label
stringlengths 5
984
| text
stringlengths 76
235k
|
|---|---|
One night a young Palestinian man living abroad fell victim to an online scam, involving a web camera and a beautiful woman. Here Samir (not his real name) tells the story of how he was trapped - and below the BBC's Reda el Mawy visits the Moroccan boomtown where many of the scammers are based.
WARNING: this story contains descriptions of sexual acts | It happened when I was home alone. This girl added me on Facebook. I didn't think it was anything strange - I often get friend requests from old school friends who I don't know well.
The next day she sends me a message: "Hi, how are you? I saw your profile and I liked you." So I looked at her profile and, I mean, she was really hot.
That night she starts messaging me via Skype. She says she's 23, her parents are dead, and she lives with her older sister in Sidon, Lebanon. She says she's bored because she doesn't study or work and that her sister is very strict. I ask her about her hobbies and she says she likes sex. She loves it, she says.
"Hmm," I thought, "this is interesting." At this point I am curious but unsure, because it's strange how easily she's talking about sex with a stranger. But I was bored, my girlfriend was out of town, and didn't have anything to do. So I figured, "What the hell, I'll chat with this girl and see where it goes."
Eventually she asks if I have a webcam. So I turn on my video and say, "Can I see you too?" She turns on her video and when I see her, you know, she is a really beautiful girl. With a girl like this, you lose your head.
We continue chatting, but only in messages, not actually speaking. She says she's afraid her sister will hear her. As we're chatting she tells me that talking with me is turning her on. I'm thinking because she lives with her strict sister, in the south of Lebanon rather than in a more open place like Beirut, maybe she's frustrated and looks for sexual encounters online.
Then she asks me to show her my penis. So I show her my penis. Then I say, "OK, your turn." She lies on the bed, undresses, and starts masturbating. I'd never seen anything like it. It was so easy. Too good to be true.
So I start masturbating too. She tells me to put the camera on my face because it excites her, so I move the camera back and forth between my face and my penis. After a few minutes she pretends to have an orgasm. Still naked, she comes back to the keyboard to chat with me. She asks me what I do, and I tell her I work in marketing in Milan.
"Oh, so you must be rich!" she says.
"Well, I get by," I say.
Then she says she hears her sister coming, so she gets dressed and signs off.
A half hour later I get a message on Facebook. "Listen," it says, "I'm a man, and I recorded a video of you masturbating. Do you want to see it?" He sends me the video. It's about five minutes of me masturbating.
"I have a list of your friends and family from Facebook - your mum, your sister, your cousins," he says. "You have one week to send me to send me 5,000 euros (£4,450), or I'll send them the video."
I was in shock. My first thought was to send him the money immediately. But I cancel her, or him, as a Skype contact and right away I get a message on WhatsApp.
"I'm here," it says.
#ShameOnline
This is one of a series of stories looking at a new and disturbing phenomenon - the use of private or sexually explicit images to threaten, blackmail and shame young people, mainly girls and women, in some of the world's most conservative societies. Explore all the stories and join the conversation here.
So I plead with him. I tell him I don't have 5,000 euros. He says, "Of course you do, you have a good job in Europe." "No," I tell him, "that was a lie, just to impress the girl, I'm just a pizza delivery guy."
Then I remember a photo I had sent her of me tiling my bathroom and I say, "Look, do you think if I were some rich guy I'd tile my own bathroom?"
He's sort of convinced by this and says, "That may be true, but I don't care. You have one week to send me 2,000 euros. Otherwise, I'm sending the video to your family."
I try to calm down and think rationally. If I send him money, what is to stop him from coming back and demanding more?
Then it occurs to me that if he sends the video to my contacts - people he isn't friends with - it will go to a junk inbox that no-one checks. And even if they check it, I figure, who is going to open a video file from an unknown person? It could be a virus. So I have two choices: I send him the money and I have no guarantee he doesn't ask for more, or I refuse and hope no-one looks at the video.
The day comes, though, when he messages me and says, "OK, I'm about to upload the video to YouTube."
"Upload it," I tell him. "I don't care any more."
Then I change my privacy settings so no-one can post to my wall or tag me without my consent.
Then he sends me the link to the video on WhatsApp. I watch it again. It's me masturbating, on YouTube. I feel sick to my stomach.
Immediately I start reporting the video to YouTube for sexual content. I report it, close the page, reload the link, and report it again. Over and over.
He sends me a message saying he's about to send the link to my relatives on Facebook if I don't pay.
"Go ahead," I tell him, "send it."
I couldn't pay him. First 2,000 euros, then perhaps 5,000. Where would it end? He was so upset. He starts sending me insults, telling me he'll send the video to my mother, to everyone I know.
I keep reporting the video. Each time I'm watching the number of views to see if anyone else has viewed it. After about an hour YouTube takes the video down.
From what I can tell, all the views were mine, except for one. That could have been him viewing it after he uploaded it, or one of my relatives. I'll never know for sure, but I've never heard from anyone. Maybe a male relative saw it and never told anyone.
Can you imagine, though, if an aunt had seen it? She would have told another aunt, her husband, her kids, soon my whole family would have known. I have family all over the world, the US, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Europe.
And what if my mum sees this? A video of me masturbating. I would have thrown myself out the window from the shame.
After the video was taken down I didn't hear from the guy again. I imagine he moved on to bigger fish. I remember when I asked why he was picking on a poor young guy like me he had said, "You think I don't target rich guys in the Gulf states? Of course I do. You're lucky I can see from your Facebook page you're not married, or I would be asking for a lot more money."
I think it's over, but every now and then I check YouTube to see if he's re-uploaded it.
Reda el Mawy writes: The "23-year-old Lebanese girl" who seduced Samir on Skype was almost certainly a young man from Oued Zem - a small town in central Morocco that has become known as the capital of the "sextortion" industry.
The Oued Zem scammers trawl Facebook for victims, and as soon as a man answers a video call - either on Skype or, increasingly, within Facebook itself - they activate software that shows the victim a pre-recorded video of a girl downloaded from a porn webcam site.
They are so familiar with this video that they are able to chat-message their victims at exactly the points where the girl appears to be typing on the keyboard.
"We ask him to take off his clothes and to do obscene gestures," says one young scammer I will call Omar.
"It's crucial that his genitals are visible while he's doing these gestures. This is filmed with his face on screen so the video looks credible. When we've got the recording we upload it to YouTube and send it to him in a private message. That's when the threatening starts. We spend 20 minutes chatting, 20 minutes for the video, and 20 minutes threatening - threatening and negotiating. They all pay."
He adds: "The weak point of Arabs is sex. So you look for their weaknesses, and you exploit them. The other weakness is when they are married, for example. You can exploit that. Then there are the really religious guys. You see someone who looks like a sheikh, carrying the Koran, and you think, 'There's no way he'll fall for this - but let's try him anyway.' And when you try, he falls for it."
Omar says he earns about $500 (£400) every day from the scam, and that hundreds of other young men in Oued Zem are doing the same.
I counted at least 50 international money transfer offices in the town. The manager of one of these offices told me that he took in about $8,500 (£7,000) every day, and that the vast majority of that was blackmail money. There are German cars and Japanese motorbikes in the streets, and fancy café-restaurants that provide a front for families that need an explanation for their new-found wealth.
In the UK, Wayne May runs an online community, Scam Survivors, that offers advice and support to victims of the webcam masturbation racket. Since 2012 he has received more than 14,000 requests for help from victims all over the world, including the UK and the US. Many are young Arab men, he says, and about a third of all the scams originate in Morocco.
Before the advent of social media, Oued Zem was largely reliant on remittances from people working in Europe. But with the economic crash of 2008, remittances dropped - and this was exactly the moment that Facebook and webcams were becoming everyday tools of communication.
Salaheddin El-Kennan, a labour activist, does not blame the town's young men for making money from extortion. He points the finger at the state-owned company that mines phosphate in the surrounding countryside but employs very few local people.
"I chose not to go down the route of scamming because I consider it incompatible with our Moroccan and Islamic values," he says.
"But unemployment rates in our town are higher than in the rest of Morocco. Nationally, unemployment is at 8.7%, while in our town we estimate that it's as high as 60%. With the lack of employment, and no apprenticeship schemes in the city, many people look for other ways to make money."
Omar said he was not proud of what he does, and that he wanted to stop scamming.
Intelligent, articulate, and technologically adept, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in a place with more opportunities a young man of Omar's talents could find a legitimate way to earn his $500 a day.
Reporting by Sean O'Neill, Reda el Mawy, and Daniel Silas Adamson
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter
|
Paul Hollywood's decision to stay with the Great British Bake Off when it moves to Channel 4 and Mary Berry's decision to leave the programme has got Britain's bakers in a flap(jack). | Presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc announced earlier in September that they would not follow the show and go to Channel 4 saying: "We made no secret of our desire for the show to remain where it was... we're not going with the dough."
The judges' decisions have left a few puns in the oven:
There was a cracking suggestion from Pointless co-presenter, Richard Osman:
There was shock:
And dismay:
Some were suggested holding a memorial to the programme:
How to explain to the younger generation about the significance of 'Great British Shake-up':
Some were concerned about the rest of the ingredients:
Others asked about loyalty:
So what now for GBBO?
Who will stir in the double entendres? If your surname's Baker, you're halfway there:
Would he approve of these co-stars? They might cost a pretty penne.
Compiled by Sherie Ryder, BBC UGC & Social News team
|
One of Britain's leading artists has teamed up with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist to turn fragments of drawings by William Blake, JMW Turner and Pablo Picasso into the so-called "wonder material" graphene.
The fruits of Cornelia Parker and Professor Konstantin Novoselov's experiments in art and science will reopen the Whitworth art gallery in Manchester on Friday after a £15m expansion. | By Ian YoungsArts reporter, BBC News
The laboratory where graphene was discovered looks just like you hope a top scientist's lab will look.
In the corner, a large steel vat with the word "cryogenics" on the side has frothing gases flowing from its spout, looking like it may have been bought second-hand when Top of the Pops was taken off air.
There are banks of electronic modules with flashing red digital displays and wires winding from one to the next.
Down the road, people are dressed head-to-toe in protective clothing and bathed in artificial yellow light as they peer through goggles into microscopes.
It is tempting to assume that Professor Konstantin Novoselov will complete the picture by entering in a lab coat and with zany white hair.
But the Russian-born boffin, personable but unassuming in jeans and a grey jumper, is no mad scientist. He is one of the two brilliant graphene pioneers who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010.
Their discovery was a very thin form of carbon, a single atom thick, which is apparently 100 times stronger than steel and conducts electricity better than copper. It will supposedly revolutionise our lives.
Prof Novoselov - known as Kostya - is also an art lover. So when he was asked to work with Cornelia Parker, one of Britain's most acclaimed artists, he says he "jumped on it immediately".
It was in these University of Manchester labs that the pair came up with the idea of taking tiny fragments of graphite from the pencil lead on drawings by Blake, Turner, Picasso and Constable and turning them into graphene.
"She had this vision that we can bring back to life the old drawings of the old masters," Prof Novoselov says.
"Of course that possibility's only once in a lifetime, to get my hands on the old masters, and probably correct a few things which they did wrong.
"I picked a few specks of graphite from there and turned it into graphene."
Prof Novoselov has a glint in his eye when he suggests that he has removed a few pencil strokes to "correct" these great artists' mistakes.
The amount of graphite he actually removed was minute. "You would never know that there has been anything taken from those drawings," he adds in case anyone did not get his little joke.
"I work with pieces of graphite that are sub-100 microns (0.1mm), so you would never notice those with the naked eye."
The drawings he took graphite from include William Blake's Study for Tiriel Denouncing his Sons and Daughters (1789).
The graphene he extracted from that picture has now been used to make a sensor that will trigger a firework display at the nearby Whitworth gallery on Friday.
The firework display has been designed by Parker, who has added bits of meteorite from Arizona to the fireworks to make a sort of meteor shower.
"I'm re-enacting the meteor's fall in a firework display," says Parker.
Parker was inspired by Blake's poem America: A Prophecy, in which he wrote of "flam'd red meteors" and "terrible wandering comets".
"He's very biblical in his proselytations about the firmament, and so somehow this firework display is going to be a Blakeian firework display," she explains.
Like the lab, the Whitworth is owned by the University of Manchester. As well as arranging the fireworks, Parker is exhibiting at the Whitworth as part of its reopening line-up.
The gallery has been shut for redevelopment since September 2013 and will reopen to the public on Saturday, having doubled in size and gained a new wing and an "art garden" in the neighbouring Whitworth Park.
Parker is a former Turner Prize nominee and was the only living artist in the top 10 after a survey to find the most popular British artworks in 2013.
Long before dabbling in graphene, she made her name by examining, dismantling and playing around with familiar objects before allowing us to look at them anew.
She crushed silver with a steamroller, enlisted the British Army to blow up a garden shed, made a magnified image of a hole in a pin cushion made by Charlotte Bronte and microscopic portraits of the chalk crystals in Einstein's equations.
The Einstein work was made while she was artist in residence at the Science Museum. There is now talk of her doing a residency at Cern, the home of the Large Hadron Collider, in Switzerland.
'Genius' ideas
"Artists and scientists are very close," Parker says. "They always have been, but I think we've just been divided out over the last few centuries into specialisms.
"Leonardo da Vinci was drawing helicopters and all kinds of things. We're artificially divided. I think we're closer than we think we are."
Artists and scientists both rely on curiosity, willingness to learn and imagination, Prof Novoselov believes.
"Artists and scientists both think outside the box," he continues. "They've got to come with genius experiments or ideas to expose the most interesting phenomena.
"Later, they've got to diverge a little bit because scientists will start to look at the common elements between many of the phenomena to describe the most general law, and artists will probably try to study individuals rather than the crowd as a whole.
"But we're just two sides of the same medal."
|
Child sexual abuse has dominated the news agenda since the Jimmy Savile revelations. But the focus on abuse by celebrities and grooming gangs masks the fact that more than 80% of abuse takes place within the home, according to campaigners. | By Fergal Keane & Dominic HurstBBC News
Abuse in the home is rarely reported to police and survivors rarely get justice.
It is a secret history of horrific stories, of children abused by those they loved and trusted or targeted because their home circumstances made them vulnerable to manipulative outsiders.
On a bench in a deserted park in Kent, Chris Tuck is warming up for her exercise routine. Despite the cold wind she stretches her body then jogs on the spot, preparing for her morning workout.
She is a health coach with a successful business and a happy family life.
But Chris Tuck has had to face a traumatic past. She is survivor of abuse. She says her childhood was scarred by neglect, beatings, emotional cruelty and sexual abuse.
"It makes you feel violated," she says. "It makes you feel dirty. It makes you feel angry. It just doesn't feel right. It's hard to explain. You also don't want to talk about it. It's not something you would go up and say: 'My Daddy has been touching me here, my Daddy has been doing that.' It's not something you speak about and unless someone asks you that question, why would you speak about it?"
It was when she had her own child that she felt compelled to speak out.
"That's when I had my breakdown. And I knew I had to get strong to bring my own children up. I have had to learn to love and to nurture. I have had to learn to bring my children up in the best way I can as I never had that as a child. And that is where abuse in the home can be so destructive."
Tuck is not alone. The NSPCC estimates one in 20 children are victims of sexual abuse. It says in 90% cases the victim is known to the perpetrator. And one in three children never tell anyone about the abuse.
Sexual abuse
Source: NSPCC
For decades many survivors never spoke about their experiences. Many perpetrators went unpunished. But now more and more survivors are coming forward.
In a small office in south London, Dr Jon Bird is on the telephone, listening intently. The caller is a survivor of child abuse who wants to talk.
Bird is working at the helpline for one of the support groups for survivors, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood. Since the revelations about Jimmy Savile, there's been a surge in people coming forward reporting abuse.
Between 2012 and 2013 the volume of calls to the NAPAC free helpline doubled to between 1,500 and 2,000 per month. At its peak in the autumn of 2012, the helpline was taking 3,500 calls a month. In the last three years it has also received more than 12,000 emails. Many of the survivors contacting the charity have never spoken before about their abuse.
Bird is a good listener. He is a survivor himself. Raped in a park at the age of four and then abused at school, his life spiralled out of control until he was homeless, living on the streets and addicted to heroin.
Through study and perseverance he has now turned his life around and helps others through the painful journey towards recovery that he himself made. Many of those he helps were abused by a relative or somebody they knew.
"Child sexual abuse and all abuse of children rips families apart. I get calls saying I was abused by person x. Then later they tell mum and she cant believe it. She married him. Or trusted him as a brother," he says.
"It rips families apart. It is much more complicated than a perpetrator and a victim. It is much wider than that and very difficult to talk about in the family, especially in cultures where it is not done to speak ill of your elders."
He says that with the current focus on celebrity and institutional abuse, the crisis in the home is in danger of being ignored.
"Just 0.06% of abuse was by somebody famous. The vast majority of the problem is in the home."
In the tranquil Devon seaside town of Torquay, palm trees blow in the sea breeze along the seafront. But here - like so many communities across the UK - there is a hidden problem of abuse.
Not far from the seafront, the Children's Society runs an outreach project called Checkpoint. Each month it deals with dozens of cases of abuse, child sexual exploitation and missing children.
One of the children its project workers have been helping is "Lisa", though this is not her real name. From the age of 14 she began going online and soon began meeting men who groomed her.
"Yes I met a lot of people alone. I used to not care. I used to go and meet people at stupid times at night and put myself in danger. It was in exchange for sexual favours and sexual advantage. They were normally aged 19 to 25."
She explained how she would fall under the spell of internet groomers.
"At first they are so nice. They compliment you. They make you feel like the person you want to be. Then you find out it is all lies they want something out of you. All they do is make you feel worthless."
Her project workers at the Children's Society have helped her make changes in her life and she has now found work. But she still struggles with low self-esteem.
"I just feel worthless," she says. "There are people who die of serious causes. I would prefer to give them my life as I don't really want mine."
But there has been a significant cultural change. The shamed silence which surrounded abuse is being challenged. Children are being given explicit warnings about potential dangers - not just those posed by strangers but from those closer to home.
At a school in Fulham in West London children aged 10 and 11 sit attentively waiting for the lesson to begin. They are about to learn about the dangers of abuse.
Instead of teachers, this lesson is conducted by a group of volunteers from Childline, in association with the NSPCC, and all wearing bright green T-shirts bearing the charity's logo.
The content is remarkably frank and honest. But the tone is calm. There is no sense here that children are being frightened or being taught a general mistrust of adults. They are shown animated videos and told about different forms of abuse - neglect, emotional cruelty, violence and sexual abuse.
Together they chant the ChildLine phone number - 0800 1111 - and its website address.
The children are given tasks to discuss in small groups the different risks a child may face. The discussions are lively and open.
The NSPCC is increasing its work in schools so that by next year it aims to visit every primary school in the UK twice a year, although to do this it needs more volunteers to help.
Last year 18,600 children and young people contacted Childline to discuss child sex abuse. But the culture of shame, the desire to protect parents even if they are abusers, a child's lack of awareness of their rights - all can act as powerful barriers to breaking the silence.
The NSPCC Area Co-ordinator, Kelly Thorndick, believes it is important that children understand the danger of abuse as early as possible.
"It's about educating children so they know how to get help at a much earlier stage. But it's also about giving them the confidence to take action for themselves, as often children don't understand what is happening to them is abuse," she says.
If you have been affected, the following organisations can help: The police if you have evidence of having suffered sexual abuse so an investigation can be made. NSPCC charity specialises in child protection. National Association for People Abused in Childhood offers support, advice and guidance to adult survivors of any form of childhood abuse. Childline is a private and confidential service for children and young people up to the age of 19. The Children's Society works to support vulnerable children in England and Wales.
|
In a world first, on 3 December 1992, an engineer sent the message "Merry Christmas" from a PC to a mobile device using Vodafone's UK network. | But the origins of the idea date back further to Matti Makkonen. Over a pizza at a telecoms conference in 1984, the former Finnish civil servant put forward the idea of a mobile phone messaging service. This was to become the SMS (short message service) standard.
Dubbed the "father of SMS"- a title he dislikes because of the work others did to develop the technology - Matti Makkonen rarely gives interviews. However, he made an exception for the BBC's tech team with an interview via SMS.
If you are on a mobile device, you can read the full text here.
|
Hard; soft; open; closed. To the City of London it may not make too much difference. While the UK government is still grappling with the outcome of last week's election, Brexit is already getting real for the banks, fund managers and insurers that do business in the Square Mile. | Helen ThomasNewsnight business editor
The most immediate example of this is announcement on Tuesday on the process known as clearing. The European Commission has said it wants to heighten its oversight of the clearing of euro-denominated derivatives outside the European Union. What, exactly, does that mean?
The clearing houses are important parts of the financial infrastructure. Ensuring that more derivatives transactions were cleared was a crucial part of the regulatory response to the 2008 financial crisis.
But it has long been an irritation to some in Brussels that so much euro-denominated derivatives business is cleared in London, mainly at LCH, which is owned by the London Stock Exchange Group. Brexit simply breathed new life into this old grievance.
Still, for those fearing an all-out land grab of London's business, there was some good news. Tuesday's proposal stopped short of the nuclear option that would have immediately forced chunks of London's clearing business to be relocated to within the EU.
Instead, the Commission proposed a beefed up form of supervision of clearers outside the EU that are deemed "systemically important" - basically the biggest clearing houses.
That doesn't look terribly controversial. The London Stock Exchange has said it would be happy to be more directly regulated by European supervisors. It is an approach taken by the American authorities, with 90 per cent of dollar-denominated interest-rate swaps cleared outside the US.
But there was a sting in the tail. The European proposal kept open the stick of forced relocation, a move that critics say would mean higher costs for users and a less liquid, riskier market. Effectively, it said that for the very largest clearing houses enhanced regulation might not be sufficient and the Commission could require that they move into the EU.
One comfort may be that it falls to European regulators and the relevant central bank, rather than politicians, to determine that other measures have failed in overseeing clearing houses. The Commission said Tuesday it was "not moving business for the sake of moving business". But others are wary that once a legislative tool is created giving Europe the power to force relocation, it will - sooner or later - be used.
Elsewhere, though, the City's planning for Brexit is running ahead of the political debate. Banks must by mid-July share their contingency plans with the Bank of England. Those could include what jobs and activities must move to the continent under a range of different scenarios.
So far, the emphasis has been on being ready for a worst case scenario, according to people familiar with the banks' planning. That is an exit from the EU where banks lose their "passporting" rights to operate freely, where there is no access granted on the basis of "equivalence" of regulations and where there are no transition arrangements in place to act as a crash mat for the UK's financial sector.
So are banks likely to hit the pause button now that the election result has thrown into doubt the government's strategy for a "hard" Brexit?
Well, probably not. Financial analysts generally agree that the hung parliament makes a different type of Brexit more likely. But many also argue that it heightens the small risk that we get jettisoned out of the Union without any deal at all, either by design, delay or just by dint of sheer incompetence.
More importantly, it isn't clear that the options being discussed for a "soft" Brexit would work for the City well either. Staying in the customs union would mean tariff-free, frictionless trade of goods but doesn't cover the type of cross-border provision of services the City provides.
The "Norway option" - staying within the European Economic Area - would mean banks based in London would keep passporting, a major advantage. But that too presents problems in the long term, say people involved with the industry's work on the subject.
Being within the EEA but not within the EU means being a so-called "rule-taker" - signing up to the rules and regulations of the EU without having any say in making them. That is enough to make the industry twitchy. It could also mean financial regulation being made without the input and expertise of the largest financial centre in Europe.
Hence the City's insistence that the industry will ultimately need a bespoke arrangement with Europe - one that grants access to each other's markets; one that sets out ways for keeping regulation aligned (though not requiring it be identical); and one that has a method for resolving disagreements as they inevitably arise.
That may be needed no matter how hard, soft, tough, easy or otherwise the UK's Brexit proves.
|
Leaving Vogue seems to be in fashion at the moment. | By Steven McIntoshEntertainment reporter
A number of senior figures have exited the magazine in recent weeks amid reports that its new editor is making some staffing changes before he officially begins on 1 August.
Edward Enninful is taking over from Alexandra Shulman, who announced in January that she was leaving after 25 years in charge.
He is the first male editor in the magazine's history, and is already making a few tweaks (or, removing "posh girls", as The Times put it) to the senior editorial team.
Since his hiring was announced, Vogue veterans such as Lucinda Chambers and Emily Sheffield have announced their departure as Enninful gears up to bring in his own team.
But it hasn't been a smooth transition so far.
Chambers, Vogue's former fashion director, was one of the first major figures to leave.
And she did so in style.
"Lucinda has announced that she is to step down from her position," the magazine delicately said on its website in May.
Chambers herself had a slightly different take.
"A month and a half ago I was fired," she said in a candid interview with fashion blog Vestoj, published this week.
"Truth be told, I haven't read Vogue in years. The clothes are just irrelevant for most people - so ridiculously expensive."
There's more.
"Most fashion magazines leave you totally anxiety-ridden," she said, adding: "We are always trying to make people buy something they don't need. We don't need any more bags, shirts or shoes. So we cajole, bully or encourage people to continue buying."
The comments echo what Shulman herself said earlier this year.
"At the end of the day, very few people have to have another pair of trousers, another skirt, another bomber jacket, so what you are doing as an industry is creating desire," she said.
Hilary Alexander, editor-at-large for Hello! Fashion Monthly and trustee of Graduate Fashion Week, says there's an element of truth in Chambers's comments.
"There's no doubt there are too many clothes in the world, and the number of collections being pumped out month after month, you could spend the entire year going from one Fashion Week to another," she says.
"But at the opposite end of the scale, fashion is a huge industry that employs millions of people across the world, it's worth around £28bn a year in this country alone if you include the retail sector."
The departure of senior figures like Chambers is to be expected, says Susie Lau, fashion blogger and journalist.
"From an industry point of view, it's completely normal for someone like Edward Enninful to come in and say he wants a completely new team," she tells the BBC.
"Especially at the senior level, he would want to have people that he feels can push forward the new editorial direction, and I think it is going to be a very different tone and feel to what Alex did."
Chambers appeared to be pulling no punches with her rather honest interview, but not long after it was published, it was taken down... and then put back up again.
"Due to the sensitive nature of this article, we took the decision to temporarily remove it from the site," Vestoj said in a statement.
"In terms of the reasons why it was removed, they are directly related to the industry pressures which Lucinda discusses in her interview.
"As you know, fashion magazines are rarely independent because their existence depends on relationships with powerful institutions and individuals. We created Vestoj to be an antidote to these pressures, but we are not always immune."
You can see why some figures in the fashion industry may not have been best pleased with the Chambers article.
At one point in the interview, she said: "The June cover with Alexa Chung in a stupid Michael Kors T-shirt is crap. He's a big advertiser so I knew why I had to do it. I knew it was cheesy when I was doing it, and I did it anyway."
But Lau says the close relationship between advertisers and journalists has always been a fixture of the industry.
"[Chambers] has been in fashion for so long, she's worked for a magazine where the commercial concerns are hugely important, and that's not anything new," she said
"Advertisers are of course given precedence, and maybe creative control has to be sometimes compromised - but it was ever thus. That's part and parcel of working in a print landscape that has undergone so many changes."
She adds that Chambers's comments in the interview are understandable given how long she has spent working at Vogue.
"I think when you work in the industry you do become quite jaded. When you're dealing with the mainstream side of fashion and doing it in a very commercially-minded way, it can get cynical.
"There are wonderful creative and brilliant things happening, but I guess if your day-to-day isn't about that any more, that can wear you down."
Vogue's replenishing continued on Tuesday with reports another senior figure announced she was exiting the publication.
Deputy editor Emily Sheffield, who is also the sister of Samantha Cameron, said she was leaving her role as Vogue's deputy director "after a very happy decade".
She might not have updated her Twitter biog yet, but the invitations for her leaving do have gone out so we're pretty sure it's only a matter of time.
"Emily Sheffield was suggested as a replacement when Alex's retirement was announced, so it's only natural if you're thinking you might get the top job and someone newer and younger comes in, that you would feel there isn't really a place for you any more," Alexander explains.
Both Lau and Alexander are looking forward to seeing what changes are made to the magazine when Enninful officially starts as editor.
"I'm excited because he is a brilliant stylist, I think Vogue will be a lot more diverse, I think we can expect surprises and shocks," Alexander says.
"Perhaps there will be more focus on younger, newer designers, those who are working in unusual ways. I would welcome that, you don't want to constantly read about the same old faces."
Lau adds: "I know some of the people going in there [to Vogue], they haven't been announced yet but I think it's going to be a really exciting team.
"It won't be quite as different as people are painting it, but there will be changes. Vogue is a barometer of our times, and I think it will reflect that."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
|
A report into the murder of four-year-old Daniel Pelka from Coventry found he went unnoticed by the professionals he came into contact with.
Last month, his mother Magdelena Luczak and her partner Mariusz Krezolek were jailed for a minimum of 30 years each for what the judge called their "incomprehensible brutality".
Some members of the Polish community in the West Midlands believe that, like Daniel, they too are "invisible" to society and more needs to be done to recognise their needs as a migrant group. | Elizabeth Kardynal, from Walsall, who founded the town's Polish school and European Welfare Association, said there was still "a serious lack of engagement" and Daniel's story was an example of "what will happen if we don't all work together".
"It's not until something really bad happens that people start to react," said Ms Kardynal, who moved to the UK nine years ago.
"We're the second biggest minority group after the Asian community here yet there is no recognition of that or willingness to have a conversation."
'Help them help us'
Ms Kardynal admitted a lack of English could be a barrier but said Polish people also needed more help from the authorities to integrate.
"I've got a list of hundreds of people who need more help than they get with things like access to education, benefits and even legal advice.
"I understand times are tough and there isn't much money around but we are trying to help [councils] help us."
Walsall Council said it worked to offer support to Polish people in the area, including a multi-lingual support service for reporting hate crime.
Councillor Chris Towe said: "It is disappointing to hear that some members of the Polish community do not feel that they are being listened to and supported.
"The council will always do our best to support people of all backgrounds to get the help that they need."
Ms Kardynal said she recently carried out training with West Midlands Police to help raise awareness about the Polish community in the area.
In return, officers trained her 50 volunteers at the Polish school about hate crime.
Supt Chris Johnson from West Midlands Police said hate crime was under-reported across the force area.
"We are training our call handling staff to better identify hate crime and vulnerability so that support can be provided right from the start," he said
Ms Kardynal said she believed better awareness was "vital" after the experience of the Wawrzkiewicz family in West Bromwich.
Monika Wawrzkiewicz said her family's windows were smashed and car tyres slashed, forcing them to move to Wednesbury four months ago.
Her 13-year-old son Damian was also bullied at his former school, Phoenix Collegiate.
"I was pointed at by random people, called names and beaten up so badly that I ended up in hospital," he said.
"I believe it's because I'm Polish, but the school never found out who it was - I reported it several times."
'Different expectations'
Head teacher Gary Hill said he could not comment on individual students but that the school "does not tolerate bullying".
Damian said he was "almost certain" he would end up returning to Poland after gaining a British education.
Alicja Kaczmarek, director of the Polish Expats Association in Birmingham, said isolation was typical of "typical of migrant communities".
"They face lots of barriers, language and cultural (because) people don't often realise how many differences there are."
However she said "overall the Polish community was settling in quite well".
Monika Rozanski, who presented a radio programme for the Polish community on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, which is no longer on air, said often people found their expectations about moving to the UK let them down.
"For example in Poland you don't go to a doctor to get referred to a specialist whereas here you do and that isn't always explained," she said.
"The Polish community can be quite hard to reach by the police because people are more wary of them in Poland."
West Midlands Police said the force had a number of centres where people can speak in confidence to someone not attached to the force, if they wished.
Ms Rozanski also said language barriers were the risk that Polish people took by moving here.
"It's less of a problem these days but there are still those who move here and have to rely on a relative or friend."
|
A new bus service between Aberystwyth in Ceredigion and Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire has started running. | The hourly T5 service replaces the X50 and 412 services and is part of the Traws Cymru network, which is funded by the Welsh government.
The journey takes around two hours and 45 minutes and includes stops at Aberaeron, Cardigan and Fishguard.
A fleet of fuel-efficient buses will be introduced from the end of April.
|
A man has appeared in court charged with assault following the death of a two-year-old boy in Edinburgh. | Emergency services were called to a property in the Muirhouse area of the city at about 09:30 on Saturday morning.
The boy had serious injuries and died at the scene shortly afterwards.
Lucasz Czapla, 40, was also charged with driving over the alcohol limit, dangerous driving and failing to stop a vehicle.
He appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Monday where he made no plea and was remanded in custody.
Det Ch Insp Lynn McFall said: "I'd like to thank the local people in the Muirhouse community for their help during this inquiry. This was an isolated incident."
|
Troy: Myth and Reality at the British Museum is an exhibition that rewards the diligent. To go unprepared is to start watching Game of Thrones half way through Season 7; it'll still make some sort of sense but will generally be more baffling than Prince Andrew's decision to do that interview. | Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter
I know this because I hadn't sufficiently mugged up when I went to see it and duly fell at the first hurdle, which is the show's title.
What was myth and what was reality? Was there ever such a man as Homer? Was there ever an epic war with the Greeks? Was there ever a wooden horse? Did Troy even exist?
You need to know this stuff.
Which I do now thanks to the good offices of Alexandra Villing and Victoria Donnellan, who took pity on me and escorted me around their 294-object exhibition.
They swiftly put me right on the basics.
Troy did exist.
Well, it did, but even that has been contested. Not least by Homer who reported it had been totally wiped out, a view shared by the Roman poet Lucan, who wrote, "Etiam periere ruinae" - Even its very ruins were destroyed.
That small bone of contention aside, it's useful to know the city was also called Ilion (or Ilium in Latin) - hence The Iliad - is now called Hissarlik, and can be found on the far north west coast of Turkey to the south of the Dardanelles strait near the Aegean Sea.
As for the 10-year Trojan war, they're not so sure. Probably an invention - at least in the way it's described by Homer.
The same goes for the wooden Trojan horse, and possibly even Homer, the great poet of the past.
He might have been a she, or someone else altogether, or a collection of individuals latterly embodied as Homer a single genius because that's how we like our great art packaged.
The truth is we don't know, it is all myth.
I've stood upon Achilles' tomb,
And heard Troy doubted: time will doubt of Rome.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto 4, 101
And then there is the reality, which consists of the art and artefacts that make up this encyclopaedic exhibition.
They cover a period of 5,000 years, with the majority coming from the centuries following the fable of the Trojan War, which is thought to have been set in the Late Bronze Age, around 1200BC.
These pots, paintings, carvings, manuscripts, and assorted fragments all have inscriptions and depictions relating to the epic tale. The earliest of which is a small, battered drinking cup (circa 715BC) from Pithekoussai, an old Greek colony in southern Italy. It appears at the beginning of the show and sets a suitably poetic tone, with these three lines of verse scribbled within its geometric decoration:
"I am the cup of Nestor, good to drink from; whoever drinks from this cup, immediately desire of fair-garlanded Aphrodite will strike him."
You wouldn't necessarily know it, but that's a joke.
The point being that Nestor, a Greek king featured in Homer's Iliad, drank from a golden goblet that only he was strong enough to lift, whereas anyone could swig from this little clay vessel.
What was a joke back then is deadly serious now to a contemporary scholar.
The inscription reveals that a small ancient community knew of a story featured in the Iliad. What's more, the pot on which those words appear was not made locally, but in Teos, Turkey, which is near to Smyrna and Chios, two settlements put forward as the birthplace of Homer.
Hanging on a wall not far from the cup is a wonderful marble relief (circa 1st Century BC - 1st Century AD) that gets to the crux of the story. It shows the meeting between Paris (the son of Priam, King of Troy) and Helen (wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta.)
The rendezvous is engineered by meddling gods and is not entirely of Paris's making. He had been asked by Zeus to pick the fairest of three goddesses: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.
It is a scene known as The Judgement of Paris, which is shown in several pictures in the exhibition, the best of which is by Lucas Cranach the Elder, a painting from circa 1530, which has an unforgettably charismatic horse looking on.
Paris chooses Aphrodite, who promptly offers to him as his reward, the most beautiful woman in the world, which is Helen. The warmongering gods have done the poor chap up like a kipper.
Of course, he falls for Helen and takes her back to Troy.
There's a wonderful wall-painting (AD45-79) from Pompeii in the exhibition, showing a servant leading Helen to the ship that will take her to Troy. She doesn't look exactly thrilled by the prospect, but her sombre mood is nothing compared to her husband's.
Menelaus is absolutely livid when he discovers that some Trojan bloke has gone off with his missus.
He marshals an army of fellow Greeks to bring her home, and thereby begins the decade-long Trojan War.
The Iliad only covers 51 days of the drawn-out battle, concentrating on the last year and featuring all our favourite characters and events.
We see a lot of Achilles. And the Greeks' famous wooden horse, which is elegantly evoked in a bespoke section that leads to the second part of the show, bringing us into the 19th Century and the archaeological exploits of a German businessman called Heinrich Schliemann.
He and Frank Calvert, an Englishman and fellow Troy-head (archaeology was still a largely amateur pursuit in 1870), set out to find the fallen city using Homer's geographical descriptions as their divining rod. The poet had mentioned the Dardanelles, Mount Ida, the islands of Tenedos and Imbros, and local rivers.
They identified a mound at Hissarlik as the spot to start digging. Schliemann was determined to prove not only that Troy was buried beneath the surface, but also find incontrovertible evidence of the Trojan War.
As you will see, if you visit this excellent exhibition, he did very well on the first objective, but fell woefully short on proving the myth a reality.
His years of digging are displayed with a mixture of flair and restraint. The bowls, cups, axes and animal figures are theatrically lit within a shelved structure that represents each layer of the excavation. And so, an object from Troy VII, is shown a metre above one from Troy II. It's a helpful device.
The exhibition finishes with a gallery of paintings showing the Western fascination with the mythical tale.
A Matisse-inspired collage called The Siren's Song (1977) by the African-American artist Romare Bearden is very good.
Eleanor Antin's Judgment of Paris (after Rubens) from 2007 is fun, but does not compare to the Baroque master's painting nearby, The Wrath of Achilles (1630-35).
And then there's the William Blake, the Cy Twombly (as you enter the show), and the Elisabeth Frink lithographs.
There is so much to enjoy in this show, it doesn't matter that there is the odd dud along the way - I didn't much like the Anthony Caro sculpture with sound effects as you enter the exhibition, or the Shield of Achilles (2019) by Spencer Finch as you leave - but pretty much everything in between them is terrific.
Recent reviews by Will Gompertz
|
Fire crews from across central Scotland were called to tackle a wildland fire in Menstrie Glen. | Units from Dunblane, Doune, Bridge of Allan, Stirling, and Auchterarder, supported by a command unit from Bo'ness, attended the blaze on Sunday.
Crews used beaters and hosereel jets to contain and extinguish the fire.
Dunblane Fire Station said its Polaris all-terrain vehicle was also used during the operation, which lasted about six hours.
|
A 24-year-old man has been charged with injuring a nine-year-old boy who was hit by a motorbike in a park. | Jerome Cawkwell, 24, of Cambridge Grove, Hull, is also charged with failing to stop after the crash in the city's Rosmead Park on Monday.
Humberside Police said the boy is in hospital with "life-changing injuries" and Mr Cawkwell was charged with five vehicle offences in total.
He is due to appear at Hull Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.
Mr Cawkwell is charged with:
More Yorkshire stories
|
Here is Prime Minister David Cameron's speech on the government's immigration policy which sparked a row with Business Secretary Vince Cable.
| A year ago, we were in the middle of a General Election campaign.
And there was one message I heard loud and clear on the doorstep: we want things to be different.
People said they wanted a government that didn't just do what was good for the headline or good for their Party but good for the long-term and good for our country.
That's what we're engaged in.
Clearly, cutting public spending isn't popular, but it's right to bring sense to our public finances.
People said they wanted a government that actually trusted them to use their own common sense.
That's the kind of government we want to be - giving neighbourhoods and individuals a whole range of new powers…
…scrapping so much of the bureaucracy that drove us mad.
People said they were sick of seeing those who did the right thing get punished and the wrong thing rewarded.
Again, that's what we're acting on.
In welfare we're ending the system that took money from hard-working taxpayers and gave it to people who refused to work.
These are the differences we are trying to make - listening to people, doing the hard and necessary work of changing our country for the better.
IMMIGRATION DEBATE
But there was something else we heard on the door-step - and it was this:
'We are concerned about the levels of immigration in our country…
…but we are fed up of hearing politicians talk tough but do nothing.'
Here, again, we are determined to be different.
Now, immigration is a hugely emotive subject…
…and it's a debate too often in the past shaped by assertions rather than substantive arguments.
We've all heard them.
The assertion that mass immigration is an unalloyed good and that controlling it is economic madness…
…the view that Britain is a soft touch and immigrants are out to take whatever they can get.
I believe the role of politicians is to cut through the extremes of this debate and approach the subject sensibly and reasonably.
The last government, in contrast, actually helped to inflame the debate.
On the one hand, there were Labour Ministers who closed down discussion, giving the impression that concerns about immigration were somehow racist.
On the other, there were Ministers hell-bent on burnishing their hard-line credentials by talking tough …
…but doing nothing to bring the numbers down.
This approach had damaging consequences in terms of controlling immigration…
…but also in terms of public debate.
It created the space for extremist parties to flourish, as they could tell people that mainstream politicians weren't listening to their concerns or doing anything about them.
I remember when immigration wasn't a central political issue in our country - and I want that to be the case again.
I want us to starve extremist parties of the oxygen of public anxiety they thrive on and extinguish them once and for all.
Above all, I want to get the policy right: good immigration, not mass immigration.
That's why I believe it's time for a new approach - one which opens up debate, not closes it down; where politicians don't just talk, but actually act.
BENEFITS OF IMMIGRATION
Let's start with being open.
The British people are fair-minded - and I want them to feel they can be honest about what they think about this subject.
Here's what I think.
Our country has benefited immeasurably from immigration.
Go into any hospital and you'll find people from Uganda, India and Pakistan who are caring for our sick and vulnerable.
Go into schools and universities and you'll find teachers from all over the world, inspiring our young people.
Go to almost any high street in the country and you'll find entrepreneurs from overseas who are not just adding to the local economy but playing a part in local life.
