label
stringlengths 5
984
| text
stringlengths 76
235k
|
|---|---|
After being labelled the "patient zero" of an outbreak of Covid, a Congolese-Canadian physician says he became a target for racist threats, a pariah in his community, and a "scapegoat" for local officials.
|
By Robin Levinson-KingBBC News, Toronto
When Dr Jean-Robert Ngola heard that he had to pick up his daughter last May, he quickly did the maths.
His daughter lived in Montreal with her mother, about seven hours away from his home in Campbellton, New Brunswick.
As a family physician, he knew that he needed to be as safe as possible to limit the spread of Covid to others. But as a parent, he had to come get his child so that her mother could attend a family funeral in Africa.
In order to get her and have contact with as few people as possible, he hopped in his car and drove all day, spending the night at his brother's before driving her back.
Before leaving, Dr Ngola called the local police, asking for clarity around the laws about self-isolation.
New Brunswick has one of the strictest quarantine policies in Canada. Along with several other eastern provinces, it has formed an "Atlantic bubble" - in the early months of the pandemic, most forms of travel into the bubble were restricted, and anyone entering had to quarantine for 14 days.
But as a frontline worker, he says police told him he was exempt.
Not wanting to leave his patients without a doctor, he decided to go back to work.
On 25 May, Dr Ngola heard that one of his patients had been diagnosed with the virus. He got tested, and began to self-isolate with his four-year-old daughter.
At 11am on 27 May, he learned he, too, had the virus, although he had no symptoms.
Then, his life began to fall apart. Within the hour, his identity began to spread online. Later in the afternoon, Premier Blaine Higgs, who leads the provincial government, was chastising him on live television.
At least two other people had contracted coronavirus "due to the actions of one irresponsible individual," Mr Higgs said, after nearly two weeks without a single case.
Although the premier did not name Dr Ngola directly, by that time, people had connected the dots, and photographs of his office were circulating online.
Provincial health officials told the media Dr Ngola had contracted the disease in the neighbouring province of Quebec, and spread it to others because he did not follow the 14-day mandatory quarantine for people who had been out of New Brunswick.
But Dr Ngola, and his lawyer Joel Etienne, say the rules were not clear, and Dr Ngola was following the same practices as people around him.
They also dispute the province's claim that he was "patient zero".
Although no criminal charges were filed, Dr Ngola faces a civil charge for violating the Emergency Measures Act and could face a fine up to C$10,200 ($7,600, £6,000). The case is currently making its way before the courts.
His employer, Vitalité Health Network, immediately suspended him without pay for breaking protocols.
"I was the scapegoat. As soon as my diagnosis is made… one hour later, my life changed," he said.
In a statement to the BBC, a spokesperson for Vitalite confirmed that Dr Ngola's suspension continues, and declined to comment further.
The premier's office did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
The reaction from the community was swift and brutal. Dr Ngola, who is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, said people were telling him to "go back to Africa" and other forms of racist abuse.
Quarantining in his home with his small daughter, he feared for his safety when his address was leaked online and had to go under police protection. But he was also constantly under police scrutiny, he says, because people kept phoning in with bogus "tips" claiming to have seen him break quarantine.
Dr Ngola says the harassment was so bad, he had to leave the province. He was offered a job in a small community in Quebec, where he has been living for the past several months. He says he feels welcome there, but his experience in Campbellton has left psychological scars.
"I cannot have the same life because now I'm public," he says.
This is not the first time he's had to start over. Born in the Congo, Dr Ngola had wanted to be a doctor since he was a small child, after coming down with polio and being unable to get the appropriate medical treatment because it was too costly.
"My childhood ambition was to become a doctor in order that children like myself would be spared," he says.
He paid his way through school by tutoring other students, and practised medicine during his country's brutal civil war.
In 2000, he immigrated to Belgium, where he had to retrain in order to continue to be a doctor. Then five years later, he relocated to Canada, because he felt he would face less prejudice as an African immigrant. Once again, he went back to school in order to practise medicine.
Now, he feels disillusioned. Dr Ngola says he believes his race and immigration status played a factor in how he was treated not only by the public at large, but by the province's top officials.
"What is the difference with me? The difference is I'm black and I'm a foreigner," Dr Ngola said.
Although he felt like a pariah at home, around the country his fellow physicians were rallying to his defence. In September, 1,500 physicians signed a letter condemning his treatment, and demanding an investigation into how his name was leaked to the press.
"All of us signed below have felt tremendous anger, discomfort and frustration with the backlash that followed once you were publicly identified. What unravelled thereafter was unjust, unkind and dehumanizing," the letter, which was spearheaded by Dr Danusha Foster, read.
"We strongly believe that systemic racism coupled with the stigma surrounding individuals infected with the Covid-19 virus have significantly contributed to the crucifixion of your character within the public eye."
Dr Foster, a family physician who lives in Ontario, says that when she first heard about Dr Ngola, she, like many others, judged him.
"We're in a deadly pandemic, and health professionals should be held to a higher standard at this time, because we're supposed to be modelling for the general population what we should be doing," she told the BBC.
But after hearing about the abuse he was suffering, and reading media articles critical of the province's investigation, she began to feel sympathy.
"He was being judged in the public eye before the facts were known," she says.
She says patient confidentiality is the "core" of the doctor-patient relationship, and whoever leaked his name should be held to account.
After talking about his case on online physicians groups, she decided to organise the letter of support, to show Dr Ngola that he wasn't alone.
"I hadn't even written my letter, and I already had 800 names that wanted to sign," she says. "We realised as we watched this case that what happened to Dr Ngola, could have happened to anyone of us... if we made one little mistake."
Did he break the rules?
Over 40 cases and two deaths have been connected to the outbreak in the Campbellton region since 27 May. But it remains unclear if Mr Ngola was the source.
Anyone entering New Brunswick from another province outside the Atlantic Bubble is supposed to quarantine for 14 days.
But residents of Campbellton, which is on the border of Quebec, were allowed to cross the border without self-isolating for certain reasons, such as if they worked in Quebec, had to attend a medical appointment in Quebec or if they shared custody of a child in Quebec.
According to the provincial guidelines, "all such workers and individuals who are exempt from self-isolation must travel directly to and from work and/or their accommodations, self-monitor and avoid contact with vulnerable individuals"
Dr Ngola spent about 30 hours in Quebec, including an overnight stay with his brother to rest up after the seven-hour drive. He also saw two colleagues in Trois-Rivieres, although they were masked and socially distanced. He also had contact with a petrol-station employee.
Dr Ngola said many of his co-workers went back and forth to Quebec and did not fully self-isolate, so he did not think he was breaking the rules.
His employer, Vitalite Health, told the CBC's Fifth Estate that all workers were ordered to self-isolate after returning to the province unless they lived in Quebec.
Mr Etienne says regardless of whether his client broke the rules, the province failed to do its due diligence before blaming him for the outbreak.
He says they had not finished contact-tracing the four individuals in Quebec whom Dr Ngola had contact with, before claiming the doctor was the source of the Covid cluster in New Brunswick. He says their own private investigator found that neither his brother, the two colleagues, nor the gas station employee tested positive for Covid.
His daughter, however, did. Both she and her father have made a full recovery.
There had been at least one confirmed case of Covid in Campbellton in the days prior to Dr Ngola's diagnosis, and his lawyer says he could have got it from community spread.
|
In an interview with BBC Newsnight's Emily Maitlis, the Duke of York, Prince Andrew has given details about his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and addressed allegations about sex with a teenage girl.
|
By Alice EvansBBC News
Here are six things we learned from the interview.
1. He still does not regret being friends with Epstein
Prince Andrew has defended his relationship with Epstein before - including as recently as August - two weeks after the disgraced financier took his own life while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
But in the BBC interview broadcast on Saturday night, the prince gave more detail about why he "still" did not regret the friendship.
He said knowing Epstein had "some seriously beneficial outcomes", at a time when he had left a career in the Navy and begun one as a trade and industry special representative.
Prince Andrew said: "The people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn, either by him or because of him, were actually very useful."
2. He met up with Epstein's ex-girlfriend this year
Prince Andrew has always said he met Jeffrey Epstein in 1999 through the financier's then-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell - a well-connected socialite.
Ms Maxwell, daughter of the late newspaper tycoon, Robert Maxwell, has generally kept a low profile since claims about Epstein began to emerge.
But the prince said he met up with her earlier this year, before Epstein was arrested and charged over sex trafficking allegations.
"She was here (in the UK) doing some rally," the prince said.
He said they did not discuss Epstein during the meet-up.
"There wasn't anything to discuss about him because he wasn't in the news, you know, it was just… we had moved on."
The prince stressed throughout the interview that he and Epstein "weren't that close".
Invitations Epstein had received to events at Windsor Castle and at Sandringham were in the financier's capacity as Ms Maxwell's "plus one" rather than as a friend in his own right, he said.
3. His reason for meeting Epstein in 2010 was 'to put an end to the friendship'
Much of the interview focused on why the prince went to stay with Epstein in 2010, following Epstein's conviction and imprisonment for soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.
The prince said the visit was to explain to Epstein that their friendship was over.
He said he had considered speaking to Epstein on the phone, but decided to meet him face-to-face "to show leadership".
"I took the judgement call that because this was serious, and I felt that doing it over the telephone was the chicken's way of doing it, I had to go and see him and talk to him."
4. Being shot at in the Falklands meant he 'stopped being able to sweat'
Maitlis asked the prince for his response to allegations against him made by one of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre (then known as Virginia Roberts). Ms Giuffre said she met the prince in 2001 when she dined with him, danced with him at a nightclub in London, and had sex with him at Ghislaine Maxwell's house in Belgravia.
Maitlis pointed out that Ms Giuffre's accusations were "very specific" and included that the prince had been "profusely sweating".
The prince said a "problem" with Ms Giuffre's story was that a medical condition meant he could not have been sweating.
"I didn't sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the Falklands War when I was shot at and I simply… it was almost impossible for me to sweat," he said.
5. How the prince likes to dress
Prince Andrew revealed he had investigated the possibility that a photograph - or elements of it -provided by Ms Giuffre was fake.
One reason the prince gave was his attire. "I don't believe it's a picture of me in London because... when I go out in London, I wear a suit and a tie," he said.
"That's what I would describe as… those are my travelling clothes... if I'm going overseas."
However, newspapers have previously pictured the prince wearing jeans without a tie or blazer on a night out in London.
Speaking about the photo with Ms Giuffre, Prince Andrew told Newsnight: "Nobody can prove whether or not that photograph has been doctored but I don't recollect that photograph ever being taken."
He also said he did not believe the photograph "was taken in the way that has been suggested" because it shows the prince's hand on the woman's waist.
"I am not one to, as it were, hug - and public displays of affection are not something that I do."
6. He has been to Pizza Express in Woking
The duke said the day on which Ms Giuffre's allegations are said to have happened, 10 March 2001, he was not out in London but "at home with the children".
He said he had taken his eldest daughter, Princess Beatrice, to a party at a Pizza Express restaurant in Woking at about four or 5pm.
"And then because the Duchess was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one is away the other one is there."
He added he remembered the occasion "weirdly distinctly" because it was one of only a couple of times that he had been to Woking, and going to the Pizza Express there was "a very unusual thing for me to do".
Prince Andrew & the Epstein Scandal: The Newsnight Interview was shown on BBC Two on 16 November 2019 and can be seen on BBC iPlayer in the UK and the full interview can also be seen on YouTube.
|
The latest stage of American tycoon Donald Trump's plans for the "world's greatest" golf course in Aberdeenshire have been approved by councillors.
|
Members of the Formartine area committee met in Ellon and approved plans for Menie by nine votes to two.
They were considering 30 conditions for the project laid down by the Scottish government, but more will have to be approved before work can begin.
The Trump Organisation welcomed the vote.
Mr Trump wants to create a championship course as well as a hotel and hundreds of holiday homes.
Scottish ministers earlier approved the application but with many conditions.
Mr Trump last month vowed to cut the ribbon on his golf resort within 18 months.
He said the total cost of the project was likely to be about £750m.
|
India and Italy are scrambling to defuse a diplomatic row over the deaths of two Indian fisherman mistaken for pirates by Italian marines guarding an oil tanker. Supriya Menon has been speaking to the fishermen's crewmates and family in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
|
Fisherman J Fredy was asleep on board the trawler St Antony when he first heard gun shots.
"I suddenly saw my colleague Valentine who was steering the boat slumped over the wheel with blood oozing from his ear and nose and thought he was sick.
"It was only later that I noticed gun shots. I didn't stop to think and just steered the boat away from the gunfire trying to get far away from the big ship that I saw."
The big ship that Fredy is referring to is the Enrica Lexie, the Italian oil tanker that was on its way from Singapore to Egypt with a crew of 34.
Walking me around the small fishing boat, 30-year-old Fredy points out bullet marks. He says he is still terrified thinking about the incident and considers himself fortunate to be alive.
"In my 10-year-long fishing career I have never come across something like this. I don't want to go back to the sea now. I am scared and so is my family. Earlier it used to be fun to be out in the ocean, now there is no guarantee that I will come back alive."
The St Antony is now docked, guarded on all sides by police boats.
Compensation claim
Just a few kilometres away is the fishing village of Moothakara. Valentine, 48, used to live here with his wife and two kids.
Since his death, the family has had several high-profile visitors, including India's Defence Minister AK Antony.
Valentine's wife Dora says she wants justice for her family and has asked the government to ensure the safety of fishermen out at sea.
The family has filed a compensation claim of 10m rupees ($200,000; £126,000) from the Italian shipping company.
Their lawyer, C Unnikrishnan says they will ask for a larger sum.
"Our claim is only $200,000 which is [low by] international standards. We are planning to amend it and ask for at least $500,000."
There are now indications that the matter may be settled out of court.
However, public sentiment is strong on both sides. Local fishermen want to see the marines punished here in India. Italy on its part has been lobbying hard to get the marines released, saying the incident took place outside of Indian jurisdiction in international waters.
The incident has also triggered a debate on the wider issue of piracy in the Indian ocean.
The Indian government is now looking at changing laws and ensuring better policing of its coastline. That may not be so easy given India's vast coast.
There's also the issue of posting armed guards on ships to fight off pirates; while it may scare off potential pirates, it can also lead to tragedies for some families.
|
A six-year-old boy suffered life-threatening injuries when he was knocked off his bicycle by a car in East Yorkshire.
|
The child was riding his bike on Kingston Road, Willerby, on the outskirts of Hull, at about 18:10 BST on Thursday, Humberside Police said.
A spokesperson for the force said the car involved stopped at the scene and no arrests had been made.
Officers have appealed for witnesses and any CCTV or dash-cam footage.
Follow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
|
A walker has died after falling 150ft from a Snowdonia peak.
|
More than 20 members of Ogwen Valley, Llanberis and Aberglaslyn mountain rescue teams found her body on Tryfan on Saturday morning after a night-time search.
The woman, from Stockport, had been walking with her husband on Good Friday.
Rescuers said she had been well-equipped but fell after wandering into a steep gully.
|
Ahmed Sharif stood on top of a mound of rubble, waving a dinner plate. "The Saudis attacked this," he said. "There was no weapons facility. There was no military site. This was a tourist attraction."
|
By Orla GuerinBBC News, Sanaa
He descended from the wreckage of a house that had stood for 1,400 years to gave me a tour of Kawkaban - an ancient citadel perched on a cliff top. Locals say this Yemeni treasure was hit by Saudi airstrikes in February, killing seven civilians. Mr. Sharif's brother-in-law was one of them. He pointed to fragments of clothing in among the rubble. "That's what's left of him," he said.
The dead of Kawkaban are among at least 3,200 civilians killed here in the past year. The United Nations says most were victims of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition. A UN panel has accused the Saudis and their allies of bombing schools, health facilities, wedding parties and camps for the displaced.
'The pain is so intense'
Saudi Arabia says it makes every effort to avoid hitting civilian targets, but that's little consolation to the burn victim we met in hospital in Sanaa.
Abdel Bari Omar survived an airstrike outside the city last month, but only just. The van driver lay in bed, bandaged from the chest down. He was transporting gas cylinders when the fighter jets struck.
"The pain is so intense only God can understand," he said, through trembling lips. "Whatever way I turn I am in agony. I'm afraid this pain will stop my heart." His other fear is about the future of his children now their breadwinner has burns on more than 40% of his body.
Saudi Arabia's bombing campaign was supposed to reinstate Yemen's ousted President, Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and contain the Shia Houthi rebels who drove him out.
Riyadh claims they are puppets of its regional rival, Iran. A year on, the president remains out of sight, and the Houthis remain in control of the capital.
"We can keep fighting forever," said Mohamed Ali Al Houthi, the rebel leader who occupies the Presidency building, and has a traditional dagger in his waistband. "If they continue the war we are ready for that, and if they want peace we want it even more."
The Houthis too are accused of killing innocent civilians by indiscriminate shelling - something they deny. But the troubling questions here aren't only for the warring parties.
The British connection
Yemeni businessman Ghalib al-Sawary wants to know why Britain has played a role in ruining his life's work.
He walked me through the wreckage of Radfan Ceramics, a factory outside Sanaa that employed 350 people before the war. Airstrikes last year - which reportedly killed one man - reduced the factory to a shell.
"We built it over 20 years," he said, "but to destroy it took only 20 minutes."
Mr Sawary showed me hunks of mangled metal bearing the label of a British manufacturer - GEC Marconi Dynamics - which he says were recovered after the airstrike. He keeps plenty of them, under lock and key. The campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has identified the remnants are part of a British made cruise missile.
For Mr Sawary the pain of loss was heightened by the origin of the weapon. "I studied in Britain in 1988. We respect the British people and we like them," he said, "but we are blaming them for supplying this weapon."
Campaigners say the attack on the factory - which appeared to be producing only civilian goods - was an apparent violation of the laws of war. They believe it may also have violated the UK's rules on arms exports.
A British government spokesman denied there had been any breach and said the UK had robust controls for arms exports.
At a police station in Sanaa, Yemeni security officials put a US made cluster bomb unit on display. They claim it was dropped in the Western suburbs in January scattering deadly bomb-lets over a civilian area. They produced several from a pink plastic shopping bag. The coalition has denied using the weapons, which have been banned by more than 100 countries.
Much of the death and destruction here in the past 12 months has gone unseen - one more war in a troubled region.
"Yemen was already forgotten, prior to the escalation of the conflict," said Johannes van der Klaauw, of the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR. He believes the crisis has not had the attention it deserves in part because Yemenis aren't reaching Europe's shores.
"I am afraid there is a link," he said. "I see that the international community and particularly Europe has now galvanised more support and also political action because the Syrians and the Iraqis are coming in large numbers to Europe. If the Yemenis would do the same I am sure there would be more attention for Yemen."
For most Yemenis there is no hope of escape, but more peace talks are planned for next month, to be accompanied by a ceasefire.
Whatever the outcome, UN officials fear that one year of war has set the Arab world's poorest country back decades.
|
In our series of letters from African journalists, Joseph Warungu leaves the hubbub of Nairobi to finally make his maiden visit to Sierra Leone's capital, where he finds people determined to overcome their history of civil war and Ebola.
|
I am in Freetown and I feel truly free.
Free from the pressures and pretensions of life in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, where the struggles of the middle class are over who drives the latest model of which car, and who lives in the poshest neighbourhood.
In Nairobi, many people, especially the young, are obsessed with the nauseating celebrity culture, whose lifestyle glitters so much it can blind you.
Landing from the heights of Nairobi's razzle-dazzle, Freetown humbles you.
First, if your heart was in your mouth as the aeroplane shook and trembled in the rainy season, then your heart will be in your hand on the ground as you take the ferry from Lungi International Airport, to Freetown.
You can tell who is a foreigner by the strained look in their faces, as the small ferry dances and slices across the waves.
I have been waiting to get to Sierra Leone for the last 20 years. I reported on the country since the early 1990s, from the safety of London.
I played my favourite Sierra Leonean music on the BBC Network Africa breakfast show, but never made it to Freetown. So when an opportunity arose, to come and train young journalists at the Africa Young Voices TV station, I seized it with both hands and feet!
Alighting from the ferry at Freetown, you can immediately tell the state of unemployment in the country, by the vast number of baggage handlers employed by the ferry companies.
The drive through the streets immediately brings home the effects of more than a decade of civil war, and the tragedy that was Ebola.
The city is overcrowded, with lots of informal settlements, and the infrastructure is bursting at the seams.
There is a serious problem of waste management. The current government, which has put a lot of effort into infrastructure projects and stabilising the economy, has its work cut out.
The people of Freetown are desperate to be free from the threats of disease.
Joseph Warungu:
"As soon as we began to talk politics, my spirit was brought crashing down"
But it is in my interactions with people that lift my spirits. They do not call it "Sweet Salone" for no reason.
The people here are warm, friendly and generous. And whether it is as a result of trying to forget the pain of the past or not, it is clear they love to have a good time.
Everywhere you go, you will find clubs and social places where people gather to set themselves free from the struggles of the week through great music, dance, food and laughter.
So I have had more than my fair share of Jollof rice and cassava leaves. For an east African, the pepper in the food is on the side of plenty-oh, and so a glass of water is always at hand - much to the amusement of my hosts.
I run a national mentorship programme for young journalists in Kenya in the form of a TV programme called Top Story. So I became completely at home when I eventually began to train the young Sierra Leonean journalists and broadcasters.
Their hunger for knowledge and skills and enthusiasm sent me on a high. But as soon as we began to talk politics, my spirit was brought crashing down.
Like my own country and many others in Africa, corruption is a big threat to the people.
Like Kenya, here too society is divided into the two rival sides that will be seeking office in the next election. And the issues are exactly the same - a high cost of living, unemployment and demands for better governance.
After my first week here, I was ready to explore some of the key towns whose names have been on my lips as a broadcast journalist in the last 20 years - Bo, Makeni, Kabala, Kenema and Koidu…
Then I will perhaps be ready to re-engage with the rat-race of life and the paralysing traffic of Nairobi.
More from Joseph Warungu:
Kenyans beg for mercy
Should degrees be necessary for leaders?
What to look out for in Africa during 2017
How to stop exam cheats
Party time in Kenya
|
A man who is part-way through a three-year sentence for dangerous driving has escaped from a prison in Doncaster.
|
Prison officers found Jose Blanco-Medina, 28, had absconded from HMP Hatfield at about 22:00 GMT on Saturday 19 December by forcing a fire door.
Blanco-Medina is described as about 5ft 8ins (1.7m) tall and has links to Riddlesden, near Keighley, and Bradford, South Yorkshire Police said.
Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to call police.
More Yorkshire stories
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or send video here.
Related Internet Links
HMP Hatfield
|
A year after the first case of ash dieback in wild trees in Britain, the disease has now spread across much of England, Wales and Scotland. The public is being asked to be the "eyes and ears" of the countryside amid concern about new global threats that could spell disaster for forests.
|
By Helen BriggsBBC News
In a London park, forester Simon Levy is checking a moth trap strung high in the canopy of an oak tree.
He is searching for signs of the oak processionary moth, which is present in parts of the capital and Berkshire.
When the moth's caterpillars emerge from their nests, they can strip oak trees bare and harm human health.
"What we're looking for in these oak trees we see around us is their nests," says Mr Levy.
"They're like a grey wart on the side of a tree that can range from the size of a golf ball, if not smaller, to things that are almost a couple of foot in size."
It is the moth's caterpillars - with their thousands of tiny hairs - that are the hazard. Touching the caterpillars or their nests can cause skin rashes or, in extreme cases, sore throats, breathing difficulties and eye problems.
In Croydon, inspections are being carried out for the moth around a 2km zone as part of a rigorous programme of control and monitoring. Infected areas are sprayed with a bacteriological agent to destroy nests and caterpillars.
The traps - which contain a sex hormone that attracts male moths - are set outside from July to September, when adult moths are in flight, to see how far they have spread.
"We've actually created a ring of traps for these moths round the infected area just to see if the moths are flying beyond where we would expect them to be," says Mr Levy.
Dr Nigel Straw from the Centre for Forestry and Climate Change at the Forestry Commission says monitoring is key to organising a control programme - including surveys from the ground and pheromone trapping.
