it would ever end. I was not only anxious but lethargic, I felt completely useless. I blamed myself.
At the time, convinced that I had lost my mind and feeling as though I was having an out-of-body experience, I explained to my GP that "I felt like someone else", as though my brain "had gone off and gone mouldy".
"Do you think this could have anything to do with my new pill?" I asked. I remember the look on her face, an attempt to look blank which barely concealed a desire to tell me I was ridiculous. I explained to her that I had felt awful on every single one of the six or seven pills I'd taken up until that point, with the exception of one high-oestrogen combined pill which made me feel like superwoman for a year, before it was taken away from me (partly because of the migraines and partly because of an increased risk of thrombosis with continued use).
She told me, categorically, that my new pill was not the problem.
But, disobeying both her and my therapist, I stopped taking the progestogen-only pill.
I can only describe what happened next as the gradual and creeping return of my sense of self. After three or four weeks I also stopped taking the beta blockers. To this day, I still carry them with me. They're in every handbag I own, a safety net should I fall off the enormous cliff of my own mind again. In three-and-a-half years I have never had to take them.
My problems didn't disappear overnight, of course, but I did stop having panic attacks. I haven't had one since. I feel low from time to time, anxious and stressed but it's nowhere near on the same scale as what I experienced while taking the progestogen-only pill. I felt joy again, my libido returned and I stopped feeling terrified of absolutely everything and everyone.
A year after the panic attacks subsided I sat on a faraway beach, after taking a solo long-haul flight halfway round the world. This would have been unthinkable the previous year. As I sat there, underneath a tropical electrical storm, I cried with relief. Relief that I was myself again, relief that I had control of my own mind once more and relief that I hadn't been wrong, that I knew myself better than doctors had made me feel I did.
Now 28, I no longer use hormonal contraception and with the exception of mild mood swings in the 48 hours before my period I am, touch wood, free of anxiety, depression and panic attacks.
In the years that have passed since I lost myself on the progestogen-only pill and found myself again on a South Asian beach, this issue has been gradually receiving more and more attention. Holly Grigg Spall's book, Sweetening The Pill, published in 2013, put the effects of hormonal contraception on women's mental health firmly on the agenda.
Since then a study, overseen by Prof Ojvind Lidegaard at the University of Copenhagen, found that women taking the pill - either the combined pill or the progestogen-only pill - were more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than those not on hormonal contraception. The difference was particularly noticeable for young women aged between 15 and 19 on the combined pill.
Lidegaard was able to conduct this research because he had access to medical records for more than a million Danish women aged 15-34.
Following the publication of Prof Lidegaard's study I sent a freedom of information request to the NHS, in my capacity as a journalist at The Debrief. I knew, from the number of our readers who write to us on a near-daily basis about this issue, that significant numbers of women were suffering. I asked the NHS whether they knew how many women were taking antidepressants or beta blockers concurrently. They told me that their systems do not yet allow them to collect this data.
The pill and depression
Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, says: "There is an established link between hormones and mood, both positive and negative, but for the vast majority of women, the benefits of reliable contraception and regulation of their menstrual cycle outweigh any side effects, and many women report that taking hormones actually boosts their mood.
"If a woman believes her contraception might be adversely affecting her mood, she should discuss it with a healthcare professional at her next routine appointment."
See also: How risky is the contraceptive pill?
Depression is listed as a known but rare side effect of the hormonal contraceptive pill, it's there in the small but hefty leaflet you get in the packet. The NHS website lists "mood swings" and "mood changes" but not explicitly depression, anxiety or panic attacks.
We shouldn't throw our pill packets away but neither should we accept negative side effects which impinge on our day-to-day lives. We can't make informed choices without information. We need better research into how hormonal contraception can affect women's mental health, better ways of monitoring reactions in patients, more awareness and support for those who do experience serious side effects. No woman should feel dismissed or ignored.
Vicky Spratt is deputy editor of The Debrief, a website for women in their 20s. Its investigation, Mad About The Pill, launched on Wednesday.
Listen to the discussion on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
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New York-based rapper Angel Haze has come third on the BBC's Sound of 2013 new music list.
The list, compiled using tips from more than 210 tastemakers, aims to highlight some of the most exciting emerging artists. We are revealing one artist from the top five in reverse order every day until Friday, when the winner will be announced. | By Greg CochraneBBC Newsbeat music reporter
Angel Haze remembers the date 8 September 2011.
That day, a shy, Detroit-raised, schoolgirl switched from being Raykeea Wilson and became straight-talking rapper Angel Haze.
"I was like, 'I have to do something. I don't want the mediocre life.' For me, it was a life or death situation," she says matter-of-factly. "I can choose to be happy, or choose to be miserable every day - waiting until I die."
In the 15 months since, the 21-year-old has risen to become one of the most talked about new talents in hip-hop.
But Haze's route to the cusp of stardom has not been all that typical.
It has been reported that her strict upbringing meant she was not allowed to listen to music, she has been written about as a "childhood cult survivor" and, by her own admission, she endured a troubled youth.
"I grew up in a really strict church," she begins. "It was considered a sin to listen to music. I was totally aware of it. I wanted to be into it, but I wasn't allowed to.
"And I was actually in a cult," she explains. "I don't like to describe it that way too much because the word 'cult' just sounds crazy. It was that, but... it was cool. It really altered the way I think and perceive things."
At the age of 16 came a life-shaping decision: Haze's mother gave her permission to listen to music - and it changed everything.
"I went crazy," she laughs. "I was like a kid in a candy store. I felt free, and immersed in music."
Not knowing where to start, she began by researching tracks she had heard in films. As her passion grew, she took to listening to as much music as possible - everything from Paramore to Eminem, New Radicals to nu metal, European classical musical to US rock.
At the same time, she revisited the poetry she had been writing as a teenager. With an abundance of freshly discovered musical influences, her personal style rapidly developed.
Working under the name Angel Haze, she released a pair of mixtapes online in 2011 - Reservation and Classick.
Her suave beats, punchy delivery and spectacular vocabulary - which she puts down to copying out the entire dictionary, twice, when she was grounded one summer - immediately caught the attention of journalists and industry bigwigs.
But it was one track in particular, the powerfully raw Cleaning Out My Closet, that stopped listeners in their tracks. Rapping over an Eminem sample, Haze talks graphically about her experiences of sexual abuse as a child and a series of rapes beginning when she was seven years old.
"When I wrote it I cried like a baby in the studio," she recalls.
"When you open up and give so much of yourself to the world, to the public, it feels like it's almost your dying day.
"I just let go in the studio and wrote. And when it came out, people were like, 'Oh my god you helped me, you told my story.' It was so worth it. At that moment I didn't care about anything else. It helped at least one person. It's like 'wow - that's a magnificent feeling.'"
She pauses: "I don't regret it. Had none of that stuff ever happened, I wouldn't be the artist I am today."
Indeed, it shocked many that a newcomer could arrive with such a brutally honest musical statement. But Haze says she does not want to be defined by the troubles of her past. Other tracks showcase her ability to be cynical, playful and funny.
She also enjoys surprising people with her varied music influences.
"It's because I'm a rapper - we're all expected to like a certain genre of music," she reasons. "I don't even really like rap music. I listen to Flyleaf, I listen to Gotye, I listen to some French composers. I don't limit myself to one kind of music because, if I did, I would just make that kind of music."
Given the choice, she would rather be a rock star than a rap star.
"It's so liberating - rock stars get to be, do, say whatever they want," she says.
"It shouldn't matter where I'm from, it shouldn't matter how many times I've been shot. No one puts that stigma on anyone in rock music."
Positive message
Do not be surprised then, if all goes to plan, that in between her dazzling rhymes, you'll see Haze strapping on an electric guitar on stage before too long.
"I love rock women," she enthuses, naming Hayley Williams from Paramore, Avril Lavigne and Tegan & Sara as some of her favourites. "They rule and no-one can tell them anything."
On her forthcoming album - she was recently signed up by Island Records - Haze hopes to work with an eclectic range of collaborators including Jason Mraz, Frank Ocean and The Weeknd.
Producer Paul Epworth, best known for his work with Adele, is also involved, and she has already released a track with London dance act Rudimental.
Some of Haze's life experiences may be unsettling, but ultimately, she says her message is positive.
"I want people to know that anything is possible," she says resolutely.
"That you can come from anywhere in the world, come from the dirtiest of places and go beyond that. There's nothing that you can't accomplish. Nothing can stop you."
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A man has suffered burns around his eyes after a 'noxious' substance was thrown in his face. | The victim, thought to be in his 30s, was taken to hospital for treatment following the incident in Market Drayton, Shropshire, on Friday afternoon.
Police did not confirm what the substance was but described it as 'noxious'.
A man, also in his 30s, has been arrested in connection with the matter.
The Fire Service attended the scene and described it as a chemical attack.
Police said they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident which took place in Shropshire Street.
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The Indonesian capital of Jakarta is home to 10 million people but it is also one of the fastest-sinking cities in the world. If this goes unchecked, parts of the megacity could be entirely submerged by 20 5 0, say researchers. Is it too late?
| By Mayuri Mei Lin & Rafki HidayatBBC Indonesian
It sits on swampy land, the Java Sea lapping against it, and 13 rivers running through it. So it shouldn't be a surprise that flooding is frequent in Jakarta and, according to experts, it is getting worse. But it's not just about freak floods, this massive city is literally disappearing into the ground.
"The potential for Jakarta to be submerged isn't a laughing matter," says Heri Andreas, who has studied Jakarta's land subsidence for the past 20 years at the Bandung Institute of Technology.
"If we look at our models, by 2050 about 95% of North Jakarta will be submerged."
It's already happening - North Jakarta has sunk 2.5m in 10 years and is continuing to sink by as much as 25cm a year in some parts, which is more than double the global average for coastal megacities.
Jakarta is sinking by an average of 1-15cm a year and almost half the city now sits below sea level.
The impact is immediately apparent in North Jakarta.
In the district of Muara Baru, an entire office building lies abandoned. It once housed a fishing company but the first-floor veranda is the only functional part left.
The submerged ground floor is full of stagnant floodwater. The land around it is higher so the water has nowhere to go. Buildings that are so deeply sunk are rarely abandoned like this, because most of the time the owners will try to fix, rebuild and find short-term remedies for the issue. But what they can't do is stop the soil sucking this part of the city down.
An open air fish market is just a five-minute drive away.
"The walkways are like waves, curving up and down, people can trip and fall," says Ridwan, a Muara Baru resident who often visits the fish market. As the water levels underground are being depleted, the very ground market-goers walk on is sinking and shifting, creating an uneven and unstable surface.
"Year after year, the ground has just kept sinking," he said, just one of many inhabitants of this quarter alarmed at what is happening to the neighbourhood.
North Jakarta has historically been a port city and even today it houses one of Indonesia's busiest sea ports, Tanjung Priok. Its strategic location where the Ciliwung river flows into the Java Sea was one of the reasons why Dutch colonists chose to make it their bustling hub in the 17th Century.
Today 1.8 million people live in the municipality, a curious mixture of fading port businesses, poor coastal communities and a substantial population of wealthy Chinese Indonesians.
Jakarta's land subsidence through the years
Fortuna Sophia lives in a luxurious villa with a sea view. The sinking of her home is not immediately visible but she says cracks appear in the walls and pillars every six months.
"We just have to keep fixing it," she says, standing beside her swimming pool with her private dock just a few metres away. "The maintenance men say the cracks are caused by the shifting of the ground."
She's lived here for four years but it has already flooded several times: "The seawater flows in and covers the swimming pool entirely. We have to move all our furniture up to the first floor."
The heroes and politics of Jakarta's floods
'Fossil' groundwater's modern secret
But the impact on the small homes right by the sea is magnified. Residents who once had a sea view now see only a dull grey dyke, built and rebuilt in a valiant attempt to keep seawater out.
"Every year the tide gets about 5cm higher," Mahardi, a fisherman, said.
None of this has deterred the property developers. More and more luxury apartments dot the North Jakarta skyline regardless of the risks. The head of the advisory council for Indonesia's Association of Housing Development, Eddy Ganefo, says he has urged the government to halt further development here. But, he says, "so long as we can sell apartments, development will continue".
The rest of Jakarta is also sinking, albeit at a slower rate. In West Jakarta, the ground is sinking by as much as 15cm annually, by 10cm annually in the east, 2cm in Central Jakarta and just 1cm in South Jakarta.
Coastal cities across the world are affected because of rising sea levels caused by climate change. Increased sea levels occur because of thermal expansion - the water expanding because of extra heat - and the melting of polar ice. The speed at which Jakarta is sinking is alarming experts.
It may seem surprising but there are few complaints from Jakartans because for residents here the subsidence is just one among a myriad of infrastructure challenges they have to deal with daily.
And that is part of the story of why this is happening.
The dramatic rate at which Jakarta is sinking is partly down to the excessive extraction of groundwater for use as drinking water, for bathing and other everyday purposes by city dwellers. Piped water isn't reliable or available in most areas so people have no choice but to resort to pumping water from the aquifers deep underground.
But when groundwater is pumped out, the land above it sinks as if it is sitting on a deflating balloon - and this leads to land subsidence.
The situation is exacerbated by lax regulation allowing just about anyone, from individual homeowners to massive shopping mall operators, to carry out their own groundwater extractions.
"Everyone has a right, from residents to industries, to use groundwater so long as this is regulated," says Heri Andreas. The problem is that they take more than what is allowed.