Charities, financial services, fashion, food, music - all these sectors are what they are because of immigration.
So yes, immigrants make a huge contribution to Britain.
We recognise that - and we welcome it.
PRESSURES OF IMMIGRATION
But I'm also clear about something else: for too long, immigration has been too high.
Between 1997 and 2009, 2.2 million more people came to live in this country than left to live abroad.
That's the largest influx of people Britain as ever had…
…and it has placed real pressures on communities up and down the country.
Not just pressures on schools, housing and healthcare - though those have been serious…
…but social pressures too.
Because real communities aren't just collections of public service users living in the same space.
Real communities are bound by common experiences…
…forged by friendship and conversation…
…knitted together by all the rituals of the neighbourhood, from the school run to the chat down the pub.
And these bonds can take time.
So real integration takes time.
That's why, when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods…
…perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there…
…on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate…
…that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods.
This has been the experience for many people in our country - and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it.
OUR AIM
So, taking all this into account, I believe controlling immigration and bringing it down is of vital importance to the future of our country.
That's why during the election campaign, Conservatives made a clear commitment to the British people…
…that we would aim to reduce net migration to the levels we saw in the 1980s and 1990s.
Now we are in government, we are on track to meet that aim.
We are controlling legal immigration - having introduced a cap on non-EU economic migrants.
We are clamping down on illegal immigration.
And we are getting to grips with the asylum system too.
The UK Border Agency is now close to clearing the back-log of almost half a million asylum cases.
Our action is working.
But some myths have crept in - about what we're doing and the impact our policies will have.
There are those who say that whatever measures we put in place, we can't control immigration significantly.
And there are those who accept we can control immigration, but argue that the way we propose to do it will damage our economy and universities.
Today I want to take those myths head-on.
IMMIGRATION FROM EUROPE
Let me begin by addressing those who say we can't control immigration.
They have three planks to their argument.
First, they say legal immigration is impossible to control because we're a member of the European Union.
Second, they argue that illegal immigration can't be controlled either because it's impossible to properly police.
And third, they say that immigration will always be high because immigrant workers do jobs that British people won't do.
Each part of that argument is wrong.
Take this question of Europe.
Yes, our borders are open to people from other member states in the European Union.
But actually, this counts for a small proportion of overall net migration to the UK.
In the year up to June 2010, net migration to our country from EU nationals was just 27,000.
That's not to say migration from Europe has been insignificant.
Since 2004, when many large Eastern European countries joined the EU, more than one million people from those countries have come to live and work in the UK - a huge number.
We said back then that transitional controls should have been put in place to restrict the numbers coming over.
And now we're in government, if and when new countries join the European Union, transitional controls will be put in place.
But this remains the fact:
When it comes to immigration to our country, it's the numbers from outside the EU that really matter.
In the year up to June 2010, net migration from nationals of countries outside the EU to the UK totalled 198,000.
This is the figure we can more easily control and should control.
Last week, our new immigration cap for people coming here to work from outside the EU came into force.
It means for the next twelve months, we will not allow employers to recruit more than 20,700 skilled workers from outside Europe.
And we've already shown a cap can work.
Last July, we placed interim limits on the number of visas we would give for skilled workers - and this kept the numbers down to under 20,000.
Of course employment is just one of the routes of entry and settlement into this country.
Every year tens of thousands of people marry into Britain or join their families here.
Now many of these are genuine, loving relationships.
But we also know there are abuses of the system.
For a start there are forced marriages taking place in our country, and overseas as a means of gaining entry to the UK.
This is the practice where some young British girls are bullied and threatened into marrying someone they don't want to.
I've got no time for those who say this is a culturally relative issue - it is wrong, full stop, and we've got to stamp it out.
Then there are just the straightforward sham marriages.
Last summer, we ordered the UK Border Agency to clamp down on these and they've had significant success, making 155 arrests.
And there was also the shocking case of a vicar who was jailed for staging over 300 sham marriages.
But as well as abuse of the system, there are other problems with the family route.
We know, for instance, that some marriages take place when the spouse is very young, and has little or no grasp of English.
Again we cannot allow cultural sensitivity to stop us from acting.
That's why last November we introduced a requirement for all those applying for a marriage visa to demonstrate a minimum standard of English...
…and we will defend the age limit of 21 for spouses coming to the UK.
So however sensitive or difficult a subject it may be, we are tightening up the family route.
But by far the biggest route for non-EU entrants into this country has been the student visa route.
Immigration by students has almost trebled in the past decade.
Last year, some 303,000 visas were issued overseas for study in the UK.
But this isn't the end of the story.
Because a lot of those students bring people with them to this country…
…husbands, wives, children.
Indeed, last year, 32,000 visas were issued to the dependents of students.
Again, many of these applications are for legitimate students doing legitimate courses with legitimate dependents coming over with them.
But we know that some of these student applications are bogus, and in turn their dependents are bogus.
Consider this: a sample of 231 visa applications for the dependents of students found that only twenty-five percent of them were genuine dependents.
The others?
Some were clearly gaming the system and had no genuine or loving relationship with the student.
Others we just couldn't be sure about.
The whole system was out of control the system - and we're now getting to grips with it.
We're targeting bogus colleges that offer sham courses.
We're making sure that anyone studying a degree-level course has a proper grasp of the English language.
We're saying that only postgraduate students can bring dependents.
And we're making sure that if people come over here to study, they should be studying not working…
…and that when they've finished their studies, they go home unless they are offered a graduate-level skilled job, with a minimum salary.
Taken together, we estimate that these proposals will cut the number of student visas issued by around 80,000 a year.
So across all the main routes of entry to Britain - work, family, education - we are taking action, simultaneously.
And the key word here is 'simultaneously'.
As the Home Secretary has said, controlling immigration by clamping down on one route alone is "like squeezing a balloon…
…Push down work visas and the number of student visas will shoot up. Clamp down on student visas and family visas will spring up."
For years, people have been playing the system, exploiting the easiest routes of entry to the UK.
Now, because of what we're doing, this country finally has consistent controls right across the immigration system.
PERMANENT SETTLEMENT
But as I said in a speech in opposition, what matters most is not who comes into the country but who stays.
Of course there are fair and legitimate reasons for people who arrive here temporarily to stay here permanently.
But the figures clearly suggest that many gain temporary entry into the UK with no plans to leave.
More than a fifth of students who entered Britain in 2004 were still here five years later - and many were supposed to be coming to study short courses.
But the most significant route to permanent settlement is the economic migration route.
Last year, 84,000 people who initially came on a work visa got the right to settle here.
I want Britain to continue to attract the best workers.
But it cannot be right that people coming to fill short-term skills gaps can stay long-term.
As the Cross-Party Balanced Migration Group has argued, it is essential we break that link between temporary visas and permanent settlement.
They are right - that's what this Government is determined to do…
…and we will consult on how best to proceed on this in the coming months.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
So this is the progress we are making on cutting legal immigration and clamping down on the abuse of legitimate entry routes.
And we are cracking down on illegal immigration too.
This is a question of fairness - yes, to the British people…
…but also to those who have been shipped over here against their will, kept as slaves and forced to work horrendous hours.
So as part of our National Crime Agency, we are establishing a proper Border Policing Command which will crack down on people smuggling.
And because of better technology and closer working with the French, we have managed to cut the number of people identified trying to cross the Channel illegally by two thirds last year.
At the same time as stopping illegal immigrants coming to Britain, we are doing something about those who are already here.
Two nationwide campaigns targeting illegal migrants have resulted in 1400 arrests, 330 prosecutions and 260 removals.
And in the six months to the end of February, we collected some £3.6 million in fines from employers of illegal workers.
What's more, we're closing the loophole that has allowed people who have worked here illegally to get unemployment benefits.
Estimates suggest that as many as 155,000 illegal workers might be able to do this…
…with some eligible to claim over £5,000 in Employment Seekers Allowance - each year.
That's wrong - and we're stopping it.
We're making sure that only people who have the right to work here can claim benefits.
And we also recently announced that anyone who owes money to the NHS will be refused entry to the UK until they have paid back their debts.
So across border control, health policy, benefits policy…
…we are taking decisive action to close the gaps that for too long have allowed people to come here illegally and to stay here illegally.
WHO WILL DO THESE JOBS?
So we can control both legal and illegal immigration.
What is required is political will and the drive to make sure this agenda runs right across government.
But the third argument put forward by those who say we can't control immigration is that immigration is not just a problem of supply but of demand.
Put simply, immigration will always be high because British people won't do the jobs migrant workers do.
I can see why this argument is made.
Since 1997, the number of people in work in our economy has gone up by some 2.5 million.
And of this increase, around seventy-five percent was accounted for by foreign born workers…
…many of whom were employed to clean offices, serve in restaurants or work on building sites.
At the same time we have had persistently, eye-wateringly high numbers of British born people stuck on welfare.
But let's be clear about what our conclusions should be from this.
This is not a case of 'immigrants coming over here and taking our jobs'.
The fact is - except perhaps in the very short-term - there are not a fixed number of jobs in our economy.
If one hundred migrant workers come into the country, they don't simply displace job opportunities for a hundred British citizens.
Of course they take up vacancies that are available, but they also come and create wealth and new jobs.
The real issue is this: migrants are filling gaps in the labour market left wide open by a welfare system that for years has paid British people not to work.
That's where the blame lies - at the door of our woeful welfare system, and the last government who comprehensively failed to reform it.
So immigration and welfare reform are two sides of the same coin.
Put simply, we will never control immigration properly unless we tackle welfare dependency.
That's another powerful reason why this government is undertaking the biggest shake-up of the welfare system for generations…
…making sure that work will always pay…
…and ending the option of living a life on the dole when a life in work is possible.
DAMAGE ECONOMY
Take all these actions together, and I believe we are proving that we can control immigration.
But there's another group of people I want to take on.
The ones who accept we can control immigration, but have doubts about what our reforms will mean.
The first thing they say is: these policies will deny British business of the talent they need to succeed.
That's plain wrong.
Nothing - nothing - is more important to this government than growing our economy, creating jobs and prosperity across our country.
That's why far from simply salami-slicing numbers coming here with no thought to the impact that will have on business, we have thought incredibly carefully about how we can select and attract the world's brightest to our shores.
This was something the last government comprehensively failed to do.
Yes, they introduced a points-based system for immigration, where people were admitted to our country according to the levels of skills they had…
…but only after being repeatedly called to do so by the Conservative Party.
Yet once they put this in place, they failed to properly control it and effectively manage it.
For example, Tier 1 visas were supposed to be reserved for only the highest skilled migrants.
But the evidence shows almost a third of people who came over on one of these visas were not employed in highly skilled jobs.
Some were found stacking shelves in supermarkets or driving taxis - and that's if they were employed at all.
Tier 2 visas were supposed to be reserved for skilled jobs such as engineers.
But again, these visas were abused and misused.
In one case, an applicant applied as an 'Elite Chef' for a fried chicken shop.
The main qualifying criterion was the rate of pay.
So in this case, his sister, who owned the shop decided to pay him exactly the amount that allowed him to qualify.
There was nothing the authorities could do and he was allowed in.
So it has fallen to this government to sort out the system - and we are completely changing the way it works so it is truly geared to the needs of our economy.
We are reforming Tier 1, to make sure that it is genuinely a route only for the best.
As part of that package of reform, we are introducing a new route for people of exceptional talent - like scientists, academics and artists.
And we are introducing a new Entrepreneur Visa, to roll out the red carpet for anyone who has a great business idea and serious investment.
We are also reforming Tier 2 visas.
Business leaders have told us that as a country, we should prioritise skilled Tier 2, workers with a job offer rather than highly-skilled Tier 1 workers without a job offer.
So that's what we're doing.
For the coming year, even as we have reduced the number of economic migrants overall by seven thousand, we have actually increased the number of Tier 2 visas available.
And we have also raised the skills level so it is only open to graduate-level occupations - and excludes other jobs like careworkers and cooks.
What's more, we have exempted what are called 'intra-company transfers' from the limit while raising standards at the same time…
…so firms can still move their employees around the world, but not to fill permanent jobs that could be done by UK workers.
So I completely reject the idea that our new immigration rules will damage our economy.
DAMAGE UNIVERSITIES
The second thing some say is that our policies on student visas will damage our universities.
Again, let me make clear: this government will do nothing to harm Britain's status as a magnet for the world's best students.
That's why with us, if you're good at your subject, can speak English and have been offered a place on a course at a trusted institution - you will be able to get a visa to study here.
Put another way, Britain's universities are free to market themselves globally saying: 'you can come and study here at some of the finest institutions anywhere in the world - and you can stay and work in a graduate job after you leave.'
That makes our country a hugely attractive destination for genuine students who genuinely want to study abroad.
What we don't want is for this to be a hugely attractive destination for people who only want a passage to Britain.
So we are cracking down on the abuses of the system.
In recent years there has also grown up a thriving industry of bogus colleges, providing bogus qualifications as cover for bogus visas.
Of the 744 private colleges on the UK Border Agency Sponsor Register in January, only 131 had attained Highly Trusted Sponsor status.
Yet, as of mid-January this year, the 613 private colleges who are not Highly Trusted have been able to sponsor 280,000 students between them.
The potential for abuse is clearly enormous.
Indeed, we have been looking into the practice of some so-called colleges.
In one case, students were sent off to so-called work placements in locations up to 280 miles away from the college where they were supposed to be studying on a regular basis.
In another, students were found working in 20 different locations and undertaking no study time whatsoever.
In yet another case, there were 2 lecturers for 940 students.
Want to know how ridiculous things have got?
An Indian organisation which helps people get student visas has put up a massive billboard in that country.
It's got a picture of London bus and the words 'Get a Free Ride to the UK' emblazoned across it.
Clearly, we cannot - and should not - put up with any of this.
That's why we're getting to grips with the abuse and that's why I reject the idea that our policy will damage our universities.
It really is simple: if you're a genuine academic institution - you have nothing to worry about.
But if you're not, you do - and I make no apology for that.
CONCLUSION
What I have set out today is a sober, comprehensive and effective plan to cut immigration, and cut it substantially.
Sober because we come to this debate clear-headed about not only the benefits of immigration…
…but also its impact on our public services, communities and society.
Comprehensive because we are leaving no stone unturned, taking action across all routes of entry to our country.
And effective - because we are doing all this in a way that strengthens our economy and enhances the status of our universities.
This time last year, we said we would listen to people's concerns and get immigration under control.
Today I can confidently say that we are getting there.
If we take the steps set out today, and deal with all the different avenues of migration, legal and illegal, then levels of immigration can return to where they were in the 1980s and 90s, a time when immigration was not a front rank political issue.
And I believe that will mean net migration to this country will be in the order of tens of thousands each year, not the hundreds of thousands every year that we have seen over the last decade.
Yes, Britain will always be open to the best and brightest from around the world and those fleeing persecution.
But with us, our borders will be under control and immigration will be at levels our country can manage.
No ifs. No buts.
That's a promise we made to the British people. And it's a promise we are keeping.
|
Of the 365 Conservative MPs elected last week 14 were of South Asian heritage and four of them were women. It's a far cry from 1983, when Pramila Le Hunte became the first British South Asian woman to stand for parliament as a Tory, writes the BBC's Kavita Puri. | In the late spring of 1983, Cambridge University student Bem Le Hunte was on her way to watch an address by Margaret Thatcher. She was with a group of friends, carrying a basketful of eggs. That's when the news reached her. It was about her mother - she had just been selected as the first British Asian female Conservative Parliamentary candidate in the forthcoming election.
The announcement caused huge media excitement. Bem, however, was unimpressed, although it did make her think she'd better not pelt the prime minister with eggs, as she'd been intending. Pramila recalls that Bem felt "terribly ashamed to be my daughter".
Unlike Pramila, nearly all British South Asians in the early 1980s voted Labour. Pramila says it was in their genes when they arrived in the UK.
"Because who gave them independence? Clement Attlee [the Labour prime minister]. Who was against us? Winston Churchill… So Labour was deified from day one.
"The good people of Britain were Labour. And the baddies were the burra sahibs, the important white gentlemen."
When thousands came to post-war Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, many working the most difficult shifts in mills, factories and foundries, these early settlers also felt that the Labour Party "stood for the working man" like themselves, Pramila says.
She had lived a charmed life. Born in 1938, she had spent her early years in British India in "the jungle" in Mosaboni in Bihar. Her father supplied timber to the British copper mine there. They were the only Indian family living among "Britishers", as they were known then. She recalls hearing Mahatma Gandhi speak publicly about taking a stand against the British, during the Quit India movement. She decided, as a little girl, to try that out one late afternoon, at the company tennis courts where she used to meet her English friends. She picked up a stone and, throwing it, said, "All right, Margaret, quit India." She hit her target. Margaret responded by throwing a stone at Pramila, striking her on the head. It was to be Pramila's first political foray.
Pramila's first language was English. She still remembers the first poem she learnt:
A beetle got stuck in some jam,
he cried "Oh how unhappy I am!"
His ma said, "Don't talk, if you really can't walk,
you better go home in a tram."
She was an avid reader throughout her childhood, and in 1957 she went to Cambridge University to study English literature. There were few Indians around in those days and she liked to ride her bicycle wearing a sari. "I felt rather special. Must be a little bit of showmanship. I quite liked the idea of bombing around in a sari in King's Parade." She was delighted to be in the UK, free of all parental controls.
Find out more
She admits she was not a typical Indian girl. She says there used to be a Poppy Day with celebrations and street parties, and she took charge of her college float, basing it on the Paris cabaret club, the Moulin Rouge. She got people to chant: "A shilling a kiss, a bob for two." Men would jump on the lorry and get a kiss, she says, shaking her head and smiling. "Now which Indian girl would do that?"
She met her English husband in her third year. They lived in India together for a number of years with their four children, before settling in Richmond, south-west London. There weren't many South Asians there then, she remembers, and it was the time of the Conservative MP Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech, in which he criticised mass migration, especially from the Commonwealth countries. Her children suffered a lot from racism at that time, she acknowledges.
Pramila went on to study further to become an English teacher. It was important to her to be "top notch". She felt that "for an Indian wanting to teach English to the English… you have to have credibility." She went on to be a teacher at some of the most prestigious London day schools. She also supported the Conservative Party, becoming chairman of a Richmond Council ward. She was asked if she would consider putting her name forward for a number of seats with large British South Asian populations, and in 1983 she got selected to stand in Birmingham Ladywood, a staunch Labour constituency.
Even though Margaret Thatcher was known for anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, she also saw potential voters among the million-plus British South Asians of the time.
She praised the community for its family values, hard work and entrepreneurial spirit. Local and national press were fascinated by Pramila. "I think it was an oddball interest… they asked me, 'Is this tokenism?' I remember saying, 'What's wrong with it?' Someone has to start somewhere."
Ladywood had a large British South Asian population - mostly Sikhs, and Mirpuris from Pakistan-administered Kashmir. When she met with them she would wear salwar kameez - baggy trousers with a long shirt - and she would cover her hair with a veil, so she could "mix and merge". Pramila's parents were Hindu Punjabis, and she felt there was a natural connection with the Sikh community, the majority of whom were Punjabi too.
"I dressed like them. It's the same ethic, ate the same food. We were no different."
Even though they were all Labour supporters, they told her they would vote for her. She rationalises it by saying, "I'm Punjabi. Their culture. Their person." They told her no politician had ever come to speak to them before. She would eat lunch sitting on the ground in their Sikh temples. Some of the community offered to protect her as she went around canvassing. She refused.
While campaigning, Pramila also met members of the Mirpuri community, whom she had never met before either on the Indian subcontinent or England. "Never met a single one until I went there. I was not moving in those circles." Yet she says they also perceived her as one of them. "I look the same."
Her father was from northern India, growing up near the borders of the North-West Frontier and she says she could almost speak their dialect. Even though she was Hindu and they were Muslim, the affinity was instantaneous, she says. "It was like striking a match." She mostly spent time with the women. They knew what she ate, she would speak to them about clothes, jewellery, arranged marriages, "girly stuff". And as their lives were quite restricted, they had many questions for her. "They were curious about the world outside and India."
The outfits changed when Pramila was canvassing in the leafier suburbs. She laughs as she says the English middle class would not take well to a woman in Asian clothing. "I never wore that. Never. I dressed in what would make them comfortable." She says she swapped the salwar kameez for trousers, a top and a scarf, while she was sipping sherry with the women of Ladywood in their twin sets and pearls.
There was hostility towards Pramila. One day, close to the election, she was going around with a loudspeaker on the back of an open-roofed lorry when a stone came flying towards her. "It happened so fast," she makes a whooshing sound. "It touched my hair. A bit of breeze came with the stone." She doesn't know who it was - or the motivation.
"So in my life I've had two stones hurled at me. One in Birmingham, and one as a little one being political. Two political stones."
Female British South Asian MPs
Pramila admits it was tough canvassing in a Labour stronghold. She remembers that it was a time of huge unemployment. She recalls going to homes in the tower blocks around the Bullring area. People were at home she says because they didn't have jobs. "And you got abuse because Thatcher wasn't flavour of the day." There were even death threats. She admits she also got abuse for being non-white, though she doesn't like to dwell on it.
Pramila was at the count on election night. Clare Short - who would go on to be a Cabinet Minister years later - won for Labour. Pramila did, however, nearly double the Conservative vote in Ladywood. She says she knew she was never going to win such a Labour stronghold, but "I thought I would make an impression."
She didn't stand in 1987. She and her husband had divorced by then and she knew the only seats available to her were ones with a South Asian population. These voters would not be able to accept an unmarried woman as an MP - so she felt it unlikely she would be selected.
Pramila went back to teaching. She is a published playwright, and is writing a book about her life. She is still a member of the Conservative Party, but thinks it must have forgotten her part in history. In the 2015 general election she approached her local Conservative office offering to help out behind the scenes, as knocking on doors is difficult for her now. They declined. She says she sent an email to the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, when he was standing to be the leader of the Conservative party, to help him with delivering speeches, but "not a dickie bird".
Now aged 81, looking back she acknowledges that by standing in the 1983 election she was "making footsteps in the sand for the next generation".
"More than that, somebody has to trailblaze," she says. "And I had the kind of mentality to do that. And the lack of fear. I was quite gutsy."
You may also be interested in:
It was unusual for first-generation Asian women to learn to drive after arriving in England in the 1960s and 70s, but some were determined to ignore convention.
The Asian women who defied the driving taboo
|
Police are trying to trace a youth seen throwing a snowball at a passing vehicle which caused it to crash into another car in Dumfries.
| The incident happened at about 15:40 on Monday on the town's Lochside Road.
The snowball hit the windscreen of a silver Ford Mondeo and resulted in the vehicle colliding with a passing silver Honda Civic.
The drivers received a medical check-up by ambulance staff at the scene but suffered no injuries.
Police are keen to speak to four male youths who were also seen in the area around the time of the incident.
|
Two sheep have been slaughtered in a field with their heads and feet left behind, prompting an illegal butchery investigation. | Lincolnshire Police said the carcasses were then taken from Highfield Farm in Cadwell, Louth.
It happened overnight on Thursday, with the remains discovered at 07:30 GMT.
Officers asked people who may have witnessed suspicious activity or have recently been offered meat for sale to contact them.
Sgt James Perring said: "Illegal butchery is a serious offence.
"Not only are there risks in consuming meat when it isn't from a reputable source, but it can also cause unnecessary suffering to the animal."
Follow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
Related Internet Links
Lincolnshire Police
|
Children in Blackpool could be given a free breakfast as part of a scheme to improve behaviour, attendance and standards in schools.
| From January, the town's 12,000 primary school pupils could receive free milk, fruit juice, cereal or toast as part of the three-month trial.
Blackpool Council's executive will discuss the proposals on Monday.
Council leader Simon Blackburn said "under-nourishment is a real problem" in the town.
He said: "We see and hear of children attending school who quite clearly haven't had breakfast, and are not therefore able to learn.
"It will ensure children start the day in the right way. It will encourage them to continue the good habit of eating a balanced breakfast."
|
Hassan al-Kontar became known around the world as "the man from the airport" after spending months living in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. He was granted asylum in Canada last year and now hopes to help 200 refugees also in limbo to resettle in a new home. | The 38-year-old first became aware of the issue of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru when some of them contacted him on social media, explaining their situation.
At the time, he was documenting online his own plight - left living for months in a Malaysian airport in 2018 following a series of events that left him stranded when the Syrian war broke out in 2011.
Now in Canada, he has become an advocate on issues pertaining to refugees and settlement.
He is partnering with two Canadian non-profit organisations - Canada Caring Society and Mosaic, who both work in refugee resettlement - to get 200 refugees currently on Manus Island and Nauru to be privately sponsored to come to Canada.
The newly launched endeavour - dubbed Operation Not Forgotten - has been endorsed by the Refugee Council of Australia and Amnesty International.
"We are trying to give hope for the hopeless people," he told the BBC from his home in British Columbia.
Since 2012, Australia has sent asylum seekers arriving by boat to Manus Island and Nauru under a controversial policy aimed at deterring further arrivals.
Canberra has steadfastly ruled out ever letting those people settle in Australia, even those found to be refugees.
The bipartisan policy has been justified as humane because it prevents human trafficking and deaths at sea.
But the UN and others say asylum seekers on the islands have frequently suffered human rights abuses, including sexual and physical assaults. Doctors have also increasingly warned of mental health crises.
Though no longer officially in detention, the asylum seekers are now effectively in indefinite limbo in transit centres - contributing, experts say, to high levels of self-harm.
Some refugees have been resettled in the US under a one-off deal, but about 800 people remain on the islands, said Human Rights Watch last month. Most have been there since 2013.
Australia has seen almost two decades of highly politicised debate about border protection. It continues to refuse a standing offer from New Zealand to take 150 refugees - arguing doing so would provide a "back door" to Australia.
Mr Kontar was deeply troubled by the situation, and spoke about it to Laurie Cooper, a volunteer with Canada Caring Society, who was instrumental in helping bring him to Canada.
She told the BBC she was telling her daughter one evening about the "desperate situation" for those on Manus Island and Nauru last May.
It was just after the Australian general election and many asylum seekers had hoped that a change in government would help them, but the incumbent government held power.
There were several cases of attempted suicide by some asylum seekers following the news.
She said she exclaimed to her daughter that night: "Goddamn it, we should just sponsor all those guys."
When Ms Cooper woke up the next morning, she realised it was a good idea, and Mr Kontar agreed.
"These guys have been called the forgotten men of Manus and nobody has been able to find a way to help them and it just dawned on me that because of the amazing private sponsorship programme we have in Canada that there actually was a way if we could raise the money," she says.
Since the 1970s, Canada has allowed private citizens, along with authorised sponsorship groups, to directly sponsor refugees by providing newcomers with basic material needs like food, clothing, housing, and support integrating into Canadian society.
The organisations behind Operation Not Forgotten will raise the funds to sponsor and support the refugees for their first year in Canada, and are training volunteer settlement teams to provide the necessary support for them when they arrive.
Under Canadian sponsorship guidelines, C$16,500 ($12,500; £10,300) needs to be raised for each refugee to support them for 12 months - meaning the groups need to raise C$3.3m in total.
Australian citizens who are supporting the endeavour have so far raised over C$100,000.
"We are not launching this operation to publically shame or to embarrass or to put a pressure or push the Australian government - that's not our intention," says Mr Kontar.
"We are offering our friendship, we are encouraging them to do the right thing."
The organisations have put the word out to refugees there asking them to register with them if they are interested resettlement to Canada, and more than 200 have done so. The group plans to focus first on those who currently are not eligible for resettlement anywhere else and who have no other alternatives.
They will begin submitting applications as funds come in and it could take up to two years from that point before resettlement, but Ms Cooper says they may ask the Canadian government to expedite the cases.
The refugees are from countries including Iran, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Iraq. Some of them are stateless.
Mr Kontar says he knows from personal experience what it is like to live in limbo and wants them to remain hopeful of a better future.
"I want them to hold their ground and keep the faith and believe in us," he says."They are not forgotten, that's for sure."
Additional reporting by Jay Savage
|
About 400 British tourists are being evacuated from parts of Kenya, following a warning by the Foreign Office of a "high threat" from terrorists in the country.
Tour operators Thomson and First Choice have cancelled all flights to Mombasa until October and said holidaymakers would be flown back as a precautionary measure.
Some holidaymakers have already returned to Gatwick, and while a number of them were reportedly "in good form", others were not happy to have their holiday cut short. | Chris and Tracy Jones said they believed the decision to evacuate tourists had been an over-reaction.
"I've worked in other areas where there are terrorist problems," Mr Jones said.
"This has been going on for years - this is not a one-off incident. There have been incidents throughout the world but do they stop flights to Saudi Arabia, do they stop flights to other places? No they don't."
His wife said she thought Thomson had brought people back "too early" and that the situation in Kenya did not seem "that bad".
"Coming through Mombasa Island, which is where there was meant to have been the most threat over there, I didn't think it was that bad," Mrs Jones said.
Chris Houckham-West from London was evacuated on Thursday evening. He and his husband were supposed to stay at a resort in Mombasa until Tuesday.
'Over the top'
He said the Kenyan people were "surprised" about what was happening.
"We had a great time. We didn't feel unsafe at any point - when we went on safari there was security in place," Mr Houckham-West added.
"I think the FCO's stance is all a bit strange - it changed and suddenly we had to get out of the country. It seemed to be a bit over the top."
Alex Dolphin, from Surrey, who also arrived back on Friday morning, said it was not until he and other holidaymakers were being evacuated that he felt uncomfortable.
"I didn't feel uneasy until we were in a convoy of three coaches parked on the roadside waiting to leave for the airport," he told the BBC.
"I was keeping an eye open as we drove through Mombasa. It was a strange situation to be in."
Meanwhile, Kerrie Gardiner was stuck at Moi International Airport in Mombasa waiting for a flight back to the UK.
'We know nothing'
Originally from Milton Keynes, she said there was no staff at the Thomson desk and that tourists were not being kept informed.
"We have family calling us because they are worried, and I just want to get back home to my two children," she said.
"We can't check in and we are just sitting here with no food or water, watching other people catching their flights.
"I've been to Kenya in 2009 and have not had any problems - so we just don't understand what is going on. We know nothing - we're not being informed."
Back at Gatwick, Barry Jackson said everyone involved in his flight out of Mombasa had been "very kind" and some were "happy to be back".
"The captain asked us would we please be kind to the poor stewardesses on the plane, because they had a rough time," he added.
"They were meant to be off, instead they were working. Nobody said boo, everybody was very kind, very stiff upper lip. It had to be done."
Bob Pever told the BBC on Friday that he was "disappointed" to be leaving Kenya after spending nine days on holiday with his family.
And his views were echoed by fellow UK tourist Judy Sharp who was returning to the UK at the same time as Mr Pever.
She said: "It's such a shame that we have to cut our holiday short because of other people."
|
Pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has been ordered by a US court to pay more than $110m (£85m) to a woman who says she developed ovarian cancer after using its talcum powder. | Lois Slemp, 62, from Virginia, Missouri said she developed the cancer after four decades of using talc products.
Prosecutors argued the company did not adequately warn about the cancer risks associated with the items.
Experts say links with ovarian cancer are unproven. J&J says it will appeal.
The verdict in a St Louis state court is the largest so far to arise out of about 2,400 lawsuits against J&J over its talc-based products, Reuters news agency reports.
Ms Slemp is currently undergoing chemotherapy after her ovarian cancer initially diagnosed in 2012 returned and spread to her liver.
She said the products she used included J&J's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower Powder.
"Once again we've shown that these companies ignored the scientific evidence and continue to deny their responsibilities to the women of America," said Ted Meadows, a lawyer for Ms Slemp.
The verdict included $5.4m in compensatory damages and $105m in punitive damages against J&J.
The company said it planned to appeal. "We are preparing for additional trials this year and we continue to defend the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder," it said in a statement.
"We deeply sympathise with the women and families impacted by ovarian cancer."
J&J lost three jury verdicts last year in cases related to its talc-based products, but won its first trial in March, when a jury in Missouri sided with the company.
Is talc safe? James Gallagher, health editor, BBC news website
There have been concerns for years that using talcum powder, particularly on the genitals, may increase the risk of ovarian cancer.
But the evidence is not conclusive. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies talc used on the genitals as "possibly carcinogenic" because of the mixed evidence.
Why is there any debate?
The mineral talc in its natural form does contain asbestos and does cause cancer, however, asbestos-free talc has been used in baby powder and other cosmetics since the 1970s. But the studies on asbestos-free talc give contradictory results.
It has been linked to a cancer risk in some studies, but there are concerns that the research may be biased as they often rely on people remembering how much talc they used years ago. Other studies have argued there is no link at all and there is no link between talc in contraceptives such as diaphragms and condoms (which would be close to the ovaries) and cancer.
Also there does not seem to be a "dose-response" for talc, unlike with known carcinogens like tobacco where the more you smoke, the greater the risk of lung cancer.
What should women do?
The charity Ovacome says there is no definitive evidence and that the worst-case scenario is that using talc increases the risk of cancer by a third.
But it adds: "Ovarian cancer is a rare disease, and increasing a small risk by a third still gives a small risk. So even if talc does increase the risk slightly, very few women who use talc will ever get ovarian cancer."
|
Former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato is one of 33 current and former officials at Spanish lender Bankia who are facing a fraud inquiry. | Mr Rato, who is Bankia's ex-chairman, and the others are accused of fraud, price-fixing and falsifying accounts.
The case opened in the High Court in Madrid after a lawsuit was brought by a small political party, UPyD.
The government took control of Bankia in May when it became insolvent after large losses from risky home loans.
Former Bank of Spain governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez will also be called as a witness in a court case that goes to the heart of the scandal, which has caused widespread public outrage.
Bankia's collapse is largely blamed for forcing the Madrid government to seek a rescue package of up to 100bn euros from the EU last month.
|
The golden beaches of Cayo Cruz lie at the end of a long path through a nature reserve. It is an idyllic stretch of Cuba's northern coast but this is key territory in the fight against international drug-tafficking. | By Sarah RainsfordBBC News, Camaguey Province, Cuba
Cuba sits right between the world's major narcotics producers in South America and the biggest market for those drugs, the United States.
The island has served as a bridge for traffickers in the past but in recent years it has been a barrier to the illegal trade.
"We used to see a lot of suspicious boats here," Ardoldo Cisneros Pena recalls of the 1990s. He is chief border guard in Cayo Cruz, where we were recently given rare access.
"There were almost daily drops into the sea," he says. Small planes would bombard Cuban waters with packets of drugs, for speedboats to whisk to the US.
Today, the scene is tranquil. A young border guard scans the horizon from a mint-green watchtower. A stone slab below reads "They shall not pass!" and "Viva Fidel!".
'Mortal venom'
It was Fidel Castro, then president, who acknowledged a surge in the use of Cuban waters by drug-traffickers in 1999. There was a nascent narcotics market too, as smugglers' packages began washing up on the coast.
The government was compelled to act against what Mr Castro calls a "mortal venom".
"We have more resources now, there is a helicopter for the border guards and more commitment from the interior ministry, the military and the Cuban people too," Lt-Col Cisneros explains.
Operation Ache, as the crackdown was known, also installed a new radar and recruited hundreds of unpaid "collaborators", trained to keep their eyes peeled for suspicious parcels along the shore.
The drugs planes have now gone and the main threat today is from speed-boat smugglers attempting to traffic marijuana north.
"They try to escape us but if they can't, they try to dump the drugs because they know this activity is very heavily penalised here," explains Lt-Col Mago Llanez Fernandez, who heads the team responsible for intercepting the smugglers at sea.
He admits that up to 60% get away. Securing any abandoned narcotics is the priority here.
But as the boats flee, Cuba now passes real-time data to the US coastguard so they can pick up the pursuit. It is rare teamwork for two old, ideological enemies.
"I think this is important for Cuba, because we're preventing the drugs reaching here, but it's also very important for the US and other countries in the area," Lt-Col Llanez points out.
With its very heavily policed society, it is no surprise Communist Cuba is not a big drugs market itself.
Scarce supply means even a joint of marijuana can cost up to a week's wage ($5) for a state worker. But some smugglers have begun to see potential here.
"We've seen a rise in attempts by Cuban Americans to bring drugs in, especially marijuana, because the prices are high here," says police investigator Yoandrys Gonzalez Garcia.
"It's not a huge amount but it concerns us and we're increasing our efforts to fight this."
'Effective'
Between January and June this year, 24 attempts to traffic narcotics through the island's airports were foiled, and these figures put Cuba on course to double the interdiction rates of 2010 and 2011.
The drugs were mostly destined for sale in Cuba.
Police point to a surge in air traffic with the US since President Barack Obama removed travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans. Lifting limits on remittances has also given some Cubans on the island greater spending power.
But the US is not the only smuggling source.
Boris Adolfo Busto was arrested at Havana airport for drug-trafficking. His group was bringing in drug "mules" from Ecuador, with up to a kilo of cocaine in their stomachs.
"There was a Cuban guy involved and he said he could sell everything here, he said it'd be easy," Busto recalls when we meet at Havana's Condesa prison.
He is serving a 23-year sentence.
"I think the authorities are very efficient," he says forlornly, adding that "dozens and dozens" of other smugglers have since joined him behind bars.
Cuba has called for a formal co-operation agreement with the US to help stamp out smuggling in both directions.
It already shares intelligence with European governments, and receives funding and training.
"Our communication at sea gets good results but sadly we can't say the same about air traffic," Mr Gonzalez police investigator complains of the Americans.
The US and Cuba severed diplomatic ties more than five decades ago.
But officials on the ground acknowledge Cuba's contribution to the common war on drugs.
"[Without] a strong counter-drug stance, Cuba would be a prime area for drug smugglers, but its efforts are very effective," says Louis Orsini of the US coastguard, adding that the US would find it "really challenging" if Cuba became a direct conduit for illicit narcotics.
Today, though, the policy is zero tolerance and the interior ministry says nine tonnes of drugs were seized from traffickers last year and incinerated.
Most were destined for the US market and beyond.
|
From April, fathers will be able to share maternity leave with their wives. Currently they get just two weeks off after a child is born, while women can take up to a year. So what is it like being a stay-at home dad? | "At first, my dad kept sending me the jobs pages from the Telegraph," says Thom Chesser.
"I don't think he was really sure what I was doing all day. Then he looked after his two nephews for a week and realised I already had a full-time job."
Thom, 41, has two boys, Jacob, four, and Isaac, two, and another child on the way. His wife Ann is a personnel manager for Network Rail and they live in London.
After what he admits was an "eclectic" job history - including working as an agent for circus performers and a graphic designer for a bank - he gave up work in 2006, just before Jacob was born.
"The childcare costs were about what I was making and Ann wasn't keen to leave him in a nursery all day, so when she asked me I was more than happy to do it.
"My job was mostly designing bits of paper that were going to be thrown away. It could be exciting when deadlines were looming, but ultimately it wasn't particularly fulfilling.
"I was fearful in that I didn't know what it was going to be like, but I was convinced I could do it."
'Lots of lists'
Ann took six months' maternity leave and during that time Thom helped in any way he could.
"When she went back to work she wrote me lots and lots of lists about what I should be doing and I just got on with it."
A report released by Demos says new parents are increasingly relying on friends, rather than family, for support, and the government should do more to help them develop local networks.
Thom agrees.
"NCT (National Childbirth Trust) classes teach you to change a nappy, but they also introduce you to five other couples in your area who are about to have a baby. It's an instant support network. I also go to a group on Fridays called Dads and Little 'Uns, which I help run, and to another group on a Saturday morning.
"If you go to a park there'll always be a group of mums with babies chatting and having coffee. There'll be some dads too, but they'll be on their own - they're less gregarious than women. So I've spent four years collecting them. If I see a dad with a buggy I'll always go up and talk to them."
'Marvellous'
Being a stay-at-home dad has transformed Thom's personal and professional life, he's now taking an NVQ in childcare and wants to do a primary school teaching course.
And apart from his slightly sceptical father - who is now fully on board - Thom says he has received almost universal support.
"I've had the odd comment from random blokes in the street, but that's it. Women are very supportive. They always say 'it's marvellous what you're doing'. And I think 'why? It's no more marvellous than you doing it.'
"Clearly it's hard work. The kids can be frustrating and I'm so tired, but every day they'll do something new, something I taught them, and that's very rewarding.
"It would be lovely if more men got the chance to spend more time with their children. Fathers tend to take longer to bond with babies, so it can only be a positive. It's tiring, but very rewarding thing. And even where dads do go to work, if they didn't have to work such long hours it would make a big difference."
|
The Who are back on stage in the UK touring a full-length performance of their classic '70s album Quadrophenia. Its story belongs to a very brief moment in history: the Bank Holiday riots between rival gangs of Mods and Rockers in 1964. Band members Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey tell the BBC News Channel why Quadrophenia has had such lasting appeal. | By Amanda BruckshawBBC News
Pete Townshend calls Quadrophenia a "quintessentially English piece". The music tells the story of Jimmy, a rebellious and conflicted teenager who searches for an identity, first in the characters of The Who, and then as a member of a gang of Mods.
Townshend says: "It's about a young man who sees himself in the four members of the band." But that ultimately "this is a story of any young man who is struggling".
The context for Jimmy's story, Townshend says, is "the whole period in which we grew up, the whole post-war condition, all of the elements of life when the Mods and Rockers were meeting on the beaches down in Brighton" - a life which produced what he calls "those kind of strange tensions in the young".
Singer Roger Daltrey says the tensions are still there. Asked about the summer riots in England two years ago, he says: "That's the point about it; the adolescent dilemma is exactly the same as it ever was. In that sense it's timeless."
The other reason for Quadrophenia's longevity is of course the music itself. It's recognised as some of The Who's finest material, and is still feted by critics as one of the greatest rock albums of the era.
The album interweaves several musical themes, creating a mood which is by turns exuberant, defiant and wistful. But while it's ambitious, it's far from inaccessible.
Townshend says the band were at their peak as musicians when they recorded Quadrophenia, and the songs bear that out in their energy and immediacy.
Townshend had written it "shut away pretty much on my own" - but in the recording studio, the other band members had a transforming influence.
"Roger's performances surprised me, because some of the songs that I'd intended to be quite bleak and poignant and painful and shy, like Love Reign O'er Me, Roger performed with immense passion, and yet still delivered the same kind of poignancy and vulnerability that I thought wouldn't be possible with such a bravura performance."