Any moths captured are sent to the Forestry Commission's research station in Hampshire for analysis.
"We will look at how many moths have been caught and at which locations and this will tell us where we are likely to have trees with eggs which will lead to infestations next year," says Dr Straw.
Officials hope the outbreak in Croydon can be contained. But they accept the battle is lost in west and south-west London - where the moth is here to stay.
Britain should expect "many hundreds" more pests and pathogens to arrive in the coming years, say scientists at Exeter University.
The rise in global trade means pests that damage crops such as fungi, beetle and moths are now moving into new territories faster than other wildlife, aided by climate change, they report in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Hundreds of pests and pathogens have shifted their ranges towards the poles by an average of about 3km a year since 1960.
Insects are moving even faster, expanding their range by tens of kilometres a year, says Dr Daniel Bebber.
"We know things are spreading and part of that spread is due to climate change. It's just one more impact that climate change is having on us. Things are being introduced all the time to different places. Climate change can help things to establish."
In Croydon, Simon Levy is concerned about a decline if not a "potentially catastrophic loss" of some of Britain's dominant tree species, including the oak.
He says acute oak decline is present in the area, but it is difficult to identify.
"There's huge pressure on resources in terms of actually getting out there and identifying them," he says, "I suspect that if things progress as they do, we might face a real problem with our oak trees - a significant change in our landscape similar to the landscape changes when Dutch elm disease had its heyday in the '70s."
With only limited government resources to monitor for new pests, some of that job may fall to the public.
This is not unprecedented. In the past, the citrus longhorn beetle, which can arrive on deliveries from Asia of tree and shrub plants, and goods in wooden crates and packaging, has been spotted by vigilant members of the public. In July, Martin Ward, the UK government's chief plant health officer, asked for help from the public to spot Asian longhorn and citrus longhorn beetles.
"Government plant health services cannot do this work alone, and we need the public to act as our eyes and ears in gardens, parks, woodlands and workplaces to help us spot threats quickly before they become a serious problem," he said.
"The public can really help us at this time of year by looking out for these two potentially serious beetle pests. They thrive in climates similar to ours, and their establishment could result in losses of trees from a wide range of species."
The Woodland Trust is currently training volunteers to look out for signs of tree diseases, while a citizen science project, known as Opal (Open Air Laboratories), is harnessing people-power to build a national picture of tree health. In the long term, however, there are big questions about the future shape and role of Britain's treescape.
"What protects trees in the long term is diversity both in species and genetics," says Dr Bebber.
"We don't have a very diverse tree flora - both in genetics and species diversity. We lost our elms in large because they were so genetically uniform.
"We can learn from the science of ecology and evolution and look at the natural world and see that diversity is the protection. We certainly don't want to see the oak disappearing, the ash disappearing - it would be a sadder Britain."
|
Holyrood is now 18 months from its next election. Nicola Sturgeon's Programme for Government on Tuesday, laid some of the groundwork for it. It won't be all about independence. The economy, and in particular the green part of it, is playing a prominent role. Within that, a lot of money is being ploughed into buses. Prepare for a response to Labour's proposal that bus transport be made free to all age groups, with an offer to those aged up to 26.
|
Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland
Ruth Davidson's resignation as Scottish Tory leader has served several purposes. One is as a klaxon to remind us that Holyrood politics is beginning to re-orient itself towards its next election.
You'll recall that the prospect of fighting that as the Conservative leader filled her "with dread" - leaving it open to interpretation as to how much this was due to the state of politics, or to the relative appeal of being back home with toddler Finn.
Of course, Holyrood politics is over-shadowed by Brexit, Westminster and a possible UK election within a few weeks. But with rather less noise, the heavy machinery is being slowly moved into place, and the groundwork laid for the Holyrood contest in May 2021.
You could assume it'll be all about independence, and you may be right. But in the Programme for Government, published on Tuesday, there were some interesting indicators about electoral positioning on other fronts, in the ministerial corridor of St Andrew's House.
This used to be described as Holyrood's "Queen's Speech without the flummery" (though, on reflection, it may only have been me that described it that way).
But this hardy annual in the political calendar has become a lot more than a list of legislation. It's about that, but also progress-chasing in public, setting new priorities, drafting a manifesto, stealing some thunder from the choices being made this coming winter by the finance secretary, while injecting some new tigress into the governing party's political tank as the new term starts.
On the buses
Nicola Sturgeon set the bar high for expectations of what can be achieved towards cutting climate-changing emissions. The Green MSPs, who have kept her in power through the current parliament's budgets, will surely question if it's high enough.
But having learned, over 11 years, that one has to be strategic about priorities - putting a lot of her political and financial capital into childcare in the current parliament - the environmental one looks like being a strategic choice for 2021 and beyond.
Much of that has to do with infrastructure spending on public transport. These are the big ticket items in the programme for government - electrifying more rail lines, and throwing half a billion at improved bus corridors.
That's gambling a lot on the buses. It's not all going into the coffers of Sir Brian Souter, the Easdale brothers who own McGill's, and whoever takes over First Bus. There is also the eye-catching proposal that the Fife to Edinburgh bus corridor - that's the one over the barely-used Forth Road Bridge - is to be the trial run for autonomous buses.
(Am I the only one, of a certain vintage, to be reminded of a childhood memory of watching the Love Bug, a 1969 film about an autonomous and emotionally complex Volkswagen Beetle called Herbie, trying to throw itself off the Golden Gate Bridge? Don't believe me? You can look it up.)
Another of the more innovative policies for green transport is to pioneer zero-emission aviation in the Highlands and Islands. Orkney is soon to see trials of electric aircraft.
Talinn trolleys
I digress. Please note that one distinctive policy put forward by Scottish Labour for the next election is the idea of making all bus transport free. Not just for those aged 60 and over, but for everyone.
Sounds either improbable or impossible? Well, it's being tried in Estonia.
The Programme for Government carries a heavy hint that those under 26 might be included in public transport concessions, you can see that Nicola Sturgeon is preparing her response to Labour's largesse. The SNP doesn't like to be outbid on free stuff.
Line to take
For those who followed my recent reports on the construction industry - and for anyone else, indeed - you may be interested to note that new building standards are to be introduced, bringing an end to conventional gas or oil-fired central heating in new homes from 2024.
There is also some seed funding to help prime and expand the expansion of plug-in points for electric vehicles.
So, yes, green transport is a priority. Business and the economy also see a pledge of a new focus on attracting inward investment - at which Scotland already punches above its weight.
On research and development by business, where Scotland has long punched well below its weight, there is more money to help stimulate it.
But the more you read the Programme for Government, the more a sense of priorities becomes dissolved into a very long list - less about choices than about defensive moves to show there's an answer to every policy challenge.
In government's media centre, there is a long list of issues on which there is the "line to take" when journalists ring up or email with a query. You'll hear them parroted also in ministerial answers to MSP questions.
The line taken is far from being an answer to many of the questions posed, but that approach - "we have an answer to everything" - is a window into a defensive mindset.
Place-based
If you look particularly at the chapter on the economy, you can see a lot of effort has gone into a perceived weak area for the Sturgeon administration. There are lines to take on life science, biotechnology, space, financial technology and on various aspects of manufacturing.
It includes a lot of reviews under way, starting with an infrastructure investment committee feeding into a five-year capital plan from early 2020. So it covers much of the next parliament.
And there are yet more strategies: on artificial intelligence, the maritime economy, on national transport, a new one for tourism and a crofting national development plan. Everything digital gets a lot of space.
Some of the business measures have been welcomed by Scotland's business groups, grateful for once not to be talking only about Brexit. But some are cautious also about the prospect of more regulation and red tape - on coffee cups and unhealthy food promotions, for instance - with not enough being done to reform or replace business rates.
And then, yes, sometimes the Scottish government jargon takes over. There is to be a "trial place-based approach to integrated business support for micro-enterprises operating in rural areas".
The acronym, to save you time, is TPBAIBSMEORA.
|
A lock has been restored on a former derelict section of a canal in Cwmbran - with a boat passing through for the first time since 1926.
|
The Ty Coch Lock Restoration Project aims to restore locks along a mile of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal.
The Heritage Lottery funded project began in 2012 and has been carried out mainly by volunteers who were taught stonemasonry and carpentry skills.
A further four locks will be restored by September.
Torfaen council leader Bob Wellington said: "Our goal is that we will see the canal fully navigable for people to enjoy."
|
My Money is a series looking at how people spend their money - and the sometimes tough decisions they have to make. Here, Jen Smith, a children's TV presenter from Shenzhen in southern China, takes us through a week in her life, as the country slowly emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.
Over to Jen…
|
Since being in lockdown I've been bingeing on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It starts with one episode after dinner, blink, and suddenly it's 3am. YouTube, Facebook, Google and Instagram are all banned here, so you'd think I'd be a binge-free socialite after a year and a half living in China. Well, those sites are banned unless you have a VPN - I pay $120 (£97) a year for mine, so Sunday was a late night, with a lie-in until 10.30 this morning.
I go for a run - mask and all, as it's currently illegal to be outside without one. I make my coffee (bought in the UK), fruit smoothie (about 20 yuan, $2.82, £2.27) and cereal (80 yuan a packet) before cycling to work.
Today is a bit of a crazy day in the studio. I work as a children's TV presenter. My company has profited from the lockdown as more children are watching the shows non-stop - meaning a rapid turnaround for us.
We shoot two shows from 2-6pm then "break" for a meeting. We discuss tomorrow's shoot while I eat dinner - homemade aubergine curry. It is normal for the Chinese to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at work. Normally the company gives all staff 25 yuan through a food-ordering app, and the whole company would eat together. However, because of the current social distancing, that social time is in the far distant past!
I make it home for 8pm, order some deep-fried cauliflower as a snack (45 yuan) and start the inevitable Kardashian binge.
Total spend: 65 yuan ($9.10, £7.37)
It's a much earlier start (7.30am), but the same morning routine. On my cycle to work I notice that the traffic is almost back to normal - Shenzhen is inhabited by well over 12 million people, so as you can imagine rush hour is intense. This doesn't change the fact that everywhere you go you have to scan a QR code - leaving my apartment, using the walkway by the river, and getting into the building I work in.
After a morning of shooting I eat homemade potato curry and settle down for a nap. Naptime is such a commonality in China that people store camp beds at the office. I order a coffee and banana chips (20 yuan) for a pick-me-up before the afternoon's shooting.
It's St Paddy's Day so I head to the local pubs area, catch dinner at a French restaurant (222 yuan), then a few drinks (25 yuan - mainly bought by men at the bar for us) before a very tipsy cycle home.
Total spend: 242 yuan ($34, £25)
The morning's shoot (thankfully) was cancelled, so I nursed a hangover in bed until around 11am, at which point I had a phone meeting for a company that I do "plus-size" modelling for (for context I'm a UK size 12). I eat a bowl of cereal and order more cauliflower (45 yuan) while I watch a film.
At 2.30pm an intern picks me up, and we head to the government building to apply for a new work visa. Ironically, the image taken for my visa is Photoshopped to remove wrinkles, freckles and my frizzy hair. When I ask why this is being done for an identification document, the intern replies that the government wants it to be neat, and "the Chinese way" is to have altered photos.
I don't argue, and have an interview before I hand in my passport. The whole process takes around two hours, so I order food to my house while on the way home (150 yuan for burger, salad and cake!) I take a taxi across town which ends up being 39.05 yuan.
Total spend: 234.05 yuan ($33, £27)
My Money
More blogs from the BBC's My Money Series:
The day starts at 8.30am with coffee and reading, before I get a manicure (280 yuan). My nail lady has been very worried about the state of my hands during the virus, so she spends a whopping two and a half hours treating them while I watch a film (0.99 yuan - bought by her). Because the manicure was so long I don't have time to eat lunch before our fitness shoot, which runs from 2-5.30pm. I then have an appointment to sign into a building which I'll shoot in tomorrow.
The building is near a supermarket called Ole (one of the only western supermarkets), and I pick up groceries for 183 yuan before heading home to cook, listen to podcasts and prep for the big day of shooting on Friday.
Total spend: 463 yuan ($64, £52.5)
Fridays are generally my busiest day. The way the Chinese seem to function, is a boss will say "I want this done now" and then employees rush to finish it. Generally, they will write scripts on Monday and Tuesday, discuss Wednesday, then we shoot later in the week. The poor editors, despite mandatory office hours during the week, then have to work tirelessly through the weekend to achieve a Sunday evening deadline.
I start with mashed avocado and a hard-boiled egg before work. The morning shoot runs from 9.30-11.40am, and I have an early lunch - homemade curry again, before my regular nap time. The afternoon shoot is three hours, so I have time to pop home and shower before a live stream at 6pm. I take a taxi to and from the live stream which ends up being 28 yuan.
Total spend: 28 yuan ($3.92, £3.18)
Finally the weekend! Although things are slowly getting better in China after the coronavirus outbreak, there's still not too much to do. So I use this time to write, play my piano and generally chill inside. Around 3pm, I venture outside to the shops to pick up some snacks (159.60 yuan) before settling in to ring my family back in the UK with a homemade cocktail - a friend of mine in Canada is doing a daily live stream, "quarantinis" where he teaches you how to make cocktails!
What's interesting is that a lot of people have started leaving their houses again, but it is still illegal to go outside without a mask on, and temperature checks are taken everywhere. I was even refused entry to a building due to being foreign. I imagine this is because recently the only new cases are being brought in by non-Chinese travelling back to China.
Total spend: 159.60 yuan ($22, £18)
It's another slow day for me as many foreigners have not yet returned to China, so most of my friends are out of the country. I start the day by reviewing potential scripts.
This takes me to 1.30pm without realising I haven't eaten. I decide to go for a quick run and I return to eat mashed avocado and a hard-boiled egg.
I home-bleach my hair with products bought in the UK, then head back to editing again. About half way through the afternoon I take a little break to practice Chinese. I use an app which is fantastic and free! Definitely worth everyone downloading this during social distancing so you can learn new skills!
For dinner I order online again, a three-dish meal for 160 yuan.
Total spend: 160 yuan ($22.4, £18)
Overall weekly spend: 1352 yuan ($189, £153)
|
Tensions are rising sharply in Somalia, as the country's fragile political system wrestles with a bitterly contested election process, the withdrawal of some vital US military forces, and renewed concerns about an increasingly well-resourced militant Islamist insurgency.
|
By Andrew HardingBBC News, Mogadishu
Diplomats and observers are warning that the country - three decades after it collapsed into anarchy - is once again at a crossroads, with recent progress on rebuilding a shattered state now at risk.
"Somalia is at an important pivotal moment," the UN Secretary General's special representative James Swan told the BBC, warning that "posturing and brinkmanship" by the country's national and regional leaders - as they argue over a delayed and watered-down parliamentary election process - could lead to violence.
A group of powerful organisations and states - including the UN, the EU and the African Union's peacekeeping mission - has issued a forceful statement urging Somalia's political elites to seek dialogue. "Any threat of use of violence is not acceptable," they wrote.
Somalia was due to hold its first "one-person-one-vote" election last year - a huge milestone for a long-fractured nation.
But clan-dominated opposition parties are boycotting the process over concerns about rigging, a carefully-brokered deal is now in tatters, and the country's President, Mohamed Abdullahi "Farmaajo", is being blamed by some for seeking to impose his will on Somalia's increasingly assertive regional leaders.
"It could turn out to be a disaster if it's not put back on the right track with these current elections. Everybody knows our democracy is in jeopardy, and we need to fix it," said Mr Farmaajo's former national security advisor, Hussein Sheikh Ali.
Adding to a nervous mood in the capital, Mogadishu - a city once torn apart by rival clan warlords - is a growing concern about al-Shabab militants.
The Islamist group withdrew from the city, and was pushed out of most other Somali towns, by African Union and Somali troops, but it retains an overwhelming hold on the countryside.
It has also begun to operate what amounts to a shadow government within Mogadishu, where it taxes and intimidates many businesses, administers Sharia courts, carries out targeted killings, and stages suicide attacks on hotels and government offices.
"Everybody is taxed by al-Shabab, directly or indirectly, including the president - the food he eats is being taxed [by them]," Mr Farmaajo's former advisor told the BBC.
"They have been getting stronger over the last four years. A lot of people underestimate al-Shabab and say they're becoming mafia-like. But they're a well-organised and coherent organisation with a strategic vision to conquer this country."
Fifteen people were killed last August when al-Shabab attacked a prominent new beach-side hotel, the Elite, in Mogadishu. The owner said he thinks the hotel was targeted because he had refused to give money to the militants.
"It's like a ransom. They were aware we weren't going to make any payment to Shabab," said Abdullahi Nor, who quickly repaired the building and remains open for business.
"Even after what happened, we are ready to deny them and to defend ourselves," he said.
But Mr Nor, like many of his customers and other families enjoying the adjacent Lido beach late one afternoon, expressed deep concern about a new development - the withdrawal of some US troops from Somalia, on the orders of President Donald Trump.
"It's highly disturbing to us," the hotel owner said. "We still need the Americans, particularly for security."
Western diplomats in Mogadishu have sought to play down the significance of an abrupt White House decision to move some American special forces out of Somalia. There are thought to be around 700 US soldiers in the country.
"They've described it themselves as not a change in policy but just a change in force posture. I think the Americans are very clearly committed to help secure Somalia for the long term," British ambassador Ben Folder said.
But a former US ambassador to Somalia, Stephen Schwartz, blasted the move as "a gratuitous public relations and operational windfall to al-Shabab".
There is particular concern that - even though the US' often controversial drone attacks against al-Shabab targets will continue - the hands-on training and oversight that the Americans provided to Somalia's elite Danab special forces may suffer.
"It's only the American airstrikes and special forces have been hitting al-Shabab hard and slowing it down," said Mr Ali.
"Otherwise they could have made even more headway. This could have a serious impact on counter-terrorism efforts in Somalia. [Danab could now] be vulnerable to being used as a political tool" by rival forces within the state, he added.
Those tensions within Somalia's fragile state institutions are also being fuelled and manipulated by other countries in an increasingly unpredictable region, with rising instability in Ethiopia, the Gulf and elsewhere, and with five foreign African armies and military advisors from many other nations, now active in Somalia's internal conflicts.
Huge progress in Somalia
"The problem is that Somalia's conflicts have not entirely been resolved yet. There are different views about what sort of country it should become. Differences within Somalia are being exploited or widened, sometimes by international partners," said ambassador Fender.
Somalia has undoubtedly made huge progress in many areas in the past few years.
The state has become more effective at revenue collection, younger Somalis and members of the diaspora are active in civil society, Mogadishu itself is changing fast, and if politicians can overcome the current impasse and hold another election this year, it would mean the country has managed a third peaceful transition in less than a decade.
But that progress remains entirely dependent on the AU force, Amisom, made up of some 20,000 African troops, which protects the government and has, for years, taken the lead in fighting al-Shabab.
More about Somalia:
Critics of the mission say it has become too comfortable with the status quo, and is not doing enough to wipe out the militants.
But senior Amisom officials say attempts to build a cohesive Somali national army to support their campaign against al-Shabab have largely failed.
Last line of defence
"We haven't done our job. It's a fact," said Mr Ali of efforts to build a Somali army. "But Amisom have also not been doing enough."
A decade ago, when al-Shabab still controlled more than half of Mogadishu and furious trench-warfare engulfed the city, it was widely accepted that the militants would overrun the capital within an hour if Amisom were to withdraw its troops.
Today, according to one senior military official who spoke on condition of anonymity, it would now take "just 12 hours" for al-Shabab to seize Mogadishu and most other towns if Amisom pulled out.
|
A trial of the English coronavirus app is getting under way.
|
By Leo KelionTechnology desk editor
It will be limited to residents in the Isle of Wight, the London Borough of Newham and NHS volunteer responders to begin with.
The app will be available in Apple and Google's online stores, but users will need to enter a code to activate it.
The software will tell users to self-isolate for a fortnight if the app detects they have been close to someone else diagnosed with the virus.
Baroness Dido Harding - who heads up the wider Test and Trace initiative - had earlier voiced concern about implementing the automated contact-tracing feature because of fears many people who had been falsely flagged might be told to go into quarantine.
The app has several other functions, including:
It initially works in five languages, with plans to add more soon.
The contact-tracing element of the software is based on Google and Apple's privacy-centric system.
The developers acknowledge there are still issues with measuring the distance between handsets, meaning some people will be incorrectly logged as being at high risk.
Official social distancing guidance says that two people should not be within 2m (6.6ft) of each other for 15 minutes or more.
But when trying to detect this, lab tests indicate:
However, if the boundary is set at 5m, the accuracy rates radically improve.
Then the handsets detect each other in more than 99% of all cases, regardless of whether iPhones or Android devices were involved.
This is not useful in practice, but indicates the flaw that caused the original NHS Covid-19 app to be cancelled has been solved. That product often failed to detect cases involving two iPhones because of restrictions imposed on third-party software by Apple.
The team behind the new app acknowledges more work needs to be done to reduce the number of false positives and false negatives that occur at 2m, but is optimistic they can achieve this.
Part of the problem at present is that Apple and Google refuse to share the raw Bluetooth signal data involved.
While the two show no signs of backing down, they will shortly release a new version of their tool that should improve matters.
This development has also been welcomed by those involved with Switzerland's SwissCovid app.
"While the updated Google/Apple exposure notification API [application programming interface] still aggregates and shuffles data for privacy reasons, it will expose more information needed by the app to compute exposure more precisely," explained Prof Mathias Payer from the EPFL university in Lausanne.
'Battle to persuade'
The pilot comes at time when clusters of people testing positive have led to local lockdowns, and major changes are being made to the way England's manual contact-tracing system is run.
Test and Trace officials say the motivation for the app is to give "maximum freedom at minimum risk", but acknowledge it is not a "silver bullet".
"By launching an app that supports our integrated localised approach to NHS Test and Trace, anyone with a smartphone will be able to find out if they are at risk of having caught the virus, quickly and easily order a test, and access the right guidance and advice," said Baroness Harding.
However, she is not yet ready to say when a national rollout could occur.
An academic who had served as an ethical advisor to the original scrapped app was positive about the fact that the trial was not limited to the Isle of Wight this time.
"This time it's a more diverse area - and not just one full of older white people - because it was clear that before very little could be gained from analysis of the demographics" said Prof Lillian Edwards.
But she added that the government still had a "battle to persuade people" to install the software.
"The evidence from Italy is that people aren't installing their Immuni contact-tracing app, but they might when the number of infections rises again."
Another public health expert was even more sceptical.
"Even if they have got it working, the app is unlikely to make a difference," said Prof Allyson Pollock from Newcastle University.
"The issue is not just the contact tracing but the ability to get people to isolate and quarantine. And that means financial support needs to be provided by the government."
|
Remember Johann Lamont? Silly question; of course you do. She remains, after all, a prominent member of the Scottish Parliament. A committee convener, no less, and one who, I am told, now displays her innate wit and drollery on a particular social medium.
|
Brian TaylorPolitical editor, Scotland
Start again, Brian. Do you remember Johann Lamont complaining that the party she led, the Scottish Labour Party, was treated "like a branch office" by comrades in London?
I certainly do. And I also remember the conversation with a senior Labour figure who told me: "Brian, we're not treated like a branch office. We are a branch office."
But, of course, you remember all this. It was, at the time two years ago, a defining condemnation of Labour's relationship with Scotland - only faintly reduced in force by the fact that it was delivered by Ms Lamont on demitting office, when a little vitriol is perhaps to be expected.
That comment has hovered over Scottish Labour since, a decidedly unwelcome Banquo - although one cannot stretch that metaphor too far, not least because the recent leitmotif of Labour in Scotland has been famine rather than feast.
Now, finally, Scottish Labour is seeking to dispel the Lamont lament. To push it away. To diminish its lingering force.
More precisely, the UK party as a whole is enacting a plan for greater Scottish autonomy - after a prolonged period of consultation and consideration.
In October last year, Labour's leaders, Jeremy Corbyn and Kezia Dugdale, agreed the outlines of internal party devolution. Now it has been endorsed by the UK party's National Executive Committee (NEC) and should be carried by the pending UK party conference in Liverpool.