People say they have no choice when the authorities are unable to meet their water needs and experts confirm that water management authorities can only meet 40% of Jakarta's demand for water.
A landlord in central Jakarta, known only as Hendri, runs a dormitory-like block called a kos-kosan and has been pumping his own groundwater for 10 years to supply tenants. He is one of many on his street who do this.
"It's better to use our own groundwater rather than relying on the authorities. A kos-kosan like this needs a lot of water."
The local government has only recently admitted it has a problem with illegal groundwater extraction.
In May, the Jakarta city authority inspected 80 buildings in Central Jakarta's Jalan Thamrin, a road lined with skyscrapers, shopping malls and hotels. It found that 56 buildings had their own groundwater pump and 33 were extracting water illegally.
Jakarta's Governor Anies Baswedan says everyone should have a licence, which will enable the authorities to measure how much groundwater is being extracted. Those without a licence will have their building-worthiness certificate revoked, as would other businesses in the same building.
Authorities are also hoping that the Great Garuda, a 32km outer sea wall being built across Jakarta Bay along with 17 artificial islands, will help rescue the sinking city - at a cost of about $40bn.
It's being supported by the Dutch and South Korean governments and creates an artificial lagoon in which water levels can be lowered to allow the city's rivers to drain. It will help with the flooding which is an issue when the rains come.
But three Dutch non-profit groups released a report in 2017 which cast doubt on whether the sea wall and artificial islands could solve Jakarta's subsidence problem.
Jan Jaap Brinkman, a hydrologist with the Dutch water research institute Deltares, argues it can only ever be an interim measure. He says it will only buy Jakarta an extra 20-30 years to stop the long-term subsidence.
"There is only one solution and everybody knows the solution," he says.
That would be to halt all groundwater extraction and solely rely on other sources of water, such as rain or river water or piped water from man-made reservoirs. He says Jakarta must do this by 2050 to avoid major subsidence.
It is not a message that is being taken to heart yet and Jakarta's Governor Anies Baswedan thinks a less drastic measure will do.
He says people should be able to extract groundwater legally as long as they replace it using something called the biopori method.
This involves digging a hole, 10cm in diameter and 100cm deep, into the ground to allow water to be reabsorbed into the soil.
Critics say this scheme would only replace water at a superficial level, whereas in Jakarta water is often pumped out from several hundred metres below ground level.
There is technology to replace groundwater deep at its source but it's extremely expensive. Tokyo used this method, known as artificial recharge, when it faced severe land subsidence 50 years ago. The government also restricted groundwater extraction and businesses were required to use reclaimed water. Land subsidence subsequently halted.
But Jakarta needs alternative water sources for that to work. Heri Andreas, from Bandung Institute of Technology, says it could take up to 10 years to clean up the rivers, dams and lakes to allow water to be piped anywhere or used as a replacement for the aquifers deep underground.
Jakarta's residents adopt a somewhat fatalistic attitude to their future in this sinking city.
"Living here is a risk," says Sophia Fortuna in her home. "The people here have all accepted that risk."
Additional reporting by Tom de Souza. Interactive elements Arvin Surpriyadi, Davies Surya, and Leben Asa.
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A large concrete swastika has been unearthed during excavations for new changing rooms in a sports club in the German city of Hamburg. | The swastika, measuring four by four metres (13ft by 13ft), was buried 40cm underground in the Billstedt district.
The city's officials ordered the structure to be removed immediately but it was too heavy to be lifted by an excavator.
It will now be destroyed into smaller pieces by jackhammer.
Members of the Billstedt-Horn sports club said the structure was the foundation for a large Nazi-era monument that once stood at the site and was demolished decades ago.
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A teenager has denied the murder of a man who was found stabbed in a city centre. | Lee Cooper, 28, was attacked in Union Road, Nottingham, at about 19:40 BST on 14 September.
Ethan Austin, 19, of Mayo Road in the city, appeared via video link at Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday where he pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.
He was remanded into custody and is due back in court in January.
Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
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Two weeks ago, a British-owned cruise ship accidentally ran aground in one of Indonesia's most pristine coral reefs, causing extensive damage. For local people, who rely on dive tourism, it is a sad and worrying time. | By Christine FranciskaBBC Indonesian Service
"I was born here, I was in tears when I saw this damage," said Ruben Sauyai.
"The damage is huge and acute. It could take 10 to 100 years to repair it."
A professional diving instructor, Mr Sauyai, 30, runs a home stay and dive centre on Raja Ampat, a remote and idyllic island chain in the west of Indonesia's Papua province.
"Some people work as fishermen or farmers, but mostly we work in the tourism sector," said Mr Sauyai, who started up his dive centre six years ago.
Tens of thousands of people have been to visit the underwater beauty of the area in recent years.
But on 4 March, the 4,290-tonne Caledonian Sky, owned by British company Noble Caledonia, was completing a bird-watching tourism trip on Waigeo Island when it veered slightly off course.
It ran aground during low tide, smashing through the coral reefs.
An early official evaluation last week said the incident had damaged approximately 1,600 sq m of coral in one of the world's most beautiful reefs.
Videos recorded by various divers show that the reefs had been eroded by the hull, leaving large bleached scratches.
It was an "unfortunate" incident, said Noble Caledonia, adding that they were "firmly committed to protection of the environment" and fully backed an investigation.
Ricardo Tapilatu, head of the Research Center for Pacific Marine Resources at the University of Papua is part of the official evaluation team.
He said the ship had been caught in low tide despite being equipped with GPS and radar instruments.
"A tugboat from Sorong city was deployed to help refloat the cruise ship, which is something that shouldn't have happened because it damaged the reef even more," Mr Tapilatu told environmental news site Mongabay. "They should have waited for high tide" to refloat the vessel.
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Amazon Reef: First images of new coral system
Coral reefs: The ocean's larder
He believes that given the area's reputation - and the fact that it's a national park - the company should pay $1.28m-$1.92m in compensation.
The incident has not only angered local people but also social media users in Indonesia.
"This is unacceptable! Do they know how long it takes for corals to form? Have you seen the damage?" said one Facebook user, Feby Riani.
"This is Raja Ampat... one of the world's most beautiful coral reefs!"
An online petition has been launched demanding that Noble Caledonia doesn't just give financial compensation but is also present to repair the destruction.
The ship has since been refloated and the company said that based on the inspection "the hull was undamaged and remained intact".
The ship itself "did not take on water, nor was any pollution reported as a result of the grounding", said the company.
But Laura Resti, from Raja Ampat's homestay association, said they were really saddened.
"Coral reefs are the main thing that attracts many tourists here. It is counterproductive for our tourism prospects."
Mr Sauyai said he has avoided taking tourists to that particular spot since the incident because most of the natural life there had "gone".
"We have tried to conserve those coral reefs for a long time, and just within few hours they were gone.
"I am so sad and feel ashamed to take tourists there."
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Emergency services are at the scene of a serious crash between a lorry and a van in Suffolk. | Five ambulances, police, firefighters and an air ambulance were called to the A140 at Little Stonham, near Stowmarket, just after 15:20 GMT.
The road has since been closed in both directions at the junction with the A1120.
Suffolk Police described the crash as "serious" and said the main road was likely to be closed for some time.
The extent of injuries of those involved is not known.
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This table, produced by BBC Wales, ranks all secondary schools in Wales by the total score they were given by the Welsh government.
| It's an assessment of a school's performance in the academic year 2010-11, where the lowest scores represent the best performance.
The scores were derived by assessing school performance within four categories including GCSE results and attendance.
Within each category, a school's score is modified to take into account the percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals.
Most of the categories also take into account progress over time, to reward schools that are making improvements in performance.
The scores are used by the Welsh government to rank the schools into five bands.
The best possible score was 11 and the worst possible score was 44.
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Cornwall is to be home to the UK's first Chinese-owned solar farms, the BBC has learned.
| Nanjing-based company China Sunergy has bought two areas with solar farm planning permission - in Higher Tregarn at Mawnan Smith, near Falmouth; and at Tregavethan, near Truro.
China Sunergy plans to build the five megawatt farms and have them working by April 2013 to secure subsidies.
Five megawatts can provide enough power to supply about 1,000 homes.
Cornwall already has about 12 solar farms.
Permission has been granted for more than 20 more.
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A new sculpture has been installed in Fort William to recall the driving of a Ford Model T up and down Ben Nevis. | Henry Alexander Jr, the son of an Edinburgh car dealer, completed the challenge in 1911.
Model T owners along with local history enthusiasts were the driving forces behind the creation of the new sculpture.
It was unveiled in Fort William's Square in a ceremony on Saturday that featured a parade of original Model Ts.
Powderhall Bronze, a foundry in Edinburgh, made the sculpture of the car with Alexander Jr behind the wheel.
The making of the three-tonne public art was been overseen by Mark Stoddart, a designer and artist based in Ladybank, Ayrshire.
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Standing opposite an arch commemorating Italy's liberation from fascism at the end of the World War Two, a group of men dressed in black are huddled beneath a gazebo. They're supporters of Casa Pound - a fringe political party that claims to be inspired by the poet Ezra Pound. | By Ritula ShahBBC World Tonight, Milan
Massimo Trefiletti proudly proclaims himself and his party as fascists. The irony of standing opposite a monument to their defeat doesn't escape him. Mr Trefiletti says 25 April 1945 isn't a day of national pride but of loss. As for the future, he wants Italy to turn its back on the EU, close its borders and deport all the immigrants.
Casa Pound is supported by a tiny minority of Italians but its nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric is being echoed by other parties in the run-up to the country's general election on 4 March.
About 600,000 people have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean and landed on Italian shores in the past four years. Now, Italian politicians of all stripes are competing to show they will be tough on these new and increasingly unwelcome arrivals.
If the polls are to be believed - and they are being treated with caution, as Italy's election is being held under a new voting system - the centre-right coalition, led by Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, is in the lead.
Mr Berlusconi has described the illegal migrants living in Italy as a "social time-bomb ready to explode", and has pledged mass deportations.
League, formerly known as the Northern League, is the other main member of that coalition. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, is a friend of France's far-right opposition leader Marine Le Pen and an admirer of Russia's President Vladimir Putin. His slogan is "Italians first".
In the party's sprawling regional headquarters in Milan, I meet Paolo Grimoldi, a League deputy who is running for another term in parliament. In his smoke-filled office, he tells me Italy should be able to choose who can come and live here.
"It's better to take immigrants from Ukraine... they are Christians, or from Belarus, they are not Muslims and they cannot be terrorists. I want to have the right to make choices. I think in this moment, we don't need immigrants."
Mr Grimoldi supports the efforts of French and Austrian police to send back to Italy illegal migrants who try to cross the border. "Our government chose to take illegal immigrants - this is the reason why France is checking on the border... if you take an airplane from London to Moscow or Ankara they will ask to see your documents... I think it should be normal."
About 20 minutes away, on the other side of Milan, a group of teenage boys plays table tennis. They are migrants, many of whom arrived in Italy as unaccompanied minors. They wait for an English lesson to start at a centre run by Save the Children.
Jawad is 17. His family is in Morocco. He chews gum and giggles nervously as he explains how he came to Italy alone. He wants a better life and isn't deterred by the idea of a hostile Italian public.
"I know that some people here are xenophobic... Some believe that diversity is good for Italy but others see us as a threat. I cannot change the way people think."
And judging by the stance of the main political parties, the election rivals believe most Italians see the migrants as a threat.
Polls suggest the anti-establishment Five Star Movement may be the single most popular party among voters. It is Eurosceptic and it, too, takes a hard line on the migrant issue and puts the blame on the EU. Manlio Di Stefano, a party deputy, says: "[Those] who come here, need to be integrated in a real way. We are taking money just to be the open port of the European Union, that's not fair."
The number of people arriving on Italian shores has dropped dramatically - in part due to an EU policy, led by Italy, of helping the Libyan authorities to intercept migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean and return them to detention centres in Libya. The policy has been criticised by the UN as inhumane. This has happened under the current government, led by the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
But Lia Quartapelle, a deputy for the PD, says it is the best solution.
"Asking the Libyan authorities to take care of their borders is THE way to tackle illegal flows and to stop the smugglers," she says.
She argues that aid workers and international reporters have only been able to investigate the conditions because of the agreement. But as the incumbent, the challenge for the PD is to counter or match the tough anti-immigrant rhetoric of the parties on the right.
The outcome of the election is unpredictable. But it is certain that politics in Italy, as in much of the EU, is being reshaped by migration.
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Monique Jackson believes she caught Covid-19 early in the pandemic and nearly six months later she's still unwell. One of thousands in this position, she has been keeping an illustrated diary about her symptoms and her vain attempts to get treatment. | By Stephanie HegartyPopulation correspondent
About a year ago, Monique Jackson watched a Ted talk about mushrooms and was enthralled. Fungi, the speaker said, are the original world wide web, they have a network that runs under entire forests; it enables trees to help each other if they get into trouble.
These days, as she battles the coronavirus for the 24th week in a row, it's something she thinks about often.
She has suspected "long-tail Covid" a distinct reaction to the virus that doctors are just beginning to study. She got sick in March and at first it seemed to be a mild version of the disease but her symptoms have never gone away. Months later, she is struggling to understand what is happening to her body.
Monique is an extrovert, almost hyperactive she says. In normal times, she practises Thai boxing and jiu-jitsu and cycles 12 miles a day to and from her job in an art gallery in central London.