But over the years, The Who have struggled to bring the music to life on stage. Their first tour with Quadrophenia was hit by sound problems: the show depended heavily on backing tapes but Townshend says they didn't have enough technical support to make this work.
In the 90s, the show used a narrator, which Daltrey believes put a distance between the audience and the music.
This time, The Who clearly believe they've managed to connect with their audience. At Daltrey's instigation, the narrator was dropped: he says: "I made the audience Jimmy basically." The result has delighted both men.
Townshend says: "I've always said that what makes a great rock band is that it leaves space for the listeners to insert themselves into the story. That's happening in this show,
"I'm very aware that when I'm performing to the audience, they're getting something from it that I'm not giving them."
The Who's show also pays a poignant tribute to the two band members who died: drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle.
Each briefly dominates the concert, appearing on screen in archive video clips which are integrated with the live performance.
Moon is seen performing Bell Boy, the song in which the swaggering Mod idolised by Jimmy is brought down to size: shamefully revealed as a lowly hotel porter.
Daltrey says: "You really get something coming from Moon that I think most people overlook, because people tend to think he was this madman, this clown, all the time. But when you see him singing Bell Boy, there's this joy in his eyes but there's also the pathos of the song, and it's incredibly emotional to watch."
Entwistle's playing is showcased during 5:15 in a virtuoso bass solo which Townshend describes as "astonishing playing, and ridiculous playing as well. I've had a few bass players say to me 'John Entwistle. What?' - they just don't understand what he did".
Daltrey and Townshend both talk with gratitude about their own lives now.
Townshend says: "I can't imagine being luckier than to get to this place in our lives when we're both pushing 70 and we've got this great music - and we also feel very lucky to be friends."
Daltrey says simply: "I've always said about music: you don't give it up, it gives you up, it leaves you."
For The Who, that moment still looks some distance away.
The Who on Quadrophenia, presented by David Willis, can be seen on the BBC News Channel this weekend, on Saturday 15 June at 00:30 and 15:30; Sunday 16 June at 10:30 and 20:30 and on Monday 17 June at 01:30. All times are BST.
|
I was in the reception of Blaenau Gwent council offices this week when I met Brian Scully, a Labour councillor for the past 46 years, who jokingly declared himself to be "pale, stale and male".
| Nick ServiniPolitical editor, Wales
The context was that I'd just been to interview the Minister for Public Services Leighton Andrews in the Gwent Archives about his proposal to introduce a 25 year limit for councillors in order to break up what he called the old boy network and the cosy cabals.
Mr Scully summed up the feeling that I suspect will be shared by many veteran councillors that the only people who should decide if he no longer has anything to offer should be the voters themselves.
The limit for council cabinet members is 10 years.
The aim is to encourage younger people and more woman into local government. That won't be easy when the message is that many senior councillors are overpaid and if you are elected the budgets you work with will be squeezed in an age of austerity.
Overpaid
The term limits will in particular try to deal with the fact that around 10% of council seats are uncontested.
Most people would accept that these are pretty long stints but there'll be plenty of others who agree with Brian Scully, particularly when there are no limits elsewhere.
Jane Hutt and Edwina Hart have been in the Welsh government's cabinet for 15 years and then at Westminster Ann Clwyd has recently decided to stand again. She is 77 and has been an MP since 1984.
A lot has been made recently about pay levels for council chief executives but Leighton Andrews believes that cabinet members and council leaders are overpaid.
There are around 1,200 councillors in Wales with a basic salary of £13,300.
Good cop
The pay scales of cabinet members vary. The leaders of the largest councils like Cardiff and RCT receive £53,000, medium sized authorities like Bridgend and Wrexham get £48,000 and smaller ones like Blaenau Gwent and Anglesey receive £43,000.
So the leader of Cardiff Council, Phil Bale, is paid £53,000, which is less than the £54,000 paid to a backbench assembly member, and yet it will be pointed out that Mr Bale is responsible for an organisation with a budget of close to £1bn.
There's also a recommendation from an independent panel for AMs to receive an 18% pay increase which will inevitably be raised by local government.
So that's the bad cop. The good cop bit of the white paper which was published by the Welsh government this week is about cutting bureaucracy.
Councils complain all the time that devolution has simply heaped regulations and targets on them in areas like social services and education.
More powers
This was reflected in the findings of the Williams Commission, which portrayed a picture of a hugely complex Welsh public sector.
Leighton Andrews is promising to simplify the entire system. We talk a lot about simplifying powers between the UK and Welsh governments but this will be the first in-depth look at the system connecting the assembly and councils.
Sorry for the jargon here, but there is also the prospect of greater powers for councils in what is called powers of general competence.
An example of where this is useful would be where an authority has to deal with abusive graffiti on a building and under the current system they don't have the ability to act quickly because of a lack of power.
The white paper doesn't deal with the elephant in room, which is plans to reduce the number of councils.
There's a sense of deja vue here, but the Welsh government will hold talks with opposition parties with a view to putting a map together by the summer.
And as was the case last year the best chance of a deal, in fact the only realistic chance of a deal, is with Plaid.
|
A man who died after being hit by a car was "kind and generous" and a "loved son", his family has said. | Alan Strong, 52, was struck as he was walking along Littleton Road, Salford, at about 18:00 BST on 30 April and died later in hospital.
The car was later found on Dalton Drive in Pendlebury.
A 26-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and failing to stop at the scene. He was released on bail.
A statement from Mr Strong's family said: "Alan was a loved son to Norma and the late Norman. He was kind and generous, especially to those in need.
"He had a fondness for the elderly and children alike. He will be sadly missed by family and friends."
|
Councillors in the Borders have given their unanimous support for plans to build a museum of world rugby in Bill McLaren's honour in Hawick. | The authority has agreed to help find a suitable location for the centre as well as offer advice and support.
The main force behind the £4m project is the Bill McLaren Foundation set up after the commentator's death in 2010.
Cllr Graham Garvie said he believed the museum could be a "fantastic new tourist attraction".
It is hoped the museum will tell the story of the sport using Mr McLaren's distinctive voice as much as possible.
BBC Scotland has given its support to the project by granting access to its archive of matches on which he commentated over half a century.
The target is to have the facility up and running in the next three years.
|
Staff and pupils at a New Zealand school have paid tribute to racer Chris Swallow following his death in a crash at the Classic TT on the Isle of Man. | A celebration of his contribution to Tawa College was held on Thursday.
Head teacher Murray Lucas said he "inspired young people to be the best people that they could be".
Mr Swallow, from Yorkshire, had taught at the school since emigrating to the country in 2010 and lived in the New Zealand city Wellington.
The 37-year-old taught classes in PE and also the building of electric vehicles.
Student Sam Chambers said he would be "a sorely missed addition to our worlds".
Head teacher Mr Lucas added: "He was an effective and innovative classroom teacher who always wanted the best for his students."
The experienced racer was killed in a crash at Ballaugh Bridge on the opening lap of the Senior Classic race.
|
John D MacDonald's Travis McGee series is one of the finest in mystery fiction. But the real mystery is how he became an author at all. As the author of the Jack Reacher series, I explore my fascination with the writer in a forthcoming Radio 4 programme, 21 Shades of Noir: Lee Child on John D MacDonald. | By Lee ChildNovelist
It has always intrigued me. Why would an affluent intelligence officer destined for the corporate corner office become a penniless writer of pulp fiction? I draw my own conclusion in the documentary, and in the best tradition of suspense fiction, I won't reveal it here.
But it's the story of a man who upon finishing his wartime service, found personal liberation behind a typewriter.
John D MacDonald was born in 1916 into a gilded, upper middle class lifestyle in Sharon Pennsylvania. He volunteered for army service in 1940, was commissioned as an officer and finished the war as a serious, bespectacled Lieutenant Colonel in intelligence.
This was the American Century: unprecedented prosperity was all around, and a new person was about to emerge - the corporate executive. Ninety-nine out of 100 men like him were taking their Harvard MBAs to General Motors, IBM or the Pentagon.
Instead, MacDonald sat at a battered kitchen table and banged out 800,000 words before eventually selling a story to a magazine for 25 bucks. He lost 20lbs in the process.
The 21 Travis McGee books have been an inspiration to me. McGee is a Florida boat bum - a so-called salvage consultant. If you lose something, McGee can get it back, but always for a 50% cut.
The plots are great and the conclusions are always satisfying but MacDonald takes time out to explore his own fears about the environment and runaway consumerism. He was ahead of his time in that regard.
He was also an innovator when it came to marketing. One man with an insight into this was the long-time editor and publisher Otto Penzler.
"He was the first person I heard of who would note down the name and address of anyone who sent him a fan letter," Penzler says.
"When he had a new book coming out he would have an assistant write out envelopes and stuff them with fliers to say 'this is the new book by John D MacDonald'.
"He was a businessman as well as a writer."
This was fascinating as an early incarnation of advice given to the modern novelist - always keep your mailing list up to date.
The colour-coded titles of the Travis novels, from 1961's The Deep Blue Good-By to The Lonely Silver Rain in 1985, were a triumph of branding. The titles were instantly recognisable to his many fans.
Penzler says MacDonald may have been an accomplished novelist but he was also a Harvard MBA, a man who understood business and who wanted to make money from his work.
Penzler adds: "I don't think he needed to make too much money, he came from some wealth, but he was certainly interested in promoting his books."
Another revelation was the astonishing productivity of writers like MacDonald. I'm considered prolific by modern standards but can't compare to some of the guys in the documentary. It was a pleasure to speak to Lawrence Block, a crime writer whose immense body of work spans the old days and the new.
Block says he has no idea how many books he has written but estimates it at somewhere below 200 but well over 100.
"I know so many writers who were similarly prolific," he says.
"Bob Silverberg, a giant of science fiction... was doing two a month for one publisher, another for a second publisher, and the equivalent of another book for a magazine.
"He was writing a quarter of a million words a month."
Block suggests that intense work rate was not uncommon. But for modern readers there is a note of caution.
While the marketing and the environmental concerns may have been ahead of their time, the gender relations were definitely not.
In the documentary the novelist and cultural critic Susan Isaacs allows herself a sharp intake of breath at MacDonald's description of one female character, but draws an interesting conclusion about his ability to convey the rounded reality of their backgrounds and occupations - something lacking in a lot of the genre fiction of the time.
She said: "He was capable of being dreadful - but not that often.
"I think he was relatively balanced, he saw women as humans but not fully human because [Travis] was always saving them.
"Unlike Jack Reacher he never meets women as equals. They're always wounded, they're always hurting. In many cases he's saving them from the evil that they meet - and they meet a lot of evil."
I read the Travis McGee novels five years before beginning my own Jack Reacher series and for the first time I was given a sense of "the skeleton beneath" the writing. I could see what MacDonald was doing, how he was compelling me to read on. I was left with the impression that if I needed to write a book, I could.
21 Shades of Noir can be heard on Radio 4 at 1130 on Thursday 13 October.
|
With £27bn of investors' money having chased shares priced at just £1.7bn, and with Royal Mail's share price trading at more than 450p this morning, compared with the 330p a share the government is receiving, there is a certainly a case for saying the government could have got more. | Robert PestonEconomics editor
And just to put this in slightly more concrete terms, at 330p the government is receiving a fraction under £2bn, if (as is very likely) its bankers exercise what is known as the over-allotment option (if you really want to know more about this, see me after class).
However if the shares had been priced at around this morning's market price, at say 450p, the Exchequer would have received £2.7bn.
So should taxpayers be raging that they've lost a potential windfall of £700m, which would not have paid off the trillion pound national debt but would have paid for a couple of miles of High Speed 2?
There are a number of things to say about this. And the first is that pricing is more art than science, and no vendor of a large number of shares will ever get the best price available.
Also the price range for the privatisation shares was set by the government at a time when prevailing opinion was that this was a risky declining business hobbled by lamentable industrial relations; it was only in the course of the share sale that investors noticed a parcels operation growing very nicely, an endowment of potentially valuable properties in city centres and the fat income the company is promising to pay shareholders.
What is particularly striking is that Royal Mail's own people are confident that they are in a business that will prosper: I have learned that 15,000 Royal Mail employees, almost a tenth of the workforce, have paid £52m to buy Royal Mail shares (in addition to the free shares being handed to all Royal Mail employees).
However, what some may think is odd - including, presumably, ministers - is that investors have completely ignored the risk that Royal Mail could imminently be brought to a grinding halt by a strike. The frenzy to buy Royal Mail shares probably tells you quite a lot about the extent to which better-off people think the economy is recovering - which the government is not going to rage about.
That said, a 36% gap between market price and privatisation price is far wider than would normally be thought necessary to whet punters' appetite for future privatisations (remember that the Department for Business Innovation and Skills has another 30% of Royal Mail to flog, probably next summer, so ministers would not want to burn investors buying in this initial share offer).
So something does seem to have gone a bit cock-eyed with the sale. What?
Well the privatisation prospectus explicitly allowed the government to revise the sale price up, outside of the indicated range, if demand for the shares turned out to be much greater than expected. With big investment institutions putting up money for the shares worth 20 times what was on offer to them, and retail investors bidding for seven times what was available, it is fair to say demand was greater than anticipated.
So why did the relevant ministers, Vince Cable and Michael Fallon, sell at the top of the indicated range, rather than breaking through that threshold?
They had what they regard as non-partisan advice, from the investment bank Lazards - which was not involved in actually placing the shares, and therefore had no vested interest, in theory - that 330p was a fair price.
And that advice was apparently underwritten by the government's own internal counsellor on these issues, the UK Shareholder Executive.
But, that said, Cable and Fallon are grown-ups and know that ultimately the buck stops with them: advisers advise, ministers decide.
So they know that if the share price stays at this level for weeks and months, they will be vulnerable to criticism - and, probably, to a ticking off by the National Audit Office.
But Vince Cable has already made clear that he thinks the market is wrong to price the shares at these levels, by talking about the need to wait until the "froth" has been blown off.
Or to put it another way, he and Fallon assume that Royal Mail shares will be back near the offer price before Christmas.
Which points towards the most delicious political spat I've seen in a long time.
Labour's spokesman on all this, Chuka Umunna, in chastising Cable and Fallon for allegedly selling Royal Mail too cheaply, has in effect been shouting - at the most sensitive period of privatisation - "the government is selling five pound notes for 50p, fill your boots."
Whereas the capitalist Tory Fallon and leftish Lib Dem Cable have been saying to retail investors, "I'd take care if I were you, this stock-market game can be a bit dangerous."
So what is quite striking is that 700,000 people with a bit of money to spare voted Umunna, by stampeding to apply for the shares - though whether they are natural Labour supporters is another thing altogether.
Here is the intriguing political calculation.
If Royal Mail shares stay at these levels, the government may well in time be found guilty of having privatised the company too cheaply.
But ministers have just delivered a tidy windfall of £187m to 690,000 people who've been allocated £750 of shares each. That is a potential profit of almost £250 for each of them.
Which is a fair number of people who are probably prepared to buy Fallon and Cable a drink.
|
Police are choosing to allow brothels to operate providing they create a safe environment for women, one former detective - now a brothel owner - has told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme. We have been to meet the women working in his premises. | By Victoria DerbyshireBBC journalist
The small, smart two-bedroom flat in a Victorian residential block could not be further from what you might expect of a brothel.
Many across the UK use trafficked or drug-addicted women who are controlled by pimps, but this is different.
The interior of the central London apartment is modern, pleasant and warm - there are no grubby net curtains at the windows, or threadbare sheets on the beds.
Sitting on the brown, faux-leather sofa in the living room is "Cherub", from Romania, in a dark red bra and knickers, and nude patent heels from Primark.
Next to her is "Janine", wearing a short black satin robe over purple underwear.
Both are cautiously friendly.
'Moral judgements'
One of the women, however, is happy to open up about all aspects of her work, and be pictured.
Louise is British, has a diploma in marine biology and £20,000 of student debt.
She says she would rather work three or four days a week selling sex, with the earning potential of up to £900 a week, than "12-hour days in a petrol station on the minimum wage".
She is also keen to challenge the stigma around sex work.
For her it is a choice, she says, and she is not being exploited.
'I'm stubbornly defiant about my right to do this kind of work without people inflicting their moral judgements on me," she says.
"I don't want people to think I'm on drugs or that I've been forced or coerced or trafficked.
"I'm just here as a normal person who wants to make money, secure a future for myself and do this kind of work because I choose to."
The conversation is punctuated every 10 minutes by the phone or front door bell ringing - a man making a booking or arriving for his "appointment".
Clients are charged £70 for each half hour. Of that, the women take £45 and £25 goes to the brothel. A busy day for Louise would involve eight or nine clients.
We spoke to 11 women and members of staff at the brothel, who all told us they were working there by choice, and not under the control of anyone else.
We were not allowed to speak to any of the clients and none of them knew we were there.
No-one could say if the neighbours were aware of what went on in the flat.
'Handsome gentlemen'
One of the maids - or receptionists - who has been in the industry for more than two decades, says the profile of customers has changed during that time.
"There are a lot of younger gentlemen coming in, handsome gentlemen - people that you wouldn't think would need to pay for sex, but it's easier for them than dating," she says.
"Sometimes friends will come together before a night out. It's become a lot more normalised."
Double doors lead from the living room to a small hall, off which there are two bedrooms (one en suite) and a tiny bathroom.
They look like mid-range hotel rooms - cream walls, dark grey bedding dressed with a couple of silk cushions.
Either side of the double bed is a wooden chest of drawers containing multiple packets of baby wipes, and nappy sacks for used condoms.
A well-thumbed copy of Men's Health magazine sits next to the bed.
Between clients, the women sit around drinking tea, scrolling through their phones, and laughing about a customer who had wanted Janine to pretend she had "dumped him".
Astonishingly, the 45-year-old brothel owner, Karl, is a former police officer.
The father-of-one says he has been in the role for 15 years. His teenage daughter doesn't know about his job.
Despite it being illegal to operate a brothel in England and Wales - although not illegal to buy and sell sex - Karl says he has no moral qualms about breaking the law because he does not agree with it, and he says he is not exploiting the women who work for him.
"We don't allow drugs, no under-age girls. We check everyone's passports," he says.
"If we've got any doubts that they're not there under their own free will, we will call the police."
'I could go to prison'
Karl - whose surname we are not using - says he has done that twice in the past decade and a half.
He says he operates the brothel in full knowledge of the authorities, and claims they are willing to let him continue as long as the women are in a safe environment.
"If they close us down, I could go to prison," he acknowledges.
"But then there's 15 to 20 girls who've got to find somewhere to work."
The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) lead for prostitution and sex working, Assistant Chief Constable Dan Vajzovic, says: "Officers will now consider a range of factors, including the safety of those sex workers involved, before deciding on whether prosecution is the most appropriate response to an offence.
"Enforcement alone has proven to be an inadequate response to prostitution."
He says it remains a priority to "crack down on those who use their position to exploit the vulnerable".
While Karl and Louise argue for legalisation, feminist Julie Bindel who has written a book on the trade, said legalised brothels were actually worse.
She interviewed 100 women who worked in prostitution during her research.
"It's a fantasy that legalisation would help anyone except the pimps," she said.
"Even the women who choose to, they exist, they are doing it to make ends meet. And we can't keep accepting and condoning it, the buying and selling of the inside of women's bodies."
Both Karl and Louise say they pay tax on their earnings.
Karl and his wife have a limited company, registered as an escort agency.
He says his yearly salary pre-tax was £60,000.
Louise agrees with Karl that brothels should be legalised.
"If I'm on my own [and not in a brothel] - which is what the law allows me to do - I'm at the mercy of whichever client decides to come in," she says.
"A client can come in, rape me, beat me, mug me.
"[But] if I work in a brothel where there's other women present, where there's a receptionist, it's a million times safer."
Watch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.
|
"Business has been really tough. Customers are not thinking about Mother's Day, they're thinking about their groceries at the minute. Flowers are a luxury, and they'd rather give their mum some loo roll!" | Ruth Donoghue owns The Flower Shoppe in Lee, south east London. She closed her store on Friday, having only had a handful of orders for Mother's Day.
"We've had the worst Mother's Day I've seen in 34 years of having my shop," she says.
"I pre-ordered all of the flowers two weeks ago, but we just don't have the customers. Everyone's saving their pennies and understandably worried about their jobs."
Ruth adds that she isn't clear on whether or how she can access the support that the government has offered. She says that the cash grant of £3,000 for very small businesses affected by Covid-19 wouldn't go far enough.
"That's my rent - and it's due next week," she says. "I'd normally pay that out of my Mother's Day profits, but I won't have any this year."
As well as seeing lower footfall to her shop than usual, Ruth has also had to deal with brides and grooms cancelling orders for wedding flowers as celebrations are postponed.
Online sales boost
But as fewer people go to the shops, some businesses say that online sales have seen a boost.
Cat Owen, the owner of Cat Food Cakes, says she has sold "double the amount I normally would" this week, despite having no walk-in customers.
"I've had to completely adapt my business. Normally for Mother's Day, I would take about 30 orders of trays of personalised cupcakes.
"But, I've had no orders for those. Instead, I've made delivery boxes of everything you'd need for an afternoon tea at home, and they've been really popular."
Cat adds she has "no idea" about whether she will have to close her shop over the next few weeks.
"I'm taking as many orders as I can right now. It's stressful because I'm not sure whether I'll even have any ingredients, so I'm trying to make as much money as I can right now".
'Not enough' to make up for the fall
Although small businesses like Cat's are changing to keep up with online orders, analytics company Global Data suggests that the increase in internet sales won't make up for the sharp fall in "physical" purchases.
This was echoed by Angus Thirlwell, the chief executive of luxury retailer Hotel Chocolat.
Although its online sales have seen a big increase in the run-up to Mother's Day, he told the BBC this was not enough to "wholly off-set" the reduction in footfall seen across its 125 UK shops.
Hotel Chocolat has also asked staff to work in roles they normally wouldn't because demand has spiked in different areas of the business.
Mr Thirlwell said: "We're asking staff to adapt and work in different locations, or for example on packaging chocolates if they normally make them."
He told the BBC that the changes meant that the firm would not be cutting jobs, although some of its stores are closing temporarily.
He added: "I do think that this will result in a lasting change. Huge parts of our customer base will get used to buying online, they've registered and found out how easy it is."
"Hopefully, there are some silver linings in the clouds ahead," he said.
|
The 1950s have been brought back to life at an outdoor museum. | Beamish Museum in County Durham has recreated an exact copy of the former Leasingthorne Colliery Welfare Hall and Community Centre, near Bishop Auckland.
Visitors will be able to experience social activities of the time such as games and music, as well as a mother and baby clinic.
It is the first part of a forthcoming 1950s town, which will feature housing, a chip shop and a hairdressers.
In recreating the hall, Beamish worked closely with people from the local community, who shared memories, stories and objects.
Pam Hymas, from the Leeholme and Coundon Community Centre, said: "Just the feel of the place actually makes you feel you are back in our original hall.
"It's the same vibe, the same feeling - it's amazing."
It also hosts a replica of an NHS clinic, where mothers would go for pre and post natal care.
Collections development officer, Emma Sayer said of the clinic: "We've tried to pay particular attention to all of the details, looking at the kinds of products which were available to mums in the 50s.
Richard Evans, the museum's director, said: "People come [here] with their own stories, their own history.
"It's not our role to tell people what their history is, it's to provide a space where they can come reflect and connect with the stories from their communities and their own background."
The opening is being marked by a weekend of activities and events.
Related Internet Links
Beamish, The Living Museum of the North
|
A man who died after an accident at a car parts factory in Shropshire has been identified at an inquest.
| It is not known how Keith Ivison died but he was injured in an incident at the Shrewsbury plant of Stadco on Monday.
He died in hospital the early hours of Tuesday, the firm said.
The inquest was adjourned to take place at a later date. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is investigating as well as the firm.
A spokesman for the firm, which provides parts for the automotive industry, described the death as a "tragic incident".
|
The idea that Cambridge's world-renowned Addenbrooke's Hospital has been branded a failure by regulators is a jolt to the system. But perhaps equally as worrying is that it happened so quickly. | Nick TriggleHealth correspondent@nicktriggleon Twitter
A year ago, the trust that runs the hospital - Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - wasn't even on the Care Quality Commission's radar in terms of being a failing centre.
In fact, two years ago as the regulator was embarking on its new inspection regime it was among the band of hospitals considered to be the safest, according to the risk-rating system at the time.
But now a hospital that can boast of being a centre of excellence for major trauma, transplants, cancer, neurosurgery, genetics and paediatrics, has been judged to be a basket case and will join the 12 other failing hospitals already placed in special measures.
So what does this tell us about the state of health of the NHS? Sir Mike Richards, the CQC's chief inspector of hospitals, believes Addenbrooke's problems are largely of its own making, criticising the trust's management for "losing grip".
Certainly it seems to have made mistakes - as the troubles with its £200m computerised patient records programme illustrates - but it's hard to escape the feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
While the scale of the problems at Addenbrooke's may set it apart - it was running up deficits of over £1m a week - the nature of many of those difficulties are, worryingly, all too familiar among the 162 hospital trusts in England.
A system under pressure
CQC report on Addenbrookes and the Rosie Hospitals
Rising demand led to the trust increasing spending on agency staff, which meant costs spiralled and care suffered, with nurses working on wards without having the adequate skills needed for what was being asked of them.
Bottlenecks were seen as the hospital struggled to discharge patients (partly because of the lack of services in the community) and bed occupancy levels rose, while pressure on surgical services meant waiting times grew.
Or - in the words of the chief inspector - "a vicious cycle" developed.
But these problems are mirrored elsewhere. When Barts Health NHS Trust - the biggest hospital trust in the country - was placed in special measures earlier this year, the regulator also cited staff shortages and waiting times.
These issues are not unique to failing hospitals, however. Key waiting time targets are being missed or have been missed in cancer, A&E and for routine operations in recent months.
Great leadership
Meanwhile, deficits continue to grow. Last year was the worst for a decade, with NHS organisations (hospitals, mental health trusts, community providers and ambulances combined) finishing over £800m in deficit. The sector only managed to finish in the black because of a £250m bailout from the Treasury and raiding the capital budget, which is meant to be spent on buildings.
This year, finance directors have told the King's Fund think tank it is likely to get worse.
Of course, it is not all down to circumstances. The CQC is rightly pointing out there are trusts out there still managing to run a "good" hospital.
That is true. To date, there are 22 hospital trusts that have been rated good by the CQC and two outstanding. The only problem is that three times that number have been judged as requiring improvement or inadequate (although it must be said that the regulator has tended to focus on the trusts it has suspicions about first, so you would expect there to be a greater proportion of poor performers given less than two-thirds of the hospital sector has been inspected).
The lessons from those that are doing well is that great leadership can make a difference. However, the nature of great means that it's not found everywhere.
There is a growing consensus that the NHS is struggling to recruit or develop great leaders. This was made clear in the recent review of management by ex-Marks and Spencer boss Lord Rose.
The issue is also illustrated by the number of vacant posts. Nearly one in five hospital trusts does not have a permanent chief executive in post, according to the Health Service Journal.
This was an issue that was raised by experts last week at the launch of the Spending Review submissions by the three leading think tanks, the King's Fund, Health Foundation and Nuffield Trust.
They suggested high-calibre leaders may be being put off because the outlook in the sector was so bleak. Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb, a care minister in the coalition government, went even further this weekend in an interview with the Observer newspaper, warning the NHS was heading for a "crash".
That may be the doomsday scenario, but the fact it is getting mentioned is a sign of how difficult things are getting.
|
Oxfordshire faces a hosepipe ban from 5 April. | Thames Water and six other firms said they will impose water restrictions after two unusually dry winters left reservoirs, aquifers and rivers below normal levels.
While this could be disastrous news for many gardeners and allotment owners, some are turning to their own supplies to beat the ban.
"I'm probably in a very envious position at the moment," says Richard Preston, a retired vegetable grower from Steeple Aston.
He is the chairman of the local gardening club and passionate about the acre of well-tended land around his north Oxfordshire home, which he is able to keep it looking lush and green with the help of harvested rainwater.
'Foresight and fortune'
"We've just built a new house which we've moved into only a few months ago and in the design of the house we decided we should try and retain all the water from the roof," said Mr Preston.
"We've installed a 4,500 litre rainwater harvester which means all the rainwater I collect off the roof of the house goes into a massive tank underground.
"Then I've just got to switch on the switch and an electric pump sends it up to all my outlet taps which are in the garden.
"So hopefully if we have the occasional rain that I can fill up the tank with, we should be ok for water."
Mr Preston said his investment had been "great foresight and great fortune considering the situation at the moment" but thinks more should be done by the water companies.
But at a cost of about £5,000, underground reservoirs are not the solution for everyone.
Steeple Aston has 23 allotments and last May the allotment association paid to have mains water connected.
This automatically fills three metal troughs so users can fill their watering cans.
Chairperson Jennifer Hallam said: "We didn't get taps installed because it would allow people to connect a hosepipe and waste water.
"Everyone has been very grateful for the water because we've struggled on for years and years without it."
But before turning to the troughs the allotment owners also use their own rainwater which they collect in butts next to their sheds.
'In this together'
A spokeswoman for Thames Water said they would encourage people to harvest rainwater and collect or to use "greywater" to recycle in their garden.
Using the water from the trough with a watering can or bucket was also acceptable under the new restrictions.
But she added: "We want everyone to use as little water as possible - we're all in this together so the less water our customers use now, the more we'll have to supply them with later."
Hosepipe bans are nothing new and Mr Preston said: "Way back in 1976 and many, many years since we've had this situation down in the south east and the midlands, there has been a hosepipe ban because of a lack of water.
"We live in an island which has a massive high rainfall in the north of the country i.e. Scotland, we have severe drought problems in the south east.
"Why don't they consider getting water from the wet part of the country to the dry part and not wait for this to happen all over again?"
However, the Environment Agency considered creating a network of pipes to transfer water south in 2006.
It concluded it would be massively cheaper and less environmentally dangerous to improve the infrastructure in the south.
Until that happens though, gardeners, allotment owners and water companies must keep looking to the skies for salvation.
|
Boris Johnson's letter to EU Council President Donald Tusk doesn't point the way towards any imminent breakthrough in the stand-off over the Brexit border backstop and the ill-fated EU-UK withdrawal agreement. | Mark DevenportPolitical editor, Northern Ireland@markdevenporton Twitter
However, one interesting aspect of the letter is the PM's willingness to tackle head on the assertion from Dublin and Brussels that their approach is simply intended to protect the status quo and the Good Friday Agreement.
That argument has resonated not just in Europe, but also in sections of the US political spectrum.
While President Trump and his senior officials have been upbeat about their willingness to seal a trade deal with the UK after it quits the EU, members of Congress have argued that Brexit poses a potential threat to the peace process.
Earlier this month, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that "if Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress".
This week, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ms Pelosi and other "supporters of the Good Friday Agreement (and opponents of a return to a hard border)", pledging to do all in his power to prevent any post Brexit US-UK trade deal which would threaten the 1998 deal getting Congressional approval.
Pro Brexit unionists get annoyed by the assumption that the UK's withdrawal from the EU is in breach of the 1998 deal, or any easy assumption that the backstop equates to a defence of the peace process.
Witness a joint live broadcast on BBC NI Newsline, when Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster visibly rolled her eyes as Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew moved between Brexit and recollections of the military fortifications from which the security forces used to monitor the border at Aughnacloy during the Troubles.
By contrast, Mrs Foster welcomed the section of Mr Johnson's letter in which the PM argues that the Brexit backstop could weaken, rather than preserve, what he calls "the delicate balance embodied in the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement."
Prime Minister Johnson says he appreciates "the laudable intentions with which the backstop was designed" but argues that "by removing control of such large areas of the commercial and economic life of Northern Ireland to an external body over which the people of Northern Ireland have no democratic control, this balance risks being undermined".
These arguments aren't new. They have previously been advanced by the former Ulster Unionist leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lord Trimble and his one time adviser Lord Bew.
But the Johnson letter represents a greater endorsement of this ideological approach than anything which emanated from Downing Street when Theresa May was in residence.
Will this line of analysis change minds in Brussels or Washington? It seems unlikely, given that Irish government ministers were extremely effective in propagating their view of the Good Friday Agreement and the backstop in both capitals at an early stage in the Brexit proceedings.
Will it feature in legal challenges should something like the backstop ever be put in place? Quite possibly, although a previous court challenge by the victims' campaigner Raymond McCord concluded with the Supreme Court handing down a fairly narrow definition of the "principle of consent" provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.
If either the UK or the EU blinks in the coming weeks or months and agrees a new deal, their different perspectives on the compatibility of either Brexit or the backstop with the 1998 peace deal could prove to be no more than an academic footnote bar to the negotiations.
But if the UK leaves without a deal, this argument - if Downing Street sticks to it - could prolong the process of finding any alternative trade and regulatory deal which can be deemed acceptable to both sides.
|
It seems there's some sort of big event taking place in London this week and no doubt that will draw the attention of thousands of snappers. Yet just a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace in St James's Park you will find another subject worthy of a picture or two. | Phil CoomesPicture editor@philcoomeson Twitter
There, photographer Stephen McLaren has been focusing his attention on the pelicans who inhabit the park, one of whom has been affectionately named William, or Willy, by his fans.
I asked Stephen about the work:
"Photographers are always on the lookout for obliging photogenic subjects, and even though I am a street photographer preferring to stay in the background and shoot unobserved, I often feel the need to directly connect with the subject of my camera's gaze.
"It was in St James's Park in London where I finally found my muse. His name, or so I'm told, is Willy, a five foot high male American White Pelican. We first met five years ago when I found him sitting regally on a bench having just swooped there from his usual home of Duck Island in the park's lake.
"One day I came around the corner of St James's park expecting a good view of the Palace and instead was confronted by a huge white bird preening itself on a park bench. Like virtually everyone else who has had that encounter I whipped out my camera and recorded my disbelief for posterity and have been taking pelican pictures ever since.
"The flock of pelicans residing in St James's park was first introduced in 1664 as a gift from the Russian Ambassador. Although they technically belong to the Queen they are likely to become Boris Johnson's responsibility if the management of the Royal Parks is transferred to the London Mayor's office.
"Although they are wild animals with wings un-clipped, the pelicans have become increasingly inured to human beings. Indeed after spending several years of watching them at close quarters I have come to the conclusion that it is they who own and run the park, and us human gawkers are the beasts under inspection.
"It has become obvious to me is that the pelicans love having their pictures taken. Sometimes there can be upwards of 20 people at a time shoving phones and various flashing devices in their face. They never object, or peck, or throw a strop. Instead they will adjust their pose as required, shifting from full frontal to coquettish side-on 'you looking at me' stance. This always requires the wide-angle lens. Willy, in particular, loves the attention of cameras and must be the most photographed animal in London.
"Although I love photographing the pelicans the longer I did it the more I realised that I was just as interested in the people that were drawn to them. Alongside the flotsam and jetsam of tourists and lunchtime snackers, there is a community of older people who adore all the animals in the park, but save particular affection for the white giants.
"There is Dave who brings his pet snake and polecats to add to the menagerie, there is a gentleman who wheels a bag full of animal feed through the park, and there is Michael who has somehow trained Willy to follow him through the park and who will talk to him while reading the newspaper.
"As for the tourists, they are the ones most beguiled by Willy and his pals. Russian ladies and well-marshalled groups of Chinese people seem particularly thrilled by their antics. Bread, biscuits and nuts are often proffered as snacks but these are usually treated with disdain as favoured foods include worms, and any careless pigeons that get too close.
"For those who want to see these magnificent animals up close, the best opportunity is at 1430 every day when the Royal Parks staff bring buckets of fish for those huge beaks and gullets to devour. It's one of London best wildlife spectacles and for those on a budget it beats going to the zoo. But be sure to bring your camera, you never know what might happen."
So once you've waved at William and Kate, perhaps you could turn your attention to the pelicans in the park.
|
Detailed plans for a £12m development near the terminus of the Borders Railway will be lodged within weeks. | Edinburgh-based New Land Assets is behind the Tweedbank scheme which includes a hotel, retail units, drive-through coffee shop and petrol station.
The company said feedback from a recent community consultation event had been "positive".
Managing director Duncan Hamilton said the "overwhelming majority" of people were supportive of the project.
The company has claimed the development could create up to 100 jobs and attract other investment.
It said it would now review the public feedback and look to submit a detailed planning application "in the coming weeks".
|
When foxes discovered little penguins on a small Australian island, they nearly wiped the colony out. But a farmer came up with a novel way to protect the birds - and the story has been made into a hit film. | Jon DonnisonSydney correspondent
As a premise for a film, think Lassie meets Babe meets Pingu. What's not to like?
Middle Island, a beautiful, rugged and windswept outcrop off the coast of southern Victoria is home to a colony of the world's smallest penguins.
Originally known as fairy penguins, before some pen-pusher deemed that politically incorrect, they've now been given the far more dreary sounding title of little penguins.
To be fair, they are just that - little, standing at 30 to 40cm tall.
There used to be hundreds of them on Middle Island - but that was before the foxes got to them.
Find out more
Hear Jon Donnison's report on the PM programme on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 14 December from 17:00, or listen now on iPlayer radio.
"We went from a point where we had around 800 penguins down to where we could only find four," says Peter Abbott from the Penguin Preservation Project.
"In our biggest bird kill, we found 360 birds killed over about two nights. Foxes are thrill killers. They'll kill anything they can find."
That particular incident was in 2005, but the problem had been building up for a few years. Middle Island - which is uninhabited by humans - is separated from the mainland by a stretch of water measuring no more than 20 or 30m.
At low tide, and when sand builds up in the narrow channel, foxes can cross from the mainland barely getting their paws wet.
The problem first became apparent in the year 2000 when the sea's natural current led to increased sand build-up.
Over time the fox population grew as it became clear they had an easy source of food.
The fairy penguins, as I'm going to call them, faced being wiped out on Middle Island - until a chicken farmer, by the made-for-cinema name of Swampy Marsh, came up with a plan. He suggested sending one of his Maremma dogs to protect the birds.
"In Australia those dogs are generally used for chicken protection or goats or sheep," says Abbott.
The dog, the first of several to be used on Middle Island, was called Oddball - and Oddball made quite an impact.
"We immediately saw a change in the pattern of the foxes," says Abbott.
"Leading up to when the dog went on the island, every morning we'd find fox prints on the beach. Putting a dog on the island changed the hierarchy. The foxes can hear the dogs barking, they can smell them so they go somewhere else."
Amazingly, since Oddball and his four-legged successors were introduced 10 years ago, there has not been a single penguin killed by a fox on Middle Island.
Little penguins
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
The fairy penguin population has gone back up to almost 200.
The current dogs patrolling Middle Island are Eudy and Tula, named after the scientific term for the fairy penguin: Eudyptula.
They are the sixth and seventh dogs to be used and a new puppy is being trained up by Peter Abbott and his team to start work in 2016.
The dogs operate in the penguin's breeding season, usually from October to March, when they spend five or six days a week on the island.
Even when the dogs are not there, their lingering scent is enough to keep the foxes away.
The project has been such a success that a movie called Oddball has been made about it.
"It's a great story. We're trying to save a cute penguin with a couple of cute dogs but the movie has taken things to a different level," says Abbott.
The film has already taken around 11m Australian dollars ($8m; £5.3m) at the box office here and is now heading for global audiences.
"The movie had been in the pipeline for many years," says Kristen Abbott from the Middle Island Project Committee.
"Many of us thought, 'Yeah, we'll believe it when we see it,' and then suddenly it was pandemonium in the town with video cameras and actors everywhere."
It has provided a huge boost for tourism - and in the summer months people can visit the island on a "Meet the Maremma Tour".
"It's been one of the best things that's happened for a long time," says John Watson who runs a local hotel.
"It's filled a lot of extra bed nights for us with tourists coming down to either meet the dogs or do a tour of the island."
Many of the locals appeared as characters in the film and others worked as extras on set.
"My character was played by an American actor," says Peter Abbott. "I tell people it's because they couldn't find an Australian as good looking as me."
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
|
A section of a road in Newbury, Berkshire has collapsed revealing a large sinkhole. | The hole, on Enborne Road, measures 3ft (1m) deep and 2ft (60cm) wide.
The road has been closed both ways between Kingsbridge Road and Skinner's Green Lane - motorists are being diverted via the A4.
West Berkshire said its engineers had been called in to assess the damage caused by the cavity, but the timescale for repairs was unknown.
|
Spain's prime minister rarely talks in such stark language. | By Tom BurridgeBBC News, Barcelona
But his message to Catalonia's devolved government, which spearheads the pro-independence movement, was blunt. He said Madrid would remove its leaders and impose direct rule.
Mariano Rajoy is conservative by party, and in his political style.
He has meandered his way through other crises; a financial one for his country; a corruption scandal that tainted his party. His "keep calm and carry on" strategy worked each time.
But Catalonia today is a completely different ball game.
This Spanish region has enjoyed a high degree of autonomy since the 1980s - only the Basque Country has more.
It's also important to note that in cultural terms, Catalonia is arguably the most distinct of Spain's regions.
The Catalan language is widely spoken and from the folkloric dance of Sardana to human towers, there is a long list of cultural traditions here, which enforce the sense of Catalan identity.
And a large part of Catalan society will see Madrid's planned takeover as an affront to their whole way of life.
The word among the pro-independence camp is that, in the coming weeks, peaceful direct action will be the order of the day.
The Spanish government has outlined a clear strategy, couched within a legal framework.
Advisers close to the prime minister emphasise that the decision to intervene was not taken lightly but they also argue that Mr Rajoy was left with no choice.
At stake, they say, is Spain's entire system of governance; no other Western government would allow a regional administration to ride roughshod over its constitution and laws.
Catalonia's independence, or a legitimate vote on the matter, has never been and never will be an option, they exclaim.
But over the next days Mariano Rajoy's government faces an unfathomably delicate task.
It must now reassert Madrid's authority in Catalonia.
The practicalities of that won't be straightforward.
Some within Catalonia's civil service will be die-hard supporters of independence. Others will simply hate the concept of Madrid being ultimately in charge.
Catalonia's regional police force, Mossos, insists it remains impartial. "We are policemen, not politicians," Inspector Albert Oliva told me.