Broadly, it gives the Scottish party control over Westminster candidate selection, constituency party organisation and policy, both devolved and reserved.
'Enhanced devolution'
Ms Dugdale has voiced delight. Whaur's yer branch office noo, as she so nearly said. Further, she told me it entrenched the position of the Scottish leader as heading an autonomous, distinct Scottish party. She was, she said, the boss of the party in Scotland, taking orders from nobody south of the border.
However, there are limits. This is, deliberately and explicitly, enhanced devolution rather than independence.
Indeed, the extent of continued co-operation across the border is stressed and vaunted by the party. Kezia Dugdale told me that the party in Scotland remained firmly part of "the Labour family" and was fully committed, for example, to working flat out for the return of a UK Labour Government at Westminster.
So the limits? Firstly, funding remains as is. Consider primarily the cash from affiliates - that is, mostly, trades unions. Generally, their cash goes to the UK party - with an impact across the UK, including in Scotland.
But, when Holyrood elections are pending, there are donations to the party in Scotland. In addition, individual unions support individual candidates who are affiliated to their cause.
It has been decided that there will be no attempt to unpick this. Which, of itself, involves a substantial degree of cross-border co-operation. Again, vaunted by Scottish Labour, without caveat.
Then there is policy. Ms Dugdale says the new approach entrenches policy autonomy for the Scottish party. Over devolved and reserved issues. They can debate what they like, consider what they like - and adopt relevant policy positions.
Except these policy positions, as endorsed by the Scottish party, will not necessarily feature in the manifesto advanced by Labour at a UK General Election.
Such a manifesto is, inevitably, a digest of policy positions as set out in the party programme, determined by Clause 5 of Labour's rule book. This will still be the case, even after Scottish party autonomy.
So, in the new set-up, Scottish Labour will participate in the Clause 5 meeting which decides the party's policy programme, presumably advocating positions agreed by the Scottish party.
Where there is a difference between the Scottish position and that adopted, say, by the UK conference, then there will be discussion and debate. A reconciliation process designed to lead to a common position.
At a UK General Election, Scottish Labour candidates will stand upon the same platform as candidates elsewhere in the UK. Again, consider context. Labour is seeking UK power, on an agreed UK policy platform. It cannot, credibly, offer voters a pick and mix.
But, I asked Kezia Dugdale, what if the Scottish party wants to scrap Trident - and the UK party does not? There would be, said Ms Dugdale, a reconciliation process with regard to any issue where there was a range of positions.
'Internal insurrection'
The difference, she said, was that the Scottish party would have a distinct, autonomous position - and would be able to argue for that within the counsels of the wider party. Devo Max, remember.
And that "Labour family"? Somewhat strained, of late. Less The Broons. More Kane and Abel. Alongside ratifying Scottish autonomy, the Liverpool conference may be a mite - just a tad - preoccupied by the declaration of its leadership contest.
It seems fairly certain that Jeremy Corbyn will win out, over Owen Smith. What then? Will the internal insurrection against Mr Corbyn, driven mostly by MPs, subside? Perhaps, for a period at least, if and when he wins a further democratic contest.
And what will the newly autonomous Kezia Dugdale do? She backed Owen Smith, suggesting that Mr Corbyn lacked the broad appeal to win power for Labour.
Will she continue with that tone? I would reckon not. Such comments, appropriate to a leadership contest, have to be shelved when the outcome is declared. Expect an acceptance of the outcome and an appeal for unity.
Reconciliation, Clause 5 style. For now.
|
Labour's decision to change its policy on George Osborne's plan to try to make it legally binding on future government's to balance their books each year, has brought to the surface some of tensions within the party following Jeremy Corbyn's journey from rank outsider to party leader.
|
By Tom MoseleyPolitical reporter
Few MPs had backed the member for Islington North, and many were unhappy that he chose his ally from the Labour left, John McDonnell, as shadow chancellor.
When Mr McDonnell explained his decision to reverse his support for Mr Osborne plan - which are set out in an updated Charter for Budget Responsibility - to labour MPs, shouts of criticism were audible outside the room, and one ex-minister described the process as a "shambles".
What the charter says
The charter commits the government to keep debt falling as a share of GDP each year and achieve a budget surplus by 2019-20. Governments will then be required to ensure there is a surplus in "normal times".
This will be when the independent Office for Budget Responsibility judges that the UK is experiencing real GDP growth of less than 1% a year, as measured on a rolling four-quarter basis.
Key terms explained
Osborne's objective
Chancellor George Osborne's plan has been seen as a potential trap for Labour and a test of its willingness to commit to spending cuts. His number two at the Treasury, David Gauke, however, insists that is not a political stunt.
He told the BBC it would improve accountability and help ensure a "sound framework for delivering sound public finances" with any chancellor having to suffer the "political embarrassment" if they did not meet its requirements.
The U-turn
Soon after his appointment, Mr McDonnell said he would support the charter, saying Labour was serious about deficit reduction - although he had a markedly different approach to the Conservatives towards balancing the books (he says Labour would spend more and grow the economy and collect more taxes from companies to balance the books rather than balancing the books by cutting spending).
But he has now pointed to a "growing reaction" to the "nature and scale" of public spending cuts, saying Labour will vote against the charter to "underline our position as an anti-austerity party". Labour will set out an alternative plan for tackling the deficit, he says.
The reaction
Many Labour MPs agree the charter should be opposed, but are unhappy at the way the decision has been reached.
Mr McDonnell's predecessor as shadow chancellor, Chris Leslie, says the decision to "go from one extreme to the other... sends the wrong message to the general public".
Mr Corbyn's supporters say the Parliamentary Labour Party should accept the mandate of his comprehensive victory in the leadership contest, with shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott saying some in the party are still "coming to terms" with his victory.
Wednesday's vote on the charter will not be the final time Mr Corbyn's leadership is tested in the House of Commons.
Other potential flashpoints
Nuclear weapons is an issue where Mr Corbyn's views are in direct conflict with party policy. Labour is presently committed to renewing the Trident missile system, but the party's leader is committed to opposing it, and has said he would not fire nuclear weapons if he were prime minister.
Mr Corbyn says Trident will form part of a defence review being carried out by shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle. But unless he can change Labour's policy - and a bid to get it debated at conference last month was rejected - he faces the unusual prospect of rebelling against his own party when Parliament votes on the issue next year.
Labour MPs could be given a free vote, which means they will not be bound by party lines, to avoid this happening.
Syria air strikes
David Cameron is hoping to build Commons support for air strikes on so-called Islamic State militants in Syria. Mr Corbyn is opposed to any military intervention, but not all of his MPs - or his shadow cabinet - share this view.
The divisions were underlined by a bad-tempered Twitter exchange involving shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott, who criticised Labour MP Jo Cox for proposing military action to protect civilians. Ms Abbott was branded an "internet troll" by Labour MP John Woodcock after she accused him and Ms Cox of wanting to "support Cameron in his long held desire to bomb Syria".
In his party conference speech, Mr Corbyn said "the answer to this complex and tragic conflict can't simply be found in a few more bombs".
Also at the party conference, Mr McDonnell suggested a free vote could be held, saying he did not expect consensus within the party and that he believed a vote on military action in Syria should be made "on the basis of conscience".
Welfare cap
The government's cap on overall household benefits had already split the Labour Party before Mr Corbyn took over, with 48 of its MPs opposing the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which will reduce the cap to £23,000 in London and £20,000 in the rest of the country, in defiance of the then interim leader Harriet Harman's order to abstain.
Mr Corbyn has said he wants to scrap the cap altogether, calling the policy "devastating". But Owen Smith, his shadow work and pensions secretary, has said Labour is only opposing plans to reduce it.
Crises averted
On some key policy issues, Labour has managed to defuse potential rows. One big one that was looming was over the EU referendum - would Mr Corbyn, who had appeared lukewarm during the leadership election, go against almost all his MPs and push for a UK exit?
Had he done so, he would have risked mutiny from his MPs and resignations from his front bench. But last month, under growing pressure to clarify his position, he told the BBC while policy was "developing" he could not foresee a situation where Labour would campaign for a "Brexit" under his leadership.
Labour appears united in its opposition to tax credit cuts, and on one of Mr Corbyn's flagship pledges - rail re-nationalisation - after the leader said he would adopt the line-by-line approach put forward by Andy Burnham in the leadership contest.
Outside the Commons
The nucleus of Mr Corbyn's support lies away from Westminster, in the party's wider membership which propelled him to his overwhelming victory in the leadership contest. Given the lack of support for the leader among the Parliamentary party, some MPs fear they will be ousted as party candidates by Corbyn supporters.
This fear has been fuelled by the creation of a new group, Momentum, which aims to capitalise on Mr Corbyn's victory and create a "mass movement for real progressive change".
Former shadow Cabinet member Mary Creagh is among those to suggest the group could lead to a purge of those in the centre-left of the party, and MPs voiced their concerns during Monday night's Parliamentary Labour Party meeting. Corbyn-supporting MP Richard Burgon, who was reportedly heckled at the meeting, has said his colleagues have "nothing to fear" from Momentum, which will not be "inwardly meddling".
|
PA Media photographers choose their best photographs from the past year and reflect on the stories behind the images.
|
Pete Byrne
"The quieter streets in Llandudno, because of lockdown, meant the Welsh mountain goats were roaming freely around the town.
"I was on another job when I got a call from the picture desk telling me about them and asking me to go.
"After a 90-mile, two-hour drive, at first I couldn't see anything.
"I was not impressed as I thought I had failed myself by not finding them, and assumed they had gone back up the mountain again.
"I went for a walk to see if there was a coffee shop open and, as I turned the corner, I was met by a herd of goats just walking down the road.
"A sight I'll never forget."
Aaron Chown
"[This was the] moment in March the Queen departed Buckingham Palace for Windsor Castle, accompanied by her corgis.
"Unusually, she left the official London royal residence a week before the start of the Easter holidays, and four days before the UK was put into strict lockdowns.
"The Queen has not yet returned to Buckingham Palace, and no date has been given for her return.
"This is Her Majesty's longest time away from Buckingham Palace during her six-decade-long reign."
Jonathan Brady
"OK, so it's a man sat at a table next to a microphone in a garden and, yes, I was the only photographer allowed in.
"However, I think there is something about this image which captures the juxtaposition of banal subject matter with a particular moment of acute national attention and controversy.
"This image and others from the set were used across all of the national newspapers the following day.
"It is, of course, the moment when Prime Minister Boris Johnson's then chief political adviser, Dominic Cummings, appeared before assembled media in the garden of Number 10 Downing Street to explain his actions following his controversial journey to Barnard Castle during the first national lockdown.
"It is often assumed that being the only photographer at an event is a pressure-free task, and more often than not it is.
"There are no other photographers there to 'compete' with, and so any missed moments or mistakes are solely a matter between the photographer and their conscience.
"However, there was intense pressure in my mind the entire time of knowing my peers would scrutinise my work, and my documenting of this moment was going to be the focus for the media that day and days to come.
"Nothing could be missed.
"I don't think it was."
Ben Birchall
"For me, this image sums up the frustration in the UK and across the world of the treatment of black people and their struggle to find a voice amid the Black Lives Matter movement.
"The statue of Edward Colston, a 17th Century slave trader, can be seen about to fall into the water in the foreground with hordes of protesters stood across Pero's Bridge in the background.
"The bridge is named after enslaved African Pero Jones, who was brought to Bristol aged 12 to work as a servant and died in the city after 32 years of service.
"These two elements in the frame (with very little time to truly compose for this effect) create a very historic and newsworthy juxtaposition, unlike any other news picture I've ever taken."
Dominic Lipinski
"This was one of the images I remember taking most from the first national coronavirus lockdown in July.
"The sight of a giant portrait of the Queen Elizabeth II on the big screen overlooking an almost deserted Piccadilly Circus was eerie - a familiar face looking out at a very unfamiliar situation."
Jacob King
"Earlier this month, Margaret Keenan, 90, was applauded by staff as she returned to her ward after becoming the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine outside of trial at University Hospital, Coventry, at the start of the largest-ever immunisation programme in the UK's history.
"The image seems to be a defining moment in the coronavirus pandemic, and hopefully the beginning of the end of a difficult time for many.
"I was very fortunate to be the pool photographer for the occasion, and the reaction the images received gave me a sense of the relief felt across the media and public at the potential for the virus to be controlled, heading into 2021."
Danny Lawson
"The photograph is one of the last images from a feature that I shot documenting the Northern Ballet's return to the stage following the first Covid-19 lockdown.
"I spent two extremely long days working behind the scenes with the dancers as they trained and rehearsed under Covid-safe conditions.
"The image was taken during the final dress rehearsal on their opening night."
Brian Lawless
"This image was taken on Good Friday when the Republic of Ireland was almost a month into lockdown, and with case numbers still rising when then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced there would be an extension of restrictions.
"As the Republic is a predominantly Catholic country, Good Friday, for some, is still an important day especially for older generations.
"Also, Easter is a time of celebration and coming together for a large portion of the population and this wasn't going to be.
"I think it's the simplicity but also the starkness of the image I like.
"The crucifixion of Christ is such a recognisable symbol of suffering, and at this stage there wasn't a person on the planet not suffering in some way in these strange and uncertain times.
"Then to have the man spraying disinfectant seemed somewhat irreverent but also absolutely necessary.
"Often people will touch the statue's feet or even kiss the statue, something maybe done without much thought for hygiene in the past, but in this new era an act now unthinkable.
"It also reminded me of Christ's act of washing his disciples' feet and the humility associated with it.
"Ultimately, I felt the image told a story of how this thing that was new to us all was affecting every aspect of our lives, even the oldest of traditions."
Andrew Milligan
"I was covering Clap for Carers at 20:00 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow, where usually emergency staff would stand at the entrance to A&E and clap.
"On this occasion, just as the clock hit the hour, the staff outside turned their back on me and clapped towards windows several levels up, taking my attention to where nursing staff were in full PPE clapping at the windows.
"The three staff filled the window frame perfectly, with their blue suits standing out."
Yui Mok
"My best picture of the year was taken on 31 January 2020, when the union flag was lowered from its pole outside the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, and removed to mark the UK formally leaving the European Union after 47 years of membership.
"I like the image for its powerful symbolism and historical significance - the photograph not only captures the lowering of a flag, but a picture of a divided nation mired in political turmoil and economic uncertainty."
Niall Carson
"My favourite photo of 2020 is of Donegal surfer Conor Maguire surfing giant 60ft (18.2m) waves caused by the remnants of Hurricane Epsilon, at Mullaghmore head off the Sligo coast.
"I got a tip the night before, which meant a 05:30 start and a four-hour drive from my home.
"I arrived just in time to catch two waves before the tide receded and the show was over.
"All in all, a two-minute window for a once-in-a generation event."
Ian West
"The red carpet for the Vanity Fair Oscars party opens at midnight in Los Angeles; after you find your assigned place you then stand there taking pictures for hours.
"After about eight hours your shoulders start to hurt, your arms start to ache and your back feels broken, but you have to stay where you are as the film stars who have actually attended the awards ceremony have yet to arrive.
"It was about 01:00 when Renee Zellweger arrived with her Best Actress award for the film Judy.
"As usual, every photographer shouted their head off trying to get Renee to look their way.
"After 13 or so hours, thankfully I was still loud enough."
Mike Egerton
"One of the benefits of photographing a football match with no spectators is the fact that you can work from virtually anywhere in the stadium.
"As it was a late afternoon kick-off, I knew that by the end of the match shadows would be cast over the pitch as the sun disappeared behind the stands.
"By positioning myself high in the stands I would be able to capture a nice action shot with unusual shadows cast on to the grass.
"It is not as easy as it sounds to get a nice action picture and nice shadows together in the same frame.
"Luckily, on this occasion three players came together just in the right location for the sun and produced a very unusual football picture."
Jane Barlow
"The firing of the One O'Clock Gun at Edinburgh Castle is a daily occurrence and one which attracts hundreds of tourists every day.
"I like how a very familiar scene in Edinburgh has become slightly unusual with the introduction of socially distanced circles painted on the ground due to the restrictions.
"I also like the geometric pattern the people in circles creates.
"It was fascinating watching the people gradually assemble in the minutes leading up to one o'clock: no one told people to stand in the circles, families and couples just did it.
"And it was a bonus to get the flash of the gun!"
Liam McBurney
"I love the expression on the Duchess of Cambridge's face as she strokes an alpaca during a visit to the Ark Open Farm at Newtownards, near Belfast.
"It was a radiant and natural smile that made her glow.
"I also remember this image because on the same job a goat at the farm took a fancy to my coat and started jumping on me as it ate my coat."
Victoria Jones
"I was asked to attend a photocall at Wellington Barracks in London for their new canine mascot.
"As with many military jobs, it was all starting to look a little regimented and dull, and I didn't think that I'd get a particularly good picture from it.
"The lovely dog was only six months old and started to get a little bored and naughty, so his handler, who was an Irish Guard wearing the traditional bearskin uniform, took him for a short walk away from the photocall.
"I continued shooting because the soldier and his new dog looked so lovely playing together, away from the regimented look that we would normally expect to see, however I was worried that for this reason I may be asked to not use the pictures.
"Luckily the barracks agreed that it was nice to see the more human side of their work, and I was rewarded with a front page picture on the Daily Telegraph the next day - as well as some very muddy knees."
Tim Goode
"This picture was taken at the World Track Cycling Championships, held in Berlin in February.
"The Velodrom is not an aesthetically pleasing building inside or out, so you spend a lot of time trying to cut out things in the background such as advertising boards.
"One way to do this is to produce a panning picture, achieved by slowing down the shutter speed, focusing on the rider and following them through the frame - blurring everything out except them.
"The shutter speed for this picture was 1/15 of a second, so you lose all of the messy background and turn it into something that looks much better!
"Riders on the track can get up to around 50mph, and the individual pursuit that this picture is of is ridden over 4km, so you get a few attempts of each rider.
"I'd been wanting to take this picture from the start of the week, but just had to wait for the right event to execute it in.
"I was glad I got it in the bag when I did, as when we went back in the next day the stewards had decided we were no longer allowed in that part of the course.
"Track cycling is one of the most exciting sports to photograph, with years of practice coming down to as little as one lap in an event and tiny mistakes can make or break your competition.
"This picture gives some idea of the speed and precision of track cycling, which is always electric when the top riders are competing."
All photographs subject to copyright.
|
A sinkhole which forced the closure of a main road in Neath Port Talbot has been filled with 64 tonnes of stone and concrete.
|
Police sealed off Cimla Road, Neath, on Thursday morning following its discovery at the bottom of Cimla Hill.
Although it was only 1.5ft (0.5m) wide on the surface, the council said the void below was 20ft (6m) wide and deep.
The repaired road will be resurfaced once the concrete has hardened and is expected to reopen on Monday.
Refuse and recycling collections unable to take place because of the road closure will also be carried out Monday.
|
About 100,000 black GIs were stationed in the UK during the war. Inevitably there were love affairs, but US laws usually prevented black servicemen from marrying. So what happened to the children they fathered? Fiona Clampin met two such children in Dorset, now in their seventies, who have not given up hope of tracing their fathers.
|
A bottle of champagne has sat on a shelf in Carole Travers's wardrobe for the past 20 years. Wedged between boxes and covered with clothes, it'll be opened only when Carole finds her father. "There's an outside chance he might still be alive," she reflects. "I've got so many bits of information, but to know the real truth would mean the world to me - to know that I did belong to somebody."
The possibility of Carole tracking down her father becomes more and more remote by the day. Born towards the end of World War Two, Carole, now 72, was the result of a relationship between her white mother and a married African-American or mixed-race soldier stationed in Poole, in Dorset.
Whereas some "brown babies" (as the children of black GIs were known in the press) were put up for adoption, Carole's mother, Eleanor Reid, decided to keep her child. The only problem was, she was already married, with a daughter, to a Scot with pale skin and red hair.
"I had black hair and dark skin," says Carole. "Something obviously wasn't right."
The difference between Carole and her half-siblings only dawned on the young girl at the age of six, when she overheard her parents having an argument. "Does she know? Well, it's about time she did," said her stepfather, in Carole's retelling of the story. She remembers how her mother sat her down at the kitchen table and told Carole the truth about her background.
"I was chuffed I was different," she says. "I used to tell my friends, 'My dad's an America,' without really knowing what that meant."
In 1950s Dorset there were very few mixed-race or black children, and having one out of wedlock carried a huge stigma. Although Carole doesn't remember any specific racist remarks, she recalls the stares. Parents would shush their children when she and her family got on the bus.
Carole says her "blackness" was considered cute when she was a child, but as she grew up she became more aware of her difference. "I remember once being in a club and there was a comedian who started making jokes about black people. I'm stood there and I'm thinking: 'Everyone's looking at me,'" she says.
"I always felt inferior. As a teenager, I would stand back, I thought that nobody would ever want to know me because of my colour.
"I was going out with one boy, and his mother found out about me. She put a stop to it because she remarked that if we had kids, they would be 'coloured'."
Seventy-two-year-old John Stockley, another child of an African-American GI stationed further down the Dorset coast in Weymouth, does remember the racial abuse in striking detail.
John was called names to such an extent that at the age of seven he decided he would try to turn his skin pale to be like his classmates.
"I worked out that if I drank milk of magnesia [a laxative] and ate chalk I would make myself go white," he chuckles. "I think I drank over half the bottle! You can imagine the effect. It wasn't good and it tasted disgusting."
In one playground incident a boy insulted him with the N-word and called him "dirty", but when John thrashed him he found himself summoned to the school office.
"It was a winter's day in the early 1950s," John explains.
"I was playing football and I collided with another guy. By this time I was quite fiery, I wouldn't take it, and a blow was struck. I made his nose bleed. To this day I can see the blood on the snow.
"My mother lived less than 100 yards from the school, and she was summoned to the office with me. I remember her shaking next to me, holding my hand. The secretary told her what had happened and he said to my mother: 'You have to remember, Mrs Stockley, these people cannot be educated.' That puts my hackles up now."
Shocking though the racism seems to us today, it was arguably family life which had a more pernicious effect on these mixed-race children. "Your mum made a mistake," one of his aunts once told John Stockley.
"The 'mistake' is me," he says.
John's description of his childhood spent living with his grandparents in a village behind Chesil Beach sounds idyllic. But that's to ignore the reason why he went there in the first place. Determined to punish his wife for her double transgression, John's stepfather did not allow him to live in the family home except from Monday to Friday during school term.
Even then, John was not permitted to enter the house by the front door. At weekends he was packed off to his maternal grandparents, who provided him with the stable and loving family life he craved - and a refuge from his stepfather.
"Of course, coming back from the war and finding his wife with a black child must have been a great shock," John acknowledges.
"And they never had any children together. But there was no love at all for him from me, because of what he did to my mother. She was effectively kept in a position of restraint, and I'd see her go through depression because she wanted to do things she couldn't."
John says his stepfather - a gambler and philanderer - exercised control over his mother despite the fact that she ran a successful guesthouse. He decided who John's mother could or could not be friends with, John says.
"And he didn't like us to be too close. If some music came on the radio when he wasn't there, I would dance with her because she loved to jitterbug. But not when he was around. We were told to stop."
Carole Travers's stepfather began divorce proceedings when he found out what his wife had done in his absence. However, when it appeared that he wouldn't get custody of their daughter (Carole's half-sister), he returned to the family home and Carole took his surname.
He appeared to accept Carole on the surface, but towards the end of his life he telephoned her and dropped a bombshell. He wouldn't be leaving her anything in his will, he told her, "because you're nothing to do with me".
"The money didn't matter," says Carole. "But what he said really hurt me. I told him, 'You're my dad, you've always been my dad, and you're the only dad I've ever known'."
Married and with children of her own by this time, Carole started trying to trace her biological father, based on the scraps of information her mother had given her in the weeks before she died. "It just didn't occur to me to ask questions when I was younger," she says, the tone of regret in her voice clear.