But the past few months have profoundly changed her life. Now, she has a list on her bedroom wall reminding her to save enough energy each day to brush her teeth.
"I'm not a lazy person," she says. Some days, though, it's all she can do to get down the stairs.
While her body refuses to co-operate she's found an outlet for her restlessness in Instagram, where she's started an illustrated diary of her symptoms.
She's using the diary to tell people about this new condition and to connect with others in the same position, the "long-haulers".
Much about coronavirus is confounding doctors but "long-tail" Covid is one of the most puzzling features of the pandemic. Why are some people getting a version of the illness that just isn't going away - often those who were only mildly affected in the first place?
Monique got sick at the same time as a friend, after they took a train journey together. At the beginning they would keep in touch, their symptoms mirrored each other almost perfectly but then they broke off contact for a while.
"I had to stop, it was too freaky," Monique says.
For the first two weeks she felt fluey - she was so tired she could barely get out of bed. It was still cold in London yet she was barely dressed and held a bag of ice to her head to keep cool. Thermometers were sold out but she thinks she must have had a temperature.
"It's weird saying 'I think'. So much of this is just, you think - but you just don't know."
By week two she was struggling to breathe. An ambulance came but said her oxygen levels were OK. "They told me I was having a panic attack, potentially off the back of symptoms." She wasn't tested for Covid-19 then because in March the UK was reserving the small number of test kits it had for the most extreme cases.
She tried to treat herself with natural remedies. When eating raw garlic and whole chilli peppers, she remembers thinking it was weird that she couldn't taste anything. And she was tired. "I didn't have energy to text more than two people a day," she says.
After two weeks, some of the symptoms lifted but they just seemed to be replaced with new ones. "I had this pinch in the centre of my chest. And that pinch turned into what felt like a sort of fire," she says. "It was like teeth-gritting pain on the left side. I thought I was having a heart attack."
She called 111 and they advised taking paracetamol. They said it seemed to make the pain disappear for some people though they didn't fully understand why.
The paracetamol worked but almost as soon as that pain went her stomach and throat began to burn "like fire" when she ate. Doctors thought she had an ulcer. It wasn't until later that gastric problems were recognised as a symptom of the virus.
About six weeks in, Monique started having burning sensations when she urinated and pain in her lower back. The doctor put her on three different rounds of antibiotics before deciding it wasn't a bacterial infection.
"It was just agony," she says. "And then it just went."
Monique cut herself off from social media. Even listening to podcasts was difficult because any mention of Covid would make her anxious and affect her breathing. A self-confessed news junkie, now she couldn't face it.
She was afraid that if she went on social media she would see post after post of dead bodies. She found solace in online shopping but even entering a dress size in the search tab brought up horror stories about new symptoms of the disease. "I was actually scared of going on Google," she says
After a while she asked a friend to fill her in on what had been happening in the world. One of the first things she learned was that a higher proportion of people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds were dying. Monique is mixed-race and she was scared.
"It felt like a horror film where all the black people died off," she says.
One day she was lying in the bath listening to a podcast when the two white hosts casually mentioned that a lot of African Americans were dying from Covid-19.
She sat bolt upright and immediately grabbed her phone to email black relatives in the US.
And she reflected on the fact that the majority of people she had relied on lately had been members of minorities - the Uber drivers who took her to appointments, the hospital workers, the people in the corner shop where her food came from. "Everyone who I was seeing on my Covid journey," she says.
In her regular day-to-day life, it wasn't like that.
As weeks went by, some symptoms swapped out for others, getting more and more bizarre. A pain in her neck was accompanied by a strange sensation in her ear, like a packet of crisps being crushed in someone's hand. Her hands went blue and she had to rush to a warm tap to try to bring the blood back into them. The doctor later asked if she had taken a picture, but it had been the last thing on her mind.
"I kept calling about new symptoms and I would be asked, 'How's your mental health doing?'" she says. "The implication being that these symptoms weren't treatable or weren't real pain."
She got strange rashes all over her body or her toes would go bright red, sometimes she would wake up with stabbing pains in different parts of her torso.
One night, as she was talking to her friend on the phone she felt the right side of her face drop. She went straight to the mirror but her face looked normal. She was worried she was having a stroke but the doctors found no evidence of one.
She's had strange sensations all over her body too. Sometimes it feels like someone is grabbing her leg with their hands or hairs are being dragged across her face - even inside her mouth.
She spent a lot of time trying to explain what was happening to doctors. Often she only had a five or 10-minute call in which to try to relay everything that was happening in her body and it wasn't enough.
"If they'd said to me, 'Look, you've got Covid, and we have no idea how to treat this,' then that'd be fine," she says.
She squirms as she tries to summarise how she was treated. She's reluctant to criticise staff of the NHS, many of whom have given her excellent care but she says the system isn't working for people in her position.
It was nine weeks before Monique could get a test for coronavirus. During that time, she was terrified of passing the virus to someone else.
Government advice said to isolate for seven days or until symptoms went away - but what if they never went away, she thought.
Her flatmates devised a system to avoid contact in the house - they each had a spot on the fridge they'd use to pull it open.
Then they would go to their rooms to eat alone.
One day she went to get some fresh air at a park near her house with a friend when a small child ran up close to her. Monique jumped up to get away from the toddler. The mother was indignant. "The child was nowhere near you!" she said. Monique tried to explain, she wasn't afraid of getting infected, she was afraid of passing the virus on. Sick people should stay at home, the mother told her.
She hopes that her diary will help people to understand that it's not always that simple.
While friends went out of their way to help her, Monique could tell that others were getting fed up. None of what was happening to her made sense to anyone. "One person said I was becoming obsessed with having Covid," she says.
Finally the UK government opened up testing to anyone showing symptoms. She was thrilled but there was a catch - the only centre she could find was a drive-in and she didn't have a car. "Most of my friends can't even drive," she says.
One friend did step up and give her a lift, and the fact that he put himself at risk in the process isn't lost on her.
At the testing centre she expected to be reassured by nurses and doctors but instead it was staffed by soldiers, their khakis soaked on a sweaty day in June. As she stuck a cotton swab up her nose it struck her how young they were.
The results came back negative - proving that she no longer had the virus, though not that she had never had it. It was a huge relief because she'd been told this meant she couldn't infect her friends and family. But she felt strange. "The feeling of being contagious is psychologically very hard to move on from," she wrote in her diary later. It was also confusing because she wasn't feeling any better.
Four months after she first got sick, she decided to move out of her house-share in East London. Keeping up with simple things like cleaning was difficult and she wanted to be around family who could help her.
Her breathing had improved, whereas at the beginning she couldn't make it up the stairs without stopping to catch her breath by July she could do it one go.
But after picking up the hoover for about four minutes to try to clean her room she collapsed from breathlessness. She was in bed for three weeks after that.
Monique has no idea how to get better. She may never know for sure that she had Covid-19 but many Londoners were catching it in March and loss of taste is a strong indicator. She recently had an antibody test that came back negative, but as the NHS points out, some people who've had the virus do not have antibodies.
"A lot of people tell me, 'Monique, you will be able to cycle again and you will be able to box and you can come around to my house when you're feeling better.' But for me, that's not really that helpful."
Doctors still don't know how to help people with these symptoms that won't go away.
"It's been about acceptance of what I can and can't do and just being flexible because sometimes you'll have plans for the day and your body just doesn't care about those plans," Monique says.
"The thing is, I would get stuck into doing emails or talking to doctors, and then I'd speak to my friends and then I'd be exhausted and I wouldn't brush my teeth."
She has managed to get mental health therapy which gives her tools to manage the new reality of her ill-health and she's campaigning for this support to be available to everyone on the NHS.
One thing she never expected was that her illness would connect her to other mushroom enthusiasts.
Mushrooms have antiviral properties, she explains in one of her posts. But they're also part of something bigger and more beautiful.
They're the fruit of the mycelium - a network of underground threads, which are in contact with the roots of nearby trees. The mycelium swaps nutrients with these roots. Many fungi experts believe they also help trees to communicate with each other, taking nutrients from one healthy tree to another that is struggling.
It reminds her of the friends that brought food to her door, month after month. The people that she has relied on so much since she got sick.
"Isolated in my room," she posted on her Instagram diary, "I felt more connected than ever."
Follow Monique's diary on Instagram @_coronadiary
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Long after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, doctors are still on a steep learning curve. One surprise is just how long symptoms seem to last, for some patients. Dr John Wright of Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) talks to two young women who are still tired and breathless many weeks after falling ill.
She's fit, young and has been ill with Covid for months
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The most obvious cause of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station was the massive wall of tsunami water that swept the site clean of back-up electricity generation on 11 March, removing cooling capacity from reactor cores and resulting in serial meltdown. | By Richard BlackEnvironment correspondent, BBC News
Would a newer reactor have fared better? Was the relationship between industry and regulators too close? Perhaps.
A question less often discussed, but equally intriguing, is whether decisions made half a century ago for reasons of commercial and geopolitical advantage have left the world with basic designs of nuclear reactor that are inherently less safe than others that have fallen by the wayside.
To make an analogy with the world of videotape: have we been guilty of rejecting the nuclear Betamax in favour of an inferior quality VHS?
The rise of nuclear energy from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki began in the 1950s, against the ever falling temperatures of the Cold War.
Having exploded the first bombs in 1945, the US government believed it would have a 20-year head start on the rest of the world in just about everything nuclear.
It passed the McMahon Act, keeping nuclear know-how within US borders - notably the technology for enriching uranium developed during the Manhattan Project.
Its lead did not last long, however. The Soviet Union exploded its first A-bomb just four years later, followed soon afterwards by the UK.
Washington needed something else.
"The Americans suddenly thought 'it's not obvious to the world that we have dominated and won the nuclear race, so we need to make it clear that we are the leaders'," says Robin Cowan, an economist from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.
"So they wanted to show they could create civilian power with nuclear generation."
Seeing the light
An experimental US reactor called EBR-1 generated the first nuclear electricity at its home in Argonne National Laboratory, sending current through a series of lightbulbs in 1951.
But the US did not open the world's first civilian nuclear power station; that honour went to the USSR, whose tiny Obninsk reactor opened in 1953.
And the world's first commercial-scale nuclear station was the UK's Calder Hall, opened the following year.
The race for nuclear power - and with it, political influence - was underway.
"[Soviet chief Nikita] Khrushchev... recognised that achievements in nuclear power made it possible to compete with the United States in the world arena - to say 'our system, the socialist system, is the best - look who is first in areas of science and technology'," relates Soviet historian Paul Josephson.
"You see a rebirth of hope that there will be a glorious communist future, perhaps a nuclear-powered future."
All of these early reactors used different designs, with everyone except US scientists forced to work with natural uranium rather than the enriched variety.
"The availability of uranium to the UK was reasonably secure; but what the UK didn't have was enrichment technology, which was in the United States," recalls Laurence Williams, professor of nuclear safety at the University of Central Lancashire.
"So the UK had to rely on natural uranium, which needed to be moderated using graphite - so that pushed us down a graphite-moderated gas-cooled reactor programme."
The moderator is the material inside a reactor needed to slow neutrons, the particles that travel from nucleus to nucleus - the "chain" of the chain reaction.
With enriched uranium, ordinary water - so-called light water - will do.
But natural uranium, with a lower density of fissile nuclei, requires either graphite or heavy water, in which the ordinary hydrogen atoms are replaced by atoms of deuterium, a heavier isotope of hydrogen.
Obninsk was a different concept again, graphite-moderated but water-cooled.
EBR-1 was something yet more exotic - a fast breeder reactor, with the core cooled by liquid sodium, creating more nuclear fuel than it consumed.
So fertile was the imagination of nuclear scientists that by the time the United Nations convened its Conference on Peaceful Uses of the Atom in 1955, more than 100 ideas were on the table.
Pressurised decision
Yet now, the nuclear world is dominated by one - the light water reactor, powered by enriched uranium.
The reasons behind this virtual technical monopoly originate underwater.
The top US priority was to develop a reactor capable of powering submarines. A naval officer with a reputation for getting things done, Hyman Rickover, was appointed to lead the task.
Submarine reactors need to be small and compact, and avoid the use of materials such as hot sodium that could prove an explosive hazard.
The light water reactor, with the water under pressure to prevent it from boiling and turning to steam, was Rickover's choice. It quickly entered service powering the Nautilus, the world's first nuclear submarine.
The reputation Rickover gained through the submarine's succesful maiden voyage put him in a powerful position when decisions were being made concerning the first US nuclear power station at Shippingport in Pennsylvania.
"When the civilian urgency came - 'we must prove to the world that we are the leaders' - obviously you pick the one that works," says Robin Cowan.
"So [Rickover] essentially forced the labs to say 'well, if you have to build a nuclear reactor now, the one you want is light water - not that we think it's the right one, but if you have to make a decision today, light water is the one you want'."
The Nautilus reactor was constructed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, which began to see the pressurised light water reactor (PWR) as a commercial option.
Meanwhile, other US government labs worked with the General Electric Corporation to develop a variant, the boiling water reactor (BWR) - the type used at Fukushima.
With the US government now actively courting friendly European countries with enriched uranium and other nuclear technology, partly to immunise them against Soviet lures, Westinghouse and General Electric began to market their wares in Europe and the US - and eventually further afield.
"They had a huge vested interest in dominating the nuclear power space - they stood to make many times the amount of money building a nuclear plant as they did a comparable coal or natural gas facility," says technology writer Alexis Madrigal.