But he admits that his force is in the middle of a "political hurricane." Over the coming weeks the loyalties of Catalan police will be tested to the absolute limit.
Before we reach that point, the Spanish senate will have to approve Madrid's proposals. That could take days.
In the meantime, the soon-to-be-sacked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont will try and convene the regional parliament, before it is stripped of powers.
If that happens, he will probably make a more emphatic declaration of independence.
The vast majority of Spaniards will, in turn, declare that meaningless.
But every twist and turn from now will play into an already febrile political atmosphere.
Every time I speak to a taxi driver or an old lady pushing her shopping trolley down the street, be it in Catalonia or in the neighbouring region of Aragon, people's views, on both sides, have hardened.
To the naked eye of a tourist, Spain is a country at ease, a country of sun, sea, beautiful buildings and friendly people.
Scratch below and there are deep political divisions.
And in Catalonia the situation is becoming fractured beyond belief.
|
After an online petition gained 65 signatures, Glastonbury has added Native American headdresses to the list of items traders cannot sell at the festival without "prior authorisation". Has the UK woken up to an issue that is controversial in the US, asks Luke Jones. | Magazine MonitorA collection of cultural artefacts
Glastonbury organisers say that this instruction to their market traders is to ensure that sellers "reflect the values of the festival". It follows an online petition that called for the headdresses to be banned, saying the wearing of them by non-Native Americans is "disrespectful".
They have become a regular feature at festivals. But some see them as offensive - using an ethnic minority's traditional culture as novelty clothing. For Native Americans headdresses can be seen as a sacred item. Dr David Stirrup of the University of Kent says they are "something you have to earn. It is normally earned through exploit." The eagle feathers in the headdress are revered and worn for specific ceremonial occasions. "They are not everyday wear," he says.
In the US, the wearing of headdresses for fashion reasons has become controversial. Celebrities such as Pharrell Williams and Harry Styles caused controversy by wearing the headgear in photographs. Meanwhile football team the Washington Redskins are under pressure to change their name and logo, which many see as a racial slur. In the US it is illegal to misrepresent products as Native American and the name "Navajo" is a registered trademark. Discussion on social media and the popularity of blogs such as Native Appropriations have amplified the debate. But until now it has barely registered in the UK.
In the UK there is no significant Native American population. And what happens at a festival in Somerset is unlikely to matter much to Native Americans in the US, says Dr. Tim Lockley of the American Studies department at Warwick University. "I think they are more worried about jobs."
The headdress joins cigarettes, candle flares and flags on the list of items traders are not allowed to sell at the Glastonbury festival without prior authorisation. However the restriction does not stop visitors bringing their own.
Not everyone appears to be taking the headdress restriction seriously. A new petition has been launched calling on Glastonbury to ban tipis.
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
|
The Queen is to visit Swansea as part of St David's Day celebrations next month, Buckingham Palace has confirmed. | She will carry out a traditional St David's Day ceremony of presenting leeks to members of the 3rd Battalion The Royal Welsh, according to the royal diary.
The Queen is the regiment's colonel-in-chief.
The ceremony will take place at Swansea's Guildhall on 2 March.
|
Nearly all local authorities are concerned for their financial stability, according to a survey carried out by BBC News, which also indicates the majority of local authorities plan to raise council tax, cut spending, or both. | Everybody relies on council services to some extent, whether it is bin collection, road maintenance or the local library. But some people rely on services more than others.
BBC News spoke to some of them.
The young mum who had a stroke
Many people in East Sussex who have had a stroke rely on a charity - the Stroke Association - to help them rebuild their lives. The organisation currently receives an £80,000 grant from the county council - but the local authority recently voted through a £17m savings package and a 5.99% council tax rise, which will see a number of frontline services affected.
Katie Simpson is a mother of two girls. She had a stroke in 2013 when she was aged 25 and 16 weeks pregnant with a baby boy.
"I had lost feeling in my body, and my speech was starting to slur.
"Doctors had to make the decision whether to save my life or for me to deliver my unborn baby first. I gave birth to my baby son, who was stillborn.
"Scans confirmed I'd had several mini-stokes, and strokes on the left and right side of my brain.
"I had to move back into my parents' home with my two daughters. The stroke left me with severe fatigue, a communication difficulty called aphasia, left-sided weakness in my body, on-going chronic pain, and issues with swallowing which meant I could only eat pureed food like a baby.
"The Stroke Association supported me when I left hospital, and have continued to support me with many aspects of my life over the past five years.
"My little girls were only four and seven years old.
"I felt like I'd lost my life. It was really difficult. All of a sudden the simple things I'd naturally do with my children were really challenging - you never quite realise how much you actually use your limbs until you lose the power to move them.
"Walking was difficult, cooking, using kitchen utensils, reading a bed time story, trying to help my children get ready for school - it's so sad when you are the adult and you can't do their buttons on their tops or tie their laces. Even putting their hair up was impossible.
"I remember crying because I felt like a failure and that I couldn't help them with such simple things.
"Thanks to support from the Stroke Association I have regular therapy sessions to help with this.
"I owe so much thanks to the Stroke Association for being there for me and my family through my darkest days and bringing me out on the other side."
The new mum's support network
Northamptonshire County Council is currently consulting on almost £35m worth of cuts and plans to close some of its libraries.
Rachel McMain is a member of campaign group Save Kingsthorpe Library, which she first used as a child.
"I used to get books there with my grandma and these days I use the library's children's services with my own one-year-old baby.
"I have accessed the service since I was tiny. Now I'm a new mum and if I hadn't have had the library I wouldn't have had the support network that I have now.
"It's not just the children's services, it's people that are vulnerable in the community. It is a place for them to meet, to socialise.
"The council will fund the libraries for one more year before they are taken over by community groups, but for Kingsthorpe it is not great news.
"The council said it would be extremely difficult for Kingsthorpe to be a community-run library but has still decided to make that decision.
"Kingsthorpe doesn't have a parish or town council that can support it so we don't have an immediate funding stream available to us."
|
A man has died after the car he was driving smashed into railings in the early hours of New Year's Day. | The 21-year-old was killed when the silver Saab 95 crashed in Southey Green Road, in Sheffield, near to the junction with Buchanan Road.
South Yorkshire Police said the driver suffered serious head injuries and died at the scene. A passenger in the car escaped uninjured.
The crash happened at about 04:00 GMT and witnesses are being sought.
|
The Governor of the Bank of England has entered the controversial world of climate change - telling the BBC that, if there is no action now, global warming could become one of the biggest risks to economic stability in the future. | Kamal AhmedBusiness editor@bbckamalon Twitter
Mark Carney said that the world was changing, and whether you were a "sceptic or an evangelist" on global warning, governments and investors should be aware of the possible effects on financial stability.
In the insurance industry, extreme weather events were becoming more costly, he said, with losses increasing from $10bn a year in the 1980s to $50bn in the last decade.
In banking, billions of pounds of loans to energy companies and mining businesses might have to be re-assessed.
Mr Carney said that wasn't a job for him, but for investors, who would need to be given more information.
'Tail risks'
The Governor said that the vast majority of oil and gas reserves already discovered could now be "stranded" if new rules on carbon emissions are enforced by governments.
The oil and gas would be unusable.
"There are near term risks that are so called tail risks, a series of extreme weather events, pandemics, others," Mr Carney told me.
"We have seen manifestations of those in the past.
"The point is the risks build with time, and they build more rapidly with inaction so climate change is a function of cumulative emissions, so the slower the action is today, the bigger the action has to be in the future.
"That would mean more abrupt change, that would mean bigger shocks to the value of financial assets, bigger strains on banks and insurance companies that are exposed to those assets, so what we're trying to do is to promote as smooth an adjustment as possible.
"And we think it can be done, and we think it can be done by providing better information."
Threat
Mr Carney's interview came as he gave a major speech to Lloyd's of London insurers.
In the speech he said that "climate change will threaten financial resilience and longer term prosperity".
"While there is time to act, the window of opportunity is finite and shrinking," he said.
Mr Carney is also the head of the Financial Stability Board, the global organisation of central bankers.
As said he will be raising the issue at the next meeting of the G20 group of the world's largest economies in November.
In December, government leaders will be meeting in Paris to discuss the next moves on controlling global warming.
Challenge
Mr Carney told me that "he wouldn't be sitting here" in 20 or 30 years when the risks of global warming would be more apparent.
He even suggested that there could be legal challenges in the future - similar to asbestos claims now - over inaction on climate change and the impact on health or the value of businesses.
"This is the challenge," he said.
"Sitting here today, is it [global warming] the biggest risk? No it isn't.
"Is it one of the biggest risks in the future? Yes.
"The challenge is that if there's not action today or in the near future that risk in the medium term goes up and up and requires sharper action, more abrupt action, and a bigger hit to the economy and financial stability."
I asked Mr Carney whether global warming came under the remit of the Governor of the Bank of England.
He said it did - the stability of the insurance sector which is facing increasing costs and banks facing possible asset write-downs meant this was a matter of global financial stability. Bank of England governor - global economy at risk from climate change
|
A nightclub has been made subject to strict new conditions, following the death of a teenager caused by a contaminated batch of drugs. | Dylan Booth, 18, from Solihull, died in hospital after taking the substance at the Rainbow in the Digbeth area of Birmingham on New Years's Eve.
Three men and a woman were also taken ill but have since recovered.
A city council licensing hearing stipulated the club must employ under-cover security staff and sniffer dogs.
Other conditions include extra drugs signage and more stringent identity checks.
A full licensing review is due next month.
|
Ground-breaking work on synthetic organ transplants made Paolo Macchiarini one of the most famous doctors in the world. But some of his academic research is now seen as misleading, and most of the patients who received his revolutionary treatment have died. What went wrong? | By William KremerBBC World Service
In July 2011, the world was told about a sensational medical breakthrough that had taken place in Stockholm, Sweden. The Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini had performed the world's first synthetic organ transplant, replacing a patient's trachea, or windpipe, with a plastic tube.
The operation promised to reshape organ transplantation. No longer would patients have to wait for a donor organ, only to run the risk of biological rejection. Plastic tracheas - and possibly other organs - would be produced quickly, safely, and made-to-measure for each patient.
It was a story that befitted the reputation of Dr Macchiarini's workplace, the prestigious Karolinska Institute, whose professors decide each year who will receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
But five years on, Macchiarini's headline-making work has brought KI and its sister organisation, the Karolinska University Hospital, no glory. Of the nine patients that received the treatment, in Sweden and elsewhere, seven have died. The two still alive have had their synthetic tracheas removed and replaced with a windpipe from a donor.
Last week, an independent report sharply criticised the three synthetic trachea operations that took place at Karolinska University Hospital.
The investigation, led by Kjell Asplund, Chairman of the Swedish Council on Medical Ethics, found that the scientific foundation for the new operation was weak, and condemned the failure to carry out risk analyses before the patients received their operations, or seek the necessary ethical approval.
On Monday, a separate investigation at KI identified mistakes made when Macchiarini was recruited and when allegations of misconduct were made against him two years ago.
In the picture that emerges from these reports, we see a doctor persisting with a technique that showed few signs of working and able to take extraordinary risks with his patients, and a medical institution so attached to their star doctor that they ignore mounting evidence of his poor judgement.
Macchiarini arrived in Stockholm in 2010, already a leader in the field of regenerative medicine - the project of growing tissue or organs to be implanted in sick patients.
Not only was Macchiarini known as a brilliant surgeon, he was handsome and impressive - able to give press conferences in several languages.
At the hospital, a "bandwagon effect" emerged around his work. "Regenerative medicine" was at the cutting edge of scientific fashion, and few colleagues raised questions or objections about the basic science underlying the procedures.
The patient who received that first synthetic organ transplant, in 2011, was 36-year-old Andemariam Beyene, a graduate student from Eritrea living in Iceland. After unsuccessful treatment for a rare form of cancer, he had been referred by his Icelandic doctors to the experts at Karolinska University Hospital.
Macchiarini told Beyene that the revolutionary surgery was his only chance of survival and persuaded him to agree to the new procedure.
The synthetic "scaffold" for Beyene's new trachea was made in a lab in London. It was seeded with stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow, then placed in a shoe-box sized machine called a bioreactor, where it rotated in a solution designed to encourage cell growth.
The idea was that these cells would divide and turn into tracheal cells. Before the operation, Macchiarini also deposited slivers of cells from the patient's nose on the scaffold. It was hoped these would grow into a lining of epithelial cells. In effect, the doctors were trying to grow a new trachea inside Beyene's body.
A month after the operation, reporters from around the world were able to interview Beyene in bed. He told the BBC: "I was very scared, very scared about the operation. But it was live or die."
By the end of the year, Macchiarini and his colleagues were writing in the Lancet that Beyene had an "almost normal airway" that was free of infection and growing new tissue.
The publication of this sent a signal to the medical community that the miraculous-sounding project of growing and implanting synthetic transplants was a viable treatment.
By this time, two more synthetic tracheas had been implanted. In the first - an operation not overseen by Macchiarini - a young British woman in a serious condition received a trachea at University College London. In the second, Macchiarini himself fitted a 30-year-old American man with a new kind of scaffold.
These two patients only survived for a few months. No autopsy was performed on the American man so his exact cause of death is unknown, but we know that the British woman's synthetic trachea did not function well.
"The biggest problem with the materials used at that time was lack of integration into the surrounding bodily tissue, both outside it and at the ends where you join it on to the bronchi and the larynx," says one of the surgeons, Prof Martin Birchall at UCL.
"At those junctions it always seems to be loose and healing tissue can become an obstruction to breathing.
"The second thing that seemed to happen was that you are putting the trachea on to a bed, which is made up of the oesophagus, the swallowing tube, and the synthetic material could press into the oesophagus.
"Finally, the lining didn't seem to grow into the scaffolds either, so you are left with something chronically infected and unable to clear mucus properly."
The patient was able to go home after the operation, but died two months later.
Over the next three years, Macchiarini implanted six more synthetic tracheas, and four of these patients died. It is unknown whether their deaths were all related to the tracheas, or whether they were due to underlying illnesses or even unrelated events.
Karolinska University Hospital stopped Macchiarini's work in November 2013, but he continued to perform the transplants as part of a clinical trial in Russia.
Meanwhile, reports about the health of the first patient, Andemariam Beyene, remained positive. In a 2014 article published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, Macchiarini reported that he had an "almost normal" airway a year after the operation, repeating the phrase from the Lancet article.
But by the time that article appeared Beyene too had died. He had suffered repeated infections, and his trachea needed to be held open by a series of stents. His autopsy revealed the synthetic trachea had come loose.
The nine synthetic trachea patients
Source: SVT production team. Image: Macchiarini and Julia Tuulik, courtesy of SVT
However, the questions that have dogged Paolo Macchiarini are related less to disappointing patient outcomes, and more to the decision-making around operations. Had the risk of each operation been properly assessed? Were the patients ill enough to require such drastic intervention? Did the patients understand the risks involved?
Then there is a second set of questions that relate to the way Macchiarini has described the operations in academic publications.
After Beyene's death, four doctors at the Karolinska Institute began to have doubts about synthetic transplants, and about Macchiarini himself. The group included Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, who had assisted Macchiarini in Beyene's organ transplant operation in 2011, and Thomas Fux, who was involved in the aftercare of Macchiarini's patients at the hospital.
They alleged that Macchiarini had misrepresented the success of the operations, omitting or even fabricating data in his published articles.
KI's vice chancellor at the time, Dr Anders Hamsten, called in an outside expert, Dr Bengt Gerdin, from Uppsala University Hospital, to lead an investigation. In May 2015, Gerdin reported back, concluding that by-and-large the whistleblowers were right: Macchiarini was guilty of scientific misconduct.
But in August 2015 Hamsten and the KI management threw out Gerdin's report. Based on undisclosed evidence they had seen - which Gerdin had not - they reaffirmed their faith in the surgeon and extended his contract.
In the end, it was not a scientist, doctor or lawyer that grounded Macchiarini's high-flying career, but a TV journalist.
Bosse Lindquist followed the surgeon for months for a documentary series for the Swedish public broadcaster, SVT.
Lindquist also scoured the world's media archives for footage of Macchiarini, and he was rewarded with a wealth of material. "It turned out that Macchiarini had always liked journalists and had often invited TV teams to his surgeries," Lindquist says.
Some of the most striking moments of the series come from these archive rushes.
For example, Lindquist uncovered footage of Andemariam Beyene undergoing bronchoscopies, the procedure in which doctors view a patient's airways with a miniature camera. The footage from the surgical camera seemed to conflict with the descriptions of the patient in Macchiarini's published articles.
Instead of an "almost normal airway" the footage showed that a build-up of scar tissue was impeding the passage of air to the right lung. The clips also showed a fistula - a hole into the rest of the body - at the end of the trachea.
The articles are currently the subject of yet another investigation. On Friday, the Central Ethical Review Board in Sweden ruled that a 2014 article by Macchiarini, published in the journal Nature Communications, involved research misconduct. The article described a transplant trial in rats, which, the committee ruled, was not as successful as had been implied.
The Review Board will rule on the other contentious articles soon. The 2011 article in the Lancet now carries an "expression of concern". The senior editor of the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research tells the BBC that his journal will issue a similar warning soon.
Macchiarini says that some mistakes were made in the preparation of the articles, but there was no intention to mislead.
Lindquist agreed not to ask Macchiarini about the allegations against him until the outcome of KI's internal investigation in 2015, but eventually the two men sat down for a long and very awkward interview.
The normally urbane Macchiarini becomes increasingly rattled as Lindquist presses him to answer why five human beings received plastic tracheas before any experiments checking the suitability of the scaffolds in animals were published.
At first, Macchiarini says that his team conducted animal studies before 2011 at KI, but they have yet to be published. When Lindquist points out that he has found no official approvals for such research, Macchiarini changes tack, asking, "How do you know that we didn't do animal studies in Russia?"
Finally the doctor admits in an irritated tone, "We didn't do any animal study that involves large animals - of course not, we didn't have the time. The material was proven, the material was studied. We used fibres that were approved by the FDA [the US Food and Drug Administration]. And now all the studies are coming."
Lindquist called his documentary series The Experiments. The implication is that Macchiarini was treating humans as guinea pigs, instead of doing preliminary research on animals.
Find out more
When it was broadcast in Sweden in January, The Experiments caused a sensation, with about 15% of the population tuning in to watch this complicated medical story unfold.
Anders Hamsten stood down as vice-chancellor of KI, as did Urban Lendahl, the general secretary of the Nobel Committee. Macchiarini was fired, and half a dozen inquiries launched.
Last week, the Swedish government sacked all members of KI's board who remained in position.
Bo Risberg, professor emeritus of surgery at the University of Gothenberg and a former chairman of the Swedish Ethics Council, has called for the Nobel Prize to be suspended for two years as an "apology" to Macchiarini's patients and their families. He has said the events amount to the biggest research scandal Sweden has experienced in modern times.
"It is very strange that it should take a TV programme to make this public," Risberg said earlier this year. "Everything was swept under the carpet."
The failure to do pre-clinical tests on animals, he said, was "the worst crime you can commit."
In May, Macchiarini discussed his decision to operate on Andemariam Beyene on SVT. "We had a human being that we wanted to save," he said, "And in these circumstances what would you do? Do you just leave him dying at that young age? I don't think it's correct."
This touches on the blurred distinction between trying out a new treatment as part of a clinical research programme, and innovating in an emergency to save or prolong a life. The Swedish government is investigating whether guidelines differentiating the different scenarios need to be clearer.
Last week's report into the synthetic transplant operations that took place at Karolinska University Hospital concluded that while there was a compassionate element to the operations, they still involved clinical research. Therefore, Macchiarini should have sought approval from an ethical review board. "It is unlikely that the project would have been approved," the report notes.
Moreover, it states that there was no immediate threat to life for Macchiarini's three patients before the operations.
In an email to the BBC, Macchiarini says he accepts the findings of the report, but he adds that it was the responsibility of the hospital administration to apply for ethical permissions.
"I would welcome international discussion and clarification of the ethical processes to be undertaken in such difficult circumstances as these - where experimental treatments are involved," he writes.
"It is clearly a difficult area for clinicians and researchers to be involved in, and yet vitally important that new treatments are developed and tried…"
Macchiarini says that the report highlights "the very great amount of pre-clinical research that has been done into synthetic tracheal scaffolds", though he concedes that Andemariam Beyene was the recipient of an untested procedure.
"I would like to add that the welfare of patients has always been my driving concern. Although there may be criticisms of decision-making processes and administrative processes, and these may have had tragic consequences that with hindsight are deeply regrettable, everyone involved in the clinical care of these patients felt that they were doing their very best for these individuals. That should never be overlooked."
When asked about the transplants, Macchiarini has often mentioned that he was not the only one responsible for the decision to operate, but discussed his patients in multidisciplinary conferences. "There were 30 or more professionals involved in the decision-making process," he told SVT, "and then even in the inter-operative and postoperative care of the patient."
Yet one of the most critical issues was not discussed in the meetings - whether there was enough scientific evidence to support the procedure.
Some experts claim that the entire project of growing human organs, although appealing to popular science journalists, is flawed.
Dr Pierre Delaere, a professor of respiratory surgery at KU Leuven in Belgium, has said that it is impossible for surgeons to establish a new blood supply to a trachea - donated or synthetic. Delaere has called Macchiarini's method "one of the biggest lies in medical history, because you are doing something that is impossible from a theoretical point of view".
The use of bone marrow cells has also come under scrutiny. "There is absolutely no evidence that these cells differentiate into mucosal epithelia (lining tissue) or blood vessels," says Leonid Schneider, a science blogger who trained as a molecular cell biologist and used to work in stem cell research.
"This claim that bone marrow cells can create any kind of tissue is based on old papers, which are long discredited by science, and every single stem cell scientist will tell you they cannot do it."
He adds: "Everybody switched off their brain. The stem cell scientists switched off their brains to the science, and the clinicians switched off their brains to the use of the plastic, which couldn't even be sutured into patients, and everybody went along with it."
Macchiarini maintains, in his email to the BBC, that "there is no doubt that it is a viable technology". He adds that he is continuing his work with biological scaffolds, expanding his focus from the trachea to other organs.
A public prosecutor in Stockholm is currently gathering as much information as she can about the three operations that took place at Karolinska University Hospital, and says she will decide next year whether to press charges equivalent to manslaughter and grievous bodily harm.
The hospital is already the subject of two police investigations, triggered last year by complaints from government healthcare agencies.
Despite his many appearances in the media, the man at the centre of the scandal remains something of an enigma.
By chance, the transmission of The Experiments in Sweden coincided with the publication of an article in Vanity Fair in which it was alleged that Macchiarini had had a relationship with a television producer who was making a film about him. The story alleged that the producer had ordered her wedding dress before learning that Macchiarini was married with children.
Macchiarini has declined to comment on the story.
"He's an exceptional person for sure, and he has this faculty for stretching the truth just the right amount," says Bosse Lindquist.
"But in order to be able to seduce the medical community you need to have a whole host of professors who would like to be seduced and who would like to believe that the Nobel prize is very close, or you can make lots of patent money, for example, or corporate money.
"I think he has an acute ability to suss out the faults and cracks in the system where he could manoeuvre."
Additional reporting from Christine Westerhaus. Listen to Christine Westerhaus's report on the Macchiarini scandal, which was originally broadcast in February 2016 on the BBC World Service. The Experiments will be broadcast in the UK in BBC4's Storyville strand in October.
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
|
The new David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum was already a hot ticket even before the show opens to the public this weekend. "David Bowie is" shows how, in the 1970s, David Bowie's passport to fame was his daringly ambiguous sexuality. But did appearances deceive? | By Vincent DowdBBC World Service
These days Dylan Jones is editor of British GQ magazine and very accustomed to living the high-life. But in July 1972 he was an ordinary 12-year-old living with his parents in an ordinary part of Kent. Then one evening, his life changed.
"I can picture the exact moment: my father was away and my mother was out in the garden," he says. "So I was alone in a terrace house in Deal watching Top of the Pops.
"Normally it would have been a forgettable Thursday but I was about to be astounded. It was the first time we were exposed to Ziggy Stardust in all his androgynous glory.
Bowie, with flaming red hair and a skin-tight body-suit, played the song Starman. Last year, Dylan Jones published a book arguing that this remains a crucial moment in cultural history - When Ziggy Played Guitar: David Bowie and Four Minutes that Shook the World. Wasn't the book's premise a little overstated?
"Absolutely not," he insists. "In those days Top of the Pops could easily be watched by 14 million people, so the next day Bowie was all anyone was talking about.
"It's not like hundreds of thousands of people all claiming to have seen the Sex Pistols live when they started out: Bowie genuinely did become common currency overnight.
"He was a dangerous figure on British TV at a point when television didn't do danger.
"41 years ago, it was an extraordinary experience. It didn't immediately fill me with gay longings - though with some people it did. But nothing was quite the same afterwards.
Someone else fascinated by Bowie that evening was Rupert Smith, now known as a novelist and critic.
"I was a gay 12 year-old just starting to take an interest in pop music and I was knocked out," he says. "I was watching with my mother who said, Oh he looks like Glenda Jackson playing Elizabeth I - which in retrospect was quite perceptive.
"And then came the famous moment on the show when David Bowie slung his arm around guitarist Mick Ronson - which was simultaneously blokey but also a bit gay. It may not sound like much now but in 1972 it was a revolution."
Even as a teenager, Smith spotted one big difference between Bowie and other '70s performers who appeared to flirt with sexual ambiguity, such as Marc Bolan.
"A few months before the TOTP appearance, Bowie said on the record in the Melody Maker that he was gay - or at least bisexual. (The interview with Michael Watts appeared on 22 January 1972.)
Looking back now, the statement was ambiguous but at the time it was a brave thing to say - it was only five years since homosexual acts had been legalised in Britain.
"I didn't find David Bowie at all attractive in any physical way. But I loved what he stood for."
Paul Trynka, a recent Bowie biographer, thinks the singer was revealing the genius for remaking his image which the world would see again and again.
"In 1972, there wasn't the huge media proliferation we have today. That early statement to the music press had barely been picked up by mainstream newspapers.
"So TV appearances on TOTP, the Old Grey Whistle Test and even on a news programme like Nationwide became a tipping point. He brought the outrageous into the mainstream.
"We don't know exactly what was happening in his own life - by 1972 he'd been married two years - although certainly he's of a generation which was more relaxed about experimentation.
"But David was aware of a British fondness for camp which goes all the way back to music hall. His theatricality didn't come from nowhere."
Rupert Smith says it would be wrong to be cynical about Bowie's manifestations of sexual ambiguity in the 1970s. "Perhaps it was partly for show but ultimately I don't think it matters what he was doing in his private life. He's always been an actor.
"He clearly knew his way around gay culture in terms of its writing and music and visual art.
"More than anyone else, he blasted the closet-door off its hinges. So for that I'll always love him - but his position on the politics of sexuality is a conflicted one. If, like me, you're a big Bowie fan you just have to accept that.
"At the very least in the '70s he was a pioneer of sexual openness in Britain. It was a long time before anyone came along in music who was unambiguously gay. Arguably in Britain, that title goes to Jimmy Somerville but Bowie paved the way."
Dylan Jones says we all owe the 25-year-old Bowie a debt: "Much of '70s Britain was drab and colourless. He offered us excitement."
But Jones also warns against cultural false memory syndrome.
"When I was writing my book about Bowie, I was lovingly recounting to my father my memories of that day in 1972: Bowie's bright red hair contrasting with the pallid skin and the incredibly colourful body-suit which, of course, I could recall in absolute detail.
"My father listened and when I finished, he quietly pointed out that in 1972 we only had a black and white TV set."
Jones thinks for a moment. "Or maybe that just proves Bowie's talent: he was massively exciting even in monochrome."
|
Nasa's Voyager spacecraft have enthralled everyone with their exploits at the edge of the Solar System, but their launch in 1977 was only possible because of some clever maths and the persistence of a PhD student who worked out how to slingshot probes into deep space. | By Christopher Riley and Dallas CampbellBBC Four
On the 3 October, 1942, the nose cone of an early V2 test rocket soared high above the north German coast before falling back to a crash-landing in the Baltic Sea.
For the first time in history, an object built by humans had crossed the invisible Karman line, which marks the edge of space.
Astonishingly, within 70 years - just one human lifespan - we'd hurled another spacecraft right to the edge of the Solar System.
Today, 35 years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is 18.4 billion km (11.4 billion miles) from Earth and about to cross over the boundary marking the extent of the Sun's influence, where the solar wind meets interstellar space.
Sometime in the next five years, it will likely break through this so called "bowshock" and head out into the galaxy beyond. Its twin, Voyager 2, having flown past all the outer giant planets, should pass over into interstellar not long after.
It's easy to take this monumental achievement for granted, but the gateway to the outer Solar System remained shut for the first 20 years of the space age.
In 1957, as Sputnik 1 became the first engineered object to orbit our home planet, mission planners started to look towards other worlds to propel their probes.
Spacecraft were quickly dispatched to the Moon, Venus and Mars. But there was one major limiting factor to reaching more distant destinations.
For a voyage to the outer planets, you must escape the gravitational pull of the Sun, and that demands a very large rocket indeed. And given what an "uphill" gravitational struggle it would be to reach them, such a journey to the furthest planet - Neptune, more than four billion km (2.5 billion miles) away - could easily take 30 or 40 years.
At the time, Nasa couldn't guarantee a spacecraft for more than a few months of operational life, and so the outer planets were considered out of reach.
That was until a 25-year-old mathematics graduate called Michael Minovitch came along in 1961.
Excited by UCLA's new IBM 7090 computer, the fastest on Earth at the time, Minovitch decided to take on the hardest problem in celestial mechanics: the "three body problem".
The three bodies it refers to are the Sun, a planet and a third object such as an asteroid or comet all travelling through space with their gravities acting on each other. The problem is predicting exactly how the gravity of the Sun and the planet will influence the third object's trajectory.
Astronomers had been pondering the three-body problem for at least 300 years, ever since they'd started plotting the path that comets took as they fell through the inner Solar System towards the Sun.
Undeterred by the fact that some of the finest minds in history, including Isaac Newton hadn't solved the three-body problem, Minovitch became focused on cracking it. He intended to use the IBM 7090 computer to home in on a solution using a method of iteration.
In his spare time, whilst studying for his PhD during the summer of 1961, he set about coding a series of equations to apply to the problem.
Feeding data on planetary orbits into his model, Minovitch had made progress by the autumn, but was anxious to check his data. So in the summer of the following year during an internship at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), he persuaded his boss to give him more accurate data on planetary positions to re-test his model.
To his delight, he ran the simulations again and found his solution still worked. What he had achieved made possible an extraordinary breakthrough in spacecraft propulsion.
Minovitch had shown that as a craft flew close to a planet orbiting the Sun, it would steal some of the planet's orbital speed, and be accelerated away from the Sun. Such acceleration, without using a single drop of rocket propellant seemed too good to be true, and Minovitch's critics were quick to try to discredit him.
Without funds for further computer time, and in a bid to persuade Nasa to embrace his discovery, he drew up by hand hundreds of theoretical mission trajectories to the outer planets. Among them was one very special flight path that would become the Voyagers' trajectory.
But in 1962 the Jet Propulsion Lab was preoccupied with supporting Project Apollo, and no-one spotted Minovitch's breakthrough.
It would take another summer intern called Gary Flandro to identify the opportunity.
A spacecraft engineer, grounded in the hard realities of spaceflight, Flandro knew that any mission to the outer planets would have to be flown as fast as possible, otherwise the craft might not last long enough to reach its destination.
So in the summer of 1965, he began to look at whether the solution to the three-body problem could be put to practical use in exploring the outer planets. He started by drawing graphs of where these planets were going to be in the coming years.
And to his surprise, the plots revealed that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune would all be on the same side of the Solar System in the late 1970s.
Using a solution to the three-body problem, a single mission, launching from Earth in 1977, could sling a spacecraft past all four planets within 12 years. Such an opportunity would not present itself again for another 176 years.
With further lobbying from Minovitch and high level intervention from Maxwell Hunter, who advised the president on US space policy, Nasa eventually embraced Minovitch's slingshot propulsion and Flandro's idea for a "grand tour" of the planets.
Initially named "Mariner-Jupiter-Saturn", or MJS, funding to build two spacecraft was released in the early 1970s. The twin craft would eventually become known as the Voyagers.
To reach Neptune they would have to last for over a decade in space, operating in the darkest reaches of the Solar System billions of km from the Sun.
They would require radiation-hardened electronics to survive their encounters with the magnetosphere of Jupiter, and an artificial intelligence autonomous enough to make independent decisions when too far away from Earth for help.
Although still lacking funding to extend its mission beyond Saturn, Nasa's optimistic engineers loaded enough control propellant on board to keep the probes' dishes orientated towards the Earth for decades after passing Saturn.
They'd also built the Voyager power supply system to last until at least the year 2020. But most visionary of all, they'd included five experiments on board that were capable of analyzing space beyond the Solar System.
In 1977, as the duo launched from Earth, no-one dared imagine that they would survive long enough to make such measurements. But in 2012, they're still going strong - their pitifully weak signals just a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a watt of power by the time they reach the Earth. New discoveries are still being made.
Today, in a darkened lecture theatre at JPL - named after the same Theodore von Karman whose boundary to space our machines first crossed 70 years ago - sits a model of the Voyagers.
These great machines are now carrying our spirit of exploration across a boundary the Hungarian-American engineer could only dream of - into interstellar space.
Voyager: To The Final Frontier will be broadcast on BBC Four on Wednesday 24 October, 2012. It is produced and directed by Christopher Riley and presented by Dallas Campbell.
|
A decade ago 23 Chinese cockle pickers drowned when they were trapped by sweeping tides while working in Morecambe Bay, Lancashire. Yet, 10 years on, campaigners say workers are still being dangerously exploited in the UK. | By Andrew GloverBBC News
The headlines from China were full of disbelief. "The Devil's beach," one newspaper cried.
That anger grew as it became clear how desperate the victims' lives had been.
Twenty-one bodies were recovered within hours, a woman's skull was washed up six years on and one man has never been found.
All were working illegally, picking cockles for hours on end to send money back to their families.
It was their gangmaster, however, and a wider web of criminals, that truly profited while paying scant regard to the cockle pickers' safety on the sands.
Mick Gradwell, the detective who led the investigation into the tragedy, said criminals were funnelling £1m per day to China by exploiting workers all around England.
"Tens of thousands of illegal Chinese workers were living in the country," he said. "Building up hidden communities and building a life below official recognition."
Li Hua was the only worker to be rescued on the night of 5 February, 2004. Now living under witness protection, he told BBC Inside Out of his "despair" before help arrived.
"It was pitch black and I was desperate," he said.
"I thought I might just as well wait to die. It was freezing cold but I didn't feel it. I was just numb… then, I don't know how, a wave maybe turned me round. I was on my own and then a helicopter came."
Gangmaster Lin Liang Ren would drive the workers to Morecambe from Liverpool and visit casinos while the men and women toiled through the night.
Mr Gradwell said while "significant sums" were pocketed by the gangmaster, the cockle pickers earned "a pittance".
The former detective superintendent, who is now retired, said: "The main reason 23 people died in Morecambe Bay on this particular night was because of poverty in the Fujian province of China.
"There is a constant threat and risk of people being abused like this and dying because they're being forced to work in dangerous conditions."
Lin Liang Ren was jailed for 14 years in 2006 after being found guilty of manslaughter and helping the cockle pickers break immigration laws.
The 23 deaths at Morecambe Bay highlighted the serious risks being taken by low-paid workers and the cavalier attitude of those supposedly responsible for them, but in Parliament efforts were already under way to tackle gangmasters.
Labour MP Jim Sheridan raised the matter with a private member's bill and legislation soon followed which saw the creation of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) in 2006.
The organisation was set up to protect vulnerable workers in the shell fish, agriculture, food and food packaging labour markets but MPs and academics are campaigning for it to be given more powers.
Mr Sheridan wants to see its remit extended into industries including social care and construction.
"When the GLA was first introduced we were hopeful that it would be extended into other sectors but that's proven not to be the case," he said.
"That's the sad thing about it."
Research led by Durham University last year found evidence that the numbers of people trafficked for labour exploitation would soon exceed those brought to the country for sexual exploitation.
The report also called for the scope of the GLA to be widened.
Professor Gary Craig, who led the study, said there was a "real problem" getting people to acknowledge that "slavery exists in the UK" and warned there were "accidents waiting to happen".
"People tend to think that slavery is something to do with faraway countries with poor human rights records," he said.
"Well, actually, slavery is here and now in the UK and the research which I've done with colleagues suggests there may be upwards of 10,000 people at any one time in the UK in conditions which we would class as modern slavery."
The remit of the GLA, Prof Craig said, should be extended to include industries including "construction, hospitality and leisure and social care".
He added: "What's changed since Morecambe Bay? The problem has got worse and the resources directed to it are totally inadequate."
For its part, the GLA accepts exploitation exists in other industries and insists it could be more of an "effective deterrent" with extra resources.
Chief executive Paul Broadbent said it was making progress to ensure "exploitation in all its forms was eradicated and people can work for a good honest wage and get paid that wage".
In Westminster, Mr Sheridan has tabled an early day motion to mark 10 years from the tragedy.
He said: "If there's any fitting memorial to the poor people that died it would be that we can legislate or do our best to make sure no one dies in a similar situation."
|
Millions around the globe may have taken to the streets in recent years to protest against the impact of globalisation on their jobs and communities - but this backlash is only likely to grow as globalisation itself becomes more disruptive. | By Tim BowlerBusiness reporter, BBC News
The stark warning comes from Richard Baldwin, president of the Centre for Economic Policy Research think-tank, who has been studying global trade for the past 30 years.
Technological advances could now mean white-collar, office-based workers and professionals are at risk of losing their jobs, Prof Baldwin argues.
In the US, voter anger with globalisation may have led to Donald Trump's election victory, but those who voted for him could be disappointed as his aim of bringing back jobs is unlikely to work, says Prof Baldwin, who also worked as an economist under President George HW Bush.
Protectionist trade barriers won't work in the 21st Century, he says. "Knowledge crossing borders in massive amounts [is the] big new disruptive thing."
It's going to help people in Africa and Asia compete more effectively with people in the West, as communication advances mean workers in the developing world will be able to control robots to do jobs in Europe and the US at lower cost, he says.
Virtual migration
Developing world labour costs can be a tenth of what they are in the West, says Prof Baldwin.
"They can't get here to take the jobs but technology will soon allow virtual migration, thanks to telerobotics and telepresence."
Ever-faster internet speeds becoming globally more widely available, coupled with the rapidly falling prices of robots will allow workers, for example in the Philippines or China, to remotely provide services to a country like the UK - where the sector accounts for about 80% of the economy.
"What it will do is unbundle our jobs and change the nature of our occupation. Some of the things you do absolutely require your judgement - but parts of your job could be off-shored, just as some stages in a factory can be off-shored.
"All you need is more computing power, more transmitting power and cheaper robots - and all that is happening."
Security guards in US shopping malls could be replaced by robots controlled by security personnel based in Peru, and hotel cleaners in Europe could be replaced by robots driven by staff based in the Philippines, he argues in his book The Great Convergence.
Robots rise
The use of robots has grown exponentially since the mid-20th Century.
A typical industrial robot can cost about £4 an hour to operate, compared to average total European labour costs of about £40 an hour - or £9 an hour in China. And robots are getting cheaper to buy and are increasingly able to do more complex tasks.
This means the increased use of robots is also threatening millions of jobs in developing countries, says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), as well as in developed economies.
And it's not just in factories; the worldwide number of domestic household robots will rise to 31 million between 2016 and 2019, says the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), with sales of robots for cleaning floors, mowing lawns, and cleaning swimming pools forecast to grow to about $13bn (£10.3bn) in this period.
In the 19th Century, the first wave of the industrial revolution triggered an upsurge in global trade. Steam power, the end of the Napoleonic wars and the subsequent era of peace cut the costs of moving goods internationally.
Global wealth became increasingly concentrated among just a few nations; the G7 group - the US, Germany, Japan, France, the UK, Canada and Italy - saw their share of the world's wealth rise significantly.
But from the 1990s a second wave of globalisation kicked in, with the rise of information and communications technology. There's been a dramatic change of gear, and "a century's worth of rich nations' rise has been reversed in just two decades," says Prof Baldwin.
Old-style globalisation "worked on a calendar that ticked year by year" whereas the current wave of globalisation is being driven by IT which is changing and disrupting economies and societies with increasing rapidity, he says.
Political backlash
All of this has created a backlash, especially in developed economies, as many voters say they are losing out or seeing little of the benefits that globalisation supposedly brings.
Prof Baldwin says protectionist policies, such as those of Donald Trump, are ultimately counterproductive. If firms become inefficient by being forced to move jobs back to the US, then ultimately they will lose their business to international competitors.
"People are so angry they are doing things that are not in their own interest.
"Cures are being sold which are not related to the problem."
He points out that the backlash is not the same in every single country. It often depends on how governments deal with workers who may be displaced by technology.
"For instance, in Japan they take care of their workers, and there really isn't an anti-globalisation feeling there," he says - unlike in the UK and the US.
As a consequence, even businesses that are benefiting from greater automation are increasingly sensitive about the potentially negative social and political consequences.
Similarly, in Europe the bosses of both Deutsche Telekom and Siemens have advocated paying a basic income to workers replaced by technology.
We may see a move to protectionism as countries try to preserve jobs within their economies, but this is unlikely to work in the long term, says Prof Baldwin.
Balancing act
The trick is to accept "21st Century reality", he says, and the fact that many jobs simply aren't going to come back.
Governments need to pay more attention to social policy, says Prof Baldwin. "In the post-war period of globalisation we liberalised trade but at the same time we expanded social welfare - instituted low-cost education and retraining for workers.
"In essence there was a set of complementary policies that reassured workers that they would have a good chance of taking advantage of globalisation."
The challenges all this is throwing up for governments are many, but Prof Baldwin says it should be possible to develop policies that embrace globalisation - and give workers displaced by it the support they need.
Follow Tim Bowler on Twitter @timbowlerbbc
|
Gravity-defying stacks of stones were created at the first European Stone Stacking Championships. | Competitors from across the UK, France and Spain took part in the contest at Dunbar last weekend.