"My stepfather would always bring me up in any argument with my mother, referring to me as 'your bastard', and I learned not to rock the boat. I just got on with my life."
Find out more
Not all GI babies were able to stay with their mothers. Dr Deborah Prior was born in 1945, to a widow in Somerset and a black American serviceman. Her mother was persuaded to give her up, and for five years Deborah lived in Holnicote House, a special home for mixed-race children. Deborah spoke to Woman's Hour along with Prof Lucy Bland, who is researching this under-reported chapter of social history.
Like Carole, John Stockley wanted to protect his mother by keeping quiet. "I could see it was going to upset her if I asked too many questions, and upset her was the last thing I was going to do," he says. He would take his chance occasionally, although his mother would always evade his enquiries. But John remembers with characteristic clarity the last time he brought up the subject of his real father.
"I remember her saying to me in the course of a minor argument between us: 'You don't know what I've been through because of you.'
"And I said to her: 'You don't know what I've been through because of you!' She went pale, and realised what she'd said and how she'd put her foot in it. But we never went any further than that. She just looked at me in a sad sort of way, and I said, 'Have I ever done anything to make you ashamed of me?' And she said no. And that was the last we ever spoke about it."
It was turning 70 that prompted John to start looking for information about his father, whereas Carole has spent almost half her life searching for a man she knows only as "Burt". Neither of them has many facts to go on - Carole believes her stepfather destroyed the only photos and letters that could have helped her identify Burt. But while their searches may come to nothing, they both take solace from the fact that their mothers loved them against all the odds, and that they were born of loving relationships, not one-night stands.
"My mother told me my father was the only man she ever really loved," says Carole. "And I've had Mum's friends say to me since her death: 'Don't ever feel ashamed of your background, because you were born out of love and your mum wanted you.' She knew he was going back to America and she wanted something of him, something to hold on to."
Listen to Fiona Clampin's report on Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
|
Vegetables. Not a word which immediately conjures up joy, celebration, and a great day out. But across England, towns and villages hold annual fairs - or often "fayres" - in honour of the humble onion, the delicate asparagus and peppery watercress.
|
By Bethan BellJournalist, BBC News
England's festivals in celebration of both fruit and vegetables may not have the exuberance of Spain's Tomatina - where participants hurl tomatoes at each other in a frenzy of delight - but English stiff upper lips unfurl enough to sing the praises of peas, rhapsodise over rhubarb, and cheer about cherries.
And while not the foodie heaven of France, it is worth taking a tour around England's green and pleasant land to enjoy the delights of the edible and the eccentric.
Moved to tears
Newent Onion Fayre, Gloucestershire
In the 13th Century, drovers from Wales would pass through the village of Newent and stock up on onions at the onion fayre. The market survived until the beginning of the 20th Century, when it dwindled through the war years.
But the event was resurrected in 1996 as a way to showcase - in the words of the organisers - the "magnificent onion".
Now in its 19th modern year, it hosts an onion-eating competition, an onion show, a biggest onion contest, demonstrations of onion recipes, and a competition for the best onion character.
Gone today, hair tomorrow
Alresford Watercress Festival, Hampshire
Watercress has been used historically to remedy hair loss and was used by Roman generals to help them make bold decisions.
Alresford, then, should be full of hirsute risk-takers, as it prides itself on being the UK's "capital of watercress".
Streets come to a standstill as the first watercress, freshly cut from a nearby farm, is brought into town on a traditional horse and cart.
The newly-crowned watercress king and queen ride on the cart and hand out the peppery crop to the public.
Why watercress?
It stems back to the original "watercress queen", Eliza James, who created vast watercress beds in Hampshire.
Born in the mid-1800s, by the age of five she was already hawking bunches of wild watercress around factories in Birmingham, later moving to London and establishing a near monopoly on the city's watercress restaurant and hotel trade.
She set up her own farms, becoming the biggest owner of watercress sites anywhere in the world.
At the time of her death in 1927 at the age of 72, the company she founded was handling 50 tonnes of watercress every weekend.
Her fields are still used for watercress production.
Night stalkers
Wakefield Rhubarb Festival, West Yorkshire
Although the plant is a native of Siberia, a 9-sq-mile (23-sq-km ) region between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell has become known as the "Rhubarb Triangle", famous for producing early forced rhubarb.
West Yorkshire once produced 90% of the world's winter forced rhubarb, which is not a fruit but a vegetable, and grown in the dark.
The 10-day festival includes rhubarb tasting, rhubarb recipes, and tours of rhubarb sheds - which are so popular they are ticket-only events.
Too tart to eat raw, the cook's default is crumble, although chef Gregg Wallace recommends having it with gammon.
Over the years, farmers in the Rhubarb Triangle have developed secret methods to produce the most tender and sweet version of rhubarb.
It is thought many of the closely-guarded techniques involve an upturned bucket.
Growing, growing, gone
Evesham Asparagus Festival, Worcestershire
A vegetable with only an eight-week season, asparagus has the unusual distinction of being both an aphrodisiac and a diuretic.
Asparagus has been a tasty delicacy for millennia - methods for cooking it are in the oldest surviving book of recipes, (if you are not familiar with it, it is Apicius's first-century AD De Re Coquinaria), but the vegetable only became popular in England in the 16th Century.
Asparagus beds take about three years before they can be harvested, but once established the spears can grow as speedily as an inch every hour.
Arthur Young, an 18th Century agriculturalist, visited Evesham in 1768 and his book, A Six Months Tour of the North of England, published in 1771, documents how asparagus was carried from Evesham to Bath and Bristol.
The Round of Gras in nearby Badsey lays claim to being the only pub in the world to be named after a bunch of asparagus.
The festival includes the crowning of the asparagus king and queen, asparagus-eating competitions, and a display from an "asparamancer" - who predicts the future by reading the way stalks fall on the floor.
Predictions for 2014 include: the weather situation in the Far East will worsen, a supergroup will announce it is splitting up, and sportspeople will have a miserable and unsuccessful year.
Give peas a chance
Peasenhall Pea Festival, Suffolk
One of the earliest crops cultivated by man, more than 1,000 varieties of pea are in existence today.
Most of England's peas are grown in East Anglia or Lincolnshire, and only 5% are sold fresh.
Britain's top-selling frozen vegetable, nearly 200-sq-miles (about 500-sq-km) of peas are grown annually for human consumption and nearly 300-sq-miles (about 800-sq-km) for animal feed.
The name of Peasenhall is thought to have come from the Middle English for "where peas are grown".
Visitors to the festival can join in pea-related games, share pea recipes and even have a shot at becoming a world champion at the World Pea Podding Championship.
"We are quite confident in saying it is the World Pea Podding Championship," its organisers said, "because it is the only pea podding championship."
Cherry on top
Faversham Cherry Festival, Kent
Perhaps the ultimate "I-can't-stop-eating-them" fruit, all things cherry are celebrated at this two-day festival.
Keen spitters can try their hand - or rather their mouth - at breaking a world record at this cherry fete.
The current holder of the cherry stone spitting world record is Brian Krause of the USA. He managed to project his pip 28.5m (93ft 6.5in).
People unconcerned about their waistline may like to enter the pie-eating competition.
Cherry-tasting, cherry displays, and cherry experts are also on offer.
Plumming the depths
Pershore Plum Festival, Worcestershire
If sugarplum fairies dance in your head, you could do worse than head to Pershore, where an annual plum festival is held in honour of its orchards which date back to medieval times.
A 1920s poster advertising the event described it as the "largest plum show on earth" - not that there was much competition - and in 1927, Great Western Railways enhanced the town's reputation by naming a train "The Pershore Plum".
Festival highlights include a "plum charmer", who plays his clarinet to the fledgling plums - thus ensuring a bumper crop. He follows in the 400-year-old footsteps of Thomas Nevill, a farmer who swore that his plums tasted sweeter after he had played the penny whistle to them.
The festival draws in the celebrities too - Antiques Roadshow stalwart Henry Sandon is usually in attendance, impressionist Alistair McGowan is the event's patron and actor Trevor Harrison (who plays Eddie Grundy in The Archers) has also been known to grace the event with his presence.
Proud of its plum-related heritage, in 2011 the town council wanted new streets named after varieties of the amygdaloideae.
But the district council pulled rank and told it to abandon its fruity ideas. The streets were named after war heroes instead.
|
Beautiful to some, a blot on the countryside to others, Didcot Power Station's monumental cooling towers have dominated the landscape of rural Oxfordshire for decades. But they will produce clouds of dust rather than steam when they are demolished on Sunday.
|
By Michael RaceBBC News
The power station's gigantic, concrete towers in the heart of Midsomer Murders country have stood in stark contrast to their surroundings for more than 50 years.
Public opinion is divided over the structure's good, bad, and ugly aspects. Some point to the jobs and communities it has created, while others highlight its 655ft (199.5m) smoke-belching chimney - one of the tallest structures in the UK - and say it is part of dirty industry they want to abolish forever.
Country Life readers voted the landmark Britain's third worst eyesore in 2003 and the site has long been the site of protests by environmentalists.
But to others the towers have been a source of inspiration.
The novelist, Dame Marina Warner, who made a BBC documentary about the power station in 1991, described them as "like the dark satanic mills [but with] a sort of incredible furious beauty".
"It appealed to me because I just used to find the cooling towers very beautiful when I saw them from the road," she said. "The big streaming clouds of steam over this beautiful valley and also there were points to make. I wanted to make a point about the ecology.
"I just thought they should be recognised as achievements and also of expressions of a certain moment of triumphalism, a sort of human excessive triumphalism over nature which we now must say goodbye to."
To the poet Kit Wright, who published An Ode to Didcot Power Station in 2014, they are "a marvel of the plain".
"No-one would normally think that a coal power station was actually tremendously beautiful, but you get lured into it, you get to think it - so it becomes so," he said.
"The eye becomes accustomed to places and so does the heart really.
"It sort of earns its place it ones emotions. It'll be interesting to see what it looks like when nothing is there."
That enough people will be sad to see the towers go is possibly due to their design.
The architect Sir Frederick Gibberd, who had already designed Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral, took care to ensure the cooling towers and chimney were "sympathetic" to the landscape.
Artists Rachel Barbaresi and Susanna Round, who were commissioned to photograph the station prior to it being decommissioned, discovered Sir Frederick's early drawings of the power station at the back of a filing cabinet in the coal plant.
Plans from 1965 showed eight cooling towers standing together before Gibberd reduced the number to six and constructed them in two sets of three, a mile apart, to mitigate their visual impact.
"You cannot see it without being aware of the environmental consequences, but in terms of the design we found it very fascinating," Ms Barbaresi said.
So why was this concrete pile placed in the middle of the verdant Thames valley?
For the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), which commissioned the power station back in 1964, it was a strategic decision.
The site, a former Ministry of Defence depot, was "freely available" to the government at the time, according to Lyn Bowen, who switched on the power station in 1970 and turned it off in 2013.
The town's railway line and proximity to the Thames also meant the location was right for the tonnes of coal and gallons of water the power station would require.
Despite local protests - employment benefits outweighed the landscape concerns - the six towers were completed in 1968, before the power station joined the National Grid in 1970.
During its construction, a recruitment campaign was launched in areas where heavy industry jobs had been cut, but experienced workers remained.
At the age of 25, Des Healy, had already been made redundant three times from jobs in Glasgow's shipyards and steel works.
Unemployed and with a young family, the skilled engineer signed up and moved to Didcot.
"We went to a local library to ask where Didcot was and I had three little librarians with maps of the south of England trying to find out and making phone calls," he laughed.
"One guy said I think it is in Oxfordshire and the second question was 'Where is Oxfordshire?'."
The 72-year-old said journeys like his were not uncommon, with workers drafted in from industrial areas in Scotland, northern England and south Wales.
Mr Healy would go on to become a senior shop steward and retire after 28 years in the town, where he still lives today.
The arrival of new employees saw houses built and new communities forged as the historic railway town entered a new era and identity.
Lyn Bowen, who moved to the area to run the plant, said the "only thing missing" when he first visited Didcot was "tumbleweed".
The 79-year-old remembers the excitement he felt, flicking the switch in the control room as the power station was turned on.
"All the pieces had been put together and it works," he recalled.
From that day, its boilers consumed 185 tonnes of coal every hour, which was burned to raise the temperature of the steam so high - 568C - so that it powered four mighty turbines.
The turbines then spun a generator rapidly to produce 2,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity to power millions of homes. The steam, still roaring hot, was condensed and allowed to escape through the six giant cooling towers.
But despite an increase in jobs and prosperity, Mr Healy said opinions were always split on the station.
"A lot of people felt it was dirty and noisy, which it was, because coal by virtue of what it is, coal is dirty," he said.
"If this power station had been built on the Clyde or the Tyne, I'm sure there would be a different attitude because all the money and jobs it brought to this area - those areas would have welcomed it with open arms."
Mr Healy, who became a Labour councillor and was mayor between 2015 and 2016, said he "always wanted to give back" because "Didcot was good to me and my family".
After new EU reduced emissions rules were brought in, the owners RWE Power decided to decommission the power station in 2013.
The three southern cooling towers were demolished a year later, but in February 2016, as engineers prepared the rest of the site for demolition, tragedy struck.
The 10-storey boiler house collapsed, killing workers Ken Cresswell, 57, John Shaw, 61, Michael Collings, 53, and Christopher Huxtable, 34. It took more than six months for their bodies to be recovered from the site.
Three years on, investigators have examined 870 tonnes of the collapsed structure and Thames Valley Police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are investigating possible manslaughter and health and safety offences.
Mr Bowen said it was a "poignant moment" when he switched off Didcot A after 43 years of service.
"The big sadness I have got with it going is that it reflects the end of British Engineering," he said. "It's the end of an era."
Mr Healy, who says he will watch the towers come down with his family, added: "People who are happy to see it come down will be rejoicing.
"People like myself who were brought out of unemployment and who were given secure futures for our families will think of the good times it brought us."
The future of the site is not known, although more than 15,000 new homes are set to be built in the area over the next 20 years.
Perhaps these developments will signal the start of another new era for the town, with new families moving in just as the power station workers did in the 1970s.
The government plans to phase out the UK's last coal-fired plants by 2025 to reduce carbon emissions.
Dame Marina believes the architects of such stations should not be "vilified".
"The work these buildings were doing was for everybody," she says. "This was the engine of society - this kind of fuel consuming and fuel making machine."
Between 06:00 and 08:00 BST hundreds will watch on as the three northern cooling towers are blown down, leaving the giant chimney to stand alone until the autumn.
The Oxfordshire skyline will never look the same again.
|
It's 500 years since Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, his guide to statesmanship for a hypothetical leader. There have been an extraordinary range of characters in popular culture that we have come to call "Machiavellian".
|
(Spoiler alert: Multiple key plot details revealed below)
The word "Machiavellian" first and foremost describes a relationship to the works of the 16th Century Florentine theorist Niccolo Machiavelli.
But its more common usage relates to the qualities people have gleaned from Machiavelli's The Prince.
The Oxford English Dictionary says: "A person who practises expediency in preference to morality; an intriguer or schemer. Usually derogatory." The Merriam Webster Dictionary says "marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith".
Scholars have often been vexed by the crude popular interpretations of Machiavelli's work but his supposed ethos has taken on a glorious life of its own in the form of a slew of splendidly devious characters.
1. Tony Soprano - The Sopranos
The fictional boss of the Soprano crime family in northern New Jersey is a man happy to lie, throttle and shoot his way to the continued occupancy of his throne.
But the kingpin expresses dissatisfaction with The Prince and the way his Italian crime colleagues dwell on Machiavelli's work. Instead, he reads and espouses The Art of War by Chinese general and philosopher Sun Tzu, after it is recommended by his therapist.
"Now most of the guys I know read that Prince Matchabelli. And I had Carmela get the Cliff Notes once and it was OK, but this book [Sun Tzu's Art of War] is much better about strategy."
Yet even a casual reader of The Prince will see parallels with Tony Soprano's modus operandi.
Arguably the best known section of The Prince is that on whether it is better to be feared or loved.
"Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved?" writes Machiavelli. "It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with."
2. Francis Urquhart - House of Cards
Francis Urquhart (known by his initials FU), a fictional politician with unquenchable ambition created by Michael Dobbs, is without doubt an uber-Machiavellian, gifted in the dark political arts.
Portrayed by actor Ian Richardson in the 1990 television series House of Cards. Urquhart's quest for power, his utter ruthlessness and political dexterity make him a classic anti-hero, remembered for his catchphrase: "You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment."
The link to the Italian philosophy was made explicit by screenwriter Andrew Davies. In Urquhart's backstory he has taught Renaissance Italian history prior to politics and is an expert on the Medicis and Machiavelli.
Like The Prince, he is concerned with ends rather than means.
He is at once fiercely principled, wedded to authoritarian social policy and a strict economic doctrine. On the other hand he is utterly without morals in his pursuit of power.
Passed over for a cabinet position when his candidate for prime minister rises to power, Urquhart sets out to destroy everyone in his path as he spins a web of manipulation. He resorts to blackmail, treachery and murder.
3. Tom Ripley
Of the amoral protagonist of Patricia Highsmith's novels and Anthony Minghella's film The Talented Mr Ripley, philosopher John Gray says Tom Ripley is a "true Machiavellian".
"Ripley does not allow his behaviour to be governed by his emotions but wherever possible follows a path of careful deception worked out well in advance.
"He is ready to use violence to achieve his goals, but only when he calculates doing so is necessary and will be effective. He is detached from traditional morality and has a public mask which conceals his purposes and strategies.
"Where Ripley is the opposite of Machiavellian is in his goals.
"Machiavelli wanted ruthlessness to be used for political ends - achieving a self-governing republic - whereas Ripley is ruthless in order to achieve purely personal ends - an affluent, leisured life in beautiful surroundings.
"In effect, Ripley is Machiavelli for a privatised age."
4. Iago - Othello
While Tony Soprano, Francis Urquhart and Tom Ripley are all villains that readers/viewers struggle not to like, Othello's Iago is cut from a very different cloth.
"Iago is Shakespeare's best-known Machiavel, yet he doesn't ever admit Machiavelli's influence," writes Prof Gordon McMullan of the London Shakespeare Centre at King's College London.
"Unlike the Host of the Garter in Merry Wives - who asks, tongue-in-cheek, 'Am I politic? Am I subtle? Am I a Machiavel?' - Iago claims no influences, giving the impression that he has thought up his actions all by himself, and certainly, given the messy execution he is to undergo after the end of the play, he has failed to follow Machiavelli's advice to keep power at others' expense.
"But, then, English dramatic Machiavels usually fail - the original English 'stage-machiavel', Marlowe's Barabas in The Jew of Malta, ends up being boiled to death in front of the audience - and Iago is in any case not in a position to follow the Italian's advice simply because he doesn't have the status - he does not hold the kind of position of power to which Machiavelli addressed his advice.
"Iago's motivations are perverse, self-contradictory, and complicated enough to have defied the efforts of generations of critics to unpick them - does he do what he does because he wants a pay rise, because he thinks Othello has slept with his wife, because he is in love with Othello himself?
"TS Eliot noted that Machiavelli's influence has been "the history of the various ways in which he has been misunderstood" - that is, Machiavelli was describing what the rulers of Italian city-states did, or had to do, in order to stay in power, not advocating that these were things they should do without concern for the moral value of their actions. Misunderstood or not, Machiavelli has been an endless resource for English dramatists."
5. Becky Sharp - Vanity Fair
Ah, Miss Sharp, anti-heroine of William Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Sharp by name and sharp by nature, she deploys her wits and wiles to climb the social ladder by the only means available to a woman in Georgian England - strategic flirtation.
"Recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one else in the whole wide world who would take the trouble off her hands," notes the narrator.
Petite and attractive, Sharp is also, as the narrator puts it, "a young person of no ordinary cleverness". She deploys this cleverness and those looks to considerable - but not always happy - effect.
For much of the book, her dislike of her son, little Rawdon, is palpable. But at a family Christmas gathering, on "seeing that [maternal] tenderness was the fashion", she calls him to her for a kiss. As Machiavelli says in The Prince, so long as one appears to act virtuously, most people will believe in one's virtue. Sharp's public display of affection is rather undone when her son turns red and loudly replies: "You never kiss me at home, Mamma."
6. Lord Varys and Lord Baelish - Game of Thrones
The battle between Lord Varys (aka The Spider) and Lord Petyr Baelish (aka Littlefinger) to out-Machiavelli each other is delicious for fans of Game of Thrones.
Varys is a eunuch in the finest traditions of Byzantine history, lacking both good birth and the possibility of advancement through a military career, he instead makes it his business to protect his wealth and his life by making sure he is always useful to those who might otherwise be tempted to destroy him.
As the king's spymaster, his nickname is derived from the web of informants he has assembled to gather the snippets of information he needs to manipulate other people into advancing his own interests.
Baelish is absolutely ruthless, and apparently more vindictive than Varys. When an assistant of his reveals information to Varys, he offers her to the sadistic king knowing she will be shot to death by crossbow bolts.
He is ambitious, wanting to gain the noble status he lacks. His main expertise is in finance, an echo of the Medici family who, over the course of a couple of generations, turned financial might into political control in northern Italy.
Apart from his control of palace finances, Littlefinger again deals in information which he uses to set faction against faction.
"Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder," he suggests. "Many who try to climb it fail, and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some, given a chance to climb, they refuse. They cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is."
7. Milton's Satan - Paradise Lost
"John Milton's Satan - the rebel, the charismatic, the evil and tragic hero - flows from the pen of a radical and sincere republican who had read and understood Machiavelli's works well," writes Filippo Del Lucchese, lecturer in politics and history at Brunel University.
"In Milton's earlier writings such as the Commonplace book, he had praised Machiavelli for his most radical positions, including his point that 'popular uprisings are the occasion for the recovery of liberty and therefore should not be condemned, for they generally arise out of just causes and complaints'.
"Machiavelli stressed that 'it is necessary, for a prince, to learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity' - through Milton, he found no less than a fallen angel to listen to him."
8. Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil - Les Liaisons Dangereuses
The Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil, played by Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons, based on the 18th Century novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, is one half of a Machiavellian duo of 18th Century aristocrats (the other is John Malkovich's ruthless Vicomte de Valmont). Using sex as a weapon to conquer those around her, the marquise concocts a wicked plan to take revenge on a former lover by ruining the virtue of the young woman he is to marry.
She employs another former lover - Valmont - to do the dirty and seduce the young woman Cecile de Volanges. The marquise's world is one of intrigue, manipulation and deceit. Like Machiavelli's prince, the marquise is both repellent and charismatic.
An arch schemer, she will stop at nothing to destroy both men and women, as long as she remains in control. When Valmont admires the way she can get people to do whatever she wants, she explains how she invented herself in a way that she could survive in a world dominated by men.
"When I came out into society I was 15. I already knew that the role I was condemned to, namely to keep quiet and do what I was told, gave me the perfect opportunity to listen and observe. Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide. I practised detachment. I learned how to look cheerful while under the table I stuck a fork into the back of my hand.
"I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think, and novelists to see what I could get away with, and in the end, I distilled everything to one wonderfully simple principle - win or die."
In a world where, according to Machiavelli, so many people are inclined towards "evil", to win, rather than die, necessitates the adoption of amoral strategies. "How one ought to live is so far removed from how one lives that he who lets go of what is done for that which one ought to do sooner learns ruin than his own preservation," writes Machiavelli.
Machiavelli, however, might take issue with the marquise's unrelenting cruelty. Cruelty, Machiavelli wrote was a necessary evil to maintain order and justified in the interest of public good. The marquise, however, appears to revel in it for her own enjoyment.
9. Francis Walsingham in Elizabeth
Not the real Francis Walsingham, but the one played memorably by Geoffrey Rush in Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth.
This film version is a slyly smiling murderer, equally happy dispatching a youth who gets in his way as a rival queen.
The real Walsingham has enjoyed a reputation as a talented "spymaster", controlling the informal espionage network that protected Elizabeth and England during a reign marked by seemingly endless intrigue.
He had little compunction about torturing Catholics for evidence of plot and conspiracy. But in the moral milieu of the time this was typical for a man in his position.