"The combination of those two forces - governmental support combined with the corporate imperatives of these two massive corporations - led to this time period which is known as the 'great bandwagon market'. Essentially, both started selling nuclear plants at way below cost."
These lures proved too much for Europe to resist.
France, which had been building gas-cooled graphite-moderated reactors similar to the UK's Magnox design, embraced PWRs in the 1970s.
In 1980, even the UK abandoned its Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR) programme, and decided its next reactor - Sizewell B - would be a PWR.
Today, only Canada manufactures anything different on a commercial scale - the heavy water-moderated Candu reactors.
So light water reactors, BWRs and PWRs, dominate the nuclear world.
But are they the best?
Back in the 1950s, engineers believed they were not, with research indicating gas-cooled designs would be more efficient, producing cheaper electricity.
There is an argument that gas-cooled reactors are inherently safer as well.
Because the cores are bigger, the density of heat in them is lower - meaning that in principle, operators would have longer to respond to a developing crisis before meltdown occurred.
In addition, if cooling pumps fail, the gas should continue to circulate through natural convection.
This is a marked contrast to light water reactors, in which - as the Fukushima disaster demonstrated - loss of power can mean catastrophic loss of cooling.
Alvin Weinberg, a physicist who worked on many of the early US reactors and directed research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), said during an interview in the 1980s that the scaling-up of PWRs for commercial use rendered them fundamentally flawed.
"As long as the reactor was as small as the submarine intermediate reactor, which was only 60 megawatts (MW), then the containment shell was absolute, it was safe," he said.
"But when you went to 600MW reactors and 1,000MW reactors, you could not guarantee this, because you could in some very remote situations conceive of the containment being breached by this molten mass; and that change came about, I would assert, because of the enormous economic pressure to make the reactors as large as possible."
At Idaho National Laboratory in the US, Don Miley argues that EBR-2, the successor to EBR-1, showed just how much better sodium-cooled reactors perform under stress than the water-cooled variety at Fukushima.
"They ran an experiment in 1986 in which safety systems were taken offline, they were not allowed to function - and then they turned off their coolant pumps, which nobody in the world had dared to do in a reactor yet.
"And strictly through reactor design - not through engineered systems or operator action, just reactor designs and two very simple concepts, convection currents and thermal expansion - this reactor shut itself down in 300 seconds without any damage to the fuel - in fact, it was re-started the same day."
Closed field
Other reactor concepts that offer major theoretical advantages over light water reactors have fallen by the wayside, or remain stuck in the research stage.
These include designs that use thorium rather than uranium as fuel, resulting in less long-lived waste and a lower weapons proliferation risk, and travelling wave reactors that burn their waste as they operate.
Would any of these, or gas-cooled graphite-moderated designs, have proven superior to light water designs - even the latest ones that proponents claim have learned the lessons of the past and now incorporate more passive safety systems?
It is not certain - the British AGRs had their problems, and fast breeders have also seen a number of incidents.
Even more provocatively, would any of these lineages have led to reactors that could have survived the Fukushima deluge, averting the need for many thousands of people to leave their homes and for the government to shell out $100bn or so in compensation?
John Idris Jones, a physicist who has worked at the Magnox station at Wylfa in Wales for more than 30 years, believes a gas-graphite reactor would have survived.
"A plant like that, a plant like Wylfa, then Wylfa would be able to keep on cooling itself, yes," he says.
Probably we shall never know whether adopting light water has proved to be nuclear power's VHS moment.
Despite continuing research interests in more exotic designs, virtually all commercial reactors being planned and built around the world are PWRs and BWRs.
"With technologies that do the same thing, very often one of them comes to dominate," says Robin Cowan.
"It's very hard to undo that; we have so much more experience with light water that it would be hard to convince yourself to go back to the beginning and start developing heavy water or gas-graphite.
"So if we look today, probably light water looks pretty good; but had they made a different decision in 1955, what would the world be like?
"That's a much harder thing to document."
But it is, perhaps, a question governments should be contemplating as they consider whether to embark on reactor building programmes that would entrench current designs for further decades to come.
You can hear more about the history of nuclear power in Atomic States, broadcast this week on the BBC World Service. Listen to it here. Atomic States is a Freewheel Production.
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The Scots Makar - or national poet - Edwin Morgan has died at the age of 90.
Widely regarded as one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th Century, his poetry spanned more than 60 years and included celebrated works such as The Second Life (1968) and From Glasgow to Saturn (1973).
Here, figures from across Scotland and the UK pay tribute to Mr Morgan's life.
| Alex Salmond, first minister of Scotland
His passion for observing all aspects of Scottish life shone a spotlight on Scotland for the rest of the world.
I vividly recall the poem he wrote for the opening of the Scottish Parliament, when he wrote 'Don't let your work and hope be other than great'. That epithet must surely apply to Edwin Morgan himself.
Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate
A great, generous, gentle genius has gone. He was poetry's true son and blessed by her. He is quite simply irreplaceable.
Iain Gray, Scottish Labour leader
Edwin Morgan OBE was widely recognised as one of the foremost and best loved poets of the 20th century, the last of a great generation of Scottish poets.
Nick Barley, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival
As well as being one of the greatest British poets of the last 50 years, Morgan was also the last link to a great generation of Scottish writers than included Sorley MacLean, Norman MacCaig and Hugh MacDiarmid.
His work transcended genres, was constantly challenging and inspiring, and encapsulated all that is great about Scottish poetry and writing.
Poet Dr David Kinloch, Co-founder of the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition
His work remained constantly innovative, from the renowned science fiction, concrete and instamatic poems studied by school pupils across the country to his recent collaboration with the band Idlewild.
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The Green Goddess - the original keep-fit queen of the 80s - is making a comeback on BBC Breakfast. Eighty-year-old Diana Moran will be doing exercises three times a week from self-isolation so viewers can follow along at home. | By Emily Young & Lauren TurnerBBC News
So what else can you do to keep fit and healthy while heeding the new advice about staying at home?
"There are tonnes of things you can do from your chair or sofa - squats, tricep dips, crunches, body work exercises and so on," says Cardiff-based personal trainer Keris Hopkins.
"If you have kids at home, you can get them involved. Make activities fun, like running around or playing hide and seek. Just keep moving," says the 37-year-old, who has started filming workout videos at home for people to follow along.
"It's important to plan your day - for example 7am to 8am work out online. It will help people find a focus if they plan. And if you can get outside, try to get your 10,000 steps done."
Becky Hill and Kate Williams run Raise the Bar boot camps in Oxfordshire. For now, they continue to take place for whoever is able to attend - with people keeping at least 10 feet apart and equipment being cleaned between each use. But they are also launching an online version for people self-isolating, a move which many gyms and personal trainers are making.
Exercise "decreases stress and anxiety," says Becky Hill, who is also a fitness trainer and therapist. Everyone is stressed at the moment and people aren't sleeping she says. "But if you're moving, you're likely to sleep better."
But how much you can do, depends on which type of household you fall into says, Dr Charlie Foster, Head of the Centre for Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences at Bristol University, who also advises the UK chief medical officers on physical activity.
If you are under 70 with no underlying conditions you can still be active outside as long as you stay at least two metres (three paces) away from other people. So walking the dog (or even your neighbour's dog), going for a run or going for a bike ride are all fine - provided you keep your distance.
Public spaces such as swimming pools and gyms are not banned - but if you use them, be sure their equipment and surfaces have been thoroughly cleaned. And of course you can do your bit cleaning any equipment you use. Dr Foster says it's preferable to exercise outside.
Team sports are not advised for now - but tennis is ok for the moment as long as you wash your hands first, don't shake hands afterwards and keep your distance.
If you are over 70 and self-isolating, pregnant or have an underlying health condition, but feel well, you can also go outside with the same caveat of keeping your distance from others.
For older people, strength and balance exercises are particularly important, says Jess Kuehne, senior program manager from the Centre for Ageing Better, as muscle strength starts to decline rapidly after our 30s. She recommends yoga, tai chi, resistance training and seated exercises.
If you are self-isolating with symptoms, or someone in your household has them, you shouldn't leave home but that doesn't mean you should stop moving. It's really important to use movement and activity as a way of breaking up your routine, if you feel well enough. Cook, play active games, dance, go into the garden if you've got one.
If you are unwell - use your energy to get better and don't try to be active. If you can get out of bed, then do so but don't try to do too much.
Finally, if you are feeling better after having had the virus, return to your normal routine very gradually. We don't know what the long term effects are but as far as we know, there is no reason why you can't gently return to normal activity.
Of course there are many fitness websites and online apps people can use to help find a routine with Daily Yoga workout and fitness and Calm, a meditation and sleep app currently among the most popular downloads in the UK.
And while you're at home, tempting as it is, try not to eat everything in sight, Ms Hopkins reminds us.
"Aim to minimise stress. And try to use the time wisely - read that book, do an online course, learn a new language, clear out the cupboards. It will all help," she says.
Exercises to try at home (as advised by This Girl Can)
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For the last few days, India's media have been riveted by a murder mystery. But the hysterical coverage, full of speculation and innuendoes, is disturbing, writes politician and author Shashi Tharoor. | A burned skeleton has been exhumed that is presumed to be that of a young woman who allegedly was strangled to death by her own mother three years ago.
That the mother is a thrice-married socialite who was CEO of a television channel, and that she had told her current husband that her daughter was her sister, has added spice to the rumour mill being relentlessly ground on our 24/7 channels.
But is the murder even a mystery? Not if you believe the media, which, fuelled by seemingly authoritative leaks from the police and a bewildering array of disloyal "friends", has already convicted the alleged murderess.
Trial by media
From the breathless and hysterical coverage inundating the Indian press and TV screens, you would scarcely realise that there isn't even proof that the charred remains are those of the missing woman, nor that evidence that a murder has even been committed rests entirely on hearsay.
Welcome to India's extraordinary media environment, in which the Fourth Estate serves simultaneously as witness, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. In ancient times, India put its accused through agni pariksha - a trial by fire; today, we put them through a trial by media.
Television news in India, with far too many channels competing 24/7 for the same sets of eyeballs and ratings, has long since given up any pretence of providing a public service, with the "breaking news" story privileging sensation over substance. (Indian TV epitomises the old crack about why television is called a "medium": "Because it is neither rare nor well done.")
Sadly, matters are not much better in the print media, which - with its ability to provide context, depth and analysis that television cannot- could have compensated for the limitations of television.
Ratings war
But newspapers too seem conscious that they have to compete in a tight media environment where it is not they, but TV, that sets the pace: every morning they must reach readers who have watched TV the previous day.
So newspapers too feel the need to "break" news in order to be read, to outdo their TV competitors. Most are led by the nose by TV's perennial ratings war, and seek to reach TV-exposed readers each day with a banner headline that stimulates prurience or outrage rather than increase awareness.
The result has been, to put it mildly, disturbing. Our media, in its rush to air the story, has fallen prey to the inevitable rush to judgement: it has too often become a willing accomplice of the motivated leak and the malicious allegation, which journalists today have neither the time nor the inclination to check or verify.
The damage is done in a blaze of lurid headlines - and rectification, if it comes at all, comes too feebly and too late to undo the irreparable damage to innocent people's reputations.
Baseless accusations
The distinctions amongst fact, opinion and speculation, reportage and rumour, sourced information and unfounded allegation, that are drummed into journalism students' heads the world over, has blurred into irrelevance in today's Indian media.
As one who has been treated to repeated doses of speculation, gossip, accusation and worse in the course of the last year and a half, after the tragic demise of my wife, I have been made intimately conscious of these limitations of the Indian media.
Instead of the restraint and caution one might expect from a responsible press where matters of life and death are involved, baseless accusations of murder and suicide have been flung around with abandon.
We have had the spectacle of an unnaturally long-drawn-out media trial, fuelled by motivated leaks, with discussion shows on the voyeuristic Indian TV channels debating accusations and imputations with zero evidence or even elementary research behind any of the statements aired.
Manipulated and malicious claims are reported uncritically, without editors asking even the most basic questions about their plausibility.
Part of the problem is a disinclination to take the trouble to research or verify a story, when so many are willing to feed you their versions of it.
Ranting anchors
The cavalier attitude to facts is compounded by a reluctance to issue corrections, which are virtually unknown in the media world.
The airing of opinions is the cheapest way to fill a broadcast hour; ranting anchors score the highest ratings.
As a result, trust in the media is eroding. A friend summarised the problem succinctly for me: "When I was young, my father wouldn't believe anything unless it was printed in the Times of India. Now, he doesn't believe anything if it is printed in the Times of India."
This should be a matter of serious concern to all right-thinking Indians, because free media are the lifeblood of our democracy.
They provide the information that enables a free citizenry to make the choices of who governs them and how, and ensures that those who govern will remain accountable to those who put them there.
It is the media's job to look critically at elected officials' actions (or inaction), rather than at marginalia that have no impact on the public welfare.
Instead, the media's obsession with the superficial and the sensational trivialises public discourse, abdicates the watchdog responsibility that must be exercised by free media in a democracy, and distracts the public from the real questions of accountability with which the governed must confront the government.
The free press is both the mortar that binds together the bricks of our country's freedom, and the open window embedded in those bricks. No Indian democrat would call for censorship, or for controls on the free press: what we want is not less journalism, but better journalism.
Government needs a free and professional media to keep it honest and efficient, to serve as both mirror and scalpel.
If instead all we have is a blunt axe, society is not well served.