Organiser Steve Hill said stone stacking was "the most natural form of street art you can find" and the artists' creations were "breathtaking".
The overall winner was Pedro Duran, of Spain, who managed to balance 33 rocks in one stack.
|
For seven years, a police officer posed as an environmental activist and then sparked the collapse of a prosecution case against six other activists when he switched sides and offered to give evidence against the Crown. So what is it like living this kind of double life? | By Dominic CascianiBBC News home affairs correspondent
David Corbett has been in the loneliest place in the world - the place inhabited by undercover police officers.
For weeks at a time, he would leave his home, wife and family and turn himself into someone completely different. His own clothes, the pictures in the wallet and the favourite CDs in the family car would be left behind.
He would take to the criminal underworld as someone completely different: new hair, new clothes, jewellery and cars. David Corbett the policeman, the family man, would die - and Mr X, the hardened career drug dealer from Glasgow would be born.
That's the world now under scrutiny after undercover police officer Mark Kennedy spent seven years infiltrating green campaigners only to then offer to give evidence in their defence at trial.
Only Kennedy, known to his protest movement friends as Stone, knows how he got to that place.
But Corbett, who wrote a memoir of his experiences under his assumed name, says that it is all too easy to lose sight of the exit signs when you're deep inside the mind of a fictional person.
He became an undercover officer after a highly fulfilling career investigating organised crime in Scotland. He was picked out for the job and went through three days of special psychological testing in London to see if he was capable of living a lie without losing his mind.
He passed and became one of the northern undercover officers working on organised crime investigations co-ordinated by Scotland Yard.
His first weeks undercover, tasked with bringing down heroin dealers, gave him a high almost as powerful as the hit from the drug itself, he recalls with black humour.
"It was like starting out in the police service again," he says, now in his 50s. "I was cutting my teeth again - I wanted to be exceptional in what I was doing but I had to start small and work my way up."
His first proper undercover job involved buying a "parcel" - street drugs - from a dealer in Newcastle Upon Tyne.
"It was a two-week operation and the target was very suspicious of being caught," he says.
"But it was textbook. I got the parcel, I handed it over to my colleagues from the regional crime squad and then I disappeared into the shadows, never to be seen again. They moved in and made the arrest. The target would never know who I was or my role."
Mission: Keep focused
From there he moved to bigger and more complex operations, eventually creating a believable Scottish crime figure who won the respect and time of major criminals.
But he was only able to do this, he says, because he kept to the rules. Undercover police work, he says, must be tightly focused on gathering specific evidence of a crime. It doesn't work as well as if the officer doesn't know what he is there to do. There has to be a reason for entering the world - and a planned point of exit.
On drugs operations, Corbett would need to gather evidence proving that a major criminal was not only willingly selling drugs - but also willing to secure large quantities of them. He needed specific instructions - but also Home Office-backed guidelines on what he should do in various scenarios.
He had to approach each target with a reasonable suspicion that they were up to no good, rather than go fishing or act as an agent provocateur. He had to become part of the target's world and witness things unfold.
He would never offer to drive a targeted criminal to a meeting with other contacts. But if asked, he would be the driver because refusing to do so would look odd.
Critically, he says, clear instructions and guidelines provide an officer with security and certainty in a world where they are being asked to behave ambiguously.
At the end of an operation, he would return to his handler, usually a former undercover officer, and run through what he had experienced. He would do the paperwork including detailing any laws he may have broken. And most importantly, he would ditch the physical trappings of being undercover - the haircut, the clothes, and return to his normal world.
"The most important thing that I learned was that first and foremost, whatever I was doing, I had to always remember that I was a police officer," he says.
"Don't allow yourself to get psychologically mixed up in what you are doing and who you are.
"During my time, I came across people who, I have to be honest, I felt sympathetic towards. There was one young kid [who was part of an investigation] who was on drugs and selling heroin. I felt sorry for his life. But you have to remind yourself that it was his decision to put the needle in his arm."
The biggest challenge faced by an undercover officer is whether they can break the law. Corbett recalls situations where gang bosses are hosting parties with lines of cocaine ready for guests.
In some cases officers talk their way out of it, claiming a pre-existing medical condition, such as heart palpitations. Others would align themselves with the criminals who stick to the hard drinking. Some officers, fearing for their own lives, take the drug.
"If you have taken the drug, you have got to come out [of the personality] as soon as possible and say on tape [hidden on your body] or to the handler what has happened and why it was a life-threatening situation. You have to maintain that line between the job and the real person."
That line is essential when it comes to enjoying the trappings of criminal wealth. Corbett regularly drove flashy sports cars - his character demanded it.
But if officers start to look on those props as possessions, rather than tools, they can find themselves sucked into their self-created world.
And after five years deep undercover, he knew he had to get out. He went to see the force's doctor for professional psychological help.
"He was not aware that I existed - only three people in the force knew that I existed. That was enough and so I decided I had to stop."
He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder - but counts himself lucky that he got out in time to rebuild his health.
|
Emmanuel Macron's first overseas trip since becoming president of France is to the West African nation of Mali. Across Africa, where France retains huge influence in its former colonies, his election has been celebrated in the hope that it will usher in a radical change in France's African policy. The BBC's Lamine Konkobo looks at what that change might look like. | Africa's 'Ode to Joy' moment
It was a very powerful, if subtle, symbol.
As supporters of Emmanuel Macron gathered at the Louvre's Esplanade in central Paris after his election victory earlier this month, the podium was turned for about 15 minutes into a gigantic dance floor by one of Ivory Coast's most famous bands.
Magic System took to the stage, flooding the Parisian night with rhythms and dance moves not often heard and seen in this part of town.
Mr Macron had originally taken to the stage to the European anthem Ode to Joy for his victory speech but for African audiences watching on television, this was their Ode to Joy moment.
It was a nod to Africa; a nod that reflected the positive message of openness and universalism which has underlined Macron's winning campaign.
It could also be seen as one in the eye for defeated far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who must have felt repulsed by such a cultural invasion.
If the sight of Magic System at the Louvre was refreshing for Africans, that is not why the French presidential contest was closely watched across Africa.
Mr Macron is expected to deliver on issues of far greater importance in respect of the continent.
Fighting Islamist militancy
Mr Macron did not say much about African policy on the campaign trail, because Africa was not a decisive topic that could give him the votes he needed to win.
However, from what he did say about the continent, it appears that fighting Islamist militancy will be prominent on his African agenda.
He was elected while France was under a state of emergency following a series of Islamist attacks in recent years, some of which were carried out by people with African links.
But while on the campaign trail, he made it clear that he realised that France was not the only country affected:
"Africa is struggling more and more with terrorism," he told Jeune Afrique.
"We saw it in Bamako [Mali], in Ouagadougou [Burkina Faso] and in Grand Bassam [Ivory Cost]."
Islamist militants targeted hotels in all these places last year, killing many people, including foreign tourists.
"Everyone should get involved in the fight against terrorism," he said.
France has deployed about 4,000 troops in the Sahel region of Africa as part of the anti-terrorism Barkhane operation.
They were deployed to Mali in 2013 to prevent Islamist groups who had taken over the north of the country, from advancing on the capital, Bamako.
In Mali, he will visit French troops based in the northern city of Gao.
The president-elect has no plan of withdrawing these troops in the foreseeable future.
On the military front, France's policy in Africa under Mr Macron will be more of the same.
On aid, trade and development
There is a famous saying that nations have no permanent friends but only permanent interests.
Mr Macron has been elected to serve France's interests and he will do so in his relationship with Africa, political analyst Serge Theophile Balima told the BBC.
"Macron is a neo-liberal who believes in businesses and trade," Mr Balima says.
"He will do his utmost to open Africa to a maximum of French businesses. That is obvious."
However, the new president believes that partnership with the continent will be more beneficial if Africa is strong.
As a candidate, he vowed to lobby the G20 at its July summit in Germany to support economic development in African countries.
In more clearer terms he has pledged to channel to Africa most of France's foreign aid, which he intends to increase to 0.7% of his country's GDP.
However, Mr Macron comes to power at a time when a growing movement of economists and political leaders have been pushing for a major reform they view as more empowering than aid.
One sign of France's continued influence over its former colonies is the CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro with the financial backing of the French treasury.
While some see it as a guarantee of financial stability, others attack it as a colonial relic.
Critics say true economic development for the 14 African countries can only be achieved if they shake off the CFA currency.
Some argue that in exchange for the "luxury" of the guarantee provided by the French treasury, the African countries channel more money to France than they receive in aid.
Ms Le Pen said that if elected, she would drop the link. While no previous French president has ever expressed a willingness to let go of the CFA, Mr Macron says the decision to move away from it is for African countries to take.
Breaking from antiquated politics
France's African policy has come under attack from pro-democracy activists since the 1990 Baule conference, at which former President Francois Mitterand issued a call for African countries to embrace democracy, following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Critics have consistently railed against what they perceive as a form of hypocrisy.
They say France has repeatedly used anti-democratic means on the continent to further dictatorships or overthrow unfriendly governments if they serve French interests, while openly extolling democratic values.
The system of personal networks which backed these controversial practices is pejoratively referred to as "Francafrique".
The times are long gone when a French commando unit would fly parachutes in broad daylight into an African capital to restore a deposed head of state.
But Francafrique is not totally dead.
Mr Macron says he will finally kill it off.
He says he will defend and respect fundamental democratic principles everywhere in Africa, working with the African Union and regional organisations.
But how will he deliver where his predecessors failed to meet similar promises?
"I think he is in a position to bring that end," analyst Mr Balima told the BBC.
"First of all, he is young. He does not belong to the old generation. He has few friends in the Mafiosi circles in Francophone Africa."
"When meeting African heads of state, some will be embarrassed to speak to this man who could be their son."
African leaders will no longer benefit from the former era's complicity, Mr Balima says.
"A head of state in a situation of bad governance... could not count on Macron to mobilise the French army to quash a rebellion in a military barracks."
If Mr Macron delivers on that promise, he would indeed turn a page that has been a source of much acrimony in French-African relations.
Addressing wounds from the past
And how France should remember its colonial legacy is closely related to the issue of whether it still pursues a neo-colonial policy in Africa.
Right-leaning French political leaders have long maintained that colonisation was not only about forced labour, exploitation and mass graves but that colonised countries also benefited.
In 2005, under President Jacques Chirac, a provision enshrining that patriotic view in law was passed. However, it was repealed a year later as a result of an outcry in France as well as in some of its former colonies and overseas territories.
Nicholas Sarkozy, as a candidate and later on as president, often complained about being tired of endlessly apologising for his country's past transgressions.
Unlike those politicians on the right, Mr Macron considers that recognising the wrongs France did in its past interaction with African people is crucial in redefining the type of dialogue necessary for the new relationship with the continent.
As a candidate on a visit to Algeria, he stirred a controversy by branding as a crime against humanity France's colonial war in Algeria.
While that statement was condemned by Ms Le Pen and her supporters, it was well received across the whole of French-speaking Africa.
Immigration
What was strikingly different between Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen was how the two approached immigration.
Ms Le Pen's closed-border proposition was that she "has love for the Africans but only if they are at home in Africa", while Mr Macron has defended a policy of immigration that should be defined by France's needs.
In other words, under President Macron, there would be no reason to stop an African from coming to France if they have skills that are useful to the country's economy.
Since the 1970s, waves of migrants from North Africa and then former colonies south of the Sahara have found their way into France, playing a role in various sectors of the country's economy.
Mr Macron does not say he will make immigration from Africa easier. But nor will he obsess about tightening immigration control to stem a real or supposed flow of migrants from Africa.
"That is part of the dynamics of [his] liberalism," Mr Balima told the BBC.
The president-elect has said he would encourage foreign students and those with useful skills to move to France.
With Mr Macron's liberal attitude to immigration, isn't there a fear that Africa might end up losing its best talents?
Not really, says Mr Balima. "There will always be enough manpower within Africa for the development of Africa."
|
A survey is being carried out to see if any bats are living in the tunnel campaigners want to turn into a cycle route. | Rhondda Tunnel Society undertakes the first of two checks on Wednesday in the Blaencwm tunnel in Rhondda Cynon Taff.
The society hopes to reopen the route, which runs for 1.8 miles (3km) to Blaengwynfi, Neath Port Talbot.
If bats are found then a "bat-friendly" habitat roosting place will have to be built.
The next survey will be carried out in late March.
The Blaencwm tunnel was closed during cutbacks of the UK railway network in the 1960s.
In May 2015, the Welsh government said it would commission a study to look at reopening the tunnel for tourism.
|
More than $11m (£8.8m; €10.3m) is reportedly missing from The Gambia's state coffers following the departure of long-time leader Yahya Jammeh, who clung to power for nearly two months despite losing the presidential election in December. | Mr Jammeh, thought to now be in Equatorial Guinea, is not the first leader accused of lining his own pockets with state funds. In fact, many have taken far more. Here are some of the worst offenders.
Sani Abacha, Nigeria
Sani Abacha, the Nigerian leader from 1993 to 1998, reportedly looted somewhere between $1bn and $5bn from the country's coffers using fake funding requests. In 2014 the US Justice Department said it had frozen more than $450m of Abacha's stolen assets.
Suharto, Indonesia
Suharto, the president of Indonesia from 1967 to 1998, is alleged to have cleaned out the country's state funds to the tune of about $35bn. In 2000 he was placed under house arrest and charged with the theft of $570m via fake charities, but court doctors found him too ill to stand trial. He died in 2008.
Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire
The leader of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) from 1965 to 1997, Mobutu ran a murderous regime which brutally suppressed the opposition. He also lived in great style at the expense of the country's people, accumulating international properties including a 30-room mansion in Lausanne worth $5.5m. He is suspected of stealing about $5bn.
Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines
It's the shoes that everyone remembers - the supposed 3,000 pairs of designer shoes accumulated by Marcos' wife Imelda. They became an enduring symbol of the corruption of his leadership of the Philippines between 1965 and 1986. But Marcos is suspected of stealing more than $10bn from the country during his reign. After his death a series of lawsuits forced the Swiss banks in which he stashed the cash to release nearly $700m back to the Philippine authorities.
Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen
Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is suspected of corruptly amassing as much as $60bn during his time in office - roughly equivalent to Yemen's annual GDP - much of it through schemes to provide oil and gas contracts. He was ousted from power in 2012 after the Arab Spring, but is now allied with the Houthi rebels, locked in battle with the country's internationally recognised government.
Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia
Slobodan Milosevic, the brutal dictator who ran Serbia between 1989 to 1997, was eventually charged with genocide, but he was first arrested on charges of plundering funds from the Serbian state. The total is not known, but he is suspected of stealing $1-$4bn. He died in 2006, while on trial in The Hague.
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt
Toppled by the 2011 uprising, Hosni Mubarak went on trial accused of embezzling funds meant for the renovation of presidential palaces to do up his personal properties. Mubarak and his sons were found guilty of embezzling more than $17m over an eight-year period. He was sentenced to three years in prison while his sons, Gamal and Alaa, got four years each.
Ben Ali, Tunisia
The 2011 overthrow of Ben Ali marked the beginning of the Arab Spring. Ali and his wife fled to Saudi Arabia but a Tunisian court sentenced them in their absence to 35 years in prison for embezzlement and misuse of public funds. At his trial, the prosecution said $27m in jewels and public money had been found at one of his mansions.
|
In record time, the phrase morphed from a description of a social media phenomenon into a journalistic cliche and an angry political slur. How did the term "fake news" evolve - and what's next in the world of disinformation? | By Mike WendlingBBC Trending
It was mid-2016, and Buzzfeed's media editor, Craig Silverman, noticed a funny stream of completely made-up stories that seemed to originate from one small Eastern European town.
"We ended up finding a small cluster of news websites all registered in the same town in Macedonia called Veles," Silverman recalls.
He and a colleague started to investigate, and shortly before the US election they identified at least 140 fake news websites which were pulling in huge numbers on Facebook.
The young people in Veles may or may not have had much interest in American politics, but because of the money to be made via Facebook advertising, they wanted their fiction to travel widely on social media. The US presidential election - and specifically Donald Trump - was (and of course still is) a very hot topic on social media.
And so the Macedonians and other purveyors of fakery wrote stories with headlines such as "Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President" and "FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide".
They were completely false. And thus began the modern - and internet-friendly - life of the phrase "fake news".
Hear the conversation
Nothing new here
Misinformation, spin, lies and deceit have of course been around forever. But what Silverman and others uncovered was a unique marriage between social media algorithms, advertising systems, people prepared to make stuff up to earn some easy cash and an election that gripped a nation and much of the world.
In the wake of President Trump's victory, BBC Trending delved into the huge world of pro-Trump Facebook groups. Inside those hyper-partisan spaces there were some outright falsehoods circulating.
But most of the content was more traditional political communication: puffery, drumbeating, and opponent-slagging. There were memes showing Trump as a fearless leader, support for his pledges to deport illegal immigrants, and potted biographies describing the candidate as "the very definition of the American success story." It was hardly balanced stuff - but nor did much of it qualify as "fake news".
But pundits scrambling to explain the shock result (and in many cases, their own follies) turned to "fake news" as one possible explanation.
Enter politics
The phrase now evokes much more than those get-rich-quick Macedonian teenagers. President Trump even gave out "Fake News Awards" to reporters who had made errors or poor predictions - with a special nod to all reporting on the ongoing and very real investigations into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
But to say that President Trump was the first politician to deploy the term would itself be, well, "fake news".
On 8 December 2016, Hillary Clinton made a speech in which she mentioned "the epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year."
"It's now clear that so-called fake news can have real-world consequences," she said. "This isn't about politics or partisanship. Lives are at risk… lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days, to do their jobs, contribute to their communities."
Some journalists at the time interpreted her remarks as a reference to "Pizzagate", a bonkers conspiracy theory which sprouted and grew to tremendous proportions online.
It started with a rumour that sex slaves were being held under a Washington pizza restaurant, and ended a couple of days before Clinton's speech, when a man entered the busy family-friendly restaurant with a rifle. Nobody was injured, and the man was arrested and sentenced to four years in jail.
But in that speech, Clinton also asked her audience to help "protect our democracy". Other reporters interpreted that more broadly as a reference to the election.
President-elect Trump took up the phrase the following month, in January 2017, a little over a week before taking office. In response to a question, he said "you're fake news" to CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Around the same time he started repeating the phrase on Twitter.
"That signalled to the many people out there who were supporting Trump and running websites supportive of him, that he was saying 'OK, we're going to take this term and make it ours'," Silverman says.
The fake news horse had not just bolted from the stable, it was off and running.
Join the conversation
Useless words?
Since then phrase has been used more or less continuously by Trump and other world leaders, as well as by countless political operatives, journalists and ordinary people. As a rough guide, a Google News search of "fake news" throws up 5 million results, and already in 2018 the phrase has been used about two million times on Twitter.
And, contrary to the conventional wisdom, it's no longer a stream of falsehoods eagerly swallowed solely by Trump supporters and/or those with little education. By April 2017, Trending was reporting on the phenomenon of left-wing, anti-Trump fakery. Experts say highly-educated people can be duped by lies as well - and can often be more stubborn when presented with information that challenges their views.
But within months the sheer ubiquity of the phrase "fake news" had perhaps rendered the term meaningless. All sorts of things - misinformation, spin, conspiracy theories, mistakes, and reporting that people just don't like - have been rolled into it.
"We did this to ourselves, and by 'we', I mean the media," says Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network. "Right after the election, in editorials, in news articles, we started calling 'fake news' a bit of everything.
"We should be conscious that our industry is partly to blame for the confusion we're at."
And some experts with huge experience in the field have started to back away from the fake news fire altogether.
"The reason I don't like the phrase now is it's used as a term to describe everything," says Clare Wardle of First Draft News, a truth-seeking non-profit based at Harvard's Shorenstein Centre. "Whether it's a sponsored post, an ad, a visual meme, a bot on Twitter, a rumour - people just use it against any information they don't like."
"This is a really complex problem," she says. "If we're going to start thinking of ways we can intervene, we're going to have to have clear definitions."
You might also be interested in
Wardle says that an obsession with the phrase (and yes, this story admittedly might be a part of that) is actually hurting the credibility of otherwise credible news outlets.
"My concern now is the kind of reporting we see on disinformation," says Clare Wardle. "People are saying, 'I don't know who to believe or who to trust, everything's broken.' My concern is the way that we're talking about some of these issues is actually doing more than the original misinformation did in the first place."
Mantzarlis says that while he's concerned about language creep, he isn't ready to abandon it altogether - although he would like to see "fake news" restricted to descriptions of spammy made-up stories wrecking Facebook news feeds.
"Just because someone else is using the term to mean something different doesn't mean it loses its value," he says. "If someone starts calling a telephone a banana, and has a very big megaphone, doesn't mean that the rest of us should stop calling a telephone a telephone."
Going viral
Clearly the enabler of the modern form of "fake news" - or, if you like, misinformation - has been the explosive growth of social media.
"In the early days of Twitter, people would call it a 'self-cleaning oven', because yes there were falsehoods, but the community would quickly debunk them," Wardle says. "But now we're at a scale where if you add in automation and bots, that oven is overwhelmed.
"There are many more people now acting as fact-checking and trying to clean all the ovens, but it's at a scale now that we just can't keep up."
So what to do about it? Fact-checking works, says Alexios Mantzarlis, but automated solutions are probably not the answer.
"We're been heralding robotic fact checking for about 20 years and we're nowhere near it," he says. "What we can do is help humans and journalists find fishy claims faster, and get access to the stats that they need to verify a claim faster."
"I see an enormous potential in technology as an assistant and turbocharger of fact-checking," he says. "I see very little use in technology as a one-size-fits all universal fixer of this problem."
But all the fact-checking institutions in the world will never be able to beat down every rumour or fake "fact". And while some media reports have cast doubt on the efficacy of fact-checking, Mantzarlis is convinced that his work has an impact.
"What we've seen over the past two years is that consistently, across the board, regardless of partisanship, when people get told a falsehood and get presented with a correction, their belief in the falsehood goes down," he says.
People might be "fact resistant", but very few are "fact immune", he says.
The future of fake
In the future, the term "fake news" might come to be seen as a relic of a febrile 2017 (if we're lucky). But the fight against misinformation won't go away. Companies and governments are now starting to take concrete action, the consequences of which will be felt for some time.
"Google and Facebook have both said that they are going to be hiring a lot of people to review content and enforce their terms of service and keep fake and illegal stuff off their platform. I'm interested to see how that is actually done," Buzzfeed's Silverman says.
"The opaqueness of these platforms and their power and the fact that so much speech has moved on to them is something that we need to pay attention to and make sure that we don't turn them from places where misinformation is running rampant to places that are so locked down that they are inhibiting speech," he says.
Alongside worries about the power of the social media companies, the experts also have concerns about the power of governments.
"Sometimes well-intentioned but ill-informed legislators will overreach and do more harm that the problem they are trying to fix, with legislation on fake news," Mantzarlis says, noting that legislation is being proposed in several countries across Europe.
The most sweeping such legislation came into effect on 1 January in Germany. The law demands that social media sites quickly remove hate speech, fake news and illegal material or face fines up to 50m euro (£44.3m, $61.1m).
And beyond viral political text news stories, there are new frontiers which fact-checkers are trying to delve into.
"I really think we need to be thinking of visuals more. Visuals are very powerful vehicles of disinformation," Claire Wardle says.
Often photos are travelling with rapid speed on closed messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Viber. And while the discussion about "fake news" has focused on the West, a lot of misinformation like this is circulating about health, religion and society outside of the US, in developing countries.
"The power of something like WhatsApp is that it's travelling between very close networks of peers who are much more likely to trust each other," Wardle says.
Impact?
There's one essential question - what impact does misinformation really have in the minds of voters? Ever since the debate over the issue really took off a little over a year ago, there's been enormous disagreement as to whether false stories spread online actually have any impact on people's politics or voting patterns.
In one of the first academic studies about the consumption of fake news, researchers at Princeton, Dartmouth and the University of Exeter estimated that about 25 percent of Americans visited a fake news website in a six-week period around the time of the 2016 US election.
But the researchers also found that the visits were highly concentrated - 10% of readers made 60% of the visits. And crucially, the researchers concluded "fake news does not crowd out hard news consumption."
"The reach was relatively wide, but not so deep," Mantzarlis says. "It's quite a big step further to say, are people voting on this, making decisions on it."
"To say it's poisoning our democracy or it won this guy or the other guy an election, we need a lot more research to be able to say that."
Do you have a story for BBC Trending? Email us.
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
|
Boris Johnson doesn't tend to do remorse. | Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter
He is fond of looking on the bright side and moving forward. "Come on! Come on!" and "Fantastic, fantastic!" are the phrases you hear in public most frequently from his mouth.
Even some of his allies agree privately with his detractors that he is a politician for the good times, a spreader of cheer, rather than seeming like a statesman for a crisis.
That's one reason why the handling of this terrible epidemic has been a profound political challenge for this prime minister, beyond the enormous strain that coronavirus has put on the government machine and his own health.
He moved into No 10 a year ago today, taking charge of a country politically divided over Brexit, with protestors at the gate.
But after chucking veteran Tories out of the parliamentary party and suspending Parliament, the first tumultuous phase of his premiership ended with him being clapped back into No 10 for the second time, and with a thumping majority.
A pugilistic Downing Street was almost punch drunk with the opportunities that lay before them.
But with unbelievable timing, 31 January 2020 - Brexit day - was also the day that the UK confirmed its first cases of coronavirus.
Far from the first day of Boris Johnson's dream of raw power, it was the first day of a nightmare for the country's health and economy too.
It is the pandemic, therefore, not his hoped-for policies, that have fundamentally shaped Boris Johnson's premiership so far.
Like other world leaders, he had to take a series of enormous decisions, at huge speed, that have had consequences for each and every one of us.
The worst of the health crisis has faded; however, Boris Johnson has shown a profound reluctance to admit mistakes that were made.
The government did expand the capacity of the health service at breakneck speed. The Treasury's interventions in the economy have kept millions of people afloat for now.
UK scientists are ahead in the world in terms of treatments and vaccine research. But a debate has raged about whether the lockdown came too late.
Stock response
Why was the government slow to ramp up the testing they now say is vital? Why were protections for care homes not introduced much sooner? Why has the death rate here been so much higher than in nearly every other country?
Why does the government keep promising 'world beating' this, and 'world beating' that, when the UK's record on handling the pandemic has many flaws?
When these questions have come, the prime minister's stock response has been to protest that it is not the right time to look at what went wrong.
Time and again, ministers have repeated the mantra that "we made the right decisions at the right time".
But today, as he reflected on his 366 days in power, Boris Johnson inched towards confronting what went wrong.
In his first full TV interview since the lockdown, and his own time in hospital, he told me that ministers had not understood the disease "for the first few weeks and months", unaware that the virus was already here and in circulation before the government fully realised.
And what of the timing of the lockdown?
Again, he took a step towards acknowledging that there could have been mistakes, suggesting the lockdown timing was an "open question", and that while the government had stuck "like glue" to the advice given by its scientists, maybe that advice had been wrong.
Preaching, not practice
Despite that change in tone, the prime minister's reluctance to go into detail yet about the mistakes the government might have made is still striking.
Advice from his former close adviser Will Walden, who spoke to us on Newscast, is that he should admit mistakes were made, and get on with a proper inquiry into what went wrong, seems to have fallen largely on deaf ears.
While the prime minister always says that he takes full responsibility for what the government does, that's perhaps preaching, not practice.
Mr Johnson wants to use the government's experience of what happened during the pandemic to speed up his agenda, to "double down on levelling up", as he puts it in his peculiar political jargon.
In other words, to push ahead with more determination, and less fudge in Whitehall, with the changes that he says will actually improve the lives of voters, particularly those who voted Tory for the first time in 2019.
Questions continue
While preparing the NHS for a potential second surge, he clearly wants to concentrate on what's next, not what's gone before.
But perhaps until the government is really ready to acknowledge what has happened, the questions will continue - and the public may still feel anxious about whether they can really trust ministers to handle a second surge next time round.
Just as 366 days ago, optimism is Boris Johnson's trademark.
But if the last few months have shown anything, it is that the real challenge of life in power, is that events that can surprise.
|
A selection of your pictures of Scotland sent in between 27 November and 4 December. Send your photos to [email protected]. Please ensure you adhere to the BBC's rules regarding photographs which can be found here.
| Please also ensure you follow current coronavirus guidelines and take your pictures safely and responsibly.
Conditions of use: If you submit an image, you do so in accordance with the BBC's terms and conditions.
Please ensure that the photograph you send is your own and if you are submitting photographs of children, we must have written permission from a parent or guardian of every child featured (a grandparent, auntie or friend will not suffice).
In contributing to BBC News you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way, including in any media worldwide.
However, you will still own the copyright to everything you contribute to BBC News.
At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe the law.
You can find more information here.
All photos are subject to copyright.
|
Francis Amos has wide eyes, round cheeks and a bright smile that reveals a solitary front tooth. He is eight months old and is better at making friends than his dad. | By Owen AmosBBC News, Singapore
On a warm Saturday afternoon, my son and I swam in a hotel pool in Batam, Indonesia. The resort overlooked the sea; the skyscrapers of Singapore, about 10 miles away, lined the sky blue horizon.
At the end of the pool, a young man with black hair noticed my son's solitary tooth. He shook his hand and smiled. "Where are you from?" he asked.
"He's from England," I replied. "And you?"
"Afghanistan," he said. "I'm a refugee."
Then, as the sun dipped and the sky turned orange, the refugee told me his story. It involved death threats, a Taliban hijacking, a mystery saviour and years of detention.
Lots of refugees have similar stories - or far worse. But this is his. And it's here because of a chance meeting in an Indonesian pool.
Shams Hussaini (also known as Erfan) is 21 and grew up in Sang-e-Masha, a highland town overlooked by the Hindu Kush mountains.
He has two younger brothers and a younger sister, and comes from an ordinary, poor family. His father made shoes and farmed the small plot of land by their mud-and-stone house.
Shams is too young to remember life before the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but he knows what it was like. The school was closed, he says. People did not have access to education.
Shams is a Hazara, the third-biggest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The Hazaras are Shia Muslims, look different to other Afghans, and have suffered decades of persecution, not least from the Taliban.
So after 2001, things improved. They could barely get worse.
"Hazara people are supporters of education," says Shams. "They are supporters of knowledge and light. People started going to school, people started going to university."
They taught English at Shams' school, but only one hour a week. So, aged 12 and encouraged by his uncle and other relatives, he went to a private centre. When he finished the advanced class, aged 15, the director offered him a job.
The role involved teaching basic classes and travelling to the capital, Kabul, to pick up materials - books, paper and so on. The money wasn't great but Shams needed to earn. His parents had died, leaving him, a teenager, as head of the family.
"When I looked at my younger brothers and sister, I thought I must do something to change their lives," he says. "I had to do everything in my ability to bring a little positive change."
On 10 December 2014, Shams left his house and took a bus to Kabul to pick up materials for his English centre. He hasn't seen his family since.
The Taliban may have been ousted in 2001, but they never went away. In Sang-e-Masha, they targeted the English school's staff and students.
"For them, English is the language of infidels," says Shams.
The school would receive threatening letters, both from the Taliban and local mullahs. Some mullahs would come from the nearby masjid (mosque) to argue.
"This is not an English learning centre," they would say. "This is a place for misleading the people."
For the mullahs, the sin of teaching English was compounded by teaching boys and girls under the same roof. They bullied Shams - and his family - but he was undeterred.
"We felt scared, but the hunger to help people who lived in illiteracy for decades was higher than the intimidation," he says.
And so, on that cold Wednesday in December, he boarded the bus to Kabul.
It was the third time Shams had gone to Kabul since taking the job and every time, he was scared.
The capital is about 275km (170 miles) from Shams' home and passes through Qarabagh, a place Shams calls the Slaughterhouse.
"The Taliban have killed and kidnapped hundreds and thousands of Hazaras on that highway," he says.
After three hours, the bus reached Qarabagh, and Shams' worst fears were realised. Two Taliban, armed with guns, stopped the bus. They ordered Shams off.
Once outside, the Taliban slapped Shams and yelled in his face. Shams didn't speak their language, Pashto, but the bus driver was able to translate, fearfully and frantically.
"Where is the English teacher?" the Taliban demanded, hands on their guns, eyes boring into him. "Are you the English teacher?"
Each time Shams denied it, he got slapped. He shook with fear. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Eventually, he became speechless. He was convinced he was about to die.
"The fear conquered all parts of my body," he says.
Then a woman left her seat, walked off the bus, and saved his life.
"Stop," she said, herself crying. "He's not the person you're searching for. He is my son."
Shams did not know the woman, but he did not say anything. The Taliban looked at Shams. He was 15, small, and seemed an unlikely teacher. Eventually, they let him - and the bus - on their way.
Shams had survived. But there was no celebration or near-miss euphoria. "I felt shattered on the inside," he says.
So, when he reached Kabul, he made a decision. He was not going back to the Slaughterhouse, and he was not going back to Sang-e-Masha.
In a Kabul motel, Shams spoke to a driver who often took people from Shams' district to the capital. Shams' story was common, the driver said: many people reached Kabul and never went back.
Shams said he wanted to escape, so the driver found a smuggler who could help. The smuggler said he could send Shams to Indonesia, via India and Malaysia.
Once in Jakarta, the smuggler said, Shams could register with the UNHCR, the UN's Refugee Agency. Shams did not know Indonesia - he had never left Afghanistan - but anything was better than home.
He phoned his uncle (a small-scale farmer), who agreed to pay the smuggler $5,000 in instalments, and waited a week. Then, with his new passport in hand, he flew to Delhi then Kuala Lumpur. From there, he went to the coast to sail overnight to Indonesia.
Compared to some Afghan refugees, it was a quick escape. Those who flee to Europe, for example, often go overland, crossing thousands of miles in the backs of lorries. But Shams' journey - though quicker - was not easy or safe.
When he reached the Malaysian coast, he expected a ferry. Instead he boarded a wooden boat, overcrowded with families, young couples and teenage boys. The sea was rough, the sky was dark, and, after an hour, it started to rain.
Water crashed over the side of the boat. For the second time in a month, Shams thought he was going to die, this time in the Strait of Malacca.
Shams' stop-off points in Indonesia
"It was not supposed to be the place to die," he says. "I survived war in Afghanistan, the Taliban, and now I'm going to sink in the water?
"Negative thoughts were coming into my head. What would happen to my family? What would happen to my dreams? And these thoughts were coming into the heads of other people, too.
"I looked at their faces - it was obvious. They were all in a terrible state of fear."
Somehow they stayed afloat. They reached Medan, Indonesia, and drove to Jakarta, 1,900km (1,200 miles) away. There were six passengers in the car, and they were only allowed out at night - even if they needed the toilet.
After three days without food, and barely any water, they reached the capital. Shams found the UNHCR office and walked in. This, he thought, was the start of a new life.
It was. But not the way he imagined.
Shams thought the UNHCR would listen to his story and offer him a place to stay. Instead, they registered him and asked him to leave the office.
"They said many people are like you - leave your number, go outside, talk to your friends," he remembers. "But I had no friends. I knew no-one in Indonesia."
After two nights on the street he met some Hazara boys from Afghanistan, hanging round near the UNHCR. They told him there were detention centres near Jakarta but they were full. Instead, they said, he should go to Manado.
The city was a three-hour flight from Jakarta, but the detention centre had space, the Hazara boys said. They also knew a woman who could arrange the flight.
Shams didn't want to be locked up - who would? - but he had no alternative. The streets of Jakarta were bleak - no food; no water; no hope.
He didn't have enough money for the flight, but he begged the woman and she relented. When he arrived in Manado he went to the immigration office and asked for somewhere to stay.
Like the UNHCR, they asked him to leave.
2.7mNumber of refugees worldwide (second only to Syria)
92%Are in Iran or Pakistan
13,600Are in Indonesia (asylum seekers and refugees)
56%Of Indonesia's asylum seekers and refugees are Afghans
After another night on the street, the immigration staff sent him to a house used as a "waiting room" until a detention centre had space.
Shams lived there for 16 months.
The house had seven bedrooms with up to 14 or 15 people sleeping in each. There was one toilet and one shower, but not enough water for both. Instead, they washed in a nearby river with buckets.
There was drinking water and food, but it was basic - rice, potatoes, occasionally a chicken wing. "For 16 months, I don't remember any vegetables," says Shams.
But worse than the lack of vegetables was the lack of freedom.
As an asylum seeker, he couldn't study, couldn't work, and couldn't travel. He was trapped in the house; trapped in Indonesia; and trapped by his memories of Taliban gunmen.
"It felt like somebody had injected that fear into my mind, into my whole body," he remembers. "It was disturbing me all the time. I was hitting my head with my hands."
Then, in 2016, he had some good news, of sorts. He was being locked up.
The detention centre in Pontianak - on the other side of Indonesia to the house in Manado - was like a prison, with high fences, barbed wire and a leaking roof. So why was it good news?
Because in Pontianak his application for refugee status would be considered. "Refugee" is a step-up from "asylum seeker" as it allows relocation to third countries, even if the chances are slim.
But - while there was hope - it was a long, endless tunnel, with only a faint, flickering light at the end.
"Even criminals, there is a specific period of time for their confinement," says Shams. "But for refugees there was no such date. We had to wait and wait and wait."
Shams tried to be positive. He taught English to the inmates, acted as a translator, and completed a basic counselling course, organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
In 2017 he received refugee status and, on 27 July 2018, was finally released from the detention centre, as the Indonesian government began to close them down across the country.
The UNHCR does not comment on individual cases, but said that before December 2016, about 30% of the refugee population in Indonesia was in detention. Since a regulation from Indonesia's president came into force, most have been transferred out of these centres.
Shams new home was "community housing" in Batam. It is the preferred model for the IOM, which supports about 80 such facilities in Indonesia, home to more than 8,200 people.
"As Shams noted, living conditions in Indonesian immigration detention centres are extremely basic," the IOM told the BBC.
"IOM's role is to help asylum seekers and refugees detained in these facilities by improving living standards, including health and nutrition, while advocating with the Indonesian authorities to move detainees - particularly families - to community accommodation."
You may also like
In his community housing, Shams quickly led by example. As well as English lessons, he attended peaceful protests, calling on third countries - especially Australia - to accept more refugees from Indonesia.
Through this work, which was publicised on social media, he met an Australian woman on Facebook who worked as a refugee advocate. When she came to Batam as part of her work, she invited Shams to use the pool at her hotel.
And that is why Shams Hussaini - 21-year-old Afghan refugee; English teacher; Taliban survivor - was able to smile at Francis Amos - round cheeks; one tooth; born eight months earlier in south London - as they passed each other on a Saturday afternoon in Batam.
So that is Shams' story (relayed in the pool, with more details on the phone later). But it is also a story of the 21st Century - because he is one of millions of displaced people surviving on its margins.
There are 26 million refugees globally and what drove them from their home - the war in Syria, for example - is often well-reported. What happens next can be forgotten.
Every year, fewer than 1% of refugees are resettled to third countries, which means vast numbers are left in limbo. They spend their days waiting, then hoping, then finally just waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
Other options include private sponsorship from third countries - which is rare - or returning to country of origin, which often isn't safe (Shams will not return to Afghanistan as he thinks he will be killed).
In the meantime, the camps get fuller, and the waiting lists get longer.
Shams' new home in Batam is better than Pontianak or Manado, and he is grateful for it. But he still has an 8pm curfew; still survives on $99 a month from the IoM; still can't travel. For him, this isn't living; it's surviving.
He dreams of becoming a humanitarian lawyer, and of seeing his family again. Their situation in Afghanistan is getting worse, he says - but he can't help until he is settled outside Indonesia.
"Any country that will accept me, I will go - no problem," says Shams. Until then, the waiting goes on: five long and lonely years since he boarded the bus in Kabul, and counting.
But thanks to his spirit - and the mystery woman on the bus in Qarabagh - he is still here. And he is still hopeful.
"To the woman who saved my life, thank you from the bottom of my heart," he ends with. "I will never forget your kindness. I hope some day I could repay you."
|
The government has announced a review into the future of the newspaper industry, warning the closure of hundreds of regional papers is fuelling fake news and is "dangerous for democracy". But is it too late to save local newspapers? | By Alice HuttonBBC News
There's a spot just off the M6 in Coventry where you can time-travel into the 1950s.
Walking through beech-panelled boardrooms and a butler's pantry you might not guess this was the Coventry Evening Telegraph for nearly half a century.
The rooms look abandoned mid-shift, as though the reporters have spiked their last story and walked out.
There's a baseball cap on one of the old PCs, and old family photos on the desks.
The building was boarded up in 2012 when the paper finally left for more modern premises.
It's due to be turned into a boutique hotel - just in time for Coventry's turn as the UK's new City of Culture in 2021.
Brushing dust from the huge but silent printing press Mick Williams, who started working at the Telegraph in 1972 aged just 16, says fondly: "This was my baby. Working here wasn't just a job, there was a prestige attached to it because you were bringing people their news. It's like a museum now."
The old building is now a pop-up arts space where tourists come to take photos of the rooms filled with dead technology and dust.
Standing in the room where he worked for 30 years, ex-printer Mick reflects on the future of local papers.
"I suppose you can get the news from different parts of the media these days. I know I can look at Facebook local groups and I can get some news of what's happening that doesn't appear in the Telegraph until perhaps three days later. [But] you've lost a bit of community spirit haven't you? You've lost a connection."
Earlier this month, when Prime Minister Theresa May launched a government review into the sustainability of the British press, she praised the work done by local journalists in covering the terror attack on the Manchester Arena, in which 22 people died.
The coverage, by the Manchester Evening News, was, she said, "a very good example of where good quality local journalism and a good quality local paper can actually be out there supporting their community".
In an act of solidarity following the bombing, 30 local journalists from Teesside to Dublin answered a call by MEN publisher Trinity Mirror to cover shifts for the exhausted reporters, photographers, subs and editors.
Then MEN editor Rob Irvine, whose We Stand Together campaign raised £2.5m for the families of victims, said at the time: "We will make Greater Manchester an even greater place. We will care about each other and support our neighbours. The terrorists will fail. We will prevail."
But the National Union of Journalists has warned that the regional newspaper industry is in "free-fall".
Since 2005 more than 200 local papers have closed in the UK and the number of regional journalists has halved to around 6,500, with staff cuts, centralised newsrooms, sub-editing and printers re-located miles from local communities, leaving press benches in councils and courtrooms increasingly empty.