More than just expedient, Rush's Walsingham seems to relish the web-spinning, manoeuvring and engineering of downfalls.
10. Sonny LoSpecchio
Another Mafioso has to make the list. British philosopher Bertrand Russell called The Prince "a handbook for gangsters" and in Robert De Niro's 1993 film A Bronx Tale the book is prominent.
Ruthless crime boss Sonny LoSpecchio tells a teenager he has befriended that he read Machiavelli in prison and lives his life accordingly.
His concepts of leadership stem directly from The Prince. LoSpecchio explains the importance of "availability" - keeping close to his territory. This way, he says, his allies will have "more reason to love" him, because they can count on his protection, while his enemies would have more reason to fear him and "will think twice because they know I'm close".
The teenager then asks: "Is it better to be loved or feared?", to which LoSpecchio responds: "That's a good question. It's nice to be both, but it's very difficult. But if I had my choice, I would rather be feared. Fear lasts longer than love."
"The trick," he goes on to say "is not being hated". It is almost as if The Prince, himself, were speaking - but there the similarities end. LoSpecchio ends up being assassinated - something a wiser prince might have managed to avoid.
Reporting by Kathryn Westcott, Finlo Rohrer and Megan Lane
You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook
|
The BBC has been granted exclusive access to University Hospital Monklands in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, including the intensive care unit which has been at the centre of the struggle to save lives in the coronavirus pandemic.
|
By James CookChief news correspondent for The Nine
Day and night in intensive care the lights blaze, the monitors beep and the machines buzz.
It is bright and it is noisy but for the patients this is the twilight world, a place where the darkness deepens.
No-one wants to be here, far less to return, but nor do they have a choice.
Looking gaunt and ashen, John Houston is being wheeled back in to the unit he left four days ago.
His kidneys are struggling to cope with Covid-19 and he needs filtration treatment.
"Can't breathe," he mumbles as a nurse hooks him up to a jumble of clear plastic tubes and red, yellow and green cables.
A few minutes later John manages a few words, telling us how he was admitted to the hospital three weeks ago and had hoped to be back home with his beloved border collie, Cody, by now.
The medication John has been given makes him hallucinate, he says, a common experience for patients in intensive care and one he describes as "a bit scary".
Doctors here at Monklands say the ubiquitous public health advice - to stay home, protect the NHS and save lives - has worked but they also warn that the first wave of infection to hit Scotland is still washing ashore.
The number of coronavirus patients here has fallen sharply in the past couple of weeks but the average length of a stay in intensive care has risen during the pandemic.
Many of those who remain are extremely sick and cases like John's, where patients need to be readmitted to the intensive care unit, are common.
On the day we filmed in Monklands - Friday 1 May - seven coronavirus patients died, the highest number the hospital had seen in any 24-hour period since the outbreak began.
In intensive care, we met senior nurse Abigail McSherry as she was putting together a pack of memories for the family of one patient who had just died.
Among the items were a diary of the patient's time in the unit, a drawing of a tree based on his handprint and a pair of knitted hearts - one to go with the body, the other to be sent out to the man's family.
Partners of patients are only allowed in the hospital under very limited circumstances, essentially for births and deaths. Even then, to enter a Covid ward, visitors have to don the same personal protective equipment (PPE) as staff - gloves, aprons, masks and visors.
"His wife was here," says Ms McSherry of the man who had just died. "It was very important because they'd spent their whole life together, from primary school right through. So, it was very important that we let her in."
"I got his wife to give his wee heart a kiss," she adds.
Medical staff are used to dealing with death but that doesn't mean they don't feel its sting.
"The staff have had a difficult day today," says senior charge nurse Donna Marie McGroarty.
"We had a death this morning and then another death there, and that gentleman in particular has got no family," she says. "So that's hard for them."
As a gesture of compassion for a deceased patient who has no-one to mourn for them, she says, staff stand in respectful silence while the body is taken from the ward. "That's just something that helps the staff get through this," she tells us.
"We are exhausted," adds Ms McGroarty, "we've been at this from maybe the second week, the third week of January."
The coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, Covid-19, came early to Monklands because the hospital houses one of Scotland's four regional infectious diseases units, with some of the first suspected cases in the country arriving in special ambulance transfers in early February, according to Dr Nick Kennedy, a consultant in the unit.
The hospital's first positive case was confirmed early the following month.
"It's a strange illness, the likes of which we've never seen before," he says.
The unusual virus prompted an unprecedented response, a wholesale transformation of this ageing district general hospital with one aim above all - increasing critical care capacity.
In just three weeks in February and March, says chief nurse Karen Goudie, Monklands was fundamentally redesigned and restructured to handle Covid-19.
Ms Goudie points out new walls, new barriers and new rooms as she explains how the entire building was divided into two separate pathways in an attempt to stop the coronavirus spreading - red for Covid patients and the staff dealing with them; green for non-Covid.
"Monklands is 40 years old," says chief of medical services Dr Rory Mackenzie. "We have advanced plans for a new hospital. The lack of single rooms is a real challenge for us in terms of managing some of these issues. So having a new hospital would have made this so much easier to deal with."
Instead, Dr Mackenzie and his team had to be creative. As one of the few areas with a plentiful supply of high-pressure oxygen, the infectious diseases unit was selected to become a high dependency unit (HDU) while the original HDU became an intensive care facility. Operating theatres were converted to house intensive care beds.
Before the pandemic Monklands had the ability to ventilate five patients at any one time. At the peak, a few weeks ago, 15 patients were on ventilators and Dr Mackenzie says the hospital could now provide 20 ventilated beds if necessary.
For a while the hospital was running three separate intensive care units instead of one. It is now down to two: one red, one green.
"This is not the health service we had two months ago. This is a different health service," says lead intensive care consultant Dr Sanjiv Chohan.
Maintaining such a high level of critical care capacity is putting enormous demands on staff and resources.
"I don't think it's sustainable," cautions Monklands' head of emergency medicine Dr Fiona Hunter.
These days Dr Hunter oversees, in effect, two accident and emergency departments - again, one red for Covid patients, one green for non-Covid - a situation she believes must persist while the virus remains prevalent in the population.
For now that means two senior consultants on site at all times, rather than one. It means double the number of reception staff. It means more expensive equipment and the cancellation of leave.
For Dr Hunter it even meant postponing her own wedding, which should have taken place on 28 March, when she and her fiance realised the best man would not be able to fly into Scotland from France because of the pandemic. It was a difficult decision, she says, but "the right thing to do".
"It allowed me to be freed up to really help with the fight in this department against Covid," she says.
It's not just the emergency department which is feeling the strain. Elsewhere in the hospital, physiotherapists and nurses who usually work in day surgery, operating theatres and the endoscopy unit have been seconded to intensive care.
At the same time the demand for some of those services has risen. Many Covid-19 patients have intense fatigue and continue to require a great deal of help with rehabilitation, says Kirstin Cleary, a specialist physiotherapist who has been working in intensive care.
"Even though we're past the peak there's going to be a massive impact on physiotherapy services, social care services and services in the community because these patients are going to need a lot of rehab to help them recover from this," she says.
Right now the dilemma for Monklands is that it simply cannot handle its normal patient traffic while it is configured for a pandemic and yet if there is "recrudescence" - another outbreak - intensive care may be overwhelmed again.
"I think we're over the worst of this current outbreak, and undoubtedly we've seen that in terms of the figures that come through the hospital," says Dr Kennedy in the infectious diseases unit.
"The trouble is, of course, we don't have an effective treatment. We don't have a vaccine. And so there is every risk that we could have a second wave," he adds.
It's not just here. Managers across the NHS are now grappling with the challenge of how to maintain critical care at a safe level while also preparing for an expected rise in emergency admissions as the lockdown eases, and the return of patients with other serious illnesses, whose absence during the past couple of months has apparently led to a rise in preventable deaths from heart attacks, strokes and other causes.
"The overall occupancy of the hospital has been down," explains Dr Mackenzie, and while "that has made it easier to cope with the Covid patients, the main concern we've got is there are patients who need health care [who] haven't been attending the hospital."
Matthew Weir from Coatbridge is one of them. He is being treated in the infectious diseases unit for a lung infection. It's a fate that Matthew, 34, could probably have avoided had he not put off seeking medical help because of his fears about catching the coronavirus.
"If I'm honest I probably left it a little bit too long, which is why I ended up staying here rather than it just being treated with antibiotics in the first place," he says.
Dr Hunter, in the emergency department, says the pandemic is forcing a rapid reassessment of the balance between providing services in hospital and in the community.
She says the hospital has set up a line for paramedics to seek "advice and perhaps a bit of back-up" from consultants on when a patient can safely be cared for in the community, perhaps in a clinic, rather than in hospital.
"That's something that they didn't have access to before Covid but a lesson I would be keen to continue on after Covid," she says, adding, "I think it's made a big difference for patient care, by reducing unnecessary admissions to hospital".
When it comes to cases that do require hospital treatment though, Dr Hunter is keen to stress that "we are open for business".
That's the message in intensive care too where coach driver John Johnston is struggling with the effects of Covid-19.
John has underlying kidney issues and has developed a lung infection. He is conscious but on a ventilator which helps him to breathe but leaves him unable to talk.
Instead he communicates, with great effort, by writing on a small plastic board.
I ask him if he can sum up his message to the staff here.
"There are too many words to say to them," he manages to write before stopping to wipe away tears.
This pandemic has clearly brought immense and painful challenges for patients and staff alike.
Hope, though, springs eternal.
Irene Norwood, a 51-year-old housewife from Cumbernauld, is back in the intensive care unit — but only to say thank you. After a brush with death she is on the mend.
She tells us she only has fragments of memory about her time being treated in here for Covid-19.
"I remember lying in bed at night thinking the machines were talking to each other. I think I must have been hallucinating," she says.
Irene also recalls a doctor telling her that she was being put on a ventilator and that she should telephone her loved ones because she might not survive.
"I remember everything was happening really quickly and they said, 'we need to get her to call her family'.
"I spoke to my husband and my sons. You can only say what's in your heart," she recalls. "If you don't say it you might never have got the chance."
Irene is hoping to leave hospital today and has a simple message for the public.
"I don't think people understand the severity of this illness and that's what people need to learn. They do not say 'stay at home' for no reason."
Coronavirus: Scotland's Response is on BBC One Scotland at 20:30 on Wednesday 6 May and on the iplayer.
|
The migrants who drowned off the French coast this week were among thousands who have set off across the Channel in small boats this year - 8,000 had arrived in the UK by the end of September. A growing band of campaigners say they want to shine a light on the scale of the traffic, and to push the government into taking decisive action to stop it.
|
By Sue MitchellBBC News
When Covid lockdowns put an end to his work as a wedding DJ, Jeremy Davis was free to launch himself into his other major preoccupation - trying to stop migrant boats heading from France to the shores of the UK.
He'd followed the news and been incensed at reports about the increasing number of boat crossings, with 1,880 migrants arriving in September alone - compared with 1,800 for the whole of 2019.
"I've been watching it every day and I've been fuming. I just got fed up with it. People were saying to me, 'Well, instead of screaming at the television, do something!'"
So he launched a new group, Littleboats2020, inspired by the "little ships of Dunkirk" - 850 vessels that went to rescue 336,000 British soldiers stranded in northern France in May 1940.
Davis has joined a growing band of activists who patrol Kent's beaches and the port of Dover watching for those arriving. They say that the Covid pandemic reduced the chances of hiding in lorries or cars and that smugglers have exploited a reduced police presence, charging around £2,000 per person to cross by boat.
He says he can understand the people making this dangerous journey.
"Of course, if I was in their position, I'd say, 'Let's go get a nice hotel, get food and a future,'" he says.
"The people who are cheating this country are the government, by not stopping this illegal trade. We used to defend the shores, we don't any more."
There is some controversy around that term "illegal". While the smugglers who organise the cross-Channel boat crossings are breaking the law and the Home Office describes the crossings themselves as "illegal", most of the migrants claim asylum on arrival and some are granted refugee status. Migrants' rights activists argue that the migrants are acting within the law as long as they report to the authorities and claim asylum on arrival.
And while some migrants are housed in hotels, most are placed in spartan hostel accommodation.
Jeremy Davis says he isn't against immigration per se, just this form of it.
"Over nine million people from all over the world have made Britain their home, and they're fantastic. They get on and it's brilliant. They have brought a lot to this country. But what we are saying is we don't want people coming in when we don't know anything about them."
His Twitter accounts, however, make clear that he believes that "uncontrolled immigration" is doing "irreversible damage to the fabric of Britain". He also rails against Islam.
Before Covid, Davis spent some nights blasting out ABBA tracks on a crowded dance floor. Now he's on patrol, searching for migrants and possibly even the smugglers. A week or two ago, out on a beach patrol, he says he spotted four men waiting in two cars. He thinks they were waiting to pick up migrants who'd made the crossing, but they drove off before he could confront them.
"I happened upon them, the weather wasn't too bad and there were two brand new cars. I've seen them there before and think they're waiting for people to come off the boats. The authorities should be there to get these people, it shouldn't be down to people like me," he says.
In August it was reported that the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, was planning to approach French officials for co-operation in using Royal Navy and Border Force boats to block the path of refugees and migrants coming by boat.
This is exactly the sort of action Littleboats2020 wants.
Davis spent two nights at sea with other members of his group, attempting to get close to the inflatable migrant boats to prove a point to the authorities.
"We want to show the government, 'Look, if we can get to these boats, so can you,'" he says.
"And we were clear - if for some reason we came across a boat where it's in trouble, we agreed we'd bring them in ourselves to the UK. Ideally we'd love them to turn around, but that would be dangerous. These are lives and we would help if we had to."
But in September the Times reported that the Littleboats2020 website was claiming patrols were being sent into the Channel "to engage and attempt to safely ward off illegal migrants". These words no longer appear on the site.
The Times added that the Home Office had condemned the patrols and quoted a spokesman as saying there was "no excuse in any circumstances for harassing those arriving in the UK".
Jeremy Davis wasn't the first campaigner to devote his attention to migrant traffic in the Channel.
One of the earliest was Alan Leggett, who calls himself Active Patriot on social media. He wears a Union Jack face mask and is a constant presence at the port in Dover, frequently live-streaming his confrontations with police and Border Force officials.
He has been described by Tommy Robinson, co-founder of the English Defence League, as "our man on the front line", but it's not clear whether he is a member of the organisation. He was arrested in August, accused of breaching the peace while filming migrants boarding a coach. He denies the charge.
Leggett says he started campaigning after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing when an Islamist suicide bomber killed 22 people and himself at an Ariana Grande concert. The deaths heightened his fears about terrorism and he's convinced that the UK's relaxed borders are inviting another tragedy. So he's taken it upon himself to film every migrant he sees arriving.
"I'm basically doing this day and night, gaining intelligence and posting it on my accounts for people to see for themselves. This is really happening," he says.
But the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, was actually born in the UK. In the last two years, the Home Office reports, more than 70% of people arrested for terrorist-related activity have described themselves as having British or British dual nationality.
Find out more
Another activist, Chris Johnson, dressed all in black, says he tries to pick up possible stray crossings that officials may not have spotted.
"If I do my job - what I call my job - like the Home Guard, if I can stop the migrants when they get off the boat then I can hold them there until the Border Force arrive," he says. "I don't want them getting off the boats and just disappearing, so I offer them water, cigarettes, anything to keep them there. And I'll pick the dodgy ones out and say to the Coast Guard or whoever, 'There's this one that you should be careful of.' But it's really the person that drives the boat that they want."
It's hard to predict when the migrant boats will cross. Those trying to spot them increase their odds by tuning into the coastguard on their scanners, so when Border Force search and rescue boats are sent out, they all know about it.
Jeremy Davis's campaign has also been backed by another activist, Steve Laws, a local father of three who was working as a painter and decorator before Covid struck. Now he's at the dock in Dover night and day, tracking crossings and posting everything on Twitter.
"I've even seen a baby come over, no older than two months. And that for me was when I was like, 'This needs to stop.' And that was after doing this for about two weeks. The baby was hidden in a gym bag. It was so concerning. I've got three daughters and I couldn't believe anyone would risk their child on that Channel crossing."
But he says it was a throwaway comment about migrants being given hotel rooms that spurred him into action, to begin with. He wanted to show a friend what was really happening, and started collecting video footage of migrants being loaded on to coaches after their sea crossings. He admits he quickly became obsessed.
"You feel like you need to get the message out there. And every day something else sort of happens and that's what people don't seem to be aware of, so obviously you keep going and going and then it's got to the point where I'm at now, where I'll just naturally wake up at four or five in the morning, and I'll come and check on the boats."
In September he had a run-in with the authorities. He was arrested for allegedly joyriding with two other people in a boat that he says had been abandoned by migrants. He denies a charge of taking a conveyance without consent.
Like Jeremy Davis, Steve Laws rejects the label "far right". But while he introduced me to an immigrant friend of his - who he said had migrated to the country in a "proper" way - he also tweets about the harm that he believes "mass immigration" is doing to the UK. He says "Islamic fanatics" and illegal immigration go hand in hand, and recently called for a massive anti-Islam protest.
The actions of these campaigners have alarmed migrants' rights activists who think that the government should be doing more to provide migrants with safe passage to the UK. They formed Channel Rescue, described as a human rights monitoring project to watch over people who are making the treacherous crossing.
"We have become increasingly worried about the hostile narrative being created by both the government and some in the media, that have sought to demonise those migrating across the English Channel," the group says on its website.
While Jeremy Davis would like to see the UK, as he puts it, defending its shores, Channel Rescue says it is concerned that increased Royal Navy activity, RAF flyovers and patrols by activists opposed to the cross-Channel migrants could "act as a lethal deterrent that may force migrants into taking greater risks".
"We will not sit back and allow the English Channel to become a mass graveyard, like the waters of the Mediterranean," the group says.
"We have genuine concern that the people crossing over are looking for safety."
A recent report from the chief inspector of prisons says the migrants mostly come from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria and Eritrea - countries with a poor human rights record, and, in the case of Syria, a country where a civil war has been raging for nine years.
But like Alan Leggett, Jeremy Davis and Steve Laws fear that there could be dangerous people among them.
"People are making money from these boat crossings and that's worrying. But the main problem is, we don't know who they are," Davis says. "And I don't care what anybody says, somebody is going to die. They're going to kill somebody. It could be you, it could be me, it could be my children. We just don't know who these people are."
When he told me this, we had both just been watching a group of migrants being brought in to Dover on a Border Force boat, and I asked him if that was what he was thinking when he was looking at the people in that boat.
"I am thinking that I want them to be safe, first of all. I want them out of this situation. But I am thinking one of those is going to kill my children," he said. "A certain element of those will be a criminal element."
I put it to him that this was a judgement he was making - he didn't actually know it.
"No, I don't know that," he replied. Then he said that crime rates go up in areas where migrants were settled, but was unable to produce any evidence.
Davis says that a childhood in the care system, in which he suffered terrible abuse, means that he always looks at migrants as people and he doesn't want them to suffer.
"But on the other hand, I look at my own family and friends and country and I think, by the same token, I've got to be able to defend them. I've got to do my bit… I can see what's going on in the world and in our country and I want to do what I can to make people safe."
He carries around Union Jack flags and positions them at the harbour entrance as migrant boats arrive.
"I think we're trying not to be too jingoistic. But on the other hand, nobody will listen to us unless we are a bit controversial at points," he says.
And even though what he is doing has not been well received by some of his friends, he says he's in this for the long haul.
"We're not going to change anything overnight, but I think people have got to think outside the box. There's got to be a way of bringing this to the public attention," he says. "For me personally, this won't be over until the conditions that are in place to make people come here are gone."
Clarification and update 9 November 2020: This piece has been re-edited; including adding more context in several places and further information about the activists involved.
You may also be interested in:
When one man made a rash promise to help a friend in trouble, he triggered a chain of events involving betrayal, disappearance, and a mother's desperate attempt to find her child.
Searching for the missing girl
|
A grey blur with flashes of yellow streaks across the sky at speeds of 200mph - a "pure muscle assassin" chasing down its prey one minute, a doting parent feeding three chicks at the top of a wind-buffeted cathedral spire the next.
|
By Martin BarberBBC News, Norfolk
The daily wildlife drama surrounding the Norwich Cathedral peregrine falcon family has become addictive viewing for millions of people watching online around the world and for thousands of visitors to the cathedral's watch point.
For one man, observing the chicks' progress has become a labour of love as he spends hours in his "den" recording them via a live web stream to tell their story.
"I really try not to get paternal - but I probably do," said Dave Gittens, a volunteer with the Hawk and Owl Trust (HOT) who is responsible for the live nest-cams.
"I try really hard to be objective, they are wild animals, they are doing things we might find distasteful or difficult to watch - and when they die naturally, to watch a chick go through its last moments of life is terrible."
Mr Gittens said he spends what "feels like 90 days" watching the breeding season - but quickly adds "it's not an arduous task, it's a real privilege to be in a position where you can see these birds."
The peregrine falcons, nesting on a special platform on the cathedral spire 246ft (75m) above the ground, have been breeding in Norwich since 2011 as part of an urban peregrine breeding programme managed by the Hawk and Owl Trust.
This year's chicks, among the first in the city for more than 200 years after the pair's first successful clutch in 2012, hatched at the end of April.
Mr Gittens said the moment was exhilarating.
"The excitement of seeing the first chick hatch, watching with trepidation as they walk up and down the nest ledge.
"Your knees go weak, you get bouts of vertigo for them, you can almost hear the people screaming on Facebook - at this stage they are right on the cusp of being flight ready - but they're only just ready.
"Until you see them flying around and all the rest of it - it's heart-stopping," he said.
'Hands-on' approach
Mr Gittens describes himself as "a cog in the wheel" with more than 100 volunteers working on the urban peregrine project.
While he watches the birds in their nest from the comfort of his den, others tackle the elements to take a more "hands-on" approach to capturing images of them.
"I quickly became addicted to these superb and charismatic birds," said Norwich-based photographer Andy Thompson, who can spend more than 270 hours taking pictures of the adults and their chicks during the breeding season.
"It can be quite cold and bleak... but any activity gets the adrenaline going as you follow them around the skies."
"Fledging time is often the most exciting period... but it can also be quite an upsetting time as unfortunately the birds do have accidents and may get killed," said Mr Thompson.
"This is a natural thing that happens in urban and rural nesting areas, but it is still somewhat a blow when a bird you have watched for many weeks is suddenly no more."
'Pure muscle assassin'
The birds are the fastest thing on earth with an ability to fly at more than 200mph (322km/h) when diving for prey, making them faster than a cheetah and on-par with a Formula 1 car.
Wildlife presenter Chris Packham, who returns to RSPB Minsmere in Suffolk for the new season of Springwatch on 25 May, is a big fan of the peregrine and the urban projects.
"They are the fastest things on earth... which struck me as almost unbelievable when I was 10 and still does now," he said.
"They look pure muscle assassin, brutal, totally hard, it's the eye and the moustacial stripe and the massive feet - their weapons.
"If I was re-incarnated as another species of animal there is only one I'd be... and it isn't a pigeon."
The wildlife expert and conservationist is also a keen supporter of the urban peregrine scheme. There are a number of nesting projects on buildings across the country including Bath, Derby and Nottingham.
"If you own a tall building... you should be putting up nest boxes," he said.
The hours Mr Gittens spends watching the peregrines needs an "understanding" from his wife Caroline. She says she is "very proud" of the work as it brings "so much pleasure to millions of people".
"I totally support him... it's something we both enjoy and get a kick out of," she said.
"They are just such a fantastic bird - it's great we have the technology to be able to see them 24/7 - to see the body language and the things they get up to - it's a privilege."
'Back to nature'
Peregrine falcon numbers declined during the 19th and 20th centuries due to illegal shooting and use of certain pesticides on farms.
The species became almost extinct in the 1960s but became protected in 1981.
There are about 1,500 breeding pairs in the UK, according to the RSPB. The Norfolk-based British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is currently collating data from a peregrine survey recorded last summer with the results expected later in the year.