If India wishes to be taken seriously by the rest of the world as a responsible global player and a model 21C democracy, we will have to take ourselves seriously and responsibly as well.
Our media would be a good place to start.
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Drug and alcohol abuse is fast becoming an area of concern in India, which according to UN data has 2 million people who use opiates.
| The Indian state of West Bengal has been identified in the National Health Survey as one of the pockets with the highest use in India. Although there are treatment centres dotted around the country, there is a gap between the number of centres and the prevalence of drug abuse. Many who seek treatment end up lapsing back into addiction.
Photographer Ronny Sen documents the struggles of some recovering addicts in the city of Kolkata (Calcutta) in West Bengal.
All images and stories have been used with the permission of the subjects.
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Shyamala Gopalan was a pioneering woman of colour in America, a scientist and an activist. She was also Vice-President Kamala Harris's mother and her "greatest influence". Geeta Pandey in Delhi and Vineet Khare in Washington DC look at her life. | Just hours before her inauguration last week, Vice-President Harris paid tribute to the women who had aided her journey to the second highest position in the US government.
In a video posted to Twitter, she began with "the woman most responsible for my presence here today, my mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris".
"When she came here from India at the age of 19, maybe she didn't quite imagine this moment," she said.
"But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible."
Ms Harris has made history - she's the first woman and first black and South Asian American to become the US vice-president.
But the story of her rise couldn't be written if it wasn't for an audacious journey her mother made in 1958 when she travelled to the US from India to pursue her own dreams.
The oldest of the four children of a civil servant father and a homemaker mother, Ms Gopalan wanted to study biochemistry.
But hard sciences were not on offer at Delhi's Lady Irwin College for women, founded by India's British colonial rulers, and she had to settle for an undergraduate degree in home science, where she would have studied subjects like nutrition and homemaking skills.
"My father and I would tease her about it," Gopalan Balachandran, her brother, told the BBC.
"We'd ask her, 'What do they teach you there? How to lay the table? Where to place the spoon?' She'd get very angry with us," he laughs.
Prof R Rajaraman, emeritus professor of theoretical physics at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University and a classmate of Ms Gopalan's when they were teenagers, describes her as "unusual".
In their class of 40 students, girls and boys sat on separate sides of the classroom and there was little interaction between genders.
"But she wasn't shy about speaking to boys. She was confident," he remembers.
Prof Rajaraman says it's a mystery why she chose to go to Lady Irwin College since in those days it was known "as a place that specialised in preparing girls for marriage, to be good wives".
But Ms Gopalan had other ambitions.
She applied - and was accepted - to University of California at Berkeley.
"She did it on her own. No one at home knew," says her brother.
"Father had no problems with her going abroad, but he was worried because we didn't know anyone in the US. But he believed in the importance of education so he let her go. She had received some scholarship and he agreed to support her for the first year."
So, at the age of 19, Ms Gopalan left India for a country she'd never visited and where she didn't know anyone to eventually pursue a PhD in nutrition and endocrinology.
Ms Harris has written about her mother's journey in The Truths We Hold, her 2019 memoir.
"It's hard for me to imagine how difficult it must have been for her parents to let her go," she writes.
"Commercial jet travel was only just starting to spread globally. It wouldn't be a simple matter to stay in touch. Yet, when my mother asked permission to move to California, my grandparents didn't stay in the way."
It was an interesting time to be in the US.
The civil rights movement was at its peak and Berkeley was at the centre of protests against racial discrimination. Like many other foreign students, Ms Gopalan too joined in the fight to make the US - and the world - a better place.
Still, participating in the civil rights movement was an unusual thing for a student from India to do in that era.
Margot Dashiell, who first met her in 1961 at a café on campus, told the BBC: "I had a sense that she could personally identify with the struggles that African-American students were processing and confronting because she came from a society where she understood the oppression of colonialism.
"This is going back many decades, but I do remember her saying to me once, and shaking her head, that white people - outsiders - just didn't understand the struggles, the taking of privileges. She didn't go into detail, and I took it that it was something that she experienced as a person of colour."
Friends describe her as "a tiny petite person" who stood out in her sari and the red dot (bindi) that she wore on her forehead. They say she was "a bright student" who was "articulate, assertive, and intellectually sharp".
Ms Dashiell recalls "her ease in holding her own with the intellectually confident and assertive men… going toe-to-toe in discussions".
"Only a few women in our social circle had that level of ease in that male-dominated environment."
She remembers her as "the only Indian, the only non-African American, in the Afro-American Association" - a study group black students formed in 1962 to educate African-American students about their history.
No-one ever questioned her presence in a group that was almost exclusively black, says Aubrey LaBrie, who met Ms Gopalan in 1962 when he was studying law at Berkeley, and formed a lifelong friendship with her.
"We all were interested in the developments in civil rights movement in this country. Of course, we saw it as being part of the Third World liberation movements and I guess that was the basis of her participation in this group. We all saw ourselves as part of the same kind of brothers and sisters intellectually supportive of those kinds of movements.
"Nobody made any issue out of her background, although people were concerned internally that it was a black group and they wouldn't have welcomed a European student. But I never recall it being any issue that was discussed whether she should participate or not."
It was her tryst with activism, her participation in the civil rights movement, that changed the course of her life.
Ms Harris writes that her mother was expected to return home after completing her education and to have an arranged marriage just like her parents "but fate had other plans".
In 1962, she met Donald Harris, who had come from Jamaica to study economics at Berkeley, and they fell in love.
The couple met at a gathering of black students when Ms Gopalan went up to him to introduce herself. She was, he recently told New York Times, "a standout in appearance relative to everybody else in the group of both men and women".
As Ms Harris says, her parents "fell in love in that most American way while marching together for justice and the civil rights movement".
They married in 1963 and a year later, at age 25, Ms Gopalan both earned her PhD and gave birth to Kamala. Two years later came Maya, the couple's second child.
The wedding with a foreigner apparently didn't go down well with Ms Gopalan's Tamil Brahmin family.
In an interview in 2003, Shyamala Gopalan said that by marrying an American, she had broken the "Gopalan bloodline that goes back more than 1,000 years".
Mr Balachandran says "she didn't tell us that she was getting married", although he insists their parents "had no serious problems and their only concern was that they hadn't met the groom".
One time, he says, he overheard "Kamala and Maya asking their grandfather if he didn't like their father."
"He told them: 'Your mother liked him and he had no bad habits, so what's there not to like'?"
The first time Ms Gopalan's parents met their son-in-law was in 1966 - three years after her marriage - and on the neutral grounds of Zambia, where her father was posted at the time.
The marriage didn't last long. The couple split when Ms Harris was five, and although she and her sister Maya visited their father during the holidays, their mother raised them mostly on her own.
Last year, while accepting her nomination as vice-president, Ms Harris said her mother's life as a single parent wasn't easy and that she worked around-the-clock - doing cutting-edge cancer research while caring for her daughters.
Ms Gopalan, who died in February 2009 at 70 from colon cancer, is known around the world for making significant discoveries about the role of hormones in breast cancer.
She started her career doing research at Berkeley's Department of Zoology and its Cancer Research Laboratory, went on to work in France, Italy and Canada, before returning to the Lawrence Berkeley Lab at California for the last decade of her work.
Joe Gray, a scientist and Ms Gopalan's boss at the Lawrence Berkley Laboratory, described her as "a very serious scientist, quite willing to engage in scientific give-and-take during discussions".
Ms Gopalan, he told the BBC, was very open about her own cancer diagnosis.
"She was one of those that just said 'this is what it is and I am going to press on as long as I can'," he said.
As her cancer spread, Mr Balachandran says, his sister decided to return to India, to spend the end of her life in the comforting company of her mother and sister. But it was a trip she was never able to make.
Mr LaBrie remembers his last conversation with his good friend, knowing she had plans to return to her country of birth.
"I thought it was like a romantic notion of being in touch with her heritage at that stage of her life," he said.
"Among other things, I said, 'Shyamala, I'm glad to hear you are going back to India.' She said, 'Aubrey I am not going any place.' She died shortly after that."
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Conferences being held in a seaside town this year are expected to boost the local economy by an estimated £11m. | Eastbourne has 21 conferences and exhibitions booked in the Devonshire Park Centre - the highest number in 10 years, the borough council said.
The local authority said 15,000 delegates would stay in the East Sussex town's hotels and guest houses this spring and autumn.
Tourism chiefs said they had been targeting the conference industry.
Councillor Carolyn Heaps, cabinet spokesman for tourism and leisure, said the council-run Eastbourne Conference Bureau worked closely with hotels and guest houses to provide a strong message throughout the industry that the town provided a "stunning location".
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Olympic dressage gold medallist Charlotte Dujardin is having a postbox painted gold in her honour in her Gloucestershire home town. | Royal Mail staff were painting the postbox in Church Street in Newent, on Friday morning following her triumph at London 2012.
It is also producing a Gold Medal stamp to celebrate the 27-year-old's win, which will go on sale on Friday.
"I wanted to enjoy it, go out and not regret anything," Dujardin said.
The Olympian also helped Britain to team victory in Greenwich Park on Tuesday.
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Two people have been arrested after a man was found dead in a cemetery. | The victim's body was found in Cowgate Cemetery in Dover at about 07:00 BST, and the area has been cordoned off.
Kent Police said a 47-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man have been arrested.
Det Insp Neil Kimber said: "We are working to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident and are treating the man's death as suspicious."
Related Internet Links
Kent Police
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Three people have rescued from a fire at a block of flats in County Londonderry which is being treated as arson. | Emergency services were called to the property at Drummard Drive, Coleraine, at about 04:00 BST on Tuesday.
Police said they had received a report that a bin had been placed against the door of the flats and set on fire.
An investigation is under way and police have appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service group commander Karen McDowell said crews were quickly on the scene and got the fire extinguished.
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More than 350 properties in Wiltshire are still without power following storms on Friday night.
| Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution said homes in rural areas of Salisbury and Swindon were affected.
A spokesman said engineers would continue repairing damage and restoring power to those affected throughout Sunday.
At one stage more than 10,000 homes in the county were without electricity.
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A pedestrian, in his 80s, who was hit by a lorry in Norwich earlier this week, has died. | The collision, involving a Renault, happened on the A140 Farrow Road near the Earlham Road roundabout at about 12:00 BST on Monday.
Police say the man was taken to the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital and died on Wednesday.
Officers said the lorry stopped at the scene and they are appealing for witnesses.
They want to speak to people who saw the manner in which the lorry was being driven, and the actions of the pedestrian, prior to the collision.
No-one has been arrested.
Related Internet Links
Norfolk Police
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The search for a man who went missing while swimming in a river in Bedfordshire is ongoing. | Emergency services were called to the River Great Ouse in Harrold shortly after 16:00 BST.
Several crews attended the scene near the Old Mill following reports of an individual being in difficulty in the water.
Teams from all three emergency services are currently in attendance, together with a police helicopter.
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service also tweeted that its water rescue boat had been sent to the scene.
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London has a spiky new steel and glass steeple - the Shard. This elongated pyramid is currently the tallest building in the European Union at 310m, but how does it feel to live in the shadow of such a giant?
| Skyscrapers have been the symbol of the modern city for over a century.
In the past 50 years, buildings have been rising ever higher, majestically reaching for the sky and making the most of land values in crowded city centres.
But while tall buildings can be adored or reviled from afar, it is in their own neighbourhoods and at their own feet that their effects are most acutely felt.
And their height can cause big problems, such as strong winds at their base, casting long shadows and, when grouped together, creating noisy canyons.
And then there's the matter of looks. Not the all-too-obvious matter of the skyline, but the subtler one of how the building touches the ground.
Wind creates several kinds of problems for tall buildings, says building engineer Max Fordham. In general, the higher you go, the faster the wind speed. And as wind speed doubles, the pressure exerted on a building quadruples.
When fast winds hit a tall building, the building can vibrate and sway from side to side. Engineers have to design buildings to cope with this level of loading.
But there's something else that happens - strong winds that would normally stay well above street-level can be forced groundwards, travelling at 20m a second.
A good example of this is Centre Point in central London. It's set perpendicular to the prevailing westerly wind that blows along the length of Oxford Street until it bangs into the monolithic facade of the 1960s tower.
In Leeds, the effect has even been connected to the death of a man crushed by a lorry in strong winds. He died near the city's tallest building, Bridgewater Place, and coroner Melanie Williamson
heard complaints about a "wind tunnel" effect since its completion
.
The wind flows down the front of tall building, causing gusty conditions at its base. "I should know," says Adrian Campbell, one of the structural engineers who designed 30 St Mary Axe (aka the Gherkin). "It's always windy when I am cycling past the building."
It's colder too. The high winds at the foot of many tall buildings produce micro-climates that feel considerably cooler than surrounding areas.
There are, however, ways to cope with the wind. Campbell says that the curved surfaces of the Gherkin help wind to flow around the building without being forced downwards. Although not curved, the Shard's faceted, tapering silhouette aims for a similar effect.
Buildings can also be designed with canopies near the ground to protect pedestrians from wind gusts.
Tall buildings also cast substantial shadows. In hot climates, people exploit this, as in the old city of Sanaa in Yemen - a Unesco World Heritage Site of 10m-high clay walled buildings.
But in the UK, we welcome the sun. To sit outside on a rare sunny day and find you are shaded by a tower block some distance away can be annoying.
The Shard, however, is sited on the south bank of the Thames and so throws its shadow mostly across open water. "It is a very cleverly sited building," says architect
Steve Johnson
, who has designed skyscrapers in the US Midwest. "The people most affected by the shadow will be in offices in the City."