An estimated 58% the country has no daily or regional title and rural areas are increasingly reliant on London-based media and their own social networks for local news.
Public 'losing a voice'
A 2016 study found UK towns, whose daily local newspapers had shut, suffered from a "democracy deficit" with reduced community engagement and increased distrust of public bodies.
"We can all have our own social media account, but when [local papers] are depleted or in some cases simply don't exist, people lose a communal voice. They feel angry, not listened to and more likely to believe malicious rumour," said Dr Martin Moore, director of the Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power at King's College London, which published the report.
"Because it's not necessarily the sexy stuff - like big investigations - for quite some time people didn't notice it was disappearing."
Dr Moore says the "repercussions of a lack of a local press" were seen after the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 71 people in June last year.
The nearest local newspaper - The Kensington and Chelsea Chronicle - closed in 2014. After that, the area was covered by a single journalist working out of a hub newsroom based in Surrey.
"If there had been reporters consistently on the ground who could elevate residents' voices then it's hard to think that the authorities wouldn't have reacted in some way more constructively than they did. As a consequence they went unheard," Dr Moore says.
In December the city of Cambridge woke to find that its 130-year-old daily paper The Cambridge News had printed 12,000 copies missing the front-page headline.
Readers were quick to poke fun at the paper on social media with the editor-in-chief blaming "a technical problem".
But former deputy editor Paul Kirkley said behind the laughter the incident highlighted that "management have cut resources to the bone and then kept on cutting".
The paper had changed publishers three times in five years including Local World, which made a large number of staff redundant, Trinity Mirror which removed 10 years of stories from the website and Iliffe News and Media, which was successfully taken to court by HMRC for using an alleged tax-avoidance scheme to ring-fence £51.4m in income.
The Yattendon Group, which formerly owned Iliffe News and Media, declined to comment.
Current publisher Trinity Mirror said: "Regarding the removal of story archives, it is wrong to use the word 'deleted'. They still exist and can be accessed by our reporters. Given that less than 1% of readers read content more than four months old, we feel resources are better placed covering breaking local news for our readers."
Last month journalists at The Swindon Advertiser went on strike over alleged "poverty pay" and job cuts at the title. owned by Newsquest, given the hashtag #scroogequest on Twitter.
But Newsquest chief executive Henry Faure Walker, says although digital income was rising, cuts were needed partly because the papers' traditional funding model of advertising had declined so badly and social media giants like Facebook and Google were "free-riding" newspaper's content and giving "peanuts in return."
He welcomed the government review. "The important point is that if a publisher doesn't adapt their business to the new economic reality, then they will close and the town or city will lose their newspaper."
In 2016 the newspaper trade body The News Media Association (NMA) also raised concerns about the rise of digital news saying the BBC's news website "risks damaging the local press sector, which is currently in transition to a sustainable digital world".
Last year, in response, the corporation and NMA, launched the Local News Partnership Scheme. It set up a shared data unit where local reporters can learn new skills, access BBC News video and audio material and local papers can use 150 licence-fee funded reporters to cover public meetings as part of its £8m annual Local Democracy Scheme.
But the chair of the independent press regulator Impress, Jonathan Heawood, said it was not just the big publishers that new funding models should be aimed at.
"There are around 400 innovative and commercially successful, independent publishers in operation already like The Ferret in Scotland or The Bristol Cable which are co-operatives.
"I think this could be the rebirth of the local newspaper if we work out how to help the new business models thrive in the long run, not prop up the old ones."
The Bureau Local, a branch of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, is another model looking to improve the future of local journalism.
Launched last year with a £500,000 Google grant, its aim is to support public-interest journalism by publishing free data online and collaborating with local and national papers and communities.
So far it is active in 106 UK cities and has helped publish more than 150 local stories - including an investigation into swing seats during the snap election, and council cuts to domestic violence services.
Bureau local director Megan Lucero said: "People are innovating the way they tell stories, we are innovating the way we consume it.
"It rests on how we see journalism- do we see it as a service or do we think it needs to thrive alone as a business? That is a decision we have to make as a society."
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the Manchester Evening News had announced redundancies a month after the Manchester Arena Bombing of May 2017. The redundancies were announced in June 2016 and this line has been amended.
A complaint about the inaccuracy was upheld by the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit.
Death of the Local Newspaper? was broadcast on Radio 4's PM programme on February 19.
Alice Hutton worked for The Cambridge News between 2010 and 2012 when it was owned by Iliffe News and Media.
|
Thirty years on from the miners' strike there are growing calls for a public inquiry into allegations of widespread miscarriages of justice - with claims that many picketers were arrested on bogus charges and evidence was falsified to get them to court. | By Jenny ChryssBBC Radio 4's The Report
The Home Office has so far refused to comment on the inquiry demands. Cabinet papers relating to the 1984-5 miners' strike are due to be published on Friday.
"I remember hearing the sound of glass smashing and then within seconds there was just a stampede. People were falling over themselves trying to get out of the way. It was every man for himself."
Miner Ray Riley had been picketing at Frickley Colliery in West Yorkshire in November 1984 when trouble broke out.
Fleeing a police charge, he had taken refuge in a nearby garden when he was arrested and assaulted by a group of police officers.
He needed stitches to a head wound and was taken straight from hospital to a police cell and charged with breach of the peace. The police said he threw a missile before he ran and struggled violently on arrest - both claims he strenuously denies.
"I'm saying absolutely and emphatically that the police fitted me up. If convicted I would have been instantly dismissed from British Coal. A lot depended on it, they were quite serious odds and I took it upon myself to do a bit of my own detective work," he said.
Mr Riley went back to the estate where events took place and found two residents who contradicted the police version of his arrest, backed up his account and threw doubt on that of the officers.
A jury cleared him of the charge and he went on to win compensation from West Yorkshire Police.
But more than 11,000 people were arrested during the strike and more than 8,000 were charged - mostly with breach of the peace and obstruction.
Pat Gore, the solicitor who represented Mr Riley, said his acquittal was against the odds.
"It was very difficult if you were in court and the evidence was that of the police and that of you, as a miner. The benefit of the doubt was generally given to the police and therefore I think a lot of people felt quite aggrieved at the outcome of those court hearings," she said.
A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: "While many issues relating to the incident have already been dealt with through the courts, if there are any outstanding matters which Mr Riley feels are still unresolved, we believe that it is vital and in the public interest that these are addressed."
Vera Baird QC served as Solicitor General in the last Labour government, and is now Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria.
But in 1984 she represented some of the 93 men arrested after clashes at Orgreave, coking works near Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Some were charged with riot or unlawful assembly and could have faced considerable prison terms if convicted.
During the first trial of 15 picketers she was able to dismantle the police evidence by proving to the court that two officers had lied under oath about an incident they could not possibly have witnessed. She demonstrated they had also lied over a forged signature on one of the officer's statements.
Other barristers went on to produce evidence which also undermined police witnesses and the prosecution gave up the case. All 93 men were acquitted.
Ms Baird said: "The Orgreave trial had at its core what I can't describe in any other way than a plot to pervert the course of justice."
Hillsborough 'parallels'
No officers were prosecuted or disciplined as a result of the Orgreave trial, but South Yorkshire Police has now referred itself to the Independent Police Complaints Commission after allegations about manipulated statements were made last year in a BBC Inside Out documentary.
The IPCC has spent the last year carrying out a "scoping exercise" - working out if it has the necessary powers and resources to look at what happened at Orgreave, but has yet to decide if it will investigate.
South Yorkshire Police is currently under investigation over claims of falsified statements following the Hillsborough football disaster in 1989, and campaigners on behalf of the miners arrested believe there are parallels with events at Orgreave.
Barbara Jackson of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign is demanding an immediate inquiry: "We think because the police had already got away with what happened at Orgreave - nobody was held to account, no officer, no force - the police were then emboldened to take the same view that they could mislead and fabricate things at Hillsborough as well."
Michael Mansfield QC, who has direct involvement with both campaigns, agrees and believes the miners, like the Hillsborough families, deserve to find out what happened.
"What matters most to them is the fact that there was no accountability for officers who had plainly broken the law and it seems to me that this still needs to be rectified in the same way as Hillsborough. It doesn't matter when it happened, you have to investigate it because otherwise it gives them immunity," he says.
Blacklisted
South Yorkshire Police refused to comment while the IPCC is considering the evidence.
While some people were cleared, thousands were convicted during the year-long strike, leaving them with damaging criminal records.
Alex Bennett was arrested at the Bilston Glen pit in Scotland and still maintains he was unfairly convicted of breach of the peace - a conviction which he says had disastrous and lasting consequences.
"I was sacked. I just got a letter from British Coal saying I was summarily dismissed. They didn't tell me why. I was blacklisted for three years," he says.
Mr Bennett struggled to support his family, and was continually turned down for jobs he was well qualified to carry out.
"It was terrible, really terrible because I had two kids at school. Every job I applied for I was rejected," he adds.
Neil Findlay, MSP for the Lothian region, is leading calls in Scotland for an inquiry into the police handling of the strike and claims of false evidence against miners.
"These are people who are law-abiding citizens who have been charged and whose lives have changed. And some people's lives have ended through this - through depression, alcohol, mental illness and they are no longer here," he says.
At Westminster 42 MPs have signed a Commons motion seeking an inquiry into the alleged manipulation of statements by police at Orgreave, and the wider policing of the strike.
Ian Lavery, Labour MP for Wansbeck and a former miner, tabled the motion and wants a blanket amnesty for anyone with picket line convictions.
Conservative MP Sir Peter Bottomley, an employment minister under Margaret Thatcher during part of the dispute, has signed the motion: "If there is nothing to hide, nothing will be hidden.
"If there is something to hide it should be exposed. The key point is that the police are even more accountable than the people who organise mass picketing."
He says he objected strongly to mass picketing because he saw it as intimidating and an opportunity for those out to cause trouble, but that did not stop him from calling for an inquiry over Orgreave.
Not everyone, though, wants to dig up the past. Retired West Yorkshire police officer Cedric Christie says he believes there were better things on which to spend today's limited resources.
He says: "It's hard enough to investigate things that happened last week or last year, but 30 years - it's just too long. I know the sentiments behind it are very important but are we able ever to find out exactly what happened in each arrest? We'll never achieve that."
The Report with Jenny Chryss is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 2 January at 20:00 GMT.
|
The body of a man found on a Ceredigion beach last month has been confirmed as that of missing Arthur Roy Taylor, 90. | Mr Taylor, known as Archie and from Lancashire, went missing after going out to sea on his boat from Gwbert boat club.
His body was found on 30 April on the beach between Llangrannog and Ynys Lochtyn.
An inquest has been opened by Ceredigion Senior Coroner Peter Brunton, and was adjourned.
|
The prime minister will announce plans to limit EU migration before Christmas but the search is still on for a way to do this without needing to re-write the founding treaty of the EU - the Treaty of Rome - which enshrines the principle of the freedom of movement of people. | Nick RobinsonPolitical editor
Sources stress that no final decisions have yet been made on what the specific measures will be, how they will be announced (ie whether in a speech or an article or an interview) or when they'll be made (ie before or after the Rochester by-election).
Yesterday's Sunday Times story about a possible limit to the number of national insurance numbers issued to new arrivals from the EU is said to draw on current practice in Croatia - the latest country to join the EU.
British workers wanting to live and work in Croatia for more than three months need a work permit which - according to one website - requires:
These requirements also apply to citizens of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain who have also applied so-called transitional controls limiting free movement for the first seven years of Croatia's EU membership - up until 2020.
It is unclear how or whether this regime could be applied to an existing member state though, perhaps, it suggests that it could be possible provided the restrictions work in both directions.
This is just one of a number of options being considered, I'm told. Last week another possibility emerged - a so-called "emergency brake" mechanism which would allow a country to stop migration after it reached a certain level.
This has never previously been used to stop immigration and EU officials are fond of pointing out that at the same time as immigration levels to the UK are high unemployment levels are much lower than other EU countries - suggesting, they argue, that there is no evidence that immigrants take the jobs of UK workers.
Several countries - German, Austria and the Netherlands - have already agreed to the desirability of limiting benefit payments to the families of migrants and changing the so-called transitional arrangements which apply when countries join the EU.
However, as yet, there is no sign of any other country wanting limits to the total numbers allowed to move from one EU country to another.
There is some frustration amongst the prime minister's advisers that ideas are leaking out before they have had proper time to assess them.
That, of course, is the problem with simultaneously trying to solve a political problem - the rise of UKIP - by talking up how tough you'll be in Europe at the same time as considering whether any of your promises will be agreed to by 27 other EU countries.
|
A pedestrian seriously injured in a collision involving two cars has died in hospital. | The 91-year-old man was taken to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness following the incident in Nairn on 21 January.
Emergency services were called to the junction of Thurlow Road and Seafield Street at about 16:50.
Police Scotland has appealed for witnesses to the incident which involved a black Mazda and a red Honda.
|
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has unveiled details of plans to restructure the Army by 2020, saying it will become a "forward-looking, modern fighting machine" as its number of regular soldiers is cut by 20,000. But what are the implications? | By Jonathan MarcusBBC defence and diplomatic correspondent
For all the confident predictions from Defence Secretary Philip Hammond and senior generals about the capabilities of what is being dubbed "Army 2020", the restructuring is prompted in large part by economics. As Mr Hammond himself put it: "We inherited a force that could not be sustained."
With combat operations due to end in Afghanistan in 2014, an opportunity has been seized to try to make a virtue of the financial pressures to restructure the force in a more logical way that, commanders believe, will still deliver the combat power the country needs.
First the cuts - five infantry battalions, two armoured regiments and 10 equivalents drawn from supporting units like artillery, engineers and the Army Air Corps. It's always cuts to the infantry battalions in particular that are the most controversial and the most painful, given long-standing regimental histories and traditions that have been carried forward down the centuries.
The Green Howards, for example, whose traditions are now borne by the 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment - among the battalions to be axed - was formed in 1688 and survived any kind of amalgamation until as recently as 2006.
Ministers insist that the decisions on which battalions are to go were made after an exhaustive study of recruiting data; demographic predictions; and wider considerations about the overall footprint of the military.
But of course politics intervenes and nowhere more so than in Scotland where a number of infantry battalions have problems recruiting up to their full strength. Only one Scottish battalion though is to go - many analysts believe this is an attempt by a London-based government to placate Scottish opinion as the controversial issue of devolution looms.
Overly ambitious?
Where Army 2020 is most ambitious in its approach - critics might argue overly ambitious - is in the place that it ascribes to the reserves. The Territorial Army is to be expanded significantly - doubled in size to 30,000 and given training and equipment on a par with the regulars.
As Philip Hammond put it, the reserves will no longer be "an add on to the Army, but a vital integrated component of the Army".
All well and good, but analysts stress that while individual reservists have performed creditably on operations, a glance at Britain's longer military history suggests this has not been one of the strongest elements of the British military tradition.
Army 2020 will require little short of a revolution in the way reserves are recruited, organised and deployed.
Huge questions remain about how so many new reservists will be recruited. How will employers be encouraged to release key individuals for lengthy periods of duty? And can the Army reach out to key sections of the community - ethnic minorities for example - without whom these ambitious reserve targets may not be achievable?
When the Army fully returns from Germany by 2020, the bulk of the British military will be based at home for the first time in generations. All of this will mean changing its geographic footprint - new bases will be needed, especially if regular and reserve units are to be twinned. This clearly will have significant costs.
Budget issues will continue to dog Army 2020 as they have dogged its predecessors. A better equipped reserve and better training standards will require funding. Modernising the equipment of the main fighting units for the reaction forces will cost too.
Mr Hammond clearly believes that he has headroom in the budget to do all this. But defence spending is still going to have to comply with the prevailing economic climate.
The new Army structure - on paper at least - looks coherent. It makes the best of the financial constraints to set out a new force for the unpredictable world facing the military post-Afghanistan. But some of its most novel features - its reliance upon reserves for example - are among its most risky.
One leading defence commentator described it as "a one-shot force" meaning that decisions on the circumstances of its deployment will have to be very carefully taken to ensure that its capabilities meet the challenges it faces. The implication being that Army 2020 will have very little left in the locker.
|
Here's a Brexit recipe: lamb with grapes and lemon. | By Andrew WalkerBBC World Service economics correspondent
I haven't tried it, but the recipe does exist and it looks delicious in the pictures I've seen. It also gives us the ingredients for looking at one of the food issues that comes up as the UK prepares to leave the European Union.
All of them are covered by a trade arrangement that most people have spent their lives blissfully unaware of.
It goes by the name of "tariff rate quotas".
Now what on Earth does that mean?
When countries import goods, including foods, they often impose a tariff, a tax that is applied only to traded goods.
The UK does not currently have its own national tariffs. They are set by the EU for all member nations.
Countries and blocs of countries such as the EU, that are members of the World Trade Organization, have made commitments to the others that the tariffs will not exceed certain levels.
Many countries have agreed to import a certain quantity of some goods at a lower or even zero tariff, as a negotiated compromise between the interests of:
That quantity of goods that gets in on the lower tax rate is called a tariff rate quota.
It is a bread and butter dish on the trade negotiating menu, routine enough to have its own acronym, which is TRQ.
TRQs are often used for farm products.
The EU has about 100, negotiated at the WTO on behalf of all member states, which currently have an impact on the UK.
All three of our ingredients have a TRQ for imports into the EU.
In the case of lamb, 280,340 tonnes a year can be imported at a reduced tariff.
There's a quota for table grapes of 1,500 tonnes, and for lemons it's 10,000 tonnes.
So how does Brexit come into this picture?
The UK and the remainder of the EU have to work out how to divide the existing TRQs.
The EU doesn't want to take the existing TRQs for the 28 states and use them for the remaining 27, because each EU country may end up importing more food on the low tariffs, therefore creating tougher competition for EU farmers.
Unlike on many other Brexit issues the UK and the EU actually agreed, and told the other WTO members, in a letter, that they wanted to divide the TRQs in line with recent trade flows.
That would mean, for example, the UK taking a large share of the quota for lamb because comparatively the UK has been importing more lamb than the other EU countries.
But the proposal was met with a raspberry by several countries, including the United States, Canada and New Zealand.
Although the UK-EU proposal would give the same total TRQs as today, they would lose flexibility.
As things stand, if the price of lamb fell in the UK, they could divert some or all of it to other parts of the EU. After Brexit, that would not be possible.
The other WTO countries feel they should be compensated. One option could be a higher combined TRQ in order to maintain the same commercial benefit they currently enjoy.
In other words, they see Brexit as an opportunity to negotiate better access for their goods to Europe.
There is another option.
In some cases, the UK could decide to remove the tariffs altogether.
Now, some economists think we should do that anyway with all tariffs, that Brexit is a glorious opportunity for unilateral free trade.
This seems politically unlikely for products where there are UK producers.
In our recipe, lamb is a case in point.
Unrestricted tariff free access for lamb from anywhere in the world would be a problem for many British lamb producers.
With lemons, that is not an issue. We are not citrus producers.
There are British table grapes. It's not a big industry, but it is a new one so that might need some consultation with producer and consumer groups too.
There's another complication: cross-Channel trade.
British farmers can now automatically sell, for example, their lamb to France tariff free.
The same applies to French cheese sold in the UK.
Depending on what sort of deal there is, that might not be true after Brexit.
So will the UK and the EU get some share of each other's TRQs? That's another thing to be negotiated.
Read more from Reality Check
Follow us on Twitter
|
A planning application has been submitted to develop the former Marine Biological Station in Port Erin, which has been derelict since 2006. | Sea Breezes Publications Ltd has applied for approval in principle to convert the building into a marine interpretation centre.
Proposal includes a cafe, dive centre, offices for marine related businesses and a 20-bedroom hotel.
The proposal also includes parking and some landscaping works.
Officials said the application is "pending consideration".
Several old buildings which formed part of the 120-year-old Marine Biological Station were pulled down, following its closure.
During its history, the facility built up a reputation as an impressive research base, with many of its graduates going on to gain international recognition.
|
A 27-year-old man has been charged after armed police officers were called to a disturbance in Elgin. | An area around Findhorn Court in the Moray town was cordoned off for several hours on Wednesday evening.
Police Scotland said it was "contained" incident, and that no-one was injured.
The man is due to appear at Inverness Sheriff Court on Friday.
|
With a basic salary of just £13,800 and being at the beck and call of the public 24/7, who would want to be a local councillor? | By Nicola BryanBBC News
Yet, on 4 May, many will put themselves forward for one of the 1,254 seats up for grabs in Wales.
But what does your local councillor really think of their job, colleagues and the public they serve?
When offered the chance to speak anonymously, and these councillors and former councillors agreed to spill all.
Some details have been changed to protect the anonymity of the interviewees.
The safe seat councillor who has served for decades
'A lot of people want to be a councillor just because it looks good'
"It's true, you get phone calls at very inappropriate times and sometimes I'd like to stick that phone where the sun don't shine. Some of the questions you get asked are ridiculous but, nevertheless, they expect you to know the answer. But there's also a lot of satisfaction when you're able to help someone. I've spent this morning dealing with the bus companies and it looks I'm getting somewhere so it's been a good day. One year we had a Christmas tree blow down and I was there on Christmas Day and Boxing Day trying to sort it out. I was thinking: "What am I doing this for?" Financially, forget it, you're way out of pocket. Unfortunately a lot of people want to be a councillor just because it looks good but they're not interested in doing any of the work. People are always telling me there are too many councillors and we don't need them, and they're probably quite right. On the other hand, a lot of us are there because we want to help and get involved. I get a lot of satisfaction out of it. But I'm single and retired and I have time on my hands. Yesterday I had a phone call from a lady asking if I could trace someone who left the village many years ago. I was able to help her and she was absolutely delighted. There seems to be more and more paperwork as the years go by. A lot of it could be avoided and a lot of it is job creation to be honest with you. I don't get nervous on election night anymore. It wouldn't really bother me if I was deselected. It wouldn't be the end of world. I'd probably give a sigh of relief. "
The disillusioned councillor who quit
'The male chauvinism was like nothing I'd ever seen before'
"I worked in a very male-dominated industry before becoming a councillor so I was used to dealing with male egos. Despite this, the male chauvinism I encountered at the council was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The personal insults I received wouldn't be tolerated in any other working environment. I'm not the only woman who resigned and I know of other women who did so for similar reasons. I used to dread going into meetings. Some women councillors aren't as vocal as their male colleagues. I think they're afraid to speak out because of the culture of bullying. I had no other choice but to resign. I always thought that politics might be a dirty business but it was far worse than I could have imagined. Anybody with any personal integrity would find it an uphill battle. I did find the ward work really rewarding. You've got to really fight sometimes but I enjoyed that. I like talking to people. There was a family who were going to be evicted so I went to court with them and we won. If I hadn't achieved anything else that would have made it worthwhile. The vast majority of the people I spoke to were only too grateful for the help that you gave them and I enjoyed even the small wins. There was one occasion when I was threatened by a resident at a surgery all because they thought someone had carried out building work without planning permission. After that my partner used to come with me to keep an eye on me at my surgery. Other women councillors I knew had a terrible time on social media. I'm really sad how it turned out and still feel disillusioned by the whole thing."
The councillor who quit the party to go independent
'Politics is a dirty, stinking world'
"Within weeks of being elected people were approaching me about all sorts of trivial matters. Some of these matters had been going on for eight years and I was able to set up a meeting and get the problem sorted almost straight away. What on Earth had been going on for eight years? What has shocked me is that 90% of people that I help don't even bother to say thank you. I'm not doing it for the thanks but I find it staggering. Then there's the political side which is a dirty, stinking world. I despise politicians quite frankly. I carry on because instead of shouting at the TV now I can challenge these people in the council chamber. But I'm more furious now than I was before I became a councillor. The quality of so many councillors is so low it's nothing short of frightening. You wouldn't let them run a paper stand and they're handling multi-million pound budgets. There's an utter lack of accountability for senior officers' actions. I'm staggered by the level of dishonesty. I see them lying to councillors and committees. There's moral corruption and no accountability. And there's so much wasting of rate payer's money. Every month I get three or four invites asking me to events with free alcohol and food for councillors and their hangers-on. It's absolutely outrageous and I've refused every single invite. I resigned from my party and became an independent because it is as morally corrupt as every other party and I couldn't stand to be in the same room as my party leader."
The 30-something optimist
'Politics is a vehicle for change'
"I came back from university, one of my parents was ill and I needed something to keep me busy. There was a lack of facilities for children in my area and nothing was getting done about it, so I decided to run as a councillor. Once I was a town councillor I got the council to match fund the park with £25,000. It was a huge confidence boost and finally the kids had somewhere to go. Being a councillor is gruelling and fast-paced. When I went into it I thought I'd be mostly championing local people but there's a broader strategic role and I also need to be a robust opposition councillor. I'm not downbeat on politics because it's a vehicle for change. Politics matters. Sometimes us councillors don't understand the power and the role that we've got. The cabinet are often very remote from the areas they're making decisions about. Part of our challenge is making them aware of that. I love the individual contact I have with constituents. It's great when you can help them out of a hole they're in, such as accessing a food bank. It's a rewarding job and I love what I do and would never change it. I feel a huge weight on my shoulders and don't want to let people down. My constituents have access to me 24/7. It takes a while to adjust to that. I've been called at two in the morning by a lady who was going to court the next day over not paying her bills. She was so upset and I just wished she'd contacted me weeks earlier so I could have stopped it getting to that stage. Being a councillor is a full time job yet you can't live off the wage so you have to work another job, hence the reason most councillors in my area are retired, white men. I think we need to make it more attractive, part of the solution could be paying more."
The never-give-up candidate
'I want to get face-to-face with people'
"I've stood in all political elections (local, general, by-elections and as a European candidate) for the past 25 years but haven't been successful yet. I'm not party motivated but I'm interested in making money for charity and local causes. I think in local elections the candidates should be from the area and aware of local issues. The problem is most candidates have to stick to set party doctrine and its not clear what they've done as individuals. There's a lot of cronyism in politics, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It needs a wind of change. No wonder the public are apathetic with all that squabbling amongst each other and leadership problems. The public thinks: "Why should I bother?" People look on me as a joke but I've been raising money for 25 years. If I was a councillor I wouldn't want to go to planning application meetings, I want to get face-to-face with people. And there's so much litter around here that doesn't get picked up so I'm going to get my own team together. I'm not answerable to anyone as an independent, I am who I am. Politicians are after their own interest, half of them."
The about-to-retire councillor
'Being a leading member of your community is very humbling'
"I was first elected 30 years ago after losing on three previous occasions. Finally coming through as a party of opposition was incredible. When the result was announced the supporters were dancing and singing. Then reality set in. On my first visit to the civic centre, I was blanked by the ruling party members and had a testy first meeting with the chief exec. I learned quickly that to do your job as a councillor you must read everything that comes your way and learn the protocols. The best thing about being a councillor is that it opens doors to organisations who can be of help to you in serving your constituents. I always got a kick out of being able to help my people and always strove to do my best by them, but of course you can't win them all. I always think an honest attempt is sometimes just as good as a success. I am proud that during my tenure I never claimed expenses or allowances but financed myself through my normal employment. Being a councillor is hard work and you are available to your constituents at all hours and in all places. Being a leading member of your community is a very humbling experience. Yes, council meetings can be boring and long-winded but if you concentrate on winning your battles you can produce results for your constituents and local area. Looking back, would I do it again? Yes, of course I would."
|
Around 50 people are protesting outside a supermarket depot in County Antrim, calling for a fair price for farm produce.
| It is understood a number of tractors and farm vehicles are parked at the entrance to the Lidl regional distribution centre near Nutts Corner.
There have been several protests by farmers about the slump in milk prices in recent weeks.
These have been held across the UK.
Earlier on Tuesday, Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister Michelle O'Neill met Environment Secretary Liz Truss in London to seek support in lobbying the European Union over the dairy crisis.
|
The "pristine environment" of Scotland's wild hills and mountains are occasionally fouled by human waste. Public conveniences are not in great supply on most Munros. What should you do if you need the toilet in the great outdoors? | By Steven McKenzieBBC Scotland Highlands and Islands reporter
Earlier this winter, an experienced mountaineer could barely contain his anger at narrowly avoiding a pile of human excrement on his walk up Coire Ardair in the Highlands.
Later, in a blog, he wrote: "Right next to the path, not even 10 metres away behind a boulder or tree where it might be discreetly hidden. No, close enough so that you might accidentally tread in it."
The mountaineer said whoever was responsible could easily have gone to a public loo just 20 minutes walk away.
He even uploaded an image of this toilet along with a photograph of Coire Ardair and its nearby Munro, Creag Meagaidh.
"This is a toilet," he captioned the public loo image. "This is not a toilet" he wrote below the photograph of the coire.
But what should people do if they get caught short in the great outdoors when a WC is not within reach?
It is a matter organisations such as Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCofS) have tackled.
They warn that public and animal health is threatened by irresponsible toileting because the waste could contaminate drinking water.
People can be put at risk to a cocktail of nasty pathogens, they say, such as cryptosporidium, campylobacter, aeromonas, e.coli O157 and giardia.
A spokeswoman at SNH says: "If you need to urinate, do so at least 30 metres from open water or rivers and streams.
"If you need to defecate, do so as far away as possible from buildings, from open water or rivers and streams, and from any farm animals."
She adds: "Bury faeces in a shallow hole and replace the turf."
The MCofS offers guidance in its leaflet Where to "Go" in the Great Outdoors.
It recommends taking home toilet paper in containers and cleaning hands using gels.
The council asks that people don't "go" near paths, huts, bothies and never in caves.
It suggests carrying a small trowel to make the task of digging a hole to bury waste easier.
And the leaflet adds: "When digging a hole is absolutely impossible and you are in a very remote place, spread excrement thinly or arrange rocks such that air can circulate. Avoid just putting a rock on top as it slows decomposition."
Snow White Facility
Five years ago, the Cairngorms Ranger Service launched the Cairngorm Poo Project following a boom in snow-holing, the digging of cave-like shelters into deep snow where walkers can spend a night or two on a hillside.
Ranger Nic Bullivant said snow-holing had traditionally been a life-saving skill learned by mountain guides, rescue teams, walkers and military personnel to protect themselves in bad weather.
"Now snow-holing has become a more recreational activity," he says. "The Cairngorms has earned a reputation, not quite correctly, as the place in Scotland where the snow is deep enough to do it."
However, waste being left behind by some in two areas of the Cairngorms raised concerns about possibility of streams flowing into the River Nethy and Loch Avon Basin.
The Poo Project, since renamed the Snow White Facility, provides walkers with biodegradable bags and plastic containers to keep them in.
Coming off the hill, the bags and their contents are dumped down the Poo Chute at the CairnGorm Mountain ski centre car park. The containers go into disinfectant before getting a further wash so they can be reused by others.
CairnGorm Mountain has a licence from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to handle waste in this way.
Mr Bullivant says the scheme has been a huge success in encouraging responsible "free range toileting".
David Gibson, of the MCofS, said he was aware of the Coire Ardair complaint but could not recall similar incidents at other locations in recent years.
He added: "This doesn't mean that the issue does not exist, but that it isn't reported or perhaps not even spotted.
"Anything that assists in spreading the word about 'where to go' properly helps to encourage and educate good practice."
|
When the government suggested the BBC might take on the funding of TV licences for the over-75s in 2010, a substantial majority of the BBC's then-trustees threatened to resign and the idea was dropped. | By Nick HighamCorrespondent
But the BBC Trust is on the way out: its current chair has called for its abolition; such a threat might be rather less effective today.
Nevertheless, the arguments against the move now are the same as they were then, even if this time the government is apparently offering a sweetener.
An effective cut of £650m or one-fifth in the BBC's budget would almost certainly mean cuts in services - all of BBC Three and BBC Four, all digital radio, possibly local radio and parts of World Service radio, according to one former trustee.
Why should licence fee payers have to put up with a poorer service because of a policy first introduced by a Labour Government?
Is it right that licence fees handed over to pay for TV and radio programmes should end up instead subsidising sometimes wealthy pensioners?
Sir Christopher Bland, a former chairman of the BBC Governors, called the move "the worst form of dodgy Whitehall accounting".
He told the World this Weekend on Radio 4: "If the government thinks that over 75-year-olds need free licence fees then fine, that's government policy, not BBC policy.
"And of course, rather subtly and unattractively, it draws the BBC closer to becoming an arm of government, which has always been something that the BBC and government have resisted."
But the sweetener being offered by the chancellor has its attractions.
Last week the BBC revealed that its licence fee revenue was down by £150m a year because so many people no longer watch live television (for which you have to have a TV licence) and simply watch catch-up programmes on the iPlayer (for which a licence is unnecessary).
Mr Osborne seems to be offering a deal, perhaps to be announced in the Budget: a commitment to change the law so that iPlayer viewers also have to pay the licence fee.
It won't raise anything like enough to make up for that lost £650m but it would be a sign that the government is serious about protecting the BBC's long-term future in a world of rapidly changing technology.
And from the chancellor's point of view, offloading the over-75s' licence fee onto the BBC is a nifty bit of political footwork.
It goes a long way towards the government's target of cutting £12bn from the benefits bill.
And if in due course a potentially unpopular decision is taken to scrap it, or to means test it so that wealthier pensioners no longer benefit, it'll be the BBC not the government that gets the opprobrium.
|
When Callum Fairhurst hugged his 14-year-old brother Liam for the last time, he made him two promises: to live a great life and to help others. As the 10th anniversary of Liam's death approaches, Callum has founded a new website that aims to answer the very questions he couldn't ask as a grieving 12-year-old. | By Orla MooreBBC News
Callum Fairhurst still remembers every detail of 30 June 2009, the day his big brother Liam died.
"I was 12. I remember what I was watching on TV, what I did before, what I did after, how I was told," he says. "I didn't quite realise what was going on, when the community nurses came down I just knew. We were eating dinner at the table.
"I just knew that was the last time I'd see him. That is so vivid in my memory. The days and weeks after were more of a blur."
Liam had been diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer, in July 2005, aged 10.
In the four years that followed, he refused to accept his condition was terminal, and embarked on a remarkable campaign, raising £340,000 during his lifetime, and a further £7m after his death.
Callum, from Soham, Cambridgeshire, says that in life - and death - his brother continues to inspire him.
"I remember kissing him and I just felt something. Although he wasn't conscious, he couldn't respond, there was something there," he said.
"Afterwards I was scared, emotional, hiding it. Looking back, I think I was protecting myself.
"People were supportive in that they'd come up and hug me. But there was no formal support. I received counselling sessions but in a way I felt forced into it, months after I needed to."
Some friends would innocently say the wrong thing, people knew him only as "Liam's brother", and the extent of direct support was a "sympathetic pat on the shoulder", he says.
"I wanted to know if it was OK to be happy. I wasn't suicidal, I wasn't depressed, but I was struggling. I had awful nightmares, but other times I was absolutely fine.
"Liam was dead, but I felt bad for getting on with it."
Callum plunged his energy into fundraising, like his brother, cycling more than 17,000 miles (27,350km) round the world in 2015-16, and completing a tuk-tuk trip around 27 European countries last year.
He is now in the final year of an International Development and Politics degree at the University of East Anglia.
He spoke to other bereaved children to gather a cache of particular questions they had when they lost a sibling, from younger ones asking what death actually means, or 'Why are mummy and daddy being different?', to teenagers' dilemmas with drinking or drugs.
The result is a bright new online forum called Sibling Support, created by Callum with a pool of professionals and teenagers with first-hand experience.
It includes details of how to create memory boxes, and the plan is to install an instant message function which children can use anonymously.
You may also be interested in:
Ann Rowland, of Child Bereavement UK, says children bereaved of a sibling face particular challenges.
"It can be a loss that is felt keenly at every major life event for the rest of their lives, or the realisation at an early age of the 'fragility of life'," she says.
"The child who died can be 'put on a pedestal', where only positive things are remembered, and remaining siblings can feel overlooked and that they are 'second-best'. Parents can also become overprotective of remaining children, impacting on their independence."
She says there remains a "real gap" in online support for bereaved siblings.
"This website - created by bereaved siblings for bereaved siblings - will help to decrease the sense of isolation felt by many."
Child deaths in numbers
Source: YouGov for Child Bereavement UK
"The key point is informal support," Callum says.
"It could be as simple as a teacher with a five-year-old who has questions. Lots of children don't understand what death means: that she cannot eat, drink or sleep; she also can't feel any pain; she'll not wake up".
Siblings, who he describes as "the forgotten grievers", can read other personal stories, and there are animations explaining the grieving process.
Anne Streather, of Cambridge-based bereavement charity Stars, says young people often experience all the negative effects of grief without the mechanisms to cope.
"They can become isolated and alone, unable to concentrate at school, vulnerable to mental health issues, like self-harm and eating disorders," she says.
"Children don't understand why they feel the way they do and think no one else understands them either. They're scared."
About 180 bereaved children from across Cambridgeshire were referred to Stars last year, and in January 2019 alone referrals doubled from 20 to more than 40.
"Children often need to be reassured that their behaviour in grief is normal - that it will pass," Ms Streather adds.
"Informal support like this puts the needs of the child first."
'I was so confused when my brother died'
'I still miss Harry. I'm proud of him - and I think he'd be proud of me.'
Jessica Mould, 15, from Milton Keynes, lost her twin brother Harry in 2009 at the age of five.
"I'll always remember we had a High School Musical party for our fifth birthday, and we went to the cinema and danced down the front with our friends," she says.
"It was wonderful. Every time I look through photos and videos they take me back to the moment, and that's when the feelings hit me.
"It sounds weird, but I wasn't upset when he died, just so confused. I thought he'd come back; I had no concept of death at all. Nowadays I get upset because he was so young; I wonder what he'd be like now. I still think of him as a five-year-old.
"My parents were so caring and kind afterwards. I know now they would have protected me. We went to bereavement groups but they were so far away. There was nothing local, which made it quite difficult.
"Teenagers are not very good at showing their emotions, so no matter how hard it is, share how you feel to other people - it's a relief. You will come across people who don't understand - but in the long term it's good to talk."
Callum admits that the milestones he reached, like "becoming older than Liam", going to sixth-form college and leaving home for university, hit him harder than the early days after his brother's death.
"When I'm asked 'How many brothers or sisters do you have?' - you could be on a date, you could be in a classroom - I'm not going to ignore the fact that I have a brother, or that he died.
"The 12-year-old me grieved a lot better than I did two years ago. Time doesn't heal, it just helps you deal."
|
Experts have begun examining and cataloguing parts of a Spitfire excavated from a field in Cambridgeshire. | The plane crashed in Holme Fen during a 300mph (483km/h) training mission in November 1940, killing 20-year-old Pilot Officer Harold Penketh.
Experts from Oxford Archaeology East and Cranfield University have spent five days recovering the plane.
Its parts will be preserved and put on public display.
Here is the story of the excavation, told in photographs:
|
Swastika. The word is a potent one. For more than one billion Hindus it means "wellbeing" and good fortune. For others, the cross with arms bent at right angles will forever symbolise Nazism. Yet England is seemingly awash with swastikas. Why? | By Laurence CawleyBBC News
It comes from the Sanskrit "svastika" and means "good to be", yet the word swastika - and perhaps even more the symbol which represents it - is very often taken to mean something very different.
So much so, in fact, that when a member of the public recently asked Essex County Council why it allowed swastika motifs to be carved into its HQ building during the 1930s, some demanded the symbols be removed.
The case is a perfect demonstration of the seismic shift in the swastika's reputation in the West as a result of its use by Nazi Germany.
Why did Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seize the swastika?
The Nazi party formally adopted the swastika - which it called the Hakenkreuz (hooked cross) - in 1920.
Dr Malcolm Quinn, of the University of Arts London, says the party picked up on the symbol's association with the Aryans, who some intellectuals of the time believed had invaded India in the distant past.
They considered the early Aryans of India to be the prototypical white invaders and the cultural ancestors of the German people.
"What Hitler did," says Dr Quinn, "was to add the swastika symbol (of a conquering 'race') to the colours of Bismarck's flag and Germany was rebranded as a nation whose central mission was conquest and colonisation.
"The Nazis created a new history for themselves. Within decades the swastika had been ripped from its Indian roots."
But the swastika - or at least the shape to which the word refers - predates Hitler by thousands of years.
Dr Jessica Frazier, of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, told the BBC swastikas had been found in China, Japan, Mongolia, the ancient Mediterranean, among native Americans and, of course, the British Isles.
"Its (the swastika's) original meaning is an enigma," she said. "Perhaps it is just an elegant geometry which has an instinctive appeal across the world."
The earliest swastikas might have had some religious or astronomical meaning. Then again, they might not.
One of those earliest "swastikas" is the Swastika Stone which sits proudly on the edge of Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire.
The carving is thought to be early Bronze Age dating back to about 2,000 BC.
Now heavily eroded from the surface of the grit stone outcrop on which it sits, the design features a grooved swastika with a number of circular hollows.
The name Swastika Stone, as the Yorkshire-based archaeologist Dave Weldrake explains, is a Victorian invention. And a successful invention at that.
It pulls in the tourists not because it is the most elaborate carving on the moor but because of its name.
Mr Weldrake said it was most likely a religious carving.
"But there's no written record," he said. "It is one of many carved rocks in the area which vary from the really simple to the highly elaborate.
"There is another one which looks partially on the way to being a swastika and there are others with ladder patterns. Part of the problem with interpretation is you don't know how they looked at the time."
Jump forward a few thousand years and the swastika motif reappears in England in thriving abundance.
Not on rocky outcrops now, but on buildings.
Many of these motifs, says Dr Quinn, arrived in England as a result of Britain's colonisation of India during the 18th Century.
The British author Rudyard Kipling, who was strongly influenced by Indian culture, had a swastika on the dust jackets of all his books until the rise of Nazism.
Other swastika-based designs, including the Essex County Council building swastikas mentioned above, were most likely inspired by Greek patterns.
Whatever their derivation, without knowing the intention of the architects who included such designs on churches, government buildings, banks and railway stations, referring to them as swastikas is problematic.
By and large, says Dr Quinn, they are "decorative motifs that happen to use the same symmetry group as the swastika symbol".
And they mostly predate Nazi Germany.
Shaunaka Rishi Das, director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, says: "Most Western people when they see it (the swastika), they see Nazi Germany.