Early analysis shows "more peregrines are now breeding in lowland England than during the last survey in 2002, especially in the urban environment," said Dawn Balmer from the trust.
Despite the long hours and heart-stopping moments, Dave Gittens said he would never change his hours of watching.
"It's rewarding - it makes you feel you've provided a service to people to bring them closer back to nature."
|
A man has been charged with murder following the death of a woman at a house in Lincolnshire.
|
Marie Gibson, 35, was pronounced dead at her home in Lacey Gardens, Louth on Saturday, police said.
Shane Murphy, 27, of Little Lane, Louth is being held in custody and will appear at Lincoln Magistrates' Court later.
Officers are appealing for witnesses who were in the area early on Saturday afternoon.
|
A seven-man gang that blew up cash machines across the UK, including four in Scotland, stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds, have been handed jail sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment .
|
By Steven BrocklehurstBBC Scotland news website
During their year-long crime spree 13 banks and shops were targeted, with some ATMs blown up using "powerful explosives" and others being dragged away by stolen cars and attacked with high-powered tools to access the cash.
The gang's getaways were compared to blockbuster movies such as Fast and Furious and the Italian Job after they made off at high-speed in stolen performance cars which were then hidden in a lorry that doubled as a hangout for the criminals to lie low.
It was an attack on a cash machine at a Co-op in Carnoustie in Angus in February 2016 that proved to be the gang's last.
They hauled the ATM out of the wall with a stolen Land Rover before seizing £16,000 in cash.
Hours after the robbery an off-duty police officer spotted a suspicious car seven miles away in Arbroath.
As shocked diners looked on, armed police swooped on the car park at the town's McDonald's.
Five men, all from the Merseyside area, were arrested after the police fired tyre deflation rounds at the gang's Mercedes as they tried to get away.
In the weeks leading up to the arrests, detectives in Scotland and England were already closing in on the gang.
It was after an overnight raid on the cash machine at the Co-op in Kingswells, on the outskirts of Aberdeen, in August 2015 that police made a major breakthrough.
CCTV from a nearby industrial estate picked up a rendezvous between a lorry and high-performance car as the gang headed back to England.
Det Supt Alex Dowall told BBC Scotland: "We became aware that the group actually had access to a stolen HGV and they were using high-powered motor cars to commit these crimes."
The gang had hammocks in the back of the HGV so they could use it as a portable base and additional fuel so they did not need to be seen going to service stations.
The lorry, which was traced to a yard in Wigan, also had gas equipment, power tools and ramps to drive a stolen Audi in and out.
Det Supt Dowall said: "They were transporting the Audi within the HGV in order to not draw attention to themselves travelling the length and breadth of the country."
He said the gang were "highly organised" and came up with "pretty ingenious" ways to avoid detection.
"They had even cut out a small area within the outer skin of the HGV covers to allow them access in and out without drawing attention to themselves by opening the rear of the lorry," the detective said.
The gang's technique for blowing up the ATMs involved running oxy-acetylene canisters directly into the cash machine and igniting the gas with a spark from a car battery.
In total, the robbers stole £550,000, including £110,000 from four raids in Scotland.
They raided cash machines in Sonnings Common and Woodstock, Oxfordshire; Alsager and Culcheth, Cheshire; Huyton, Merseyside; Hucclecote, Gloucestershire; Swindon, Wiltshire; Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk; as well as in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Carnoustie, and Perth.
They stole a £56,000 Audi RS4 from a house in Garthdee, Aberdeen, in May 2015.
A month later they took £51,000 from a cash machine at a Tesco Express in Newtonhill, Aberdeenshire.
The Kingswells Co-op raid in August resulted in £16,000 and in January 2016 the gang stole £27,000 from a Co-op in Perth.
The police said there did not seem to be a pattern to the places targeted in the raids.
They said the techniques they used were extremely risky and it was fortunate no-one was hurt.
The gang and their sentences:
|
No-one in China is lower in the pecking order than farmers and villagers. When they migrate to cities to work in factories, they often live in squalor. So what happened to Mao Zedong's communist revolution which was supposed to improve the lot of the rural poor?
|
By Mary Kay MagistadPRI's The World, Jiangxi province, China
The rolling hills and rivers of Jiangxi province's Xunwu county in south-west China are picturesque, but this has long been one of the poorest places in the country.
That's why Mao Zedong came here for a month in 1930 - almost two decades before taking power. He visited the county seat, Changning, which was then a dusty little village of about 1,500 people, to see how the class system worked here.
The house where Mao stayed is now a museum. Visitors can gaze at the iron-frame bed where Mao slept, the desk where he worked, and the long table where he sat and talked with locals.
Mao met farmers, merchants, local officials, an imperial scholar, even disaffected youth. He noted, in colourful detail, who felt oppressed by whom, how the classes interacted, and how control of property was key to wealth and power.
Assisting Mao was a 24-year-old local named Gu Bo, the grandson of landowners. His family was renowned for sending many scholars over the centuries to serve the emperor. But Gu Bo wanted change.
"He thought the old system was unfair," says his grand-nephew, Gu Anjian, who lives in a village near Changning. "So once he joined the Communist revolution, he burned down his grandfather's house."
Gu Anjian chuckles affectionately. He's now a wizened 74-year-old, retired after serving 40 years as chief of his village. He sits at a round table in his kitchen with his brother, son and nephew, while the women in the family prepare lunch. (
See a slideshow comparing scenes from Xunwu county with modern Beijing
).
He says Gu Bo and his brothers were all committed to revolutionary change in China. Four brothers went on the Long March with Mao. Three died. Gu Bo was killed in 1935 in an ambush, just a few years after working with Mao, believing that Communism was the best way forward to modernise China.
China's Communist Party came to power promising to end the country's traditional class structure. As it turned out, it turned the class structure on its head. Scholars, landowners and merchants, the former privileged classes, were stripped of their rights, and sometimes of their lives. Villagers and workers were, for a time, elevated, in status and opportunity.
More than 60 years on, farmers and workers are again at the bottom of the heap, and while there's a growing middle class, China has one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing rates of income disparity.
The fortunes of the Gu family illustrate what's changed in China's class structure since Mao Zedong came here more than 80 years ago.
The family used to have more than its share of imperial scholars. Today, none of the Gu men at the kitchen table stayed in school beyond the age of 15.
Mao tried to abolish capitalism, but Gu Anjian's younger brother, Gu Anjia, is a keen capitalist: he traded steel abroad. I ask him what he thinks Gu Bo would have thought of him forging a career in capitalism.
"How would I know what he'd think?," he says, a little defensively. "Anyway, it was a state-run trading company I worked for - at least at first."
But in China, being connected to the state, or the Communist Party, doesn't mean you're not capitalist. More than 90% of China's richest people are Party members, according to
the Hurun Report, which tracks the country's wealthy
.
China's national anthem may exhort the downtrodden, "arise, those who refuse to be slaves," but these days, those who want to get rich join the Party, and the Party wants the rich to join it. That way, wealth stays concentrated in the hands of its members, who have little incentive to change the system.
The richest 75 members of China's legislature, the National People's Congress, have an average net worth of $1.2bn.
The Gu family is not in those ranks. It may have sacrificed its sons for the Revolution, but the family now lives a simple village life. Gu Anjian's 36-year-old son, Gu Zisong, scoffs when I ask if the family is proud that their relative worked with Mao to try to make China more egalitarian.
"Pride? What pride? If there were any glory in it, we wouldn't live here," he says.
Gu Zisong makes his living growing oranges - a line of work that has helped pull many farmers in this area out of poverty, since it caught on seven or eight years ago. You can see their profits in the new concrete and brick houses rising up in the village.
Gu Zisong admits life here is better than when he was a child. Back then, he says, the village consisted of mudbrick houses with no electricity or indoor plumbing, and dirt roads that turned to muck in the rain. Now, the roads are good, and most homes have refrigerators, TVs, even the occasional computer - which allows them to see that their lives might have got better - but the elite in China are doing far better still.
Another member of the family, Gu Yuesheng, 34, runs a kindergarten down the street. He started out as a migrant worker, in a sweater factory in the city of Dongguan, 250 miles away.
"I didn't really like the city," he says. "People looked down on migrant workers." He says workers were so underpaid and overworked that strikes and protests were common, even though independent trade unions in China are illegal.
"My own boss was ok," Gu says. "But even in my factory, if you were a migrant worker, you could only move up so far. The good jobs went to local people."
So, when Gu Yuesheng had made a bit of money, he came back here, and started his own sweater factory. At its peak, he says, it employed more than 120 fellow villagers, and produced four million sweaters a year. The factory had to close last year, when too many foreign customers went too long without paying.
"It felt like falling off a cliff," he says, shaking his head ruefully.
Still, Gu Yuesheng is proud of having helped his fellow villagers get a leg up, without having to go through the hardship and humiliation he experienced as a migrant worker. His efforts have also pushed him nicely into China's middle class. It's a mobility villagers here didn't have at the time Mao visited.
But with wages and expectations rising, Gu Yuesheng doubts the next generation will find it as easy as it was for him, if they're not educated. That's what the kindergarten is about, he says - to help children from this village get a head start.
Listen to more on this story atPRI's The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, Public Radio International, and WGBH in Boston.
This story is one of a series called'Beyond Class: Societies in Flux' about changing class structures around the world.
|
Coniston Water is regarded by many as the "spiritual home" of record breaking - a five-mile lake where Donald Campbell strove to break the world water speed record and died trying. This week Campbell's successors are aiming to put themselves in the record books - but what drives these daredevils to risk their lives?
|
By Simon ArmstrongBBC News
From all walks of life they come. Inspired by the feats of Campbell and his father, Sir Malcolm, they are taking to the water for Coniston Power Boat Records Week.
For almost 100 years, Cumbria's lakes have played host to the seemingly fearless souls attempting to write their names into the record books. On Ullswater, Windermere and Coniston Water they have tried, spurred on by the likes of the Campbells and Sir Henry Segrave.
The contest has run since 1970 and was moved to Coniston in 2005 when a speed limit introduced on Windermere forced them to look elsewhere.
Adrenalin rush
From small hydroplanes to circuit racers and offshore boats, dozens of determined entrants take on the clock over a kilometre (two-thirds of a mile) stretch of the famous lake.
While junior categories will see speeds of up to 50mph (80km/h) reached, those at the top end have clocked in at almost 180mph (290km/h) in previous years.
For most, the adrenalin thrills of the event, running until Friday, provide a stark contrast to their usual surroundings.
"You want to be the fastest, it's that simple," says Jim Noone, matter-of-factly.
The 55-year-old - the quickest man on Windermere after reaching 154.8mph (249.1km/h) in 2003 - may initially seem an unlikely world record holder.
An analytical chemist based in Leeds, he spends most weeks testing the composition and quality of concrete. Formerly the owner of the business, he sold it five years ago and now acts as a consultant.
"It's all done in holiday time," he says about his record-breaking attempts.
"I leave on a Thursday evening and am back to work on the Tuesday."
He said his work and play were "very different" although "they both require a very thorough approach - you can't leave anything to chance".
Mr Noone, who lives just north of Barnsley, has a strong link with Records Week having attended the very first event 43 years ago, at the age of 12 with his father.
Over his 25 years of competing, he has set several world bests and is now also a member of the organising committee.
"Record-setting is much more intense than racing - you don't break records at half throttle," he says.
"All your senses are heightened. It's like you're floating. You can't even see any spray."
It's a similar story for 40-year-old Seattle roofer JW Myers. He has set 12 world records in 20 years, including a speed of 176.1mph (283.4kmh) at Coniston last year in the H1 Unlimited class - the fastest and most powerful category of race boats.
"I've never taken drugs, but I imagine this has got to be way better," he says.
'Absolutely nerve-racking'
Company director Neil Jackson - at the controls of a high-spec B23 "Batboat" costing around £20,000 - is another drawn to the extreme nature of the sport.
The 50-year-old from Portsmouth, who has set a number of endurance records as well as the BCC Class 2 British best of 79.51mph (127.9km/h), spends his working week travelling up and down motorways visiting clients of the two firms he is involved with.
"I grew up on the River Thames so I've always been interested in boats," he says. "I started 23 years ago and was involved in a safety capacity, but then I thought, 'I wouldn't mind a piece of that'.
"Making a record-attempt is absolutely nerve-racking - you're on the rev limiter so quickly and you're putting your foot through the floor because you're wanting more speed. Eighty-something miles an hour on water is rapid."
But it is not just adults who are taking to the water. Swapping the classroom this week for the majestic setting of Coniston is 13-year-old Ben Jelf.
Following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and uncle, the pupil at Swadelands School in Maidstone, Kent, competes in the GT15 class - the entry level for nine to 16-year-olds.
Classroom to Coniston
He holds the world record for the category at 44.4mph (71.4kmh) and has triumphed in British and European racing championships.
"As it's a specialist sports college, my teachers are very encouraging. The racing is always more exciting than school work though," he admits.
But does he ever struggle to combine school work with his sporting activities?
"I'm quite disciplined about getting my homework done," he says.
"I always manage to fit it all in."
The racers' passion comes at a price as equipment and running costs mount up. Mr Noone, though, said he was happy to make sacrifices.
"I don't have holidays and I don't spend money on the house. Every penny goes on the boat, probably £5,000-8,000 a year."
But while all are agreed the sport's high speeds and technical challenges are captivating, it is not without its risks - as Mr Noone knows all too well. His 17-year-old half-brother, BJ, was killed in 1997 when he was hit by another boat.
And Mr Noone himself has suffered serious injury. He was left in hospital after a crash on Windermere in 1991 in which he injured his shoulders and back.
"The nose lifted and the boat ended up 60ft clear in the air," he says.
"I wasn't strapped in so was able to propel myself out. I knew I couldn't have it land on top of me."
Undeterred, he made a return the following year when he had the satisfaction of topping 103mph in his one-litre inboard hydroplane - smashing the record he had been aiming for 12 months earlier.
"I had unfinished business. I had to go back," he adds.
"But it can go right or wrong in just 25 seconds and the slightest bump means you can go over. The end of the run is a mix of relief and elation."
Related Internet Links
Coniston Power Boat Records Week
Jelf Racing Team
Lake District National Park
|
The prime minister of Japan at the time of the Fukushima nuclear disaster is visiting Anglesey to campaign against the new Wylfa power plant.
|
Naoto Kan resigned after Fukushima was hit by a tsunami in 2011, causing radiation leaks.
He has since become an anti-nuclear campaigner and will arrive in Wales next Wednesday to speak in the Senedd.
He will then travel to Anglesey to urge residents to fight the planned £8bn Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant.
An Anglesey council spokesman said that as well as hosting a public meeting on Thursday, Mr Kan will be addressing members of the authority.
"During the meeting we will also be informing him about our energy island programme and its aims," the spokesman added.
It is hoped the nuclear project will boost the island's economy.
|
The production of one of India's most iconic and best-selling cars, Maruti 800, has been stopped in favour of more modern vehicles. The Maruti 800 was more than a car - it symbolised dreams, aspirations and status for an entire generation of Indians. The BBC Monitoring's Vikas Pandey looks back at the history of this "little car".
|
Mohit Sharma goes down memory lane when I tell him that the Maruti 800's production has been stopped by its manufacturer Maruti Suzuki India Limited.
It was the Delhi-based property dealer's first car and it soon became an "important part" of his family.
"It soothes the soul when I remember family holidays and picnics - the car was always there. I took pride in owning the car back in 1994 because not many people had it. It was my corner, my space in the world," he says.
Mr Sharma bought other cars in the last decade, but could "never match the feeling of owning the Maruti 800".
Cult status
So how did this small car get a cult status in India?
The answer lies in the early years of its production and sales.
India was a closed economy in the early 1980s and buying a car was a distant dream even for relatively wealthy people.
Two other cars - the Hindustan Motors' Ambassador and Premier Padmini - were available at the time but were bulky and expensive.
The 800cc Maruti car, produced by the Indian government-backed Maruti Udyog Limited and Japanese firm Suzuki, entered the market in December 1983 and immediately caught the attention of the country. It was priced at 52,500 rupees ($843; £507).
A generation of Indians, including legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, were in awe of India's "little car".
The batsman, who owns a fleet of luxury cars today, dreamt of buying the Maruti 800 in his early years.
In a TV interview last year, he said the Maruti was his first car and vividly remembered the thrill of buying and driving it in Mumbai.
The car's popularity grew by leaps and bounds after India started opening its economy in 1991. As the middle class grew, so did their aspiration of buying a car.
The Maruti 800 perfectly fit the bill - it was small, relatively cheap and sparked a feeling of pride.
It revolutionised India's streets and happily co-existed among scooters, motorbikes and sometimes even horse carts.
An editorial in the Deccan Herald perfectly explains why this car became a phenomenon and started the Maruti era.
"When it was introduced in the country in 1983, and in the decades since then it brought down cars from the realm of luxury to within the reach of large numbers of people," it says.
Goodwill
The Asian Age remembers how this small car took on the might of established car companies in India.
"The world's technology had first come in a tiny package to India, but it quickly sounded the death knell of the monopoly of locally produced cars based on ancient technologies sustained by the socialist ideologies of the time," it says.
Maruti Suzuki India Limited, which is an independent firm now, still relies heavily on the goodwill it generated through the Maruti 800.
The firm reinvented the car several times until 2010 to keep up with the fast-changing times in India. But it's the same pace of time that has finally sounded the death knell for the car.
Today's Indian automobile market is a crowded place with many major international firms competing to woo buyers.
The tiny car struggled to keep its market share and the firm finally decided to call curtains on this historic machine in January 2014.
But will this be the end of the Maruti 800's history? Mr Sharma's answer is no.
"The car will always keep its vintage value. Just keep it in good shape and you will be able to take it to any vintage car rally in the coming years," he says.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
|
Amazon is so much part of its customers' lives that it may be about to receive the ultimate accolade - becoming a verb. "If I want to know something, I'll google it. If I want to buy something, I'll amazon it," one of the company's fans told the BBC.
|
By Charles MillerProducer
On average, every person in Britain spends just over £70 a year on Amazon. That's an impressive result for a business started on a couple of computers exactly 20 years ago.
Back in 1994, Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos threw in his promising Wall Street career to jump on the internet bandwagon, relocating from New York to Seattle to start his own dotcom.
That he was also a computer science graduate makes Amazon the product of an unusual merging of two cultures: the hard-driving world of East Coast finance and the techie, laid-back ethos of Silicon Valley.
'Uncomfortable' mix
Having Wall Street thinking at the very top of the company has given Amazon its edge in the ultra-competitive retail business. But that advantage is built on technology, where efficiencies in constructing its unique supply chain depend on incremental improvements in the algorithms that run the whole complex process.
The West Coast geeks have not always appreciated Mr Bezos' East Coast mindset though. Shel Kaphan, Amazon's first employee, fresh from Silicon Valley, was key to building the company's early tech infrastructure.
He fell out with Mr Bezos before leaving Amazon in 1999, and says the mix of Wall Street ways with what he calls the "hipster-saturated culture" of tech businesses was often "an uncomfortable combination".
Mr Kaphan says that at previous start-ups he'd worked at "there was a lot more of a sort of convivial attitude… team spirit, rather than an intense, hierarchical, driven attitude about things".
Another early staffer, Mike Daisey, found the punishing work schedule at Amazon hard to take: "The employees were willing to do absolutely anything to make things work." From management's perspective, "it's being able to inspire your employees not to have lives", he says.
He points out wryly that the dotcom tradition of allowing pets in the office isn't so much a sign of a relaxed attitude to work as a recognition that it wouldn't be safe to leave them. "Those dogs would have died because their master would never have come home."
Mr Daisey describes Amazon's annual company picnics as being the chance to be "let loose" with team games. Mr Bezos himself took part with gusto, which was "inspiring for people". It made them feel like they were "all part of one big dysfunctional family".
Harnessing brainpower
But the idea that the culture Mr Bezos has created is so demanding and abrasive that colleagues cannot stick it is not borne out by a look at his executive team, many of whom have worked with him for years
And for all his Wall Street drive, there's more to Mr Bezos' mentality than a desire to crush the competition through hard work and discounting prices. There is also an intellectual ambition to get to the bottom of knotty problems by the application of brainpower.
One of Mr Bezos' ideas is that when hiring new staff, "Amazonians" should always pick someone smarter than themselves. That way the overall level of intelligence at the company will keep on rising. (Apparently he has not found anyone smart enough to replace himself yet.)
The focus on brainpower is seen daily in the way meetings are conducted. They typically consist of the reading and discussion of a six-page "narrative", which is the distillation of an issue and a proposed solution put forward by one of the participants.
With narratives, arguments have to be made explicit in old-fashioned prose and figures, presented in detail so everyone can examine the case for themselves. So meetings often consist of people sitting and reading silently for 30 minutes, and making notes before cross-examining the author.
Former manager Dave Cotter says: "It's a really intellectual exercise that, once you go through it a few times, you realise how powerful it is." Now that he has left Amazon, Mr Cotter says he has discovered "most of the world does not follow that kind of intellectual rigour".
Mind-reading
Mr Bezos' commitment to following arguments to their logical conclusion has taken the company in some unexpected directions.
Its Kindle e-reader used its techie talent to develop a consumer product, which wasn't expected of Amazon, and its successful Amazon Web Services business rents out computing power to businesses large and small.
And now Mr Bezos insists his long-term approach will one day turn the idea of delivering items by drone into a practical reality.
If the drones idea seems far-fetched, many former Amazon staff have learnt not to underestimate Mr Bezos' ability to make technology do what the company wants.
Talking to the BBC about Amazon in January, former editor James Marcus flippantly predicted: "I feel like we're six months away from them delivering [an item] before you order it, via some strange mind-reading machinery."
He was wrong: it wasn't six months but exactly three days later that it was reported that Amazon had been awarded a patent for a system of "anticipatory shipping" that would start sending products to its customers before they had even placed an order.
Watch Amazon's Retail Revolution, part of the Business Boomers series, on BBC Two on Monday, 21 April, at 21:00 BST or catch it later on the BBC iPlayer.
|
Police have identified a man found dead on an allotment.
|
Officers discovered the body of Andrew Jackson, 55, off Prospect Drive in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, at about 10:00 GMT on Sunday.
Derbyshire Police said he had injuries which suggested he had been assaulted and the force had launched a murder inquiry.
They want anyone who heard or saw anything between 22:30 on Saturday and 02:00 on Sunday to get in touch.
Senior investigating officer, Det Insp Chris Marriott, is also keen to hear from anyone who lives in the area who may have CCTV or dashcam footage to contact officers.
Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
|
Parents are wrongly being arrested and having their children taken into care due to the stigma around female genital mutilation (FGM), members of the UK Somali community have told the Victoria Derbyshire programme. They say figures suggesting tens of thousands of girls are at risk in the UK are inaccurate.
|
By Rachel StonehouseVictoria Derbyshire programme
"Social services with the police came to the house, removed our children and arrested my wife. We didn't know what the allegations were - nobody said anything, nobody asked us anything, it was just really a shock," said Yusef - not his real name.
The father-of-five said he and his wife had a "good" meeting with their children's school to tell them the family was relocating to Somaliland for a while.
But four days later the couple were arrested and their children taken separately into foster care, following a safeguarding referral by the school.
They say they were wrongly accused of planning to take their children abroad for FGM.
"Children must be safeguarded - but not if the danger is just assumed," said Yusef. "They are supposed to verify or investigate it properly, don't just presume something is going to happen based on someone's background or ethnicity."
But police and health workers said safeguarding policies were there for a reason - and protecting children had to be a priority.
'Huge epidemic'
FGM - intentionally cutting or injuring the female external genitalia for non-medical reasons - is understood to be practised in some African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries.
It is illegal in the UK and carries a sentence of up to 14 years in jail - the first successful prosecution took place last year.
In Yusef's case, the police took no further action and the children were returned.
Slough Children's Services Trust has now apologised to the family and upheld seven of their complaints, and agreed to support the withdrawal of the FGM Protection Order, if this is supported by both legal advice and the courts.
It said in a statement: "We appreciate that the process of a child being taken into care is always distressing and, unfortunately, due to the nature of safeguarding, can in exceptionally rare cases happen to families where no further action is taken.