According to Fordham, it is when tall buildings are grouped together to form canyons - as happens on Manhattan's Wall Street or 5th Avenue in Midtown - that the problems of shadow and noise become acute. The more gaps there are in the canyon-wall, the easier it is for sound waves to escape and for the street to seem quieter.
Skyscrapers are often thought of in their relation to the sky - the Shard's architect Renzo Piano talks of how his building is "a mirror tilted at the sky" and "flirts continuously with the weather, with the clouds". Yet the point at which a building joins the earth is just as important.
Gillian Horn, a partner of the award-winning architectural practice
Penoyre and Prasad
, stresses the need "to build humanity into a tower". This is especially so at ground level, where passers-by are in a position to judge the material with which a building is draped (glass or stone or brick or concrete) and how that is treated.
"What does the tower give to the city? What is it like to approach it at street level? Those are the interesting challenges," says Horn.
Pedestrians deserve more than a blank facade, or a cluster of air vents and driveways for vehicle access. Careless designers of tall buildings can end up being dismissive of what Horn calls "the human level".
In order to encourage walking and street life, buildings need to interact with what is at ground level. Car parks, for instance, can sever a building's connection to its city. Campbell notes that the Gherkin only has about 20 parking spaces in the basement.
The final appearance of the Shard's ground levels isn't entirely clear yet, as work continues on the perimeter of the building.
But for such a tall building, it seems to come to earth surprisingly lightly. It is approached through small streets, and the white metal pillars of its support structure penetrate London Bridge Station, making the crystalline tower almost hover above the station below.
Piano and the building's developer Irvine Sellar both stress that this will be an accessible monument, with the public able to ascend to viewing platforms from which to gaze all the way across London.
"I will never be an advocate for tall buildings, in the sense that I don't believe that tall buildings are necessarily the only interesting thing, that's for sure," says Piano. "But if the tower gives back to the city more than what it gets from the city, then why not?"
Piano says that we should be building cities this way, not "creating a planet of suburbia". But perhaps the future lies between these extremes, for as Fordham points out, both bungalow and mega-structure ignore the real and pressing demands of the environment.
Renzo Piano was speaking to the BBC World Service and took part in the first of the BBC World Service's Dream Builders series which was recorded at the Riba.
All images in slideshow subject to copyright - click bottom right for details. Some images courtesy Getty Images, PA, Sellar Group and Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
Audio from BBC World Service. Music by Carly Rae Jepsen, Nell Bryden and KPM Music.Slideshow production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 15 June 2012.
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Dubai wants sanctions on Iran lifted. This is hardly surprising given that nearly half a million Iranians live in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and that Dubai already benefits from a flourishing trade with its neighbour across the Gulf. | By Frank GardnerBBC security correspondent
In a BBC interview aired on Monday, the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, said that with Iran as a neighbour, everyone would benefit if a deal with the US resulted in sanctions being lifted.
"You see, Iran is our neighbour and we don't want any problem and they didn't have any problem," said the sheikh.
"But if they agree with the Americans and the Americans agree and lift their sanctions, everybody will benefit."
Sharply different view
But this is not a view shared by all of Dubai's Arab neighbours in the Gulf, many of whom continue to view Iran as a strategic threat.
The Saudis have let it be known they are opposed to "bringing Iran in from the cold" as part of the recently-brokered deal to curb Iran's nuclear activities.
They see sanctions as one way of curtailing any Iranian expansion and Riyadh has vowed to step up its support for Syria's rebel forces fighting Iran's ally, President Bashar al-Assad.
Bahrain accuses Iran of fuelling violent protests in its villages. It is currently investigating what it says is an Iranian plot to import weapons and explosives into the country after intercepting a boat laden with arms in late December.
Even Abu Dhabi, which alongside Dubai is one of the seven emirates making up the UAE, has a sharply different view on Iran from its more commercially minded neighbour, Dubai. As the capital of the UAE, it has been pushing for years to resolve the issue of three disputed islands in the Gulf, claimed by both the UAE and Iran but occupied by Iranian forces.
"Dubai and Abu Dhabi have always had differences of opinion on Iran," says a former British diplomat who worked in the Gulf.
"There is a huge Iranian community in Dubai, and huge trade there, so they take a different approach."
Thaw in relations
But further south, Oman will welcome the Dubai ruler's warm words towards Iran. As the country that hosted the secret talks between Iran and the US that led to the tentative breakthrough agreement in Geneva, Oman would like to see a thaw in Gulf Arab-Iranian relations.
Without the clout backed by huge oil reserves enjoyed by Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait, Oman has often steered a middle course on foreign policy and was recently instrumental in securing the release of US citizens held by Iran.
All of this goes to show one thing: when it comes to Iran, the Gulf Arab states are very far from united.
Saudi Arabia has recently been pressing for a closer union of all six states that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with talk of a common foreign policy and a shared defence force.
Behind this lies Riyadh's fears of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps looking to export their Islamic Revolution across the Gulf and fomenting sectarian unrest between Sunni and Shia.
Kuwait, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi are open to the idea of a closer union but Qatar is wary and Oman has let it be known that if pressed, it will go its own way.
As for Dubai, the ruler's views on Iran are a reminder that what makes Dubai tick is not politics, it is trade, business and opportunity.
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When Prince William places a Welsh gold wedding ring onto Kate Middleton's finger, he'll be replicating an 88-year-old tradition dating back to the marriage of his great-grandparents, Elizabeth Bowes Lyon and the future George Vi. | By Neil PriorBBC Wales News
In 1923, the royal ring was fashioned from a gift of Clogau gold with enough left over for the weddings of The Queen in 1947 as well as those of the late Princess Margaret, the Princess Royal and the 1981 marriage of Prince Charles and Diana.
The stock of the original Clogau gift is believed to be almost exhausted, having been replenished over the years with donations from several other Welsh mines.
Clarence House is remaining tight lipped over the precise source of the Welsh gold for Kate's wedding band.
In a statement to dispel speculation and confusing merchandising, the palace announced: "The wedding ring that Catherine Middleton will wear will be made of Welsh gold. The gold was given to Prince William by The Queen shortly after the couple were engaged."
"It has been in the family's possession for some years and has been in the care of the royal jewellers. There are no further details on which mine the gold was mined from."
Yet that hasn't stopped people jumping on the Welsh gold bandwagon; with four shopping channels listing Welsh gold sales for the royal wedding period, and airlines and duty-free shops stocking up for an anticipated holiday rush.
Although Ms Middleton's ring is made of Welsh gold, it's not clear from source it has been made, with at least three gifts to the royal family over the last century.
But just how similar to Kate's ring is the Welsh gold on offer to the public? And what's so special about Welsh gold anyway?
Dr Mike Bassett, expert in minerals and mining, said: "From its discovery by the Romans, up until when the colonial gold rushes of the 19th Century opened up new sources, the gold produced in Wales played a reasonable part in the British economy; though it was never regarded as anything distinct from gold in general."
"Welsh gold only became fashionable when the Queen Mother chose it for her wedding ring in 1923.
"But it's really an 'Emperor's new clothes' vanity, as it's visually and very nearly chemically indistinguishable; gold is gold is gold."
Same Welsh gold
Indeed, how royal and how Welsh the gold products currently being marketed are, is a tangled web of claim and counter-claim.
Last week, the Clogau gold company, which now owns the trading name and a quantity of gold from the defunct Clogau St David's mine, retracted a press release after an over-enthusiastic press officer claimed the company were to create Kate's wedding ring.
But whilst Clogau Gold moved quickly to scotch any confusion, they stand by what they say is their unique selling-point, that their rings are made from "the same Welsh gold as Kate's".
Dr Bassett says whilst this could well be the case, would-be Kate Middletons still ought to be careful, as the only way of proving it for definite could be costly.
"The royal stocks of Welsh gold have become so mixed up over the years, that I don't think even they themselves can have much degree of certainty over its precise origins any more," he said.
"If Kate, and the other brides would like to give up their wedding rings for melting down and isotopic analysis of the numbers of neutrons per atom, we'd be able to get to the bottom of whether they came from the same Clogau mine.
"However I suspect that it's likely to remain a fascinating debate for the pub."
But the questions remains as to how to guarantee the Welshness of the gold.
The last working gold mine in north Wales, Gwynfynydd, closed in 1998; although extractions on anything close to a commercial basis ceased with the closure of Clogau near Dolgellau in 1911.
And with the world supply of Welsh gold ingots now believed to leave room to spare in an overnight bag, managing director of Clogau Gold Ben Roberts explains that they have to ration it to just "a touch" in each item of jewellery.
"We make no apologies about the small amount of Welsh gold that we put into each and every piece of our jewellery," he said.
"The precise amount is a common question but one that we try not to stipulate because it puts us on the hook to continue using the same percentage and it's one which might be subject to change in the future depending on supplies (although at present we have no plans to change the mix)."
Mr Roberts added: "We do however put a guarantee that all of our jewellery does contain our own gold and indeed we keep a very clear and concise audit trail to prove this."
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CCTV on 2 October at 13:14 shows a man in a black jacket and grey trousers approaching the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. A brief nod to another man in a blue jacket standing outside and he enters. It is the last image of Jamal Khashoggi alive. | By Mark LowenBBC Turkey correspondent, Istanbul
What happened in the hours that followed is the subject of a mystery that has not only engulfed both countries, but threatens the reputation of the new Saudi Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman, and his country's relationships across the world.
The trail began at Istanbul airport in the early hours of that morning. A private jet landed, registered to Sky Prime Aviation Services, a Saudi company.
CCTV captured the jet and its nine Saudi passengers. Six others arrived shortly after. They checked into two hotels - the Movenpick and Wyndham Grand - both near the Saudi consulate.
Turkey alleges they were a Saudi hit squad sent to murder the high-profile journalist, who had been living in self-imposed exile in the US as his criticism of the Saudi government mounted.
A Turkish newspaper published photos and the names of the 15, a government source confirming to me that they were legitimate.
I've been told that one of the men, Maher Mutreb, was a colonel in the Saudi intelligence agency based at the kingdom's embassy in London. Another, Muhammad Almadani, is thought to be a forensics specialist. All are reported to be Saudi government employees.
Their hotel reservations were for a few days but they stayed only for a few hours, their planes returning to Riyadh that night - one via Cairo and the other via Dubai.
The allegation from Turkey is that they lay in wait in the Saudi consulate for Jamal Khashoggi's appointment, during which he would receive papers for his forthcoming marriage to Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz.
She waited outside the consulate and was told to alert the Turkish authorities if he didn't emerge. At 16:30 she sounded the alarm.
Just after 15:00, CCTV shows black vehicles moving between the consulate and the consul general's residence, about 200m (650ft) away. Could they have contained Jamal Khashoggi's body? Saudi authorities have flatly denied all allegations and insist that Mr Khashoggi left the consulate the same day. They have provided no footage to back that up.
Individual details of the investigation have been gradually drip-fed to the Turkish media over the past week:
Turkish investigators have begun to search the consulate and have requested access to the residence. Reports are emerging that the Saudis limited the Turkish team, who requested access to the garden and sewerage system.
Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been much more cautious. He hasn't directly echoed the accusations of murder but has reiterated his concern and demands for the Saudis to provide CCTV footage.
A government source tells me that if he were to pile in too hard at this stage, Turkey would already have been forced to expel the Saudi ambassador and consul general. Ankara is giving Riyadh a little breathing room to co-operate and put forward their version of events, while turning the screw with ever more incriminating leaks through the media.
For Jamal Khashoggi's friends and loved ones, hope is fading fast.
"He was the kindest person I knew," says Abdulrahman Elshayyal, a journalist and friend who spoke to Mr Khashoggi two days before he disappeared.
"What's killing me is that there's one part in all of this who's keeping quiet. Until they say something, you can only think the worst has happened."
Blind eye
Given Mr Khashoggi's criticism of Riyadh and the crown prince's record of clamping down hard on dissent, why, I ask, did he make the dangerous move of entering the Saudi consulate here?
"He believed in his countrymen," says Mr Elshayyal. "He was making a stand, as if to say: 'If something happens, people will know that I put my faith in my people - and they won't harm me.'"
The question is, if this is all confirmed, how much will Western policy towards Saudi Arabia change?
Critics of Riyadh say the West has long turned a blind eye to Saudi abuses. US President Donald Trump has finally voiced concern over the "serious situation" and British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt says Britain expects "urgent answers" from Riyadh - London could hardly keep quiet after the alleged attempted poisoning of the Skripals by the Russian government in Salisbury.
Turkey doesn't want to see its vital relationship with Saudi Arabia blown apart at this stage - but if Riyadh and, more specifically, the crown prince himself are proven to have ordered a state-sponsored assassination of this high-profile dissident on foreign soil, it could be a turning point.
Perhaps the bitter irony will be that Jamal Khashoggi's impact on the perception of Saudi Arabia and Western relations with it might be more in death than in life.
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Coronavirus hospital admissions are expected to peak in Chicago, Illinois, at some point in the next two weeks. In an attempt to prevent the kind of medical supply shortages seen in New York City, average Chicagoans are racing to fulfil the need. | By Jessica LussenhopBBC News, Washington
On 16 March, in accordance with the state governor's order that all bars and restaurants stop serving customers in-house, Dimo's Pizza closed its dining room doors.
"We can no longer serve by the slice," says owner Dimitri Syrkin-Nikolau. "There goes 70% of our revenue."