"But you have to understand that here's a tradition that is ancient and the Germans borrow it from a different culture and misuse it over less than two decades and it develops an internationally bad reputation."
Mr Rishi Das told how he himself once lived in a house in Belfast which had a tiled swastika on a wash-room floor.
"It somehow survived the fact that American officers were billeted there during the war," he said. "The daughter of the man who built the house, a well known architect of his time, told me the symbol was a Celtic one."
That house, he said, later became a Krishna Temple.
Although single swastika motifs - such as one found on cottages pictured below in Aylsham, Norfolk - are not rare, it is far more common to find swastikas used in repeating patterns.
Examples include those on the The Royal Academy of Arts building at Burlington House and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in King Charles Street, London.
As Mr Rishi Das found in Belfast, walls are far from the only surfaces to carry the swastika. Floors carry them too.
The Natwest branch in Bolton's Derby Street, for example, has two swastikas on its floors.
When asked to remove them in 2006, the bank pointed out that the building was built in 1927 when the swastika was commonly used in architecture.
The request to remove them was turned down.
The floor of The Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich also features a swastika design.
And then there is this red, white and black swastika design outside the barriers to the District Line service at the Upminster Bridge tube station in Hornchurch, east London.
Could the swastika motif ever stage a comeback in western architectural design?
Dr Quinn said he was not aware of any building other than temples created since World War Two in England featuring swastikas.
And while the swastika design may well be used in Hindu architecture, its future use on public buildings seems unlikely.
|
More than 100 of the world's top robotics experts wrote a letter to the United Nations recently calling for a ban on the development of "killer robots" and warning of a new arms race. But are their fears really justified? | By Mark SmithTechnology of Business reporter
Entire regiments of unmanned tanks; drones that can spot an insurgent in a crowd of civilians; and weapons controlled by computerised "brains" that learn like we do, are all among the "smart" tech being unleashed by an arms industry many believe is now entering a "third revolution in warfare".
"In every sphere of the battlefield - in the air, on the sea, under the sea or on the land - the military around the world are now demonstrating prototype autonomous weapons," says Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at Sydney's New South Wales University.
"New technologies like deep learning are helping drive this revolution. The tech space is clearly leading the charge, and the military is playing catch-up."
One reported breakthrough giving killer machine opponents sleepless nights is Kalashnikov's "neural net" combat module.
It features a 7.62mm machine gun and a camera attached to a computer system that its makers claim can make its own targeting judgements without any human control.
According to Russia's state-run Tass news agency it uses "neural network technologies that enable it to identify targets and make decisions".
Unlike a conventional computer that uses pre-programmed instructions to tackle a specific but limited range of predictable possibilities, a neural network is designed to learn from previous examples then adapt to circumstances it may not have encountered before.
And it is this supposed ability to make its own decisions that is worrying to many.
"If weapons are using neural networks and advanced artificial intelligence then we wouldn't necessarily know the basis on which they made the decision to attack - and that's very dangerous," says Andrew Nanson, chief technology officer at defence specialist Ultra Electronics.
But he remains sceptical about some of the claims arms manufacturers are making.
Automated defence systems can already make decisions based on an analysis of a threat - the shape, size, speed and trajectory of an incoming missile, for example - and choose an appropriate response much faster than humans can.
But what happens when such systems encounter something they have no experience of, but are still given the freedom to act using a "best guess" approach?
Mistakes could be disastrous - the killing of innocent civilians; the destruction of non-military targets; "friendly fire" attacks on your own side.
And this is what many experts fear, not that AI will become too smart - taking over the world like the Skynet supercomputer from the Terminator films - but that it's too stupid.
"The current problems are not with super-intelligent robots but with pretty dumb ones that cannot flexibly discriminate between civilian targets and military targets except in very narrowly contained settings," says Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at Sheffield University.
Despite such concerns, Kalashnikov's latest products are not the only autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons being trialled in Russia.
The Uran-9 is an unmanned ground combat vehicle and features a machine gun and 30mm cannon. It can be remotely controlled at distances of up to 10km.
More Technology of Business
And the diminutive Platform-M combat robot boasts automated targeting and can operate in extremes of heat and cold.
Meanwhile the Armata T-14 "super tank" has an autonomous turret that designer Andrei Terlikov claims will pave the way for fully autonomous tanks on the battlefield.
Manufacturer Uralvagonzavod also didn't respond to BBC requests for an interview, but Prof Sharkey - who is a member of pressure group The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots - is wary of its potential.
"The T-14 is years ahead of the West, and the idea of thousands of autonomous T-14s sitting on the border with Europe does not bear thinking about," he says.
And it's not just Russia developing such weapons.
Last summer, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) equipped an ordinary surveillance drone with advanced AI designed to discern between civilians and insurgents during a test over a replica Middle Eastern village in Massachusetts.
And Samsung's SGR-A1 sentry gun, capable of firing autonomously, has been deployed along the South Korean side of the Korean Demilitarised Zone.
The UK's Taranis drone - which is roughly the size of a Red Arrow Hawk fighter jet - is being developed by BAE Systems. It is designed to carry a myriad of weapons long distances and will have "elements" of full autonomy, BAE says.
At sea, the USA's Sea Hunter autonomous warship is designed to operate for extended periods at sea without a single crew member, and to even guide itself in and out of port.
All the Western arms manufacturers contacted by the BBC, including Boeing's Phantom Works, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, refused to co-operate with this feature, an indication perhaps of the controversial nature of this technology.
But could autonomous military technology also be used simply as support for human military operations?
Roland Sonnenberg, head of defence at consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, says combat simulation, logistics, threat analysis and back office functions are the more mundane - but equally important - aspects of warfare that robots and AI could perform.
"The benefits that AI has to offer are only useful if they can be applied effectively in the real world and will only be broadly adopted if companies, consumers and society trust the technology and take a responsible approach," he says.
And some argue that autonomous weapons could actually reduce the number of human casualties.
But Elizabeth Quintana, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, disagrees.
"Deploying robotic systems might be more attractive to politicians because there would be fewer body bags coming home.
"My view is that war is an inherently human activity and that if you wage war from a distance at another group or country, they will find a way to hurt you at home because that is the only way that they can retaliate."
The prospect of autonomous weapons systems inadvertently leading to an escalation in domestic terrorism or cyber-warfare is perhaps another reason to treat this new tech with caution.
|
The deaths of seven young people in the west of Scotland are linked to a batch of fake ecstasy drugs, Police Scotland has confirmed. | An 18-year-old woman from Alexandria in West Dunbartonshire died on Tuesday morning after taking the tablets.
Six others from Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire have died during the past two months after taking pills with a Rolex crown stamped on them.
It is understood the pills contain a dangerous chemical called PMA.
It is known to cause extremely high temperatures, hallucinations and convulsions.
|
Iranians are calling foul on social media after an Iranian wrestler appeared to deliberately lose a match on Saturday to avoid facing an Israeli opponent in the 86kg category of the Senior U23 World Championship in Poland. | By Georgina RannardBBC UGC and Social News
Although leading 3-2 in the fourth minute, freestyle wrestler Alireza Karimi-Machiani crashed out of his match against Russia's Alikhan Zhabrailov after appearing to receive instructions to lose, rather than face Israel's Uri Kalashnikov in the next round.
Iran does not recognise the state of Israel and forbids its athletes from competing against Israelis at international sports events.
Iranians reacted with outrage on social media, sharing footage of the match.
In one clip, a man's voice, suspected by observers to be Karimi-Machiani's trainer, can be heard saying "lose Alireza", as the Iranian is winning. The trainer then stops the match to speak privately with the wrestler who then returns to lose the match 3-14.
You might also like:
More than 5,000 tweets were sent following the match with hashtags which translate as #lose_alireza, #I_am_telling_you_to_lose, and #you_must_lose.
"I feel that Alireza Karimi's trainer intentionally shouted 'Alireza lose', 'you need to lose', 'you must lose'. This was a sign for us to see the dirty people behind the curtain of his defeat. We needed to see how the dirty politics of a group of dirty people caused your efforts to be blown away with the wind," one Twitter user @persianhuman commented.
It's not the first time the region's politics have clashed with sport: At the 2016 Olympic Games, Lebanese athletes refused to share a bus with the Israel team.
Also in the Rio Games, Egyptian Islam El Shehaby was booed by the crowd after refusing to shake hands with Israeli opponent Os Sasson.
But in August this year, two Iranian footballers disregarded the ban by playing against Israeli opposition for their Greek football teams.
After his defeat, Karimi-Machiani, who won a bronze medal in the 2015 World Championships, posted a video on Instagram of him walking through a city at night listening to a song by Iranian singer Dariush Eqbali singing, "Silence is the last stronghold; you cannot take away our right".
More than 6,000 people commented on the post. Most were sympathetic, but some criticised the wrestler for not challenging the order to lose the match.
"I am very sad for this clip and injustice against our champion. Death to the dictator!" replied @davod.ahmadi23.
"You were wrong, Karimi. You accepted defeat without imposing any cost against the main reasons behind your defeat. You just became their pawn," @gh_shahraki commented.
Zhabrailov went on to beat Kalashnikov in the quarter-finals before winning the tournament, although Kalashnikov eventually took bronze following a repechage round.
Additional reporting by BBC Monitoring
|
London is home to up to 300,000 French people, making the UK capital arguably one of the world's largest French cities. How have they reacted to Friday's terror attacks in Paris which left at least 129 people dead and hundreds wounded? | By Sitala PeekBBC News
"The French are very vocal, they need to express themselves and share the confusion and pain," says Pascal Grierson, the CEO of French Radio London - a dedicated French language broadcaster for expats.
The station's core audience is the thousands of French citizens living in London who are now so numerous, former president Nicolas Sarkozy dubbed it the sixth largest French city in the world.
"We've been monitoring our social media channels and there's a couple of dominant themes coming out," Mr Grierson says.
"The main one is, 'why is it France that has been targeted?'
"In comparison to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, this feels more random and ended up killing people of their own proclaimed faith.
"The French have a very tense relationship with the Muslim community in France anyway. What underlies all of this is the attackers' attempt to destabilise our relationship further with the French-Arab community.
"On social media people have been telling us they want the fascist right wing to rise because then Daesh [the so-called Islamic State group] will have a proper fight on their hands."
Marine Le Pen's far-right Front National party is predicted to gain seats in France's regional elections in December and earlier she called for an "immediate halt" to France accepting any more refugees in the wake of the Paris attacks.
President Francois Hollande has ordered air strikes on Isis targets in Syria in response to the multiple attacks in Paris.
"Up until the air raids started last night, people were calling for some sort of retaliation," says Mr Grierson.
"French people are relieved by that.
"What we haven't seen yet is the French Arab perspective on this. I have heard some Muslims in this country [UK] talk about how they feel but I think French Arabs in France are keeping their heads down at the moment, largely, except to join in condemning these attacks.
"So many are good people and non-radicalised, but they have a big PR problem and they are going to need to work on that."
Wali Deruwara identifies himself as a French Arab. The 18-year-old of Malian descent has a job in a French cafe in South Kensington but comes from Paris's suburbs.
"It's normal for people to be scared of Paris after this," he says. But "it's not right" they should blame migrants, he continues.
"There were black people that died in these attacks, it's not just white people," he said.
"It happened very close to where I used to live, next to the Place de Voges," a 48-year-old French mother called Virgine tells me.
She now lives with her family in Fulham, south-west London, but used to live in the 3rd arrondissement close to where the attacks happened in the 11th arrondissement.
"When I saw the pictures on the news, I recognised all the places I used to shop and eat and go out.
"I have friends that were in the Bataclan concert hall. Some of them were wounded but not killed, thankfully. It took some time for them to get any news through to us from the hospital."
She was struck by a sense of helplessness, increased by her physical separation from her home country.
"That's why I felt I had to take my children and go down to Trafalgar Square, just to feel like I was doing something."
Thousands attended an impromptu vigil held in Trafalgar Square on Saturday night organised by Theo Rampal, a restaurant manager from Marseille who lives in Surrey Quays, south-east London.
"I did it to support our families. We are not able to go back to France in this moment, we are not doctors, but this is one way that we could feel like we were helping them from far away."
He estimates at least 6,000 people attended the event.
"My cousin was in a nightclub behind the Bataclan. She went outside for some reason and saw people shooting into the hall.
"She was confused at first because she didn't understand what was happening then she found a hiding place until police told her it was safe to come out after about five hours, but she heard the screams and was so upset.
"I don't know whether what we did in Trafalgar Square helped at all, but I hope so, to let them know we are thinking of them all," he says.
"I got the breaking news of the attacks on my phone and instantly started texting my friends and everyone I knew out there. It took a while for some people to text me back. I waited for about 24 hours not knowing if they were OK or not. It was awful," says Alice, an 18-year-old humanities student at University College London.
She lives with her parents in Notting Hill, west London, and has friends in Paris and relatives who live in Bolougne Billancourt in the west of the city.
"No-one I knew was badly hurt but friends of mine have lost people and its hurts me the same as if I knew them. It could have been any one of us - they were just people at a concert or going out for dinner, just going about their normal lives. That's what is so scary about it.
"One of my cousins lives in that area and was in an apartment above the cafe that people were being shot in and heard everything.
"I just really want to go back to Paris to see my family, even though I know they are safe. I have grown up in London but at a time like this I just want to be with everyone so that we are all together.
"That's why I went to Trafalgar Square, I just had to be with other people to share what we are all going through."
The streets around the Lycee in South Kensington were deserted at the weekend she says and there was a large police presence around the building. Pupils were told not to hang about outside the French Institute or the school during break time.
"This situation is just going to get worse," a French pastry chef tells me.
Joachim Prat, 31, lives in Clapham and runs a patisserie in South Kensington. He says there is no point in mass gatherings to show solidarity.
"Don't get me wrong, I think it's crazy what has happened. But it won't make any difference if we stand in a square together and hold a flag in fraternity. What will it change this solidarity? Bombing won't help either. You don't stop these people hating you by bombing them."
Surdad Kargoli, 44, from South Kensington, originally comes from Baghdad and settled in Ivy-sur-Seine, a suburb in south-east Paris many years ago.
"I think people know there is a difference between Muslims and what these people are who did this in Paris," he says.
"It's become like a disease, people are being infected with this violence and hatred. I am scared about what is going to happen to France in future generations, if we are raising people who can do this to their country, because it's their country as well in some cases.
"I sat up until three in the morning watching it unfold. I was just shocked and surprised. You ask yourself so many questions about how this happened and in the end you finish no better off with no more answers."
|
A North Sea oil platform remains out of operation after a natural gas leak was discovered on Saturday. | Marathon Oil, the Texas-based operators of the Brae Alpha platform, said it was not safe to continue work until investigations were completed.
The installation was shut down at about 16:35 on Boxing Day. No-one was injured in the incident.
A spokesman said the situation was being investigated and the relevant authorities had been notified.
The Brae Alpha Platform is located about 155 miles (248km) north east of Aberdeen.
|
The value of digital currency Bitcoin is making headlines again. | By Dan Macadam & Daniele Palumbo Business reporters
Amid volatile trade in November and December, it hit a peak of more than $17,000 at one point - a staggering rise, given that it started the year at $1,000.
So what exactly is Bitcoin, and what's behind the buying frenzy?
What is Bitcoin?
There are two key traits of Bitcoin: it is digital and it is seen as an alternative currency.
Unlike the notes or coins in your pocket, it largely exists online. Although there are some specialist ATMs which issue bitcoins, it may be best to think of them as being more like virtual tokens.
And secondly, Bitcoin is not printed by governments or traditional banks.
That means it is "not legal tender, you can't pay your taxes or use it to settle debts", says Dr Garrick Hileman of the Judge Business School at University of Cambridge.
Bitcoins are created through a complex process known as "mining", and then monitored by a network of computers across the world.
There's a steady stream of about 3,600 new bitcoins a day - with about 16.5 million now in circulation.
However, like all currencies its value is determined by how much people are willing to buy and sell it for.
Why has it gone up so much this year?
No one is entirely sure. Some say it's a classic economic bubble: frenzied investors paying far more for an asset than it's worth for fear of missing out.
They put it in the same bracket as the mania for Dutch tulip bulbs in the 1630s or internet companies in the dot.com boom.
Others point to the growing prospect of Bitcoin crossing over into the financial mainstream.
"Speculation is a big part of this, but there are signs of growing use," says Dr Hileman.
He says there were between three and six million people around the world actively using crypto-currency in April.
"Today it's probably closer to 10 to 20 million, so it's a very quickly growing user base," he says. That's the equivalent of a population the size of the Netherlands or Chile.
There has also been a boost by some large financial institutions, like the owner of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, getting into the space, he adds.
How do people buy Bitcoin?
There are now thousands of different crypto-currencies, but Bitcoin is still the best-known. To receive a bitcoin a user must have a Bitcoin address - a string of 27 to 34 letters and numbers.
This acts as a kind of virtual postbox to and from which the bitcoins are sent.
There is no registry linking real names to addresses, which helps some Bitcoin users to protect their anonymity. Bitcoin wallets store the addresses and are used to manage savings.
They operate like privately-run bank accounts - with the proviso that if the data is lost, so are the bitcoins owned. Increasingly, users are often asked for ID to open a wallet.
The rules underpinning Bitcoin say that only 21 million bitcoins can be created - and that figure is getting ever nearer. It is unclear what will happen to the value of bitcoins when that limit is reached.
Can they use bitcoins to buy things?
The anonymity afforded by digital currencies has attracted people wanting to make illegal purchases on the internet.
However, a small but growing number of recognised businesses now allow customers to buy goods and services with Bitcoin.
They range from multinational firms like Microsoft and travel booking site Expedia, through to small businesses using it as something of a novelty, such as a sushi restaurant in Cambridge or an art gallery in London.
It is not the same as established currencies, like the US dollar, which can be used across the world to buy a coffee or pay for a hotel room.
A 900% rise in one year for a traditional currency would have major repercussions for consumers' spending power and the businesses that accept it.
But many Bitcoin owners don't use it to buy things.
"The vast majority of users - I would estimate upwards of 80% or 90% - get into the space for investment reasons," says Dr Hileman.
"So you see the term 'crypto-asset' being used to describe Bitcoin more than 'crypto-currency' these days."
What concerns do regulators have?
At the moment Bitcoin is largely unregulated, says Bradley Rice, an expert in financial regulation at the law firm Ashurst.
It has been widely used on the dark web, which cannot be accessed via a normal internet browser without using a workaround.
There are also concerns about its volatility. The chart below compares Bitcoin to the pound and euro. All the values start at 100 to compare the currencies more clearly.
Because of Bitcoin's much faster growth, the chart uses a different approach on the y-axis where the smaller the gap, the faster the increase.
China and South Korea have serious worries. They have banned the launch of new virtual currencies via so-called "initial coin offerings" - where companies or individuals issue their own digital currencies for investors to buy - and have been shutting down exchanges on which they are traded.
The UK's Financial Conduct Authority warned investors in September they could lose all their money if they buy digital currencies issued by firms, known as "initial coin offerings".
But the underlying technology of Bitcoin is regarded by some major financial institutions as bullet-proof.
"That's potentially why financial regulators [in Europe] are adopting largely a 'wait and see' approach," says Mr Rice.
Is it all a bubble?
There is no shortage of financial journalists or experts saying Bitcoin's surge is a bubble.
"There may be good reasons for buying bitcoin," an article in The Economist said recently. "But the dominant reason at the moment is that it is rising in price."
Bitcoin has doubled in value in the space of a month - which has led some to argue it is too volatile to be seen as a currency, and warned that a crash is inevitable.
However, Bitcoin has been "declared dead" a few times already, says Dr Hileman.
"It's shown some resilience and bounced back from some near-death experiences," he says.
At the same time, many would agree this is "very bubbly", and he predicts we may see a "spectacular crash again in the not-too-distant future".
"So hang on tight if you are a holder of these currencies," he concludes.
|
Firefighters were tackling a flat fire in Conwy on Wednesday evening.
| North Wales Fire and Rescue Service were called to Rivieres Avenue, Colwyn Bay at about 20:40 GMT.
One person was treated by paramedics for smoke inhalation, but their injuries were not thought to be serious, the service said.
People were asked to avoid the area while the incident was dealt with. An investigation will be carried out at the scene.
|
The former mastermind of Russian sports doping, Grigory Rodchenkov, gave an interview to the BBC this week with his veiled face in the dark shadow of a wide-brimmed straw hat. Now in hiding in the US, after revealing all to the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), it's a potentially life-saving precaution. Matt Majendie explains why. | Only a small handful of people are aware of the current whereabouts of Dr Grigory Rodchenkov. Not even his lawyer, Jim Walden, knows his address in hiding. But Russian officials are keen to find out.
When the US expelled 60 Russian diplomats, in protest at the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018, Walden says he was informed some had been closing in on his client.
"What we learned from the bureau [FBI] was that three of the Russians that were expelled were people that had been placed here by the Kremlin to try to find Dr Rodchenkov. We actually saw pictures of those individuals. So, the threat to Dr Rodchenkov is real."
Head of the Moscow drug-testing laboratory, Rodchenkov was the architect of Russian doping at London 2012 and at the winter games in Sochi two years later. But when a Wada-instigated investigation in 2015 revealed the covering up of failed tests at his lab and the hasty destruction of 1,417 samples, he fled to the USA. Then, as recounted in the Oscar-winning documentary, Icarus, he became a high-level whistleblower, confessing all.
To some Russians, this makes him a traitor. President Vladimir Putin has mused that he is "under the control of American special services", as well as describing him as "an imbecile with obvious problems".
But for now, Rodchenkov has lived to tell the tale. As Walden puts it: "He has lived multiple lives in one body. It's really incredible the way by dint of good relationships, luck and a degree of cunning he has somehow survived against all odds."
Rodchenkov's career in Russian doping labs appeared to have come to an end in 2011 when he was arrested and accused of drug trafficking along with his sister, Marina. Ordered to plead guilty in the case, he instead made a gruesome and botched attempt to take his own life.
He was then incarcerated in a series of psychiatric institutions and given a series of "psychotropic drugs", according to Walden, who says his life was saved by a simple invitation from London.
On paper, he was still laboratory chief for the Sochi Games in 2014, so he was invited to join London 2012 testing chief David Cowan at the Harlow laboratory for the 2012 Games. It was an intelligence-gathering opportunity that couldn't be missed and the invitation was for him alone, so he was released and officially cleared of all charges.
Cowan wasn't happy about it - like many, he had suspicions about his Russian colleagues - but it was out of his control. "Because he was a member of the IOC medical commission, the laboratory was required to give him information on what was going on," he said. "He was entitled to see anything."
At this stage, the drug of choice used by many Russian athletes was oral turinabol, a drug created as part of another state-sponsored doping programme in East Germany during the 1970s.
Already by the time of his lab visit, Rodchenkov knew Russians would, most likely, wholesale be caught, not at the Games themselves but through subsequent retrospective testing with a new ground-breaking test coming out for long-term metabolites.
And the reason he knew this was that he had discovered the test and published his findings in 2011, despite the fact he knew it could prove costly to Russians in the future. Why he did this remains a mystery.
And they were caught. Of the 140 athletes to have been disqualified from London 2012, more than a third are Russian. It's still possible that more will be announced before 6 August, exactly eight years on since the end of the London games. After that, no more retesting can take place.
But in 2012, Rodchenkov already was moving to a new drugs regimen, famously known as the Duchess cocktail, containing three anabolic steroids - oxandrolone, metenolone and trenbolone, a drug used to enhance growth in farm animals. As yet, none of them are detectable using the long-term metabolite tests.
At the Sochi winter games, the cocktail was taken with alcohol to aid absorption - Chivas whisky for men, vermouth for women - and swilled around the mouth before being spat out. The drugs entered the body through the cells of the cheek.
If before the Russian doping machine had relied on giving athletes drugs during training, this time the Duchess cocktail was taken during the games too. As described in the documentary, Icarus, the Russians' dirty urine samples were passed out of the Wada lab through a hole in the wall and swapped for clean samples that entered the lab via the same route.
The key to it was a technique the Russian security service, the FSB, had developed to open supposedly tamper-proof bottles with thin pieces of metal. It was cheating on an Olympic scale, and the hosts, to Putin's delight, topped the medal table with 33 medals.
Rodchenkov - who had been jailed only three years earlier - was awarded by the Russian government with the Order of Friendship.
But the golden moment was shortlived. The house of cards started collapsing thanks to Russian whistleblowers, a German TV investigation in December 2014, and a subsequent Wada investigation, which in 2015 formally accused Russia of state-sponsored doping.
In the weeks after the publication of the Wada report, Rodchenkov says he was tipped off by a friend working at the Kremlin that his life was in danger so he packed his bags, kissed his wife and children goodbye and relocated to the US. He then co-operated with further investigations, including one by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren which detailed the Russian cheating at Sochi, and ultimately led to the ban on Russian track and field athletes and weightlifters from the Rio games.
In the years since, 28 athletes banned as a result of Rodchenkov's testimony have had their bans overturned at the Court for Arbitration in Sport on grounds of insufficient evidence, but there is little sign of Russia cleaning up its act. In December, it was banned from all major sporting events for four years for tampering with laboratory data. Russia's appeal against that ruling in November could shed more light on the contents of the lab's database, potentially providing further evidence to corroborate Rodchenkov's allegations.
Had Rodchenkov stayed in Russia, Walden says he knows how the story would have played out. In the space of two weeks in 2016, not long after his client's departure, two former heads of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada), Vyacheslav Sinev and Nikita Kamaev, both died in suspicious circumstances.
According to Walden, the threat to Rodchenkov's life remains serious even after the expulsion of the Russian diplomats.
"As long as Vladimir Putin is presiding over the current Russian gangster state, there is no relief for Dr Rodchenkov," Walden says. "He literally has to look over his shoulder and be careful at every step of the way."
Margarita Pakhnotskaya, who was brought into Rusada as its deputy director general to, as she puts it, "restore the functionality and image" of the organisation, is confident the Russian anti-doping system is now fit for purpose but admits more needs to be done to restore its reputation around the world.
"My motto in life is 'Deeds Not Words,'" she says. "People can judge. But Rusada is absolutely different… it's another story, different people, different processes. I feel that we are moving the right way."
And as for Rodchenkov himself, does he come out as a villain or hero from the whole saga?
"Well he was a villain in the system as it was being practised at the time," says Wada founding president, Dick Pound. "He's now revealed it all at considerable personal expense and will live with apprehension for the rest of his life about efforts on the part of Russia to find him and either get him back to Russia or some other solution. And I don't know if it makes him a hero, it certainly makes him courageous."
Rodchenkov makes no secret of having taken drugs himself during his career as an athlete. Former Wada president John Fahey once told me a story about touring the London lab with Rodchenkov. As they passed a photograph of three runners, including the young Rodchenkov, the Russian scientist tapped on each individual saying, "Doper, doper, doper."
And as for his own side of the story, his tell-all book, The Rodchenkov Affair, hit the shelves this week.
Listen to Bloodsport, the story of systematic doping at London 2012 and Sochi 2014, on BBC Sounds
You may also be interested in:
Fearing for her safety, Russian 800m runner Yuliya Stepanova fled her country after she revealed the dirty secrets of doping in Russian athletics. She has been called the greatest whistleblower in the history of sport but what do people think of the athlete in her homeland?
What do Russians think of doping whistleblower Yulia Stepanova? (December 2016)
|
US presidential hopeful Ben Carson has attracted attention and some ridicule this week for saying Egypt's pyramids were built to store grain. As most schoolchildren know, they were actually tombs for pharaohs. But where did the granary idea come from, and would it even have worked? | By Vanessa BarfordBBC News, Washington DC
Egyptian history isn't something American presidential candidates are usually quizzed about on the campaign trail, but this week Republican Ben Carson faced a barrage of questions after it emerged he believed the pyramids were built by the Biblical figure Joseph for storing grain.
This was revealed on Wednesday when Buzzfeed published a video of Carson addressing students at a Michigan university affiliated with his Seventh-day Adventist Church 17 years ago. But the famed neurosurgeon, currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, told inquisitive journalists that his views had not changed.
So where does this granary theory come from?
In the Old Testament, Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers, where he later interprets a pharaoh's dreams and helps the Egyptians survive a seven-year famine - by storing grain. There is no mention of pyramids in the Bible's version of the story but in the Middle Ages people started to write them into the story.
"If you go to St Mark's cathedral in Venice, there's a medieval depiction showing people using the three great pyramids of Giza as granaries in Joseph's story," says John Darnell, a professor of Egyptology at Yale University.
"If you didn't have access to the structures, the idea had some currency."
The belief was also popularised by Saint Gregory of Tours, a sixth century Frankish bishop, who wrote: "They are wide at the base and narrow at the top in order that the wheat might be cast into them through a tiny opening, and these granaries are to be seen to the present day."
The Book of John Mandeville, a popular 14th Century travel memoir, also referred to "Joseph's Granaries, which he had made to store the wheat for hard times".
But Darnell says the idea began to fall out of favour during the Renaissance, when people made more detailed studies of the pyramids.
"Now of course we know the pyramids were burial chambers - albeit just one element of far greater complexes. The architectural predecessors and descendants of pyramids, their internal passageways and the function of their spaces can be traced right through the period into the new Kingdom of Egypt," he says.
The story of Joseph is supposedly set in the time of Egypt's Middle Kingdom, Darnell points out, which is centuries after the pyramids of Giza were built.
Egyptologists have also questioned other aspects of Carson's pyramid theory. Whatever held Joseph's grain "would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it", he said in his 1998 lecture.
He added: "And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they'd have to be that way for various reasons."
His argument appears to have been that the chambers were hermetically sealed to preserve grain. But Darnell rejects this logic.
"The major internal element of the pyramids is stone and brick - there wouldn't be much space for grain, and it would be huge waste of power and engineering," he says. "Plus we know ancient granaries tended to beehive-shaped and quite small. It wouldn't make sense to build gigantic monumental granaries - it would take ages to grain in, and smother everyone when it poured out."
Egyptologist James Allen of Brown University agrees. "There's no way in the world an ounce of grain would be stored in a structure like that," he says. "It would be totally impractical. It's like saying the Tower of London was built as a granary store."
This is only one of a number of comments from Carson that have taken some Americans aback. Others include his suggestion that being gay is a choice, that Muslims aren't qualified to seek the US presidency, and President Barack Obama's healthcare reform was "the worst thing" since slavery . However, none of these statements appears to have affected his poll rating.
Darnell argues that the pyramid theory is "somewhat surprising and scary", coming from a leading contender for the presidency, but he also sees this as an opportunity.
"Egyptology isn't known as being a major topic in politics. But we are actually facing some remarkably similar situations to then - a jockeying for power and influence in the world, a rising power in what is now Turkey, a political and military vacuum in what is now coastal Syria and Lebanon," he says.
"If candidates would take a closer look at ancient Egypt… it might contribute to how they approach problems today, and that would make me very happy."
|
When John Searle started to fall down and lose his memory, he thought it was the early signs of dementia. But it turns out he has a rare - and often undiagnosed - condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus. The good news is it's treatable. | By Robin Levinson-KingBBC News, Toronto
A few years ago, John Searle thought his life as he knew it was over.
His body had slowly stopped working. He had trouble walking, he was falling down, he had bad short-term memory and, at 69, he was incontinent.
It was a pattern of decline the retired Canadian engineer from Brantford, Ontario was all too familiar with. His own sister had died of Alzheimer's in her 50s. His father had died of dementia in his early 80s. So he began to start planning for a future he would not be able to participate in.
"You kind of wonder where you're going. You start thinking, is this it?" he says.
Doctors could not give him a definitive diagnosis, which only infuriated the retired engineer more. Parkinson's treatment had no effect, he didn't have Alzheimer's but something was clearly not right. By 2018, he needed a wheelchair to go outside, and a walking frame inside his own home.
"There was no hope, I was sitting in the window watching life go by."
"He was angry - he was beyond angry," his wife Barbara chimes in. "There were nights when I was laying in bed thinking maybe I'll have to sell the house... because I had to do everything."
But that changed when he met Dr Alfonso Fasano, a neurologist at the Movement Disorders Clinic at Toronto Western Hospital, who diagnosed him with a condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH.
The disorder is caused when excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the brain's ventricles, which are the communication centre of the mind.
This build-up of fluid can cause movement difficulties, memory and cognition problems and incontinence - symptoms that are also often associated with more common degenerative illnesses, like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or dementia.
Hydrocephalus Canada estimates that at least 1 in 200 Canadians over the age of 55, or more than 57,000 people, have NPH. In the US, the Hydrocephalus Association estimates that 700,000 Americans are afflicted, but that only about 20% of people living with the condition been correctly diagnosed.
"NPH is a condition that is not well understood yet," says Dr Fasano. Untreated, people may wind up in a nursing home, or die from complications. "That's what we don't want to see, people just dismissed," he says.
Mr Searle first heard about NPH when he saw a specialist to treat migraine headaches in 2003. An MRI revealed some fluid in his brain's ventricles, but because he had none of the telltale symptoms, he was not diagnosed.
In 2014, after several years of experiencing symptoms like memory loss and mobility difficulty, doctors did a lumbar puncture to drain some fluid from his brain to see if his symptoms improved, a common test for NPH.
Because Mr Searle's symptoms did not improve, his doctors determined NPH must not be the culprit.
Eight years after 2010, when he first noticed the mobility issues and with his health rapidly deteriorating, he met Dr Fasano and agreed to try the test again.
This time, his wife Barbara noticed small improvements - so small that even her husband did not notice them.
"He wouldn't believe it," she said. "It was almost like 'if I believe it and they're wrong, it will be too big a disappointment.'"
Dr Fasano suggested they insert a shunt into his brain to drain the fluid, the front-line treatment for NPH, with a high success rate according to recent studies.
Shunt surgery can have serious complications and is not recommended for everyone with the condition.
More than a year later, and Mr Searle says he is beginning to get his life back. His gait has improved as well as his memory. He regularly works out with a personal trainer at the gym and goes on walks to help build his strength back up.
"The operation is only 50% of it, the rest is your mindset," he says.
Although he still does not have his drivers licence, Mr Searle and his wife have started to travel again. They went to Florida last winter, and they're planning trips to Las Vegas and Jamaica.
Barbara says the biggest change is her husband's mood:
"The apathy that plagued him is gone. He's his cheery self again."
Dr Fasano says since Mr Searle's story was shared with the media, the clinic has been overwhelmed with requests from patients who believe they have been misdiagnosed and have NPH.
Although misdiagnosis of NPH is a very real problem, Dr Fasano warns that most people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's have the correct diagnosis - especially if they've been seen by a neurologist.
Up to 3% of the population over the age of 65 may have NPH, according to a recent study from Japan. The World Health Organisation estimates dementia, including Alzheimer's, affects between 5-8% of the population over 60.
"This is a disease that is probably more common than we think it is, and this is a disease that can be treated very well, with a huge dramatic change of quality of life for these people," says the doctor.
"At the same time, people are now believing that if they have Parkinson's, they were misdiagnosed.
"They all hope the doctor was wrong."
|
Yogi Adityanath has dominated headlines in India since his appointment as leader of the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. A saffron-robed Hindu priest, he is a highly controversial figure who is loved and hated in equal measure, as the BBC's Geeta Pandey reports. | At the weekend, Yogi, as he is widely known, returned to a hero's welcome to the temple town of Gorakhpur for the first time since he was sworn in as chief minister on 19 March.
Overnight, the town turned saffron, the colour of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). All roads leading to Gorakhnath temple were decorated with party flags, marigold flowers and orange balloons.
The smiling new leader, 44, looked down from massive hoardings and posters on buildings, and mannequins outside shops even sported bright saffron outfits.
At a college run by the temple, thousands of people waited for hours to see him. Speakers praised his vision and leadership. "Some people walk in others' footsteps, some make footsteps for others to walk in," said one.
A brilliant orator, Yogi Adityanath has been elected MP for Gorakhpur five times since 1998 and the crowds there worship him. Many tell me he's a "reincarnation of the gods, a God himself".
But he is also a very controversial leader who has often been in the news for the wrong reasons. Critics describe him as India's most divisive and abusive politician who used his election rallies to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria.
And some of the statements attributed to him - and his supporters - have been widely condemned.
He accused Muslim men of indulging in a "love jihad" to seduce Hindu women and convert them, he claimed that Mother Teresa wanted to Christianise India, he called for a Donald Trump-style travel ban on Muslims in India and compared Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to Pakistan-based militant Hafiz Saeed.
At one point, he shared a stage with a supporter who said that when Yogi Adityanath came to power, Muslims would no longer have the right to vote and that supporters would rape dead Muslim women.
His campaign promises included "anti-Romeo squads" to "prevent harassment of Hindu women" and he listed protecting cows and shutting down illegal slaughterhouses as his top priorities.
Religious Hindus revere cows and slaughtering them is illegal in large parts of India, including Uttar Pradesh. In 2015, a Muslim man was lynched by a Hindu mob which alleged that he had stored beef at home.
Yogi Adityanath also faces criminal charges. He has been accused of attempted murder, criminal intimidation and rioting in relation to a clash that took place in 1999. And in 2007, he spent 11 days in jail for making inflammatory speeches.
No wonder then that his surprise elevation has alarmed many in India and around the world, with many expressing concerns that the state's 40 million Muslims will not have an easy time under his watch.
In an editorial, The Guardian called it a "victory for anti-Muslim bigotry" and the New York Times said Mr Modi was trying to "humour Hindu extremists". The paper called the move "a shocking rebuke to religious minorities".
Respected Indian columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta called it an "odious and ominous" development.
Why Uttar Pradesh (UP) matters
And the negative publicity has continued since he became chief minister. The "anti-Romeo squads" have been accused of harassing and intimidating courting couples in cities and towns, and the authorities have been criticised for forcing abattoirs to shut down, mostly on flimsy grounds.
The press in Gorakhpur, however, has been more complimentary, revelling in the "grand victory" of their hero.
"Local newspapers are writing in great detail about his amazing memory skills, they say he can remember names of thousands of people. Some are talking about how he communicates directly with his 500 cows, monkeys, dogs and birds," says senior Gorakhpur journalist Kumar Harsh.
"For people here, he's a celebrity. He's the chief priest and head of the temple management, which also runs a hospital and colleges. He is very hardworking and is immensely popular with the people," he adds.
The son of a forest ranger, Yogi Adityanath was born in 1972 in Garhwal (which was then in Uttar Pradesh but is now in Uttarakhand state) and was named Ajay Singh Bisht.
A maths graduate, he moved to Gorakhpur in November 1993 and three months later was appointed heir to Mahant Avaidyanath, the temple's chief priest and an influential Hindu politician. A vegetarian, he has taken a vow of lifelong celibacy.
Dwarika Tiwari is his deputy at the temple and has worked closely with him since his arrival in Gorakhpur.
"He's very intelligent, bright and hard-working, he's efficient, he respects everyone whatever their caste, creed or religion, he respects women and loves children."
Mr Tiwari concedes he has weaknesses - a tendency for plain speaking and a quick temper.
When I point out the anti-Muslim statements during the campaign, the criminal charges and the fact that he was briefly jailed, Mr Tiwari brushes them aside as "malicious propaganda" and "conspiracy" from his political rivals.
"Muslims respect him equally. They also come to us to resolve their disputes," he says.
Just outside the temple gates, Muslim shopkeepers insist they are not unduly worried over the appointment.
Cloth merchant Feroz Ahmad says he, in fact, voted for the BJP and now hopes that Yogi Adityanath will bring much-needed development to this backward town.
I ask him what he makes of his rabble-rousing, anti-Muslim statements.
"All politicians say such things to win elections," he says. "Some of his supporters are troublemakers who do wrong things. But now that he's in power, it will all stop."
So can it all be dismissed as mere rhetoric, something he indulged in just to win the election?
Sharat Pradhan, senior journalist in the state capital, Lucknow, says "ever since he's been named chief minister, he's been conducting himself very responsibly".
"In his first days in power, he's been careful. He's shown a lot of restraint. He's trying to be inclusive, he's even inducted a Muslim into his cabinet."
He has also been trying an image makeover - paying a surprise visit to a police station one day, visiting an acid attack victim in hospital the next. He has also refrained from commenting on the contentious issue of the Ram temple in Ayodhya despite it being promised in the BJP election manifesto.
"But the worry is with the fringe elements among his supporters. With his rabble rousing, he's freed the genie from the bottle, now the question is can he control it?" asks Mr Pradhan.
That is precisely what Yogi Adityanath attempted to do when he took the stage in Gorakhpur at the weekend, appealing to his boisterous supporters to behave.
"The prime minister has given me a huge responsibility, to ensure that development reaches the last man. I assure you no-one will be ignored, irrespective of their caste, creed or religion," he said. "And I need your help to succeed."
Success, Mr Pradhan says, will depend on whether he can ensure the first six months of his rule are trouble-free. Then he can build his future.
"At present Mr Modi is number one in the party, the others are number nine. There's no-one in between. Yogi Adityanath can be number two.
"He's young. Age is on his side. By the time he turns 60, Mr Modi will be 80. And he will be ready to take him on. He's the BJP's tomorrow."
|
It's a week dominated by three long days of detailed debate on the Brexit bill. | Mark D'ArcyParliamentary correspondent
And (see my previous post) the government whips may come under rather more pressure than they did in notching up their imposing majority on second reading.
At committee stage, MPs can push detailed issues without opposing the bill outright, and a number of themes have surfaced.
Top of the list: the status of EU Nationals resident in Britain, and the linked issue of the status of Brits resident in the EU - these are people whose lives have been thrown into uncertainty, will they be able to stay? Will they need to seek citizenship? And plenty have been turning up at their MPs' surgeries to ask for answers.
The government has said it wants rapid agreement to sort the issue out, but there is pressure for the UK to make a unilateral offer to EU residents here, even if that sacrifices leverage over EU states later.
The lead amendment on this issue may well be the one offered by the Joint Committee on Human Rights - select committees are mucking into legislation more often these days - and its chair, Labour's Harriet Harman, who argues that it is simply wrong to treat people as "bargaining chips".
Ministers retort they will have no comeback if a handful of EU states do get tough on their British expats, and plan to resist; but this is the kind of amendment that could, conceivably, attract Conservative MPs - and no amendment gets through without some Tory support.