"It's never our intention to cause any family distress, only to prioritise child protection and to work with our partners to avoid the possibility of vulnerable children 'slipping through the net'."
Both the police and the Trust said they could not comment on individual cases, but safeguarding was always the number one priority.
UNICEF figures estimate 98% of women and girls in Somalia have undergone FGM. But Somalis living in the UK say this is inaccurate, and means they have attracted particular attention from FGM safeguarding policy.
Research published by City University in 2015 suggested that 144,000 women were at risk of FGM in England and Wales.
Mothers we spoke to in Cardiff said the message from education providers and the media suggested there was a "huge epidemic" of FGM involving their British-born daughters.
Former social worker and Somali campaigner Zainab Nur, from the Hayaat Women Trust, said she knew more than a dozen cases where children were wrongly taken into care because of FGM risk.
"These policies are having a massive impact," she said. "We're being victimised, we're being racially profiled as being at risk of FGM, and it's affecting us."
She also says she knows hundreds of cases where families were wrongly being referred to safeguarding.
One mother, Nimo, said she nearly died after undergoing FGM at the age of eight. She says health professionals sometimes made "automatic assumptions" because of her experience.
"I have a diabetic daughter, she had a urine infection and the doctor says to me: 'Has she had FGM done to her?' My daughter she didn't know anything about FGM, she'd never heard of it.
"These things do happen and we get asked because of the children. I was like, 'Oh my God', because I haven't spoken about FGM in a long, long time."
'Stigmatise families'
Researchers at Bristol University spoke to 30 Somali mothers, fathers and young adults about their experiences with FGM safeguarding services.
Dr Saffron Karlsen said increasingly the evidence suggested it was not as a big a problem as it was assumed to be.
She said: "We want to see an end to FGM but the way the current system is set up appears to penalise and stigmatise innocent families, and families where's there's no evidence to suggest...that their children are going to be exposed to FGM."
Protecting girls
But Janet Fyle, policy adviser at the Royal College of Midwives, said she disagreed with the concerns, and that safeguarding practices were there for a reason.
"Professionals have the right to ask," she said. "We know FGM is happening in this country under our noses - it is important to focus on this as that is the real issue.
"Talking about this issue of stigma is distracting - the priority needs to be protecting girls."
A spokesperson from the Home Office's FGM Unit said "any actions taken by public authorities in relation to suspected FGM are based on evidence.
"We introduced tough safeguarding laws which compel certain professionals to report if they have encountered a potential child victim of FGM, regardless of what community they are from."
And the National Police Chiefs' Council said police, health and children's services had a responsibility to protect young people from harm.
Commander Ivan Balhatchet, lead for female genital mutilation, said: "When people tell us they have concerns for the wellbeing and safety of a child, police will always investigate, as the public would expect.
"There will be cases where people have genuine concerns relating to children and they should always feel able to come forward and speak to police. We will treat each individual case sensitively and confidentially."
Follow the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on Facebook and Twitter - and see more of our stories here.
|
Coronavirus restrictions in Wales are being tightened following a rise in cases.
|
More than half of the population of Wales are now subject to tighter rules, with the Welsh Government announcing lockdowns for 11 counties and one town.
Pubs, cafes and restaurants in Wales have now been ordered to shut at 22:00 every night.
First Minister Mark Drakeford has also urged people across Wales to only travel if essential.
As well as licensed premises closing earlier, off-licences and supermarkets are now not allowed to sell alcohol after 22:00 and hospitality businesses will be required to provide table service only.
People must wear face coverings in shops and other indoor public spaces.
No more than six people can meet indoors under an extended household, comprised of up to four different households. But extended households have been suspended in areas under local lockdown.
Lockdown began to ease back in June with non-essential shops reopening and all children being able to return to school.
Travel restrictions were then lifted on 6 July and people were allowed to form "extended households", with members of one other home.
Self-contained accommodation,hairdressers and beer gardens were allowed to reopen a week later, and pubs, bars and cafes have since reopened indoors.
On 22 August, people were allowed to form an "exclusive extended arrangement" with up to four households - double the previous amount allowed.
Staff and pupils then returned to school and students started university in September.
But a rise in cases sparked fears a second wave of the virus was on its way.
What are the current rules and changes, and how do they apply?
Who can I meet and where?
At the start of lockdown, strict rules meant people were unable to meet anyone who they did not live with, in a bid to reduce the spread of the virus.
But as restrictions were eased and a travel ban was lifted, many of us were able to socialise again.
Who can I meet indoors?
The number of people able to meet indoors has been capped at six, although under-11s are not included in the six. These six people must be in an extended household - which can be comprised of four households.
People in an extended household can have physical contact, exercise, cook and eat together, and also stay in each other's homes, but the people in the extended household cannot be changed once arranged.
Up to 30 people are allowed to meet outdoors, including peoples' gardens.
The rules on meeting indoors do not apply in areas which have been placed under local lockdown from September. Extended households are currently suspended in these areas.
Despite the gradual easing of restrictions over the summer, meetings indoors with anyone outside your extended household have remained illegal.
Can I meet a group of friends?
Groups of up to 30 are able to meet outdoors, so long as they maintain social distancing.
You are able to meet in local parks, open spaces and private gardens, though you should not go into someone's home unless they are in your "extended household".
The Welsh Government has acknowledged people may have to pass through someone's home to reach a private garden, but individuals have been told not to stay inside.
Children under 11 do not have to maintain a 2m distance from each other or from adults because of lower rates of transmission in their age group.
Where do I need to wear a face covering?
People in Wales were told to wear face coverings in shops and other indoor public spaces from 14 September, following other parts of the UK.
Both customers and staff are legally required to wear face coverings in shops, shopping centres, places of worship, hairdressers and salons, cinemas and museums, gyms and leisure centres, and anywhere that is open to members of the public.
But you will not be required to wear face coverings inside a public space where you are there to eat or drink, but you will need to wear one in the parts of the premises where people are not eating or drinking
Masks will not be mandatory in workplaces or schools and children under 11 will not be required to wear them.
Failing to comply could land you with a fine of up to £1,920.
Where can I travel?
The original "stay local" guidance, asking people to stay within five miles of home, ended in July. But in his announcement on restrictions on 22 September, Mr Drakeford urged people to only take essential journeys.
In local lockdown areas, people are not allowed to enter or leave the local authority area unless they have a "reasonable excuse".
Excuses listed in the law include travelling to work if you are not able to work from home, to go to school, or to give care.
You can travel to buy food and medical supplies, seek medical assistance or go to the vets, and move home.
If you are buying essential items and there is no reasonable alternative to using shops within these counties, you can do so.
However, in most cases there are expected to be alternative options, even if this involves travelling a bit further than you would normally.
But people are advised to check the restrictions when it comes to international travel and travel to other parts of the UK, as some areas have local lockdown restrictions, or are on a quarantine list.
Service stations are not affected by local lockdowns and can still provide toilet facilities, fuel and food and drink.
When can I go to the pub or eat out?
Pubs, cafes, bars and restaurants were forced to close at the start of lockdown.
But beer gardens and outdoor seating have reopened, with some areas, including Cardiff, shutting roads to create alfresco dining space.
Since 3 August, people have been able to enjoy a pint, or a soft drink or meal, indoors at their local or favourite restaurant again, after they were allowed to reopen inside.
But after the announcement on 22 September, pubs, cafes and restaurants in Wales have to shut at 22:00 every night, which is the same time alcohol sales will be stopped in shops and off-licences.
Can I get married?
Couples can host receptions with food for up to 30 people indoors at weddings and civil ceremonies, if social distancing can be maintained and face coverings are worn.
Funeral wakes were also be able to be held indoors, under the same rules.
There are limits on the type of activity that can take place, according to Welsh Government guidance, including a ban on loud music and buffets.
People from an area in local lockdown, such as Caerphilly, are allowed to attend wedding ceremonies and funerals outside the county, but not wedding receptions or wakes.
Weddings and funerals are permitted in Caerphilly county, but people from outside the county must not attend the reception or wake.
What about toilets?
Most public toilets are managed by local councils and were closed during the height of the pandemic.
While many have reopened, some remain closed, and the Welsh Government has said people should consider this when travelling. Rules on face coverings apply in public toilets.
Unless you are part of an extended household, the guidance states you must not use someone else's bathroom, or kitchen, if you are visiting them in their garden.
What if I am shielding or living with someone who is shielding?
More than 120,000 people were told to self-isolate in Wales during the pandemic, meaning for months they were unable to have contact with relatives or go to the shops.
But as restrictions were eased, those classed as high-risk, were allowed to go outside to exercise and meet others - at a 2m distance, but were advised not to go into someone else's home or share food with them.
This was paused on 16 August, meaning people could see their loved ones again.
Can I exercise with a friend or play sport?
Currently you are able to go for a walk, run or cycle as often as you want with people from a second household, as long as you are not in large groups and are at least 2m apart.
People can also exercise in groups, with up to 30 people being allowed to play sport outside at once.
This means exercise classes, team games such as cricket, and sports clubs can meet, but only if they are organised and supervised.
Swimming pools, gyms and leisure centres have also been allowed to reopen.
People in counties under lockdown can continue to exercise, but not with people from outside the county.
Can I book a holiday in Wales?
You can book a holiday with members of your household or extended household in self-contained accommodation or hotels, B&Bs and campsites with shared facilities in Wales.
But you cannot currently go on holiday with anyone that is not part of your household or extended household.
People under local lockdown restrictions are not allowed to leave the county, including to go on holiday elsewhere in Wales.
When can I have my hair cut or a beauty treatment?
Many people were desperate for a cut, colour or to repair the damage done by doing it themselves by the time hairdressers and barbers reopened on 13 July.
But they are now very different places to those you could simply walk into, chat to friends or browse magazines.
For a start, there are strict hygiene rules in place, with hairdressers only able to accept booked appointments.
The same applies for visitors to tattooists, beauty and tanning salons, which were allowed to open from 27 July.
Rules on face coverings apply in these premises.
Following the local lockdowns in six areas of Wales, people can only visit such premises within the county area and must wear face coverings.
What about schools?
It's back to school in Wales - but not quite as we knew it before.
The "new normal" in classrooms means working in bubbles and limited contact with pupils outside their group.
But parents and teachers have welcomed the staggered return following six months of disruption.
Schools initially welcomed back pupils in small groups for "check in, catch up and prepare" sessions on 29 June after being closed for more than three months.
Truancy fines will not be issued if pupils do not attend at the start of the school year, but this plan will be reviewed as the term develops.
Dozens of schools have reported cases and entire year groups have self-isolated since the start of term, but Education Minister Kirsty Williams said it was to be expected.
Can I have work done on my house?
Repair and maintenance work can be carried out in people's homes, provided the worker is well, has no Covid-19 symptoms and ensures a 2m distance is maintained.
The Welsh Government recommends no work should be carried out in a household which is isolated or where a vulnerable person is being shielded, unless an emergency repair is needed.
What about places of worship?
During lockdown mosques, synagogues and churches were closed in Wales, and there have been limits on the number of people attending funerals and weddings.
From 13 July faith leaders were able to gradually resume services, once they felt ready to do so safely.
As discussed, places of worship are public spaces where the Welsh Government has said people should wear face coverings.
Can I buy or rent a new house?
If you are looking to move house, you can view homes for rent or sale in Wales - but you must follow social distancing rules and keep your hands clean.
You can also visit estate agents, sales offices or show rooms, but must wear a face covering.
Can I visit my Welsh second home?
People were previously told not to travel to second homes in order protect the smaller NHS hospitals in areas where most Welsh boltholes are situated.
However, people can now "travel as far as they like for all purposes" according to Mr Drakeford, allowing people to visit second homes, providing they are not leaving, or travelling to, an area under local lockdown.
Last updated 27 September 2020: This story has been updated since April with new information from the Welsh Government about the lockdown rules
|
A crowd has gathered on Juma, an island in Tanzania's Lake Victoria, the world's second largest freshwater lake.
|
By Jane WakefieldTechnology reporter
The local people are standing behind makeshift nets which cordon off an area where a small group of engineers are consulting laptops and smartphones.
Along with representatives from organisations such as the United Nations children's agency Unicef, the World Food Programme and the World Bank, they are looking up at the skies, waiting for a drone to land.
The drone is being flown within 3km (1.8 miles) of the local airport in Mwanza and, with air traffic control monitoring it, this is a sign of how Africa is leaping ahead in terms of regulation and vision around unmanned flying vehicles.
The flight is part of a conference called the Lake Victoria Challenge (LVC) which aims to make commercial drone flights in East Africa the norm, bringing goods and services to communities such as Juma, which are cut off from the mainland.
The people here are used to seeing aircraft overhead but, aside from the fishermen in their reed boats, few leave the island.
Ferries are infrequent, costly and can be dangerous - a high-profile ferry disaster left more than 200 dead in September 2017 - while speedboats, which take only half an hour to get to the mainland, are prohibitively expensive.
Permission to fly
Fishing is the main livelihood but this too can be dangerous, with hundreds of fishermen from Juma and surrounding islands dying every year in crocodile attacks and drownings.
Virtually no-one learns to swim, and those that do face the dangers of the lake, which is riddled with parasitic worms which can lead to the deadly disease bilharzia.
There is a light buzzing sound as the drone appears in the distance, flanked by local birds fascinated by their hi-tech companion. It lands safely to cheers and clapping from the gathered Westerners and bemused looks from the locals.
Given that Mwanza, where the drone took off, is only 22km away, this may seem an unremarkable event, but testing a system controlled by air traffic control is a daring move.
In the wake of the recent chaos at Gatwick Airport, where a drone grounded hundreds of flights for three days just before Christmas, getting air traffic control involved in drone flights makes a lot of sense.
East Africa is leading the way in terms of forward-thinking and world-leading drone regulation. Rwanda boasts the world's first cargo drone delivery service with Silicon Valley start-up Zipline, which is delivering blood to the country's hospitals thanks to a deal with the government which gave its drones the status of government flights.
And in Malawi, a drone test corridor for humanitarian purposes was launched in 2017 in a partnership between Unicef and the government.
The Tanzanian civil aviation authority, which gave permission for the drone to fly so close to the airport, wants to make the country drone-friendly while keeping airspace safe.
It has developed a framework that requires potential drone pilots to apply for licences. The individual or group is then vetted by other authorities, including the intelligence services.
And there are strict rules governing flights - the Juma experiment being an exception. Normally, drones cannot fly within 3km of a domestic airport or 5km of an international airport. Drones must not fly above 500ft (152m) or weigh more than 25kg (55lbs).
"We have to have regulation in place to protect aircraft and stop terrorists and other unlawful activity," Hamza Johari, the head of Tanzania's Civil Aviation Authority told the BBC.
Tanzania is also in the process of setting up four civilian radars which will offer surveillance of the whole country's airspace.
The LVC is not just about showing off how drones can fly safely, it also wants to create a sustainable drone industry in Africa, bringing together humanitarian organisations, government and commercial drone companies to do so.
The World Bank - which organised the event - acknowledged the importance of involving the local community in deciding what it needs. On a visit to Juma before the test flight, residents pinpointed medicines, cash and spare parts for the village mill as their priorities.
Although the aim of the LVC is to make a case for commercial drone deliveries, medicines could be the most pressing need.
Juma is lucky because it has a clinic, unlike many of the other nearby islands. However, the building is little more than a cement shed full of leaflets but virtually bereft of actual medicines. There is no antidote for snake bites or anti-rabies vaccine and it takes up to five weeks for such lifesaving supplies to arrive from the mainland.
In an emergency, a patient is taken to the mainland, which takes three hours, and those working in the clinic described medicine by drone as being "lifesaving".
Bamboo drone
Ivan Gayton, head of Tanzania's OpenStreetMap programme, who is acting as a safety co-ordinator at the LVC event, believes what is happening on Juma is similar to the dawn of the computer age.
"We are witnessing the birth of an industry here," he told the BBC. "Like the 1970s when the computer was transitioning from a hobby to something more professional."
Ivan, similarly to all the drone firms taking part in the challenge, is Western, but he is convinced that the drone industry, if it is to be successful in Africa, needs to be run by Africans.
It is one of the reasons that he, along with a Tanzanian colleague at the conference, built a drone out of bamboo, made out of parts that were 3D-printed in Dar es Salaam.
"It is a rickety-looking contraption, but on-board are motors, flight controller, GPS and a lithium polymer battery, so it is quite a sophisticated flight control system and it makes the case that Tanzanians can make, build and fly drones.
"The open source software is so sophisticated that it is possible to do remarkable things with limited resources and local materials."
Zanzibar pilots
Freddy Mbuya, one of the few African drone experts at the conference, agrees.
"There has to be a business case beyond the donor sector. African businesses have to be able to set up and be profitable for drones to work in Africa," he said.
The groundwork for this has already been laid in a mapping project in which he was involved in Zanzibar, which has been lauded around the world.
"Zanzibar now has the highest density of young drone pilots anywhere in the world, and some of them have gone on to set up businesses and gain professional contracts."
Mapping, both commercially for mining companies or governments as well as for local communities, is a vital function of drones in Africa, where only 3% of the country is mapped to local scale, he thinks.
When Juma was mapped, the results were shared with the local community.
"They were so excited to see their houses and could immediately see things they could act on, such as trash dumps that could be centralised."
It is important that, as well as creating a community of drone pilots, Africans are equipped to assemble and repair drones, Mr Mbuya thinks.
"If the technology is purchased outside of Africa, it shouldn't have to go back to the originating country to be repaired."
So, while he welcomed tech firms from Europe and the US, he said that any services they offered had to be "mutually beneficial".
"Western tech companies, especially drone companies, come to Tanzania to operate because there is a lot more freedom here. But it is vital that there is the capacity to build things locally. We cannot only use technology as a tool which is made outside of Africa."
In 2019, the second LVC will feature drone companies competing in a series of challenges, which are likely to include deliveries of goods to Juma and other islands.
Successful firms will win either cash prizes or contracts with the local Tanzanian government - the details are still being worked out.
And already word is spreading - at the end of this year's conference, attended by a host of local dignitaries, it was announced that Tanzania's post office intends to start using drones.
Light cargo
The technology may be ready - batteries are now more efficient meaning they can fly for longer - but the biggest problem for drones remains the limitations to what they can carry. Currently for most on the market this is no more than 2kg of weight - the equivalent to a paperback book.
Jonathan Ledgard, the Economist's former Africa correspondent and a drone advocate, thinks that drones will be developed in the next five to seven years that can carry up to 9kg.
"We have got the brain issues with drones sorted and there are advances in vertical take-offs and landings, plus East Africa has made enormous progress on the regulatory side so, if we can get propulsion sorted, we can rapidly scale up," he told the BBC.
There is more to the Juma experiment than only drones, and a patch of land, adjacent to the local school, has been earmarked as a site for a possible droneport - a futuristic airport which would could become the hub of the community.
That is another of Mr Ledgard's ideas and the building he has in mind, designed with the help of his friend Lord Norman Foster, would be more than just a place for drones to land and take off.
"It would have a civic presence in the community and space for digital fabrication," he said.
"It should be possible to have a droneport in every small town in Africa. By 2035 there could be a high density network of drones, making 20 to 50 flights a day," he said.
And, like others at the LVC, he wants to see drone flights move beyond aid.
"There is mass take-up of mobile phones in Africa which opens up e-commerce potential. People who want to buy football boots or sunglasses can get them delivered to a droneport, something like an Argos shop," he said.
What Mr Ledgard does not want to see is a "Silicon Valley model where you see marginal use of drones for mining or healthy deliveries" replicated across Africa.
He says this despite the fact that it was him who introduced Zipline to the Rwandan government.
It has become the poster boy for drone deliveries and since October 2016, has flown thousands of kilometres in Rwanda, delivering lifesaving units of blood.
However, Zipline is not without its critics. Those in the African drone community bemoan the fact that it is not sharing either its technology or its route with others, and others question how it got its exclusive deal with the Rwandan government and why it does not divulge its delivery charges.
Mr Mbuya described the firm as being "outside the rest of the African drone community".
"At LVC all the firms are using the same open hardware and everyone feeds back on that, so that it can be improved," he said.
Defending his company, Zipline's global operation manager, Dan Czerwonka, told the BBC: "We do have a proprietary system, but that was born out of necessity.
"We needed something we could scale up for thousands of flights and there was no existing system that we felt was reliable or safe enough. So yes it is proprietary, but then so is Apple."
As to accusations that Zipline is using Africa as a test bed with its real ambitions to launch a service in the US, he is ambivalent.
"I don't really think there is a desire for thousands of drones whizzing over people's heads every day, but in rural America there is poor access to health and we want to change that."
The firm is currently in talks with 14 countries around the world to offer new drone services, and move beyond blood delivery.
This includes talks with the Ghanaian government to offer surveillance drones for illegal mining in the country.
Zipline was also due to launch an on demand drone delivery of blood transfusion supplies, emergency vaccines, HIV medications, anti-malarials and other critical medical supplies in Tanzania, with distribution centres due to open this year in four sites around the country.
But so far nothing has happened, despite the CAA granting it licences. Zipline said simply that the "terms aren't yet right", suggesting that the stumbling block could be a financial one.
Leapfrogging roads?
Africa has done an incredible job in introducing new technologies, with mobile phone penetration in sub-Saharan Africa reaching 44% in 2017, with more than 400 million subscribers.
Mobile has effectively leapfrogged fixed-line telecoms infrastructure, leading some to ask whether the same could become true of drones.
Ken Banks has worked on mobile platforms for Africa for the past two decades and he is not convinced.
"I am not sure drones will revolutionise things in the same way as the mobile did, partly because it is harder to move physical things.
"It is not the panacea some people think it will be. Some things need roads. It is easy to get carried away with new technology at the expense of other things. But if a person is ill you can't use a drone to get them from one place to another - you need a road."
|
Fire crews are fighting a "significant" wildfire incident involving gorse and forestry in County Down that has been ongoing for 24 hours.
|
It broke out at about 13:30 BST on Friday on the Leitrim Road in Castlewellan.
Almost 50 Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) personnel have attended, including seven pumping appliances and specialist teams.
NIFRS has appealed for people to stay away.
Officers from NIFRS' specialist wildfire team, high volume pump and specialist rescue teams have all attended the scene.
|
A 33-year-old man has been charged with making and possessing explosives under suspicious circumstances.
|
Homes were evacuated as part of a security alert on Woodville Street in Lurgan in County Armagh on Sunday morning.
He is due to appear in Lisburn Magistrates' court on Monday.
A 35-year-old woman who was also arrested has been released on bail pending further police enquiries.
|
Who is the real John McAfee? He's the man who went on the run after his neighbour was found dead, face-up, with a bullet in his head. He's the man who jump-started the multibillion-dollar anti-virus industry. And now he thinks he can make you invisible on the internet.
|
By Leo KelionTechnology reporter
Within tech circles he's long been a legend. But for most people, McAfee came to prominence last year when he fled his Central American home - teeth stained, hair dyed, in disguise - rather than let himself be questioned by authorities he accused of being corrupt.
He tells the BBC he had "no connection whatsoever" with his neighbour's death. Police say he remains a "person of interest".
Back in the US, after posting footage of young female "friends" stroking his naked tattooed torso, he now plans to neutralise the NSA's cyber-surveillance system.
It might suggest a crazed, perhaps even deranged, personality. One journalist who has interviewed McAfee many times described him a "master manipulator" who lies and deceives.
"I've been called paranoid, schizophrenic, the wild child of Silicon Valley," McAfee acknowledges.
But he has a different perspective: "I'm an entrepreneur. I always have been. I am curious and I enjoy solving problems.
"I think that it's when we step out of the road, step outside the box, become our own person and we walk fearlessly down paths other people wouldn't look at, that true progress comes. And sometimes true beauty as well.
"We're missing that. We're missing the people who have the courage to walk into the wilderness just to see what's there."
This is how Amy Emshwiller, the teenage ex-prostitute he lived with in Belize, describes him: "He's sweet, generous. He likes to like adventures. He's serious and usually he has a dark sense of humour. He's generally a sweet guy. He just doesn't like to be [expletive] with."