Still, he agreed that the measures were necessary.
He'd been following news about the coronavirus outbreak for weeks and on the same weekend that Illinois shuttered its restaurants, New York City experienced the beginning of a terrifying surge in cases.
From 15 March to 16 March, the numbers of cases more than doubled overnight.
Nurses and doctors reported shortages of essential pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) like N95 face masks, gowns and gloves. Some were having to wash and re-use masks.
Watching from 800 miles away, in a major metropolitan city that had not yet - but certainly would - feel the full force of the pandemic, Syrkin-Nikolau wanted to help prevent a similar shortage of supplies in Chicago.
"It seems unlikely that a pizza shop is going to be able to produce PPE, but the more I talked to people…" he recalls. "It seems far-fetched but it's not."
After consulting with a couple of his engineer friends and procuring large sheets of acrylic, Syrkin-Nikolau and his staff have started making face shields for healthcare workers. The industrial pizza oven heats the acrylic up until it's soft enough to bend into the right shape, and then it is attached to a foam strip and straps.
"It really is a very quick process," he says. "Whether it's slinging slices or slinging acrylic, it's similar principles."
All over the city, Chicagoans are racing to take advantage of the lag time between the surge in New York City and the expected surge in Chicago, which at this point may have already begun. On Thursday, Governor JB Pritzker announced the largest single-day increase in Covid-19 deaths so far in the state: 82. As of 9 April, there have been 6,619 cases in the city of Chicago and 196 deaths.
While none of the largest Chicago-area hospitals have reported a shortage of supplies, Illinois officials have described the marketplace for those supplies as "the wild west".
In one instance, a state employee had to race to a bank with a cheque for $3.4m (£2.7m) in order to purchase 1.5m N95 masks from a supplier in China before other bidders could snap them up.
Smaller hospitals that serve low-income Chicagoans, like Loretto Hospital on the West Side, have said their stock of masks and gowns is low.
Those concerns have inspired Chicagoans like Jacqueline Morano, a member of the Masks for Chicago campaign, to do everything possible to collect, make or buy PPE.
"There's the potential for things to get scary. We are a metropolis," she says. "The texts I get from my friends in New York City hospitals are things you'd never want to read in your lifetime."
The campaign Morano has been raising money for, Masks for Chicago, is attempting to source and purchase 1 million N95 masks using one of its founders' manufacturing contacts in Shenzhen, China.
They estimate that should be enough to cover five Chicago hospitals for two weeks. They've already received 44,150 masks and have placed orders for over 75,000 more, jostling alongside other cities and even countries as they try to secure orders.
These efforts are happening on both large and small scales throughout the city. Michael Clifford, a former patent lawyer who recently went full-time with his DIY home improvement YouTube channel, began using his 3-D printer to produce plastic browbands for face shields.
He got the plans from others in the global maker community who are sharing them for free. When the Masks for Chicago campaign received 500 N95 masks with broken straps, Clifford printed a batch of S-hooks to easily re-attach them. He just purchased a second 3-D printer to try to increase production.
"Beyond Chicago, there's people doing this all over the world right now," he says.
In some cases, hospitals are reaching out directly. Haven Allen is the CEO and co-founder of MHub, a non-profit manufacturing firm that after shutting down its 63,000-square-foot facility last month, is now using its equipment, materials and idle engineers to help Chicago-area hospitals get supplies.
Their first project - build a cheap, easy-to-manufacture ventilator from materials one could buy off the shelf.
"We wanted to drive down the price point to about $350 a unit," he says.
Then Northwestern Memorial Hospital called. They were concerned about a shortage of face shields. A few volunteer engineers quickly switched gears.
"Within just a few hours, they created a few prototypes with the materials they had on site," says Megan McCann, a spokeswoman for Northwestern. "The first batch of face shields was delivered to Northwestern Memorial Hospital the week of March 30; these will go directly to the doctors, nurses and staff caring for patients with Covid-19."
Allen says prototypes for the ventilators will be ready this week, and that he wants to make the plans free and available to anyone who wants to replicate them.
Using PPE from volunteers, DIY makers and from unvetted suppliers in China, as opposed to through approved vendors, can be tricky for hospitals.
Certain products have to be approved by the Centers for Disease Control or the Food and Drug Administration before a hospital can accept them.
But with products as simple as face shields - and with fear of infection so high - some healthcare workers seem to be willing to use whatever is provided to them in lieu of nothing.
"Can I make something that's 95% as good as what 3M would make? It's not perfect, but it's still 95% better than nothing," says Clifford. "We can't argue about the little things. We have to make sure we have the best protection we can because of the shortage."
Tricia Rae Pendergrast is a first-year medical student and a leader of a group of 400 Chicago-area medical students who are spending their time calling local businesses and soliciting donations of N95 masks, protective suits and other PPE.
She says they have the most success with area labs and construction companies, but that they can't donate to hospitals. Instead, they put them directly into the hands of healthcare workers who ask for them.
"They're making the decision to use them. They understand they're not the normal protective equipment," she says. "In times of crisis, in scarce limited resources, there's ethical and legal precedent to do the most good for the most people and that's what we're doing here."
At Dimo's Pizza, Syrkin-Nikolau says they've been able to fulfil a few orders for smaller organisations, like a home for elderly homeless people and a small pediatrics practice.
He estimates they can make 3,000 shields a week. And while he says he can't afford to give the shields away, by selling them for $3 a piece he can keep his workers employed and make supplies available during the Chicago coronavirus case surge.
"Everywhere I look, across every segment, everyone is pitching in to do whatever they can any way they can as soon as they possibly can," he says. "I think that's the one thing I'm holding on to."
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Universities in England have learned this week about the results of a big new attempt to force them to care more about their undergraduates. The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) has split them into groups depending on their teaching quality - gold, silver or bronze. And the results are a major source of controversy. | Chris CookPolicy editor, Newsnight
Universities must get silver or gold if they are to be allowed to raise fees in line with inflation in future. Southampton and the LSE have both received bronzes. York got a silver. There was local trouble, too. In Liverpool, the grand old Russell Group university got a bronze. But Liverpool Hope and Liverpool John Moores got gold and silver respectively.
Some of that shock, though, is by design. The British university system is built around research - not teaching. We already have a "Research Excellence Framework" used for distributing grants. The TEF is supposed to apply some pressure to redress that balance of interests - and a few bigger names were expected to struggle.
What do they say is being measured?
Half of the key measures that made up the TEF grades were drawn from surveys of students: their satisfaction with teaching, academic support and assessment. Others, though, were based on data on student retention and what the students went on to do. Universities got marks for their graduates' employability.
Crucially, they were not all compared crudely. These figures were all adjusted to account for the intake of the university, and the balance of courses on offer. So Southampton Solent and Southampton needed to achieve very different outcomes for their students, in the eyes of the judges. The idea was to identify universities doing well by their own students.
Universities could also make submissions to a judging panel, to explain why they believed the raw data might be misleading or unfair. But the blushes of some big names were not spared.
The LSE's measures, for example, show that it seriously underperformed, against the average hypothetical university with a similar subject and student mix, when it came to "the teaching on my course", "assessment and feedback" and "academic support". Gold-rated Northampton, meanwhile, is beating the spread on all those things.
There are edge cases: Southampton (bronze) and Bristol (silver) are very similar - but one fell short and one did not. (There are more cases here.) It is, though, hard to have too much sympathy for university leaders complaining about cliff-edges resulting from the use of a marking structure based around sorting people into a few big categories.
So what should you make of all this?
But what is really being measured?
These are all bigger questions for another day - but, for now, I thought it was worth checking a few things.
First, is the TEF actually mostly rewarding the usual suspects? We can look at the extent to which it is a simple measure of the traditional research hierarchy. Do universities who make higher shares of income from research do better on teaching? Here is a graph showing how the universities in each grade bracket fit together. The dotted line shows the mean for each category.
You can see the gold category universities are, on average, more research-intensive. The mean is higher (further to the right). You can also see the super-research-intensive universities are all in the gold bracket: the institutions whose research income is above 40% of total income. But also look at the distribution. The TEF is measuring is not a simple proxy for research-intensity. There is more variation within groups than between them on this measure.
There is, though, a clearer link to average UCAS tariff points - a rough measure of the academic achievements of students before they enter the institutions. It does seem that, if you are recruiting higher-attainment students, it is easier to get a gold or silver.
There was also a concern that the exercise would simply reward universities which took in more prosperous undergraduates - although the TEF was supposed to attempt to account for that through a "benchmarking" process. That is a bigger concern given that higher-prior-attainment institutions are doing better. So how have they done?
Here are similar frequency distributions on two widely used measures of the prosperity of university student populations. The first measure is the proportion of the student body from a "low-participation neighbourhood". That is to say: a poor area where fewer-than-average people go to higher education.
The gold universities, on average, have fewer poor students than the silver, which have fewer than the bronze. But the variation within TEF groups dwarfs the gaps between them. The TEF benchmarking has done a lot to avoid marking down universities that take poorer students.
But that choice of measure is very similar to the ones actually used in the TEF for benchmarking student populations. What, though, if you change your measure of poverty? All the universities where the share of state-educated students is under 70% are gold or silver institutions. None is bronze.
So what this means is that it appears to be easier to get a gold if you have more privately educated pupils. And so it is possible it is showing up that the benchmarking is not working. In effect, some gold universities' achievements may be inflated because we did not take sufficient account of their students' background.
If that is the case, it would mean some very grand universities have ratings that might need taking down a notch or two.
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For the past 15 years fans of tormented superstar Leslie Cheung, one of the first celebrities to come out as gay in Asia, have gathered at Hong Kong's Mandarin Oriental Hotel to mourn the day he took his own life. | By Gwyneth HoBBC Chinese
It's a poignant sign of why the daring and troubled star is still important today.
One of Hong Kong's most popular male singers and actors of the mid-1980s, Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing was not afraid of provoking controversy with his overt sexuality and provocative performances during a more socially conservative era.
And 15 years after his death, Cheung is still attracting new fans, including teenagers and millennials.
Lam, a 15-year-old who attended 1 April's vigil, was only a few months old when Cheung died. She told BBC Chinese she had "discovered him on YouTube".
"He was charismatic; especially when he went androgynous...it's gorgeous," she said.
Meanwhile, 25-year-old Wu travelled from Hunan province on mainland China with his boyfriend to mourn the icon.
Wu told BBC Chinese he drew strength from Cheung's "spirit of being true to oneself".
"He showed the [Chinese-speaking] world that gay people can be positive, bright and worthy of respect."
Born in 1956, Leslie Cheung was one of Hong Kong's most famous stars during the golden era of Cantopop in the 1980s.
He was dashing, stylish and fitted the public idea of a perfect heterosexual male lover. But in reality, he was in a long-term relationship with his childhood friend, Daffy Tong.
It was not an easy time to be gay. At that time, homosexuality was still viewed by many as an illness and abnormality in Hong Kong, especially after the emergence of the first local case of Aids in 1984. It was not until 1991 that adult gay sex was decriminalised in the territory.
"The LGBT movement in Hong Kong took off in the 1990s, when the community finally became visible to the public," Travis Kong, an associate professor of sociology researching gay culture at The University of Hong Kong, told BBC Chinese.
And it was at this point that Cheung became more daring in his work.
He first came to international attention with his portrayal of Cheng Dieyi, the androgynous Peking Opera star, for the film Farewell My Concubine, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993.
He went on to star in Happy Together directed by Wong Kar Wai - a gay cinema classic about a couple who struggle to find a peaceful co-existence.
"Happy Together is different. It is a stereotypical heterosexual romance, but played by two men," said Kit Hung, a Hong Kong director.
Meanwhile, Christopher Doyle, the renowned cinematographer who worked with Cheung on various Wong Kar Wai films, told BBC Chinese: "He was so beautiful. We both wanted to convey through my lens the most beautiful, sincerest side of him.
"He enters our imagination audaciously... always showing us better possibilities."
On stage, Cheung unleashed a sexually fluid charm. His defining queer performance came in a 1997 concert where he danced intimately with a male dancer to his song Red. He wore a black suit with a pair of sparkling crimson high-heels.
At that concert he dedicated a classic love song to the two "loves of his life", his mother and his partner Daffy Tong. This is seen as the moment he came out of the closet. Cheung did not proclaim his sexuality as such, but confessed his love for a man.
"In the 1990s, at times a gay man was still called 'Aids man' and 'pervert'," says Mr Kong. "In a society so oppressive to the LGBT community, the coming out of such a renowned superstar had a huge effect on the general public."
Despite his success across Asia, there were many who did not appreciate this side of Cheung.
At the 1998 Hong Kong Film Awards, Happy Together was mocked by comedians, who described it as a film that would make the audience vomit. A music video he directed, featuring him topless with a male ballet dancer, was also censored by major local TV channel TVB.
In 2000 Leslie became the first Asian star to wear a tailor-made costume by French fashion master Jean-Paul Gaultier in a concert. With waist-length hair, clearly visible stubble and a muscular build, Cheung also wore tight transparent trousers and a short skirt.
He ended the concert with his self-revealing ballad I. "The theme of my performance is this: The most important thing in life, apart from love, is to appreciate your own self," he explained.
"I won't hide, I will live my life the way I like under the bright light" he sang. "I am what I am, firelight of a different colour."
But he was dismissed as a "transvestite", "perverted" or "haunted by a female ghost" in local media. He would dismiss that criticism as superficial and short-sighted.