One Tory dissident who has broken cover is Neil Carmichael, the chair of the Education Committee, and a long standing pro-EU campaigner. He's minded to support amendments to give MPs a "meaningful vote" on the Brexit deal with the EU, so that they are not merely rubber-stamping a done deal, already signed, sealed and delivered.
This issue should come up on Tuesday afternoon - and there are several variations on this theme proposed by various pro-EU Labour MPs, like Chris Leslie's New Clause 110 requiring that MPs should vote on the deal before the European Parliament, and Pat McFadden's proposal for a meaningful vote at the end of the process.
The SNP have a proposal that the process should "reset" at the end of two years, and that the UK should default back to full EU membership, if no deal has been reached, arguing that the alternative is pitching UK industry into the position of trading with the EU on the (less favourable) World Trade Organisation terms with little warning.
For any of the above, or any of the myriad of other amendments to succeed, they will need to attract the votes of around 10 Conservative MPs, even if they can corral all the other Opposition parties.
Bear in mind that two Labour seats are vacant (Stoke Central and Copeland) and that a number of Labour MPs have been absent, ill, at various points. Some Conservatives in strongly remain constituencies may feel a little light rebellion on a specific point is a necessary gesture to their voters, and it will be interesting to see how far, if at all, the party whips are prepared to indulge them.
But if there are signs that a number are prepared to stray off-piste, the Northern Ireland DUP may find itself enjoying the courtship of ministers and promises of their favour.
Other events this week rather pale in comparison. But watch out for the government's promised Housing white paper - a major policy statement that, on another week, would grab a share of the headlines. The chatter is that it will be published early in the week - and you'd normally expect a statement in the House from the Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid. (It won't eat into the time allocation for the Brexit bill - MPs would just sit for longer, if a statement is added to the agenda.)
And on Thursday afternoon, watch out for the Culture Media and Sport Committee's innovative attempt to nudge the government into legislating to reform the FA.
Quite a number of MPs have constituency concerns about the governance of their local clubs and many are frustrated by the FA's ability to police the sport. As noted above, the committees are increasingly encroaching on legislation... but this is the first example I can think of, where they have attempted to use a backbench motion to goad ministers into action.
Here's my rundown of the week ahead...
Monday
The Commons opens (2.30pm) with Education questions. Any post-weekend ministerial statements or urgent questions will normally follow at 3.30pm - and that may or may not include the Housing white paper (see above).
Then the committee stage of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill begins.
Seven hours of debate are scheduled from the moment it starts. The first four are on new clauses on parliamentary scrutiny of the process for the UK withdrawal. The hit list includes Labour Brexit spokesperson Keir Starmer's new clause 3 (NC3) requiring periodic reports to the House; former Labour Leadership contender Owen Smith's NC56 on approving the government's newly published white paper on Brexit, and a series of new clauses calling for reports on the specific arrangements proposed for the UK membership of European agencies like EUROPOL and EURATOM.
Then there's three hours on new clauses relating to devolved administrations or legislatures - there the SNP and Plaid Cymru have quite a few amendments - and the key one looks to be that "the Prime Minister may not exercise the power under section 1(1) until at least one month after all members of the Joint Ministerial Committee on European Negotiation have agreed a UK wide approach to, and objectives for, the UK's negotiations for withdrawal from the EU."
There's also an SNP call for the devolved administrations to have direct representation in the withdrawal talks.
Plaid Cymru, along with the Lib Dems Welsh MP Mark Williams and the Greens' Caroline Lucas, call for a report on funding for Wales. The aim is to see if the Leave campaign promise that EU funding levels would be maintained is being kept.
Labour has a proposal that the government "must consult, and take into account the views of, a Joint Ministerial Committee (of the devolved governments) at intervals of no less than two months, and before signing any agreements with the European Commission."
The adjournment debate is on HS2 in Yorkshire - Ed Miliband is calling for plans which involve demolishing 200 homes in a housing estate in his Doncaster North constituency to make way for the HS2 line to be scrapped. Expect an increasing number of debates about the routing of the next stages of the line.
In Westminster Hall (at 4.30pm) there's a debate on E-petition 165905: "The Conservatives pledged to shut down the UK's domestic ivory market in their manifesto for the past two elections. 30,000 African Elephants are slaughtered a year for their tusks yet, the government has still not outlawed the trade. From 2009 to 2014, 40% of UK customs seizures were ivory items"
The petition attracted 106,283 signatures.
My committee corridor pick is the Work and Pension hearing (3.45pm) on self-employment and the gig economy, where the witnesses include an Uber driver, a courier and entrepreneurs.
In the Lords (from 2.30pm) the main event is more detailed scrutiny of the Digital Economy Bill, covering digital government, data sharing for public benefit and the role of Ofcom. The dinner break debate is on the impact of Brexit on the transport sector in the UK.
And to the Moses Room (the Lords equivalent of Westminster Hal) - where the committee stage of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill continues. The day's debate will cover flooding, carbon compliance standards for new homes, saving pubs, sanctions on developers for project completion failure.
The Commons opens with Health questions (from 11.30am) and then the Labour MP Holly Lynch has a Ten Minute Rule Bill to bring in tougher sentences for assaults on Emergency Service Staff - and including requiring blood tests for people who spit on them, risking infecting them with various diseases.
Then it's on to day 2 of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill committee stage. The first four hours will be devoted to new clauses on a vote on the final terms for withdrawal. These include Keir Starmer on a requirement for a vote at the end of the two year negotiating period, and (I expect) the SNP proposal that the UK defaults back to full EU membership if no deal has been reached.
The indefatigable Chris Leslie (one of the most enthusiastic proposers of amendments) has a proposal to allow the government extra time - and if there is any amendment from the pro-Brexit camp it will be a counter-measure to rule out precisely that.
There are also separate amendments from Labour remainers and the Lib Dems calling for referendums on the final deal. These may be ruled out because they have financial implications - but it is interesting that the two camps can't get together on this issue; there's no love lost, apparently.
This section of the debate is followed by a further three hours on a galaxy of proposals for impact assessments on all manner of issues raised by Brexit.
In Westminster Hall, my eye was caught by Plaid's Liz Saville Roberts' debate (4.30pm-5.30pm) on recruitment of under-18s into the armed forces....interestingly the debate may well be answered by the Armed Forces Minister, Mike Penning, the first "other rank" to hold that post.
He enlisted as a Grenadier Guardsman after leaving school, and went on to serve several tours in Northern Ireland.
My committee pick is the Health Committee hearing (2.30pm) to follow up its childhood obesity inquiry. That inquiry was crucial into pushing the government into supporting a tax on sugary drinks. The witnesses include Jon Woods, the General Manager for Coca-Cola and the Health Minister Nicola Blackwood.
In the Lords (from 2.30pm), peers will approve the order setting up the new West of England Combined Authority before moving on to the report stage of the Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill - there will be a vote on an amendment dealing with patients' access to new and innovative medicines and support for the life sciences industry.
And there may be another on thresholds for information requirements from pharmaceutical and medical supplies companies. There will also be a short debate on the report from the EU Committee on Brexit: future UK-EU security and police co-operation.
MPs warm up for the final day on the Brexit bill with questions to the Cabinet Office and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (from 11.30am). Then, at noon, comes Prime Minister's Question Time.
Plaid Cymru's Liz Saville Roberts has a Ten Minute Rule Bill on sexual offences - among other things she's concerned about the circumstances in which the sexual history of a victim of rape can be introduced in trial - amid concern that rape victims will be reluctant to come forward in light of the evidence used in cases such as the Ched Evans appeal.
Then it's back to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, and the third day of committee stage consideration, which will deal with new clauses and new schedules relating on priorities in the Brexit negotiations plus any leftovers. The lead amendment will probably Keir Starmer's NC2, which requires that the negotiations should have regard to considerations like a stable economy, the Northern Ireland peace process, tariff free trade, etc.
Chris Leslie pops up again, calling for tariff free trade, and the Environmental Audit Committee chair, Mary Creagh has an amendment on environmental issues.
This looks like the probably moment for the Harriet Harman amendment (see above) on the status of EU nationals in Britain and UK expats in the EU. The Lib Dems propose a requirement that the bill could only come into force after approval of a report on withdrawal, and its impact on EU citizens living in the UK and on UK citizens in the EU. (I'm not sure if this would be in the process section of the debate, on Tuesday, or if it would slot in here - assuming it is called at all.)
After five hours, MPs will move on to the third reading of the bill - where there will be two hours of debate - and, I expect, another thumping majority.
In Westminster Hall debate (9.30am- 11am) the Conservative former minister, John Penrose, has a debate on low cost housing - with the government about to publish its long awaited Housing white paper (it may have been postponed while the Article 50 Bill dominates the news) and Mr Penrose wants it to include a provision to change planning laws to make it easier to build 'Up Not Out' in urban areas.
He argues that this will attract new investment, help regenerate town centres and bring fresh life to High Streets by allowing owners to build up to the level of other buildings in the same block (or the height of nearby trees if that's taller) without needing planning permission. He believes this would mean homes would become more affordable breaking the "stranglehold" of large housebuilding firms on new homes that are building, and, by releasing lots of over-looked town and city-centre building sites, it will reduce urban sprawl.
Later on (4.30pm-5.30pm) the Conservative Richard Benyon leads a debate on private renting solutions for homeless and vulnerable people - what can be done to incentivise private landlords to take on tenants who are previously homeless along with ensuring there are good preventive measures to stop someone becoming homeless after being evicted from rented home.
A notable statistic is that the majority of people who are homeless/rough sleepers were previously in the private rented sector.
On the committee corridor, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (which includes MPs and peers) has a hearing on Human Rights and Business (3.15pm) with the Small Business Minister, Margot James; Sarah Newton, the Home Office minister for Vulnerability, Safeguarding and Countering Extremism, plus Baroness Anelay, minister for the Commonwealth and the UN; and Sir Oliver Heald, minister for Courts and Justice.
And for the real aficionados, the Commons Procedure Committee (1.45pm) has a hearing with the Brexit Secretary, David Davis, looking at the issue of delegated powers in the Great Repeal Bill - this is about whether the government will end up with massive powers to change laws inherited from the EU via a streamlined procedure which would involve one-off votes un un-amendable motions - something some parliamentarians fear could amount to government by decree across huge areas of regulation and legislation.
In the Lords (3pm) there's more detail on the Digital Economy Bill - covering the BBC Charter and license fee, Ofcom, ticket touting and appeals.
It's the morning after the three days before, as MPs gather at 9.30am for Culture, Media and Sport questions, followed by International Trade questions.
The weekly Business Statement from the Leader of the House will set out the Commons agenda when MPs return from their half-term, and then it's on to Backbench Business.
First up is a debate on Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories - on a motion calling for a halt to illegal settlements.
The second debate is an unusual one - the Culture Media and Sport Committee are backing a motion calling for the government to legislate to reform the FA. The committee has held several inquiries into football governance and they believe the FA can't reform itself, and that the scale of public concern about the running of the sport, and particularly the failure to tackle rogue club owners, justifies intervention; and they have even drafted a bill to show how it could be done.
In Westminster Hall (1.30pm) MPs will debate the Science and Technology Committee report, Evidence Check: Smart metering of electricity and gas, HC 161, and the government response to it. The report examined claims that the meters will save money for consumers and concluded it could cut consumption levels by 2-3%.
The committee also looked at claims that they would produce national benefits in terms of optimising electricity generation and storage, and paving the way for smart charging of electric vehicles - and during the debate, committee members will be pushing the minister for more information on those national benefits.
In the Lords (11am) look out for the first reading of the Brexit bill - this is just the formal announcement that it has arrived at the Lords end of Parliament, but might provoke some show of wailing and rending of garments from pro-EU peers.
The actual debating starts immediately after half term, with the second reading debate on Monday 20 February. So far, 96 peers have put their names down to speak - which may mean an early start for day two of the debate on Tuesday 21.
The actual business for the day is the Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill - a measure so uncontroversial it is being fast-tracked through all its stages. There's also a debate from the EU Select Committee on Brexit: financial services.
Neither House sits on Friday.
|
Australia is to send its asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea where those found to be refugees will be resettled. But, reports Jo Chandler, the policy shift has sparked concern and some anger in the new host nation. | Effrey Dademo is a lawyer, activist and unblinkered critic of the unhappier goings-on in her homeland of Papua New Guinea. Five years ago she stuck her neck out to expose them by founding the influential online lobby community ActNOW!, its mission to "build a better PNG".
She is also a proud citizen, cherishing her country's vibrant traditions - it has more than 800 languages - and defending its wild, resource-rich landscapes from (mostly) foreign land-grabbers. Like many of her country-folk, she is disturbed - and deeply offended - by the implications of Australia's new hard-line asylum-seekers strategy.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's "PNG Solution", unveiled on 19 July, aimed to defuse a defining domestic political crisis ahead of the national election, now called for 7 September. Effective immediately, the strategy sets out to deter asylum seekers from boarding boats to Australia by promising them a new life in PNG instead - a fate worse than staying at home, apparently.
All genuine refugees identified in the next 12 months - most of them passing through PNG's expanded Manus Island processing facility - would be resettled in PNG at Australia's expense, Mr Rudd told Australian voters.
PNG's Prime Minister Peter O'Neill has been more equivocal in explaining the deal to his riled constituency in recent days. Nothing, he insists, is "written in stone", and terms would be adapted as needs be to protect PNG interests.
Ms Dademo is appalled at the commentary that Australia's "rude and discourteous" tactic has unleashed in the international media - "labelling this country as a 'hellhole', 'crime-ridden', 'impoverished' - it is simply not true".
PNG's frenetic and fiercely patriotic social media commentators were preoccupied for days debating "impoverishment" - by whose values was it measured; what account did it take of connections to clan, land, tradition?
Nonetheless the material poverty which the majority of Papua New Guinea's seven million-plus people endure is explicit. A paper published by the Lowy Institute in 2009 estimated that about one million people live in extreme poverty, on less than $50 (£32) a year, with limited or no access to cash income, health and education services, markets, transport and food security.
Many more have insufficient or poor services. Some 85% live in rural and remote villages, surviving on their gardens; an increasing number occupy crowded urban settlements - many internally displaced by tribal or domestic violence, with no state welfare to support them.
The health system is woeful and impossibly burdened by epidemic tuberculosis. The maternal death rate - 733 per 100,000 births - is among the highest in the world.
Roads are few and decayed; classrooms are crowded; traditional social safeguards are eroded by rollercoaster social change, and law and justice systems are too weak to stem the consequent violence. Even employed people - teachers, health workers, civil servants - struggle to find habitable housing.
"If we don't consider the already fragile state of things in-country, we're setting ourselves for disaster - although in this case, I think Australia has set us up for disaster," says Ms Dademo.
"Where do these people [refugees] live?" she asks. "Our PM was definitely sleeping when Timor-Leste rejected [former Prime Minister Julia] Gillard's use of them as the regional solution a while back. They were right. There was no proper consultation."
'Questionable handling'
The themes she identifies - lack of courtesy, of capacity and of consultation - resonate as the key concerns of opinion leaders and citizens caught up in the national conversation on the issue.
"We are an open, accepting and largely decent society and resent the suggestion that a sojourn here is something which should be portrayed as dangerous," says Lawrence Stephens, the chair of Transparency International PNG, and like Ms Dademo an activist with few illusions about PNG's problems.
Legality is another concern. A PNG opposition effort to challenge the Manus Island facility in the Supreme Court - arguing it violates a constitutional guarantee of personal liberty - stalled on a technicality but is likely to be upheld, says lawyer and prominent political commentator Deni ToKunai.
Mr O'Neill has signalled that parliament will amend the constitution to allow the deal - the latest in a series of amendments that have effectively fortified the O'Neill leadership with more than four years left to run, Mr ToKunai says.
"He's really been very smart about the whole thing… it's 90% impossible for a vote of no confidence to be put against him." Meanwhile MPs "are being bombarded about this - people are writing to them, asking what the hell is going on".
The PNG Catholic Bishops - who have the largest congregations in the 96% Christian nation - have issued a joint statement condemning the plan as "unwise" and warning that PNG has been enlisted as "an accomplice in a very questionable handling of a human tragedy".
"While Papua New Guineans are not lacking in compassion for those in need, this country [unlike Australia which is a stable and thriving nation of immigrants] does not have the capacity at this time in its history to welcome a sizeable influx of refugees and provide for their immediate needs and a reasonable hope for a new and prosperous beginning."
Last Friday several hundred university students were turned back by armed police when they attempted to march on the Australian High Commission to protest against the deal - despite one of the sweeteners from Canberra being a windfall to reform higher education. Student leaders say it undermines PNG's sovereignty. They now hope to get a permit to regroup and rally churches and civil society groups to join them.
'Immense pressure'
Despite both the PNG national newspapers appearing to have lost interest in the topic, Mr ToKunai describes a kind of slow-burn hysteria building around the deal - "everyone is talking about it".
Inflaming the situation was confusion over the discrepancies between what was being said in Australia and PNG. Australian reports say the number of refugees to be settled is uncapped - and "but that's not what we're hearing here from our prime minister".
"On both sides of Torres Strait it is a really big issue, and our government has been under an immense amount of pressure," says Mr ToKunai. "I can't see PNG accepting more than 3,000 in total to be resettled. We may accept more than that to be processed [on Manus Island], but that is only a temporary issue."
Another festering sensitivity relates to the more than 9,000 West Papuan refugees living in PNG, many of them for more than 30 years, who are unable to access citizenship and many services or work legally .
The notion that a new intake of foreign refugees would get better treatment - because the Australian government is bankrolling their requirements under international law - than their long-suffering Melanesian brothers and sisters would distress many Papua New Guineans, Mr ToKunai says.
"Very few people have found out about that yet. And when they do, they will think it is very unfair."
Jo Chandler is an award-winning freelance journalist with more than 20 years experience at The Age newspaper in Melbourne. She has travelled extensively in Papua New Guinea.
|
On 31 August 1994, the IRA called its first ceasefire - the beginning of the end of a violent campaign that had already stretched into its third decade. By October that year loyalist paramilitaries had followed suit. Brian Rowan was a BBC NI correspondent at the time and 25 years on, he asks how much progress has been made? | By Brian RowanAuthor and former BBC NI security correspondent
When we first read the ceasefire statements in 1994, could we have predicted the political and legacy wars of today - the latter being the long fight for the truth about the years of conflict?
Add to this the battle that is Brexit.
In the hope of 1994, is this what we expected?
Twenty-five years later, the political landscape and conversations are changing - and the ceasefires are but a moment in history.
With the wisdom of hindsight, we know they were the beginnings of an imperfect peace - not an end.
There were other phases of murder; new threats posed by the many and various types of dissident IRA. Those threats have again been evident in recent times.
The current security and intelligence assessment is that all of the organisations that were part of the conflict or "Troubles" period continue to exist in some shape or form; some more obvious than others.
They did not disappear in the peace.
The ceasefire statements of 1994 seemed to offer so much more - firstly, in August, the IRA declared a "complete cessation of military operations".
Then, in October, the response came from the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC), an umbrella group for loyalist paramilitaries, which included the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Red Hand Commando. At a news conference in Belfast, the former UVF leader Gusty Spence read a statement saying that they would cease "all operational hostilities".
After the slaughter of two-and-a-half decades, which had claimed more than 3,500 lives, at last there was a moment to dream and to hope.
Working then as a BBC correspondent, I was called to a meeting on the morning of 31 August, where a woman read this IRA statement to me.
And, the night before the announcement by the CLMC, I met senior loyalists and was given a statement by the former UVF leader Gusty Spence pointing to an "unprecedented press conference" the following morning. The stage was being set for a new day.
Now, to mark the 25th anniversary of those ceasefires, I have conducted a range of interviews; assessing the worth of 1994 through the lens of 2019.
'The war was over'
Jake Mac Siacais - son-in-law of the late IRA leader Brian Keenan - was twice jailed in the period spanning the mid-1970s through to the early 1980s.
Inside the Maze Prison in 1981, he wrote and delivered the oration for the hunger striker Bobby Sands; reading it from a cell he shared at that time with the IRA jail leader Brendan McFarlane.
Today, Mac Siacais is a prominent figure in the Irish language community and director of a project developing the Gaeltacht Quarter in Belfast.
He has deep background knowledge of the internal republican debate which led to the IRA ceasefire.
Looking back, he says that a different approach should have been taken by republicans: "The war was over and we should have said the war was over."
The former prisoner also believes that the IRA leadership should have given an order for its arms to be "permanently dumped".
He means that the weapons should have been buried by the IRA itself and not subjected to a protracted negotiation over decommissioning in which an international commission supervised the arms being put beyond use.
The IRA became a bargaining chip in those decommissioning arguments and in the post-Good Friday Agreement manoeuvres for a new government at Stormont.
The Mac Siacais argument will be viewed as a narrow republican one. Any political agreement was always going to include the demand for illegal weapons to be destroyed.
Irish identity
In the here-and-now, politics has moved beyond the decommissioning issue, but there are new arguments which brought about the collapse of the power-sharing government at Stormont in January 2017.
Those disputes, including the demand for an Irish language act, still divide the big two parties - the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin.
I asked Mac Siacais if there could be a restoration of the political institutions without such an act? "Well, of course there can be, but there shouldn't be," he replied.
He added: "It isn't about an Irish language act. It's about the ability or inability of unionists and the northern state to recognise or make explicit the recognition of the legitimacy of an Irish identity, which, when we think of it, was at the heart of the entire conflict."
Is the union safe?
Retired Church of Ireland Archbishop Lord Eames played a key background role in the events that led to the loyalist ceasefire announcement, including speaking to then Prime Minister John Major and Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.
Loyalists had given the churchman a set of conditions which, if met, would allow their ceasefire to be announced first. This is the document - not published at the time, but obtained later.
Events on the ground - the targeting and killing of prominent loyalists - meant the initiative was derailed. When the ceasefire was eventually announced, it was delivered in the firm belief that the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland was safe.
'Danger signs'
Twenty-five years on, Lord Eames believes that the looming prospect of Brexit is changing dynamics across the islands and old certainties are being eroded.
Surveying today's bleak political landscape, he told me: "I'm praying that the spirit of the ceasefire days could possibly infiltrate political life today."
I asked him if the union was still safe in 2019. "I would like to say it is, but I believe that there are danger signs which I think we all need to be conscious of."
The frame of the political debate in Northern Ireland is widening. No longer is it just about devolution at Stormont or direct rule from Westminster, but what a "new Ireland" might look like and how it might embrace unionists.
Lord Eames said: "New thinking is welcome. You don't have to surrender your principles or the principles you have been brought up on to simply grasp new ideas.
"I'd like to know a bit more about what is meant by the 'new Ireland', but I can see possibilities."
Legacy war
A decade ago in 2009, Lord Eames helped to produce the first report aimed at establishing a process to address the questions from the conflict period.
His team proposed the setting up of a Legacy Commission and, most controversially, a £12,000 payment to the relatives of all those killed in the conflict.
But 10 years on, the waiting for such a process continues and we are watching a legacy war - a fight for the past in which the trenches are being dug deeper.
The Stormont House Agreement of 2014, which included proposals for a new Historical Investigations Unit (HIU), has resulted in further disagreement.
Truth recovery
Tommy Quigley watches the debate around legacy with keen interest.
He is a former IRA life sentence prisoner who is still on licence following his release.
His brother Jimmy, who was also an IRA member, was shot dead by the Army in Belfast in 1972. The Quigley family is still searching for answers about the circumstances of the killing.
Tommy Quigley believes that a legacy process is needed where people are willing to come forward - and that can only happen with an amnesty.
"I don't see why anyone from any background would come forward and give evidence or give information if they thought they were going to be prosecuted, or even if there was a chance that they were going to be prosecuted," he said.
Disappearing knowledge
In the waiting for some resolution of the past, memory is dying out.
The IRA leaders Martin McGuinness, Brian Keenan and Kevin McKenna are no longer with us.
Nor are the unionist leaders of the ceasefire period - James Molyneaux and Ian Paisley.
Some who played key interlocutor roles, including the priest Father Alec Reid, the Presbyterian minister the Rev Roy Magee and businessman Brendan Duddy, who for decades was a back channel link between the British Government and the IRA leadership, are dead.
So too the taoiseach (Irish prime minister) in the ceasefire period Albert Reynolds and the then Northern Ireland Secretary of State Sir Patrick Mayhew.
Four of the seven men who sat at the top table when the loyalist ceasefire was announced - Gusty Spence, Jim McDonald, David Ervine and William 'Plum' Smith are dead.
Information, knowledge, memory - all now lie buried in the peace.
The widows
Ervine and Smith were themselves both former prisoners, who went on to play key roles in persuading the paramilitaries to call a ceasefire and to allow their representatives to enter the negotiations that brought about the Good Friday Agreement.
I have been speaking to their widows Jeanette Ervine and Liz Smith about the past and how it fits into the present; specifically about historical investigations continuing 25 years after the ceasefires.
Jeanette Ervine said: "I can feel for the victims of the Troubles, but I don't think that bringing somebody back to prison is going to do any good.
"These people are already hurting and I don't think that will salve that."
She added: "That was part of the Good Friday Agreement - the prisoners would be released...there wasn't a clause to say when they're 60 or 70-years-old we're going to come back and convict them and put them back in there for end of their day."
Ed Spence, nephew of Gusty Spence, who read the loyalist ceasefire statement in 1994, said that the late UVF leader would be very saddened at the lack of progress since.
He said his uncle saw the ceasefires as "the start of the finish of the war".
"25 years on, we are still at it," said Ed Spence.
An unfinished peace
The ceasefires of 1994 seem such a long time ago. They changed this place. Many lives were saved.
Every day, the so-called peace walls are visited and photographed. They are a statement of continuing division and a reminder of an unfinished peace. The scars of conflict are an open wound.
Politics has not been able to cement its place in the peace. There is no certainty about the future of Stormont and seemingly endless political negotiations continue.
It is much easier to analyse the past than to predict the future. Where will we be 25 years from now?
|
The increasing power of social media, where outrage easily gathers pace, is forcing Indian brands to reckon with a new challenge: the politics of hate. BBC's Nikhil Inamdar and Aparna Alluri report. | Indian CEO Rajiv Bajaj made headlines earlier this month when he said his company would no longer advertise on media outlets that were a source of "hate-mongering" or "toxicity".
Mr Bajaj - who runs Bajaj Auto, India's biggest motorcycle manufacturer - was speaking to CNBC-TV18 in the wake of a police investigation into three TV news channels who were accused of manipulating ratings and spreading fake news.
Reports said Mr Bajaj's company had blacklisted three TV news channels, though he has not named any publicly.
Days later, Parle-G, India's biggest biscuit maker, said it had decided not to advertise on channels that "broadcast toxic content". A senior executive said they were looking to send "a clear signal to all the news channels that they better change their content".
These brands are household names. It is something of a surprise they have chosen to speak up - Indian companies typically shy away from public stances, unlike in the West where big businesses have recently come out in support of progressive causes like LGBTQ rights, or spoken out against hate speech and racism.
But Indian brands may soon have to start rethinking this strategy.
In recent months, ratings for a section of TV news media soared amid the frenzied coverage that followed the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. But they also drew flak for their shrill, sensationalist and often defamatory reporting - from accusing Rajput's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty of driving him to suicide to airing images of his body to speculating on wild theories about the couple's personal lives.
Much of this coverage was spurred by troubling Twitter trends and trolls, which led to a backlash.
"We've taken cognisance of this issue, and periodically review our media plan," the marketing head of another top auto manufacturer told the BBC. "This is a turning point and budgets are anyways being redirected from traditional media towards digital platforms."
Other consumer brands, such as dairy giant Amul, which spends 40-50% of its advertising budget on news channels, and grocery chain owner Future Group have said they are worried about the growing negativity and aggression on some platforms.
Ad expenditure on news channels has dipped in recent years, partly due to an economic slowdown. But experts say increasing concern over "brand safety" is also a reason.
"Brands just don't want to be seen sponsoring, or even tacitly condoning, content that their consumers might find abhorrent," says veteran media consultant Paritosh Joshi. "But this isn't an altruistic or socially enlightened view. It's purely a business decision. Brands want to be known by the company they keep."
Growing activism by media watchdogs like Newslaundry, who've sought to hold brands accountable for funding vitriolic content, has played a part too, Mr Joshi adds.
"For toxic news to be shown the door, advertisers have to take a stand - spend by principle, spend on principle," says Suparna Singh, senior executive at news broadcaster NDTV.
But actively supporting certain causes or ideas rather than just denouncing others is far trickier, Mr Joshi says.
So while October began with leading companies seemingly taking a stand against toxic trends, it ended on quite the opposite note.
A touching 43-second ad, showing a Muslim family throwing a baby shower for their Hindu daughter-in-law, sparked a rightwing backlash that was shockingly swift and effective - Tanishq, the prominent jewellery brand withdrew their ad, citing staff safety and "hurt sentiments".
Tanishq executives declined to be interviewed by the BBC, but the trolling included physical threats and the names of some of the company's employees were circulated online.
"I didn't expect that the employees would get trolled or get threats," says Azaz Ul Haque, chief creative officer at the ad firm Mullen Lintas and a former employee of Tanishq's parent company, Titan. "When you start threatening a company as big as the Tatas… That was pretty surprising."
Tanishq is owned by the Tata group, one of India's biggest conglomerates, and many had expected them to brave the storm.
But the trolls summoned the bogey of "love jihad", a popular rightwing conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of seducing Hindu women to convert them.
"Nothing works as well for Hindu nationalism as love jihad. If there are two things they care deeply about - it's to keep Muslims down and control women," says author Snigdha Poonam, who has written extensively on what drives young, polarised Indians.
But she also cautions against believing this is necessarily the majority view: "There's only a section that's going online and it's those voices that we are seeing amplified and validated by the top leadership."
As examples, many point to the polarising, even anti-Muslim, rhetoric that has become the new normal, often echoed by members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata party.
"The events are different, the triggers are different, the patterns are the same," Ms Poonam says.
To be fair, the Tanishq ad also got a lot of support - ad associations said there was a need to strengthen and safeguard the fundamental right to express and several people on and off social media vowed to buy jewellery from the brand as a show of solidarity.
"The love on social media has been more than the hate," Amit Akali, who made the ad, said in a recent interview.
It was "organic and unprogrammed", he added, unlike the trolling which is known to be driven by bots and other fake accounts.
Mr Akali said he expected the ad to spark conversations, not controversy: "This is the reality of many of our lives. I am a Hindu-Sikh, married to a Parsi."
And that's what he wanted to bring to the ad which was part of a larger campaign called Ekatvam, or unity, about coming together during tough times, he added.
Tanishq is no stranger to bold ads and has been known for progressive campaigns. Mr Haque and others who work in advertising told the BBC that a campaign of this size would have been cleared by top executives. But it appears that no-one saw this coming.
The decision to pull the ad has also sparked criticism, with one journalist calling Ratan Tata, the 82-year-old former chairman of the Tata group, spineless on Twitter.
But "advertising is politics", wrote columnist Santosh Desai, saying that companies needed to "wake up to this reality".
And in today's India, interfaith marriages are deeply political. They have never been the norm but they aren't unheard of either. In fact, the row saw several interfaith couples speaking out in support of the ad, a sign of how many people it spoke to.
"That's the beauty of this country," says Mr Haque, himself a Muslim married to a Hindu. "It's not just about interfaith marriage. Every meal I eat is interfaith. Every memory of mine is interfaith."
|
The storm is breaking over Birmingham's schools. | Chris CookPolicy editor, BBC Newsnight
Officials now expect Ofsted, the education inspectorate, to put some of the city's schools into "special measures" - changing their leadership - after it ordered fresh inspections into 21 of them.
This process - one of four investigations - follows the publication of the so-called Trojan Horse document.
This was a letter, now widely assumed to be a forgery, claiming to detail a plot by Muslim conservatives to Islamicise secular state schools.
The Ofsted reports will be released soon, but probably not this week.
We know that 16 schools were given only brief inspections (so-called "section 8s" in the jargon) and five schools were given full-blown inspections ("section 5s").
The schools that received full inspections are expected to go into "special measures", meaning there will be a change in the school's leadership.
This will be most spectacular at Park View and Oldknow, academies that were rated as "outstanding" in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
Socially conservative
The other two schools taken over by the Park View Educational Trust will follow them. Park View has previously rejected the allegations of extremism that it faces.
Some schools who got a section 8 will also be given a hard time.
There might be further consequences when the Department for Education publishes its report on the issue.
For Ofsted, the issue in these schools is that they are socially conservative, perhaps too much so for schools that are not designated faith schools, and some have odd management practices.
The effect, Ofsted fears, is to create an atmosphere where extremism might flourish.
Newsnight has previously covered some examples of what that can look like.
Clique of governors
The Ofsted results also support the notion that this is really about a clique of governors.
The leaders of four of the schools expected to go into special measures are good friends, who speak a lot via WhatsApp, the mobile messaging app.
The idea that there is no wider conspiracy has support: people working in counter-extremism in Birmingham also do not think there is an acute broader problem in the city.
So this chapter of the story may be closing.
But there is a big structural issue worth considering: why do so many of the parents support the schools so much?
The English school system's most important regulator is the attention of parents. Why, in this case, do they disagree with the authorities?
Witch-hunt fear
Partly, it is because some of these schools have been getting strong results. Partly, it is because there is fear of a witch-hunt - and the discourse around this reminds Muslims that they are not treated like people of other faiths.
Discussion of social conservatism among Jews or Catholics does not lead to talk of terrorism.
But it is also surely because Muslim parents do not have access to the same kind of state-funded faith education as parents of other creeds.
There are about 50 secondary schools in England whose catchment areas, weighted properly, are majority Muslim.
Of these, 17 are in Birmingham, 11 are in Bradford and six are in London's Tower Hamlets.
At none of the schools is the catchment above 90% Muslim. But parental choice means the Muslim intake of the schools sometimes runs a bit higher.
At the last school census, however, there were only eight officially designated Muslim state secondaries.
There are more than 300 Catholic secondaries.
No choice
So, for parents who want an education that reflects their own religion, an Islamicised comprehensive school might seem like a neat option.
With a growing Muslim population, this is an issue that will not go away.
Ofsted has no choice but to try to resecularise these schools. But one idea in the ether is that we should open more Muslim faith schools.
That would require a bold secretary of state, willing to defend the growth of faith schooling. It would also mean that schools would probably be more segregated by background.
There are also practical problems arising from the fact that there is no cardinal or archbishop who can oversee the schools.
But, on the other hand, once you accept that certain schools are Islamic schools, you can then think about constructing a governing body with proper representation and management processes to prevent the problems in Birmingham.
That outcome seems implausible.
But remember that parents are the first line of defence for the school system. And, at the moment, lots of them do not think lines in the sand drawn in Whitehall about the role of religion in our schools are worth defending.
|
The largest island in the disputed Paracel archipelago in the South China Sea is now believed to host surface-to-air missiles. | Known as Woody island by most, it is occupied by China, which calls it Yongxing. It is also claimed by Vietnam, which calls it Phu Lam, as well as by Taiwan.
Reports of the presence of missiles on the island have added to concerns about the militarisation of the South China Sea. Here is what we know about Woody Island.
China has controlled it for a long time
There are people living on it
It's not the only source of tensions between neighbours
|
People who refuse the coronavirus vaccine should not feature in the government's calculations about lifting restrictions, according to the leader of a group of Conservative MPs who are campaigning for an early end to the lockdown in England. | By Adam FlemingBBC News Political Correspondent
Mark Harper, who chairs the Covid Recovery group of backbench Tories, told the BBC's Newscast podcast that the rest of the population should not be held back by those who choose not to get a jab.
"You can't say 'I'm not going to take the vaccine, but I need everybody else to change their lives to protect me,'" he said.
"I'm afraid that risk you run - it's on you. It's not on everybody else."
He said take-up of the vaccine had been high so far and the injections should not be mandatory.
The former Home Office minister made the comments after the government confirmed earlier this week that two million people in the priority groups for vaccination in England had not come forward or had not been reached.
'Complex evaluation'
The number of people unprotected had to be taken into account when planning policies, according to Professor Adam Finn, who advises the government as a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisation.
"Moves towards lifting restrictions will depend on levels of population immunity to the variants of the virus circulating at the time," he said.
"This will be influenced by multiple factors including the proportion of people who have received vaccine and the duration of protection following vaccination or infection.
"It's a complex evaluation and we are all in this together."
About 70 Conservative MPs belong to Mr Harper's Covid Recovery group, which is enough to defeat the government on a vote in Parliament if the opposition also opposes the motion.
He called for all coronavirus-related legal restrictions on activities to be repealed and replaced with non-binding advice once the most vulnerable groups in the population had been vaccinated, which the government aims to do by the end of April.
"At that point, I don't think you can justify legal restrictions at all," he told Newscast.
The Coronavirus Recovery Group will seek to influence ministers next week, as they study data on the impact of the vaccination programme on transmission of the virus around the country. ahead of the prime minister' announcement of plans to gradually lift lockdown.
Around the BBC
Newscast - Meet the Covid Recovery Group... - BBC Sounds
|
Women in India have been posting photographs of themselves enjoying a night out on social media in response to a politician who said a woman who was chased in her car by two men "should not have gone out so late at night". | By Geeta PandeyBBC, Delhi
Varnika Kundu, who works as a DJ in the northern city of Chandigarh, was returning home on Friday night when she was allegedly chased by the men, one of whom was Vikas Barala, the son of a prominent politician from India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
On Wednesday, Mr Barala was arrested - police say he stands accused of "stalking, drink-driving and attempt to kidnap".
Ms Kundu said she was "chased and almost kidnapped" and that she was "not lying raped and murdered in a ditch somewhere" only because police quickly responded to her distress call and rescued her.
After she wrote a Facebook post about her ordeal which went viral, senior BJP politician in Haryana state Ramveer Bhatti blamed Ms Kundu for what happened to her.
"The girl should not have gone out at 12 in the night," he told the CNN-News18 television channel. "Why was she driving so late in the night? The atmosphere is not right. We need to take care of ourselves."
Mr Bhatti then went on to tell The Times of India that "parents must take care of their children. They shouldn't allow them to roam at night. Children should come home on time, why stay out at night?"
This "victim shaming" didn't go down well, and soon women began posting photos of themselves out at night under the hashtag #AintNoCinderella.
The campaign was launched by Divya Spandana, head of the opposition Congress party's social media cell who is a popular film actress from the southern state of Karnataka and often goes by her screen name Ramya.
"Why shouldn't women go out after midnight? I'm asking people like Mr Bhatti who are they to set curfew hours for us? I want to ask him who is he to question us? This is such a regressive mindset," Ms Spandana told the BBC.
She started out by sending a message to some women on her WhatsApp group on Monday evening.
"Ladies, how often have you heard something regressive like this from the mouth of a 'leader' who doesn't know much better? I'll answer: too often," the message said.
"This time they're telling us when we can and cannot go out of the our houses. This has to STOP" she added.
Then, she posted an image of herself on Twitter and invited other women to do the same.
The campaign soon caught on and hundreds of women have since posted photographs on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram challenging patriarchal mindsets that always blame women.
Among the first to post a midnight selfie was Sharmistha Mukherjee, Congress party leader and daughter of former Indian president Pranab Mukherjee:
Many others followed up, often with defiant messages:
When journalist Palak Sharma posted her image, sipping a drink and winking at the camera, she got loads of messages appreciating her "bold stand":
"But in the last two days, I've received lots of threats too. I've been called a whore, a slut," she told the BBC.
"Think about it - I'm a journalist, I work for the government-run media, I'm no pushover and I'm being threatened for my tweet," she said.
"But I'm not afraid," Ms Sharma added. "Nothing is going to stop us, no amount of naysayers can frighten us. We aren't Cinderellas, we don't have to be home at midnight."
With more and more women joining the campaign, it seems many others are refusing to be intimidated too.
|
A Kenyan inquest into the death of the son of an English lord has been adjourned to give the family time to study police statements. | Alexander Monson, 28, was arrested in Diani on suspicion of possessing cannabis in May 2012 and died in police custody.
Kenyan Police have denied any involvement in his death.
The inquest in Mombasa was adjourned until 27 April to allow closer study of the documents.
Mr Monson was heir to his family's Burton estate in Lincolnshire.
An independent pathologist hired by his family found he died from a head injury. The family was originally told he died of a drugs overdose.
The family lawyer said they had been kept in the dark about the findings of three separate investigations into his death.
|
The Big Issue is marking 200 million sales since its launch in 1991. | Launched by John Bird in 1991, the magazine has become a leading campaigner on issues surrounding poverty and homelessness.
It has partnered with street artist Ben Eine to celebrate the milestone with three collectors' edition covers.
Editor Paul McNamee said the Big Issue was "a print title that is putting on sales as others decline."
Official vendors buy the magazine for £1 and sell it for £2.50 - using the revenue as a means to earn a living.
It was formed in London and is a leading campaigner for the homeless as well as people in vulnerable and insecure housing situations who make up the army of sellers around the country and internationally.
To mark its milestone, Mr McNamee also selected some of the magazine's most memorable covers.
After David Bowie's death, the magazine ran an archive interview Jarvis Cocker had conducted with him as a tribute to the late star(man).
Mr McNamee said photographer Louise Haywood-Schiefer had "just minutes" to grab this portrait of the Dalai Lama. "Brilliantly she caught both his massive personality and the fame that comes with that and a rarely seen impishness. It's a great photo," he said.
The Street Cat named Bob found fame alongside his owner, busker and Big Issue seller James Bowen. Bob became the subject of several best-selling books and Mr Bowen went on to become a charity advocate
"We were joined for this edition by Trudie Styler as guest editor," Mr McNamee said. "She asked if we'd like to see Robert Downey Jnr in a tabard posing as a Big Issue vendor. We said, yes please! And Trudie sorted it. It's a great, strange collection of people in that edition."
The magazine has a number of international editions. This cover, from Japan, features renowned artist Yayoi Kusama.
The first edition resembled a newspaper, and had a cover price of 50p.
This photo of Sgt Rick Clements was taken by rock star Bryan Adams, and used by the magazine to mark the centenary of the outbreak of WW1. "It was a very proud moment when it was named Magazine Cover of The Year by PPA - the Oscars of the British magazine industry," Mr McNamee said.
Artist Ben Eine has created three special "celebration" covers to mark 200 million sales.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.