So, who is the real John McAfee?
To have any chance of knowing and gaining an informed opinion of what really motivated his erratic-sounding behaviour after the killing of Gregory Faull, you must travel deep into the 68-year-old's past.
Addicted and expelled
Despite his Southern accent, the bleached-blond and goateed businessman is in fact half-British - the son of an Englishwoman who met an American soldier stationed in the UK during World War II.
"I feel as much British as I do American," McAfee says. "There's not much difference between our countries."
They moved to Virginia when he was young, where he had a troubled childhood. His father was an abusive alcoholic who, when McAfee was aged 15, shot himself dead. In the following years, McAfee says, he too began drinking heavily and taking drugs, but still managed to maintain a promising academic career.
That came to an end in the late 1960s when Northeast State Louisiana State College terminated his PhD in mathematics after it was revealed that he had slept with an undergraduate he was mentoring.
They later married and McAfee turned his skills to a series of programming jobs with some of the biggest tech organisations of the time including Nasa, General Electric, Siemens, Univac and Xerox, all the while continuing to indulge in his addictions.
"Most of my bosses also used drugs of some kind," he says. "I was in the tech field, after all, we were the leading edge in technology and the leading age in personal experimentation.
"I had to hide it from my mother and sometimes from my wife. But in the work environment - depending on where you worked - in some companies drugs were taken openly at lunchtime in people's offices. It was a bizarre time."
Matters came to a head in the early 1980s after his wife left him, his most recent employer, Omex, let him go and the scale of his drug dependency forced him to seek help.
"It was 1984, the last time that I took drugs, drank alcohol or sold drugs for that matter," he says.
"I simply stopped. I started going to an organisation called Alcoholics Anonymous... and that was my last taste of that world.
"However, it is still with me. My body is covered with tattoos from that period. And I'm afraid some of my ideas and concepts and attitudes that were moulded during that time are still with me. That's why people think, perhaps, I'm a little bit off the wall."
Anti-virus millionaire
Despite his troubles, McAfee managed to land a job at defence contractor Lockheed Martin, where he worked on a classified voice-recognition program.
There he came across an unusual bit of self-replicating code designed to copy itself on to any floppy disk inserted into affected computers. When examined, it contained the message: "Welcome to the dungeon. Beware of this VIRUS."
"When I first read about the Pakistani Brain virus, I'd never heard of a virus before, neither had anyone in technology," remembers McAfee. "It fascinated me."
He worked out a way to disinfect the computers and then spread the cure via the bulletin board system, a precursor to the web.
The challenge inspired him to set up a business of his own: McAfee Associates - a firm that would later be sold, years after he had left, to Intel for more than $7.6bn (£4.7bn).
"I knew the field would become extremely large because people being who they are, there will always be hackers," he says.
"It's why we have graffiti on the walls of the inner city. People like to deface things. They like to disrupt things.
"So, given that fact, computer viruses were not going to go away and were only going to get worse. I just did what I could to be at the forefront of that industry for as long as I could."
Despite this, he says, he has never himself used any of the products made by the firm that continues to bear his name.
"I'm constantly under attack, yet I use no software protection.
"I protect myself by constantly changing my IP [internet protocol] address, by not attaching my name to any device I use, and by not going on to sites where you might pick up a virus.
"Porn sites, for example, I just don't go there.
"Secondly, I practise safe computing. If someone sends me an email with a link, I'm not going there until I can call the person to verify that they sent me the email.
"It sounds absurd to live that way, but I would rather trust my own devices and thoughts than someone else's software."
After selling his stake in the business in 1994, McAfee went on to found and sell other companies, including an instant messaging system, a firewall provider and a ranch from which he offered flights in "trikes" - low-flying, engine-powered cabins suspended from hang-gliders.
Then he headed south.
Research and raid
In 2008, at an age others might be thinking of putting up their feet, McAfee moved to the jungle of Belize with the stated intention of trying to cure another kind of infection.
"I came across a concept called quorum sensing, which is the technique that bacteria use to communicate with each other.
"Up until about 10 years ago we didn't even know that bacteria did communicate, but we find out they have a very sophisticated communication system. I wanted to explore and investigate that to see if we could come up with new antibiotics."
He picked the area, he says, because the plants that grew along the country's Rio Nuevo river contained compounds that inhibit bacteria from sending chemical signals to each other and thus thwart their ability to co-ordinate an attack.
Things didn't go as planned.
The first sign of trouble was when journalists invited to his Carmelita, Orange Walk, base wrote stories that made clear they did not know what to make of the operation.
Then a falling-out with the microbiologist he was working with, Allison Adonizio, put the project at risk when she quit.
Dr Adonizio, who is now based in Philadelphia, did not want to be interviewed.
In April 2012, matters came to a head when the Belize police force's Gang Suppression Unit raided the research facility.
McAfee says the officers claimed they suspected it was being used to make the illegal psycho-stimulant methamphetamine.
They shot his dog, he says, confiscated both his passport and licensed weapons on the property, and briefly imprisoned him before dropping the charges.
"Under no circumstances did they really believe it was a meth lab," he states.
"Everybody knew it was a biotech lab because I had hired half of the people in the village to work there. They all knew what I was doing.
"It's a pirate haven. It's an extremely corrupt and dangerous place.
"I knew this and my friends all advised me against it. I just thought I was smart enough to sidestep it. Unfortunately, I was not.
"I was there for a year and the local politician sent a representative and asked for $2m for a campaign donation. I said no. Two weeks later they raided my compound."
McAfee says when he was asked a second time for the cash he went on a publicity blitz, posting messages online, and speaking to local and international press about the incident. It became political.
The Belize Times - published by the leading opposition party - suggested the "barbaric assault" on McAfee was a "global black eye" for the nation and a threat to its tourist industry.
"I do wish that I were smarter socially," reflects McAfee.
"I think I have the ability to solve mathematical equations and programming issues very easily, but I am a little bit naive in some social situations. And certainly in Belize I was way naive."
At the time of the raid, McAfee had begun an affair with a 16-year-old ex-prostitute he had met on Belize Independence Day.
"I was partying, I was drinking, and I went into this bar and the owner said a friend wants to meet me and likes me," remembers Amy Emshwiller, who still lives in Belize.
"[He said] can I have your number, and then two weeks later he called me."
She says he was unaware she was less than a quarter of his age.
"He didn't know how old I was. I lied to him saying I was 18, and he thought it was OK.
"I let him fall in love first before I told him my age.
"When I told him he was so [expletive] shocked that he didn't know what to do. He was baffled. And he was like: 'I still love you, I don't know what to do. I'm in love with a young girl.' That's how that happened."
McAfee's long-term American girlfriend left him. And like many things in his life, the new affair proved complicated.
One night Emshwiller took McAfee's gun. She aimed it at his head, squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger. She missed.
He continued the relationship.
"Amy, for one - and many girls in Belize - has a horrific story of abuse that if I told you, you could not believe it," McAfee explains.
"Of course she's not going to be well. Of course she's going to have issues.
"When she tried to shoot me in the head what I saw was a frightened child.
"What I saw was a confused girl who had been so abused - physically, sexually, emotionally - beyond any description.
"What are you going to do? Throw her out? That doesn't help her.
"All she did was burst my eardrum. I'm deaf in one ear now, but I don't have a bullet in my head. Forgiveness is one of the graces that we have as human beings. Can I be faulted for indulging in it?"
Emshwiller confirms the event but says she wanted to scare, not kill, him after he had said he wanted another girl. She adds it was not the only such incident provoked by her jealousy.
"One time before, I held him in the corner and I put a knife at his throat," she says.
"And he just said: 'Go ahead. Kill me.' And I couldn't do it. I just dropped the knife and walked out."
Following the raid, McAfee and Emshwiller moved to his villa at San Pedro - a town on Belize's biggest island, Ambergris Caye - where they agreed to have an open relationship.
There they were visited by Chad Essley, a cartoonist, who began collaborating on a book about McAfee's life.
"I didn't quite realise that his lifestyle would be this older guy surrounded by young girls and bodyguards with guns," he says.
"Many of these girls were former prostitutes or had very rough lives.
"It was expressly forbidden to go out in the town and drink - the smell of alcohol, he could not be around it. He didn't want any of the girls doing any drugs at all.
"I interviewed each of these girls, got their background. They were incredibly sad. They were definitely in a better sort of situation being around John."
Meanwhile next door, Gregory Faull, an Orlando sports bar owner who had recently divorced and decided to live in his Belize holiday home, was becoming increasingly irate at his neighbour's activities.
'Hatchet buried'
On Thursday, 8 November 2012, McAfee made the local headlines when he donated 40 stun guns, handcuffs and batons to the local police at a press conference.
Mayor Daniel Guerrero thanked him, stating: "Crime is affecting the tourism industry as we have been listed on travel advisories; it is time to stop this. Let us protect our industry and turn San Pedro into the safe haven once more."
That night the local TV bulletin declared that "the hatchet was formally buried", suggesting the rift between McAfee and Belize's authorities had ended.
Early on Sunday morning, Mr Faull was found dead in a pool of his blood by his housekeeper. Police called to the scene found a single 9mm shell nearby. They said a mobile phone and laptop were missing but there were no visible signs of a forced entry.
The head of the police's Gang Suppression Unit told a local newspaper that his officers wanted to speak to McAfee as part of the investigation, but when they called at his house he did not appear to be in.
An article posted the following day by Wired magazine revealed why.
McAfee told the publication he had seen the officers approaching and had hidden in the sand of his property putting a cardboard box over his head.
He recalls that his caretaker had told him of Mr Faull's murder, and now he feared for his own life.
"The first thing that came to my mind was, 'Oh, my Lord. The government is finally trying to rid themselves of me,' he says.
"The government does from time to time.
"I had certainly been a huge thorn in their side, and they had simply got the wrong white man.
"Seriously, this is what went through my mind. My friends sort of calmed me down, and later said that's absurd. At the time I did not think so."
McAfee acknowledges that he and Mr Faull had been at odds, but plays down the idea they hated each other or that he suspected him of being the person who had fed two of Emshwiller's dogs a poisoned tortilla.
"The entire five years I was there, I'd said maybe 15 words to him," he says.
"He did not like my dogs and the past two occasions I had seen him walking on the beach he complained. But so did everybody.
"There was no ongoing argument. Yeah, he was mad about my dogs. Maybe as I'm beginning to think now, maybe he was the one who poisoned them. At the time I certainly did not believe that."
In fact, as ABC News later revealed, Mr Faull had filed a complaint to Mayor Guerrero about McAfee the previous month.
It said McAfee's dog had attacked a tourist; that his security guards had "terrified" other residents by walking around with shotguns and shining lights in their eyes, and that taxis and other traffic had been arriving at his property "at all hours", causing a disturbance.
"I did not find that out until weeks after I came back to the States," says McAfee when pressed about this.
"Belize is not like America where you file a complaint and then the police come out and chase things out. You file a complaint and it goes into a drawer."
Hiding out
McAfee then went on the run, saying he feared he would be "silenced" if he was caught and thrown in jail.
It made headlines worldwide, in no small part due to the fact that he was posting updates to a blog and giving frequent interviews - actions he says were designed to ensure he couldn't be made to disappear if he had been caught.
"I disguised myself as a ragged salesman," he recalls.
"All it takes is some dirty clothes and not bathing for a few days and not combing my hair.
"You know, people saw my photograph everywhere because all of the police and army had it for that month and a half I was underground. I just made sure I looked different than that."
Questioned about the affair, Dean Barrow, Belize's prime minister, made it clear McAfee was not an official murder suspect, and had only been classed instead a "person of interest".
"I don't want to be unkind to the gentleman, but I believe he is extremely paranoid, even bonkers," the politician added.
During this time McAfee continued to see Emshwiller.
"When he was on the run I went for lunches with him and then he would call and say: 'Come to this place, or go there,' she recalls.
"How to come, when to come. Not to go out, or stay home, or go to a different location. He would tell me that so nobody would get me."
She adds that she regrets she did not go with him when he finally decided to escape the country.
The next major development came on 3 December when a reporter and photographer from Vice magazine revealed they were documenting McAfee's life on the run.
In what proved a frustrating twist for the tech guru, they then unwittingly revealed he had crossed the border to Guatemala - a fact revealed by a photo uploaded to the Vice website by staff at its headquarters, who failed to wipe its location data.
"I had gone out of my way to arrange the escape and I was breathing easily and looking forward to a few days of relaxation," remembers McAfee.
"We immediately had to go on the run again because we were in Guatemala illegally at this point. But it was no-one's real fault. It was just the fault of the moment."
A few days later McAfee was arrested. There was initially speculation he would be sent back to Belize, but a week later he was allowed to fly to Miami a free man.
"After it was over I asked myself, 'Good Lord, I must have been afraid,'" he says.
"But I really can't remember. I remember merely trying to solve the problems that occurred as they occurred."
Hero and villain
McAfee has offered a $25,000 bounty for information relating to Mr Faull's death, but says an attempt to contact the victim's family proved unsuccessful.
The family has called the reward a "hollow gesture" and suggested if McAfee really wanted to help he would have met with the Belize police.
A spokesman for the country's government said its authorities still wanted to speak to the businessman.
"Mr McAfee's claims and his behaviour have been extreme," he told the BBC.
"The investigation is ongoing and McAfee remains a person of interest. If McAfee were to respond to questioning it would make a difference to the progress of the investigation - but this is currently out of the hands of the government of Belize."
So long as the crime remains unsolved, it is inevitable the entrepreneur will always face suspicion. But he says he can live with that.
"There's always going to be someone who likes you and someone who dislikes you," he says.
"Someone who thinks you're a hero and some that think you're a villain. You know I just do what I can in situations like this to continue to state that I'm totally innocent."
That doesn't mean he is trying to forget his time in Belize.
In addition to the graphic novel, he is working with a Canadian firm to make both a documentary and a movie about his time there.
He adds that George Jung - the imprisoned cocaine drugs lord portrayed by Johnny Depp in the film Blow - has been picked to write his biography.
While those projects brew, McAfee has returned to Silicon Valley, announcing the forthcoming launch of a $100 gadget that he promises can make you invisible on the net.
"If you cannot see it, you cannot hack it, you cannot look at it, you cannot spy on anything happening inside it," he explains.
He says the D-Central units will fit in people's pockets and allow their phones, tablets and PCs to communicate with other owners' devices within a three-block radius.
He adds they can also connect to the net anonymously via a node - a separate piece of equipment attached to the network - either directly or with their encrypted data relayed relayed via other D-Central boxes.
Each will frequently change their network identifier - a long number used by devices as an ID - making them hard to track, he explains.
He suggests it will appeal to college students who want to copy music anonymously and to businesses wanting to prevent the theft of corporate secrets.
He's also well aware that in the light of Edward Snowden's leaks about surveillance techniques used by the US and UK governments, part of the appeal will be thwarting their efforts.
"You know from their own paranoia and desire to stay in power, they are watching everything they can," he says.
Will the tech work? Will he really frustrate the authorities once again?
At this point, like so much of John McAfee's life, it's impossible to be sure of all the facts and it's ultimately up to you whether you take him at his word.
|
Engineers in Somerset are working to restore access to Cheddar Gorge after last month's heavy rain and floods damaged roads in the area.
|
The B3135 - the winding, main route through the gorge - has been closed for nearly two weeks.
Somerset County Council has said that until the road surface dries out repairs are impossible.
Andrew Turner, highways manager said he had "not seen it like this, ever", during his time working at the council.
"The trouble we've got here, is that where we've got flowing water there is no fix at this point in time," he added.
"We've got areas of carriageway where the tarmac is gone [and] water's still flowing through it, and we can't make a repair."
|
Additional testing for the mutated variant of Covid-19 has been rolled out in Bristol and South Gloucestershire, with people "strongly encouraged" to get tested even if they do not have symptoms. Here's what you need to know.
|
What is the purpose of surge testing?
Surge testing is the roll-out of additional community testing of people who do not have any coronavirus symptoms.
It aims to help scientists and public health officials learn more about the mutated Covid-19 variant found in Bristol and South Gloucestershire.
It will also help reduce the spread of infection by finding asymptomatic cases and prompting people to self-isolate.
What are they testing for?
Public Health England (PHE) have confirmed 11 cases in Bristol were the new Kent variant with the E484K mutation, which has already been seen in the South African and Brazilian variants.
Christina Gray, director of public health for Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, said cases were first picked up as part of routine sampling.
This testing aims to identify any further cases of the new mutation for "scientific teams to stay ahead of the virus", Ms Gray said.
Who needs to get tested?
Anyone over the age of 16, who does not have any symptoms of Covid-19 and who lives or works in one of 24 postcode areas can get a test.
If you have symptoms of Covid-19 you should book a coronavirus test in the normal way via the government website.
Has the mutation been found in those areas?
Bristol City Council said it would not give locations of the cases, but the listing of an area does not mean the variant is necessarily present in that postcode.
Where can I get a test?
Adults who live or work in the specified postcode areas are being asked to take one test in this two-week period of additional testing.
They can go to any of three testing sites which are open seven days a week, without booking, as long as they do not display coronavirus symptoms:
From Tuesday an online booking system will go live to enable people to make an appointment at the sites.
Eight libraries in Bristol and South Gloucestershire are also offering a 'collect and drop' service for people to pick up kits to do the test at home.
What kind of test is it?
The test is a standard PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test.
It involves a swab of the nose and throat and is sent off to laboratories to be analysed.
When and how will I get the results?
Most people will get their test result the next day, but it may take up to three days and results will be sent by text or email via NHS Test and Trace.
If you test positive, have any symptoms or are contact traced following contact with someone who tests positive, you should self-isolate.
If you receive a negative result you should continue to follow national lockdown guidance.
What's happening with case numbers in Bristol?
Surge testing in Bristol comes as the daily number of coronavirus cases recorded in the city continues to fall.
Ms Gray said: "The good news is that our rates of infection are coming down and we need to keep going on that.
"Our case rates have reduced by 6% which is a really good drop and the south west R rate has now nudged below one."
Ms Gray was keen to reiterate that surge testing was not an outbreak control response, but "an investigatory response" looking to see what they can find and sending that for national analysis.
However she said they do expect the number of identified cases of the mutated Kent variant to increase "as a greater scientific focus is put on actively searching for it".
Where can I find out more?
You can find out more about community surge testing on the Bristol City Council website, including a full Q&A.
Follow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]
Related Internet Links
Bristol City Council
Community testing- Bristol City Council
Coronavirus - NHS
South Gloucestershire Council
|
Vietnamese fishermen say they are being attacked by China with increasing regularity. Their boats have been rammed, equipment broken and crewmen beaten up. Vietnam accuses Beijing of trying to force them out of waters in the South China Sea where their families have fished for generations.
|
By Humphrey HawksleyBBC News, Vietnam
As the breaking dawn casts a red-orange rim around the horizon of the South China Sea, Vo Van Giau kneels on the front deck of the fishing boat and locks his hands behind his head.
"That is what they made me do," he says, pushing his head hard down. "Then they beat me with steel rods and a hammer like this." He pulls a heavy wooden mallet from a bundle of fishing equipment and strikes himself softly on his shoulders and against his sides.
Van Giau, who is 42, shows photographs of his injuries on his phone - huge, welling bruises and cuts. The attack lasted well over an hour and he needed hospital treatment.
He tells how, in July, Chinese coastguards rammed into his wooden boat - badly damaging it - while he was fishing in waters near the Paracel Islands. They lie about 175 miles (280km) off the Vietnamese mainland - roughly the same distance they are from Chinese island province of Hainan.
Van Giau lives on the small island of Ly Son - in the past year Vietnam says almost half of the island's boats fishing in this area have come under attack from the Chinese.
"My father fished these waters, my grandfather and my great-grandfather. From ancient times they have belonged to Vietnam. Now China has claimed them and invaded them illegally," says Van Giau.
This boat is owned by a friend, 62-year-old Vo Van Chuc who has had fishing nets and tackle, together with his catch of fish, stolen by the Chinese coastguard. "All of us are threatened every time we go out," says Van Chuc.
The boat is small and cramped and cluttered. A faded Vietnamese flag flies on a mast at the front and another above the wheelhouse. Inside there is no state-of-the-art marine equipment, just a radio, a compass and old, rusting dials.
The two fishermen and four young deckhands all come from Ly Son, 20 miles (32km) from the Vietnamese mainland. It is a dusty, underdeveloped community which only got a reliable electricity supply last year and for generations has lived from fishing.
Ly Son fishermen have become so crucial to Vietnam's national security that they are exempt from the country's compulsory military service. Their job is to keep working far out at sea and face down the Chinese threat against Vietnamese territory.
More and more are coming into head-on confrontation with the Chinese coastguard and navy.
The island lies on the edge of what is referred to in Vietnam as the Cow's Tongue because of the horseshoe shaped area of some 90% of the South China Sea that Beijing says is its sovereign territory.
The claim is not new. But in 2009 it lodged it formally with the United Nations. Since then it has tried to reinforce its case by building runways and ports on newly created islands in the Spratly archipelago where, in 1988, it attacked and occupied one of Vietnam's garrisoned islands with heavy loss of life.
It seized the Paracel Islands in two separate military operations in 1956 and 1974, and in 2012 reinforced its control by announcing the new Sansha prefecture there - a civilian administration which is part of Hainan province.
These waters between Vietnam and the Paracels are what Ly Son islanders call their traditional fishing grounds. Beijing has never published the exact geographical coordinates of the area it claims as its own, so the Vietnamese crews have no idea how far they can go without running into a Chinese naval or coastguard vessel.
"Vietnamese fishermen do not scare easily," says Tran Ngoc Nguyen, chairman of the Ly Son island district. Drawing the line of the Cow's Tongue with a blue marker pen on the map on his desk, he brushes it right next to Ly Son island. "We will keep fishing in those waters in the same numbers. It is normal that we face attack from the Chinese and it is getting worse. Of the 50 boats that went into that area this year 20 were attacked."
Close to Ngoc Nguyen's shabby office is a statue of three historic sentinel-like figures revered for protecting Vietnamese fishermen at sea over the centuries. Next to it is a small museum, filled with old maps from Britain, the United States and China itself. The idea is to show that none of these maps contain a reference to China's control of the South China Sea.
The Ly Son fishermen are foot soldiers of this dispute, tasked by the government to make a show of resisting China's claim. Vietnam is also replenishing its outdated navy with submarines and warships from Russia, while steadily increasing its military contacts with the United States, Japan, Britain and other Western governments.
"There is more intelligence sharing, so the Vietnamese have a better awareness of what the Chinese are doing," says Murray Heibert of the Centre for Strategic and International studies in Washington DC. "China's actions are definitely pushing Hanoi closer to America."
The South China Sea, a crucial trade route for oil and freight, is fast becoming a test of wills between Washington and Beijing. More than 60% of Japan's, South Korea's and Taiwan's energy supplies come along this route.
For its part, China says it has the right to enforce measures against boats that have illegally entered its waters. A foreign ministry spokesperson would not address directly the Vietnamese allegation of the fishing boat attacks but said that China "stays unswervingly committed to peacefully resolving relevant disputes with countries directly concerned".
So far China has implemented an annual May to August fishing ban, arguing that it safeguards fish stocks, which Vietnam does not recognise. It is significant that Van Giau was beaten up in July while it was in force - although other attacks have been reported throughout the year.
In Hanoi exhibits at the Military History Museum of captured helicopters, battle plans and crashed warplanes underline the point that Vietnam is not a country to be messed with. In its modern history it has taken on three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and won each time - against France in 1954, the United States in 1975 and China in 1979.
On Ly Son, Van Giau, Van Chuc and others live in a close-knit community. At a gathering of three generations at Van Chuc's sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean house, it is far from clear how long fishing will remain the bedrock of island life.
Vo Van Giau has a 17-year-old son and two daughters aged 13 and eight. So far they have expressed no enthusiasm to follow their father's career. Vo Van Chuc's 36-year-old son, Phan Thi Hue, began work as a fisherman but has now gone into tourism while his wife runs a shoe shop. "Fishing is too hard with very little money," he says. "It is also becoming dangerous