He remains such an iconic figure in Hong Kong's awakening to LGBT issues that the Mandarin Oriental Hotel is even the first stop of a walking tour on the city's LGBT history.
It was from here that he jumped to his death on 1 April 2003 after a long struggle with depression. It was a shocking moment for the city, and a devastating moment for fans.
Tens of thousands turned out to bid him farewell and at the funeral, his partner Daffy Tong assumed the role traditionally preserved for the surviving spouse, a profound, public recognition of their relationship.
Never legally married, Mr Tong's was the first name listed on the family's announcement of Cheung's death, credited "Love of His Life".
Same-sex marriage or civil unions are still not legal in Hong Kong, but in the city's collective memory, Cheung and Tong are fondly remembered as an iconic, loving couple.
Hong Kong still lacks anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT communities but queer identity and sexual fluidity are no longer so taboo and are part of the social landscape.
Last year a museum in Hong Kong held an exhibition "Ambiguously Yours: Gender in Hong Kong Popular Culture". The first exhibit visitors encountered upon entering the venue was a pair of sparkling crimson high-heels - the pair Cheung wore performing Red in 1997.
"The highest achievement for a performer is to embody both genders at the same time," Cheung once proclaimed: "For art itself is genderless."
If you are feeling emotionally distressed and would like details of organisations which offer advice and support, click here. In the UK you can call for free, at any time, to hear recorded information on 0800 066 066. In Hong Kong you can get help here.
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Scotland's homes market has not seen anything like the highs and lows of the English one, and prices are far below those of London. The decade since the property boom turned to crash has seen relatively steady average prices, but a big fall in the number of transactions. BBC Scotland News is starting a series of reports which will look at the market, the role of house builders and of private landlords, and the quality of design. | Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland
A roof over your head probably and rightly ranks among your top priorities. Securing it in the right place, at an affordable price, and with enough space are high priorities for all of us.
And if you're a resident of Scotland, facing temperatures down to minus 10 degrees in the next day or so, it matters that your home has a sound roof, and the rest of it is reasonably well insulated.
Homes and housing can help to define a nation, through communitarian shared space or individual asset ownership. They can symbolise what is wrong with a city, as was long the case with Glasgow.
They carry the culture of communities; through shared tenement stairs and back greens; rural clusters of cottages, some dependent on a laird; behind security gates and at the end of long driveways: or suffering loneliness behind the door of an ill-designed city block.
BBC Scotland's business and economy editor Douglas Fraser is looking at the state of the housing market on radio, TV and online
Our housing is shaped by choices we make, but also very strongly by public policy and choices made in passing legislation. MSPs choose the standards of insulation for new buildings, and determine the planning laws.
Yet in a series of reports on which I've been working for some months, I've been struck by how much the the private sector determines the shape, location, the quality and price of our homes.
I've been asking whether that relationship is right in Scotland - between public and private, between house builder and home buyer. Should it be re-balanced? Do we get the homes we need? And the homes we desire?
Do house builders put up the homes they know they can sell - which is almost any home - with an explicit commitment to shareholders that they maximise profit in doing so? Or does profit maximising for a few very large companies happen to coincide with the best outcome for home owners?
First, for TV, radio and here online, I've sought to track where we've been in the past 10 or so years, for which new-builds are only a small part of the big picture. The start of last decade saw runaway house price inflation, fuelled by reckless lending.
That story is branded on our memories. The banks got a lot of the blame, but home buyers were eager to join in the party and the spoils of home valuations that rose faster than people earned money.
The banks were told to rein in their lending. Regulators want them to hold bigger balances to protect against another downturn in the market, and to ask for bigger deposits. The rules for ensuring mortgage applicants could afford to pay were overhauled.
Banks and other lenders now have to take so long in assessing an applicant's finances that they are reluctant to do so until the transaction is a done deal. That has slowed up the conveyancing process and introduced more uncertainty into it until a late stage.
That might have been expected to soften prices. But 10 years ago, politicians and regulators were faced with a difficult choice - to let the market fall, and to allow it to adjust with many repossessions by lenders, or to prop up the market as a vital part of the confidence that the British economy desperately needed.
They chose the latter. Banks were told to go easy on those failing to make mortgage payments. Interest rates were taken down to record low levels. They have barely begun to recover. And while much of southern England suffered the roller-coaster of boom turning to bust, Scottish prices remained calm. Average prices didn't move much.
Last year saw a slight uptick in the value of completed transactions. Some areas have fared much better than others - as is always the case. But house price inflation in Scotland has been very subdued. Valuations have been eroded. Equity in one's home has not been the leverage with which to borrow that it was before the crash. There has been no dramatic change, and no panic.
Putting some numbers to that, the average price of a home transaction in 2007 had risen steeply to £155,000. It stayed close to that until 2014, when it rose to around £166,000. In 2017-18, it rose to £175,000 - a rise of 13% in a decade - and the most recent figure, for the end of 2018, was £182,000.*
For rent
For first-time buyers, most of them young, there has not been the rebalancing that the market required to help them get on that first rung - needing a bigger deposit, tighter controls on affordability, burdened also by student loans, with pay stuck in the doldrums, and for many, career progression likewise becalmed.
That generation of millennials has become Generation Rent. The size of the private rental market has nearly doubled, to around 15% of all homes. Rents have gone up in many places and cases. And the state of repair of private rental homes has become a major concern of policy-makers.
Twenty years ago and more, their primary concern was in the damp, crowded squalor of too much council housing and the social rented sector. With billions spent on that, and billions of debt written off, that sector has been transformed.
Property churn
What did fall in the private property market, and sharply, has been the number of transactions - down by more than half with the crash, and recovering only slightly. At its peak, more than 150,000 transactions took place in 2007-08. Three years later, only 70,500 did so. Last year, the number scraped over the 100,000 mark.
It is the churn of properties that makes money for estate agency and legal conveyancing. The value of the market went from £23bn at peak to less than £11bn at its trough, only two years later. Last year, it was just below £18bn. Inevitably, there have been harsh job consequences in the property sector, though in small numbers, they have rarely made headlines.
That sales rate remains the key problem for the sector. Not enough homes are coming to market. People are wary of buying before they sell. And they are wary of selling, if they can't see a big choice, and a clear path to their next home. We've found a tendency for people to stay put, where they are, and to meet their need for extra space by building an extension.
Reform of stamp duty, now devolved to Holyrood and known as Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), has skewed the tax burden towards buyers of more expensive properties. It's explicitly progressive.
For anything you pay over £325,000 - and that included around 8% of transactions last year - you pay 10% of that tranche, and 12% for amounts over £750,000. Those 8% of transactions represent 55% of tax take from LBTT.
Property professionals say that, too, has put a chill on the upper end of the market, which has knock-on effects further down.
One consequence is that Edinburgh home-buyers contribute a very high share of the total. Part of the story of Scotland At Home in the 21st century is the growth of the Edinburgh economy and its sprawl into neighbouring council areas, including the Lothians, Fife and Forth Valley. As one example, the finance was signed off last week on a rapid expansion of the village of Winchburgh, near Linlithgow, which will have nearly 3,500 new homes.
The story of the London property market, which wildly skews any averaging of the UK market, has an echo in the Scottish capital when compared with the rest of the country.
The slow pace of sales is now meeting Brexit uncertainty. House builders warn that investment is being frozen not only by industry but also by prospective home-buyers.
The prices aren't moving much, but property experts last month responded to the regular questions from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors with the message that the sales outlook is the worst for 20 years, including the great credit crunch crash.
In brief, a note about these house price averages: for simplicity, we've used a simple average of transactions filed with the Registers of Scotland. But there is an alternative number, the House Price Index, or HPI, compiled with the Office for National Statistics and comparable with the rest of the UK.
It irons out the statistical quirks that grow out of averages, and of disproportionate shares of the type or value band of homes being bought and sold.
The HPI suggests the average value of a Scottish home is much lower than the average value of transactions. In November 2018, it was put at £151,000.
In Wales, the HPI put the average at £161,000, in Northern Ireland, it was £135,000 in November, after a much bigger bust and recovery than other parts of the UK over the past ten years.
In England, the comparable HPI figure was £247,000. Much of that is explained by the London effect, at an eye-watering £473,000 per home.
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An independent review into tidal lagoon energy in the UK has been completed - and now the UK Government is expected to decide by the end of the year whether the industry has a future, including a crucial first step in Swansea Bay. | By Sarah DickinsBBC Wales economics correspondent
If this form of renewable energy is supported, it could signal the dawn of a new industrial era, worth £15bn to Wales and the UK.
Those behind the new manufacturing and energy sector believe it can deliver sustainable, locally-produced electricity for about a hundred years.
Alongside this, a wealth of knowledge would build-up that could be exported around the world.
The plan would be for the first lagoon in Swansea Bay to be a prototype and the smallest.
That would then be followed by lagoons in Cardiff - east of where Cardiff Bay is now - Newport, Bridgwater Bay, Colwyn Bay and west Cumbria, north of Workington.
That is Tidal Lagoon Power (TLP's) dream.
Former UK Energy Minister Charles Hendry has been gathering evidence for nine months for his inquiry, including visits to all the potential sites and discussions with industry. Now the wait for his conclusions is intensifying.
The Swansea Bay lagoon would cost about £1.3bn; the company has promised that half that money would be spent in Wales.
So what sorts of Welsh businesses would be involved? The most obvious are civil engineering companies.
Monmouthshire construction firm Alun Griffiths Construction is already contracted to work delivering some of the roadways, while Andrew Scott Civil Engineering of Port Talbot is watching keenly.
They plan to bid for some of the marine work contracts that would be put to tender if the conclusion of the Hendry review marks the go-ahead.
General Electric and Andritz Hydro have between them a £300m contract for the 16 turbines that would be used in Swansea Bay.
The plan is that the final turbine assembly would be carried out locally.
Alongside that there will be work for companies involved in fabricated metals, steel casting and forging, and power electronics.
The chief executive of TLP Mark Shorrock said: "We certainly think we'll be creating direct employment of 1,900 in Swansea. That ignores the supply chain.
"As we go through that, we see carpenters, electrical engineers and then there's an awful lot of steel in generators and turbines."
If the Swansea Bay project gets the go ahead, TLP will then speed up its preparatory work on larger tidal lagoons in Cardiff, Newport and Colwyn Bay.
Each site will also need the same skills but on a greater scale.
The estimate is that four tidal lagoons in Wales could support 33,500 jobs during the construction and more than 3,000 when they are in operation.
They could be worth £1.3bn a year in Gross Value Added (GVA), the measure of just how much a contribution sector or industry makes to the economy.
Mr Shorrock said there was the potential for Wales to become the industry base for exporting mass-produced turbines, generators and engineering around the world.
Cost of power
The other side of the coin is the cost of the electricity generated by tidal lagoons. It has been described by politicians as "expensive" referring to the guaranteed price - or strike price - that TLP is asking from the UK government.
TLP forecasts that its lagoons would generate power for 120 years and is seeking a 90 years contract at £89.90 per mega watt hour (MWh)
That would be below the £92.50 per MWh agreed for the new Hinkley C nuclear power station.
Swansea is the test lagoon but it is small.
TLP argues that lagoons after that will be bigger and more cost-efficient - and they are designed to last 120 years, 30 years beyond the subsidy and longer than nuclear power plants and offshore wind generators.
Comparing costs of electricity is complicated and can be controversial. The wholesale electricity market in the UK can be volatile. It can change in the hour and day.
For instance according to the energy brokers Energy Solutions during the day on 21 October, the wholesale electricity price in the UK was £77.84 Mwh.
Within two days it was down to £44.57 and another day later it had reached £107.11.
The price being asked for by TLP is not linked to the consumer price index and so in real terms reduces with inflation.
In practice its very difficult to compare the costs of varying energy sources and different generations of power stations.
For instance, the pricing of electricity from both Hinkley C and tidal lagoons also includes building costs.
Whereas the price of electricity from older power stations is more like housing costs after the mortgage has been paid off. In other words, operators of these do not have to worry about paying any interest.
There is also the thorny question of the comparative ongoing cost of dealing with waste.
Consumers' bills?
So what do politicians and others mean when they say that it is an expensive form of low carbon electricity generation?
Citizens Advice gave evidence to Hendry's review. It says electricity bills to households will not go up from tidal energy but the organisation is concerned that subsidising lagoons could be take away help to other more established, renewable energy projects.
In simple terms, Citizens Advice believes that if the argument for tidal lagoons is an economic one, concentrating on job creation, then it could be paid for by taxation or a government loan, rather than through energy bills.
Andy Regan, Citizens Advice Cymru's energy specialist, said: "The subsidies are paid for with a levy on energy bills - it's a fixed pot and you want to get as much decarbonisation as you can for what consumers are paying."
The Hendry review is completed and due to be handed to the UK government.
While Mark Shorrock of TLP is feeling "pretty good about it", it is not known what Hendry's conclusions are or whether ministers will agree.
Ultimately the UK Government will have to decide whether generating electricity from the tides is an economically and environmentally sustainable way to produce low carbon energy for the future.
Tidal lagoons - the environmental arguments
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Proposals to redesign part of Coventry city centre ahead of the 2012 Olympics have been approved. | More trees will be planted in Broadgate and a traffic-free zone will be introduced as part of a £7m redesign which will also alter some subways.
The changes were approved at a city council meeting on Tuesday following consultations with residents.
Coventry is due to host some of the Olympic football games at the Ricoh Arena.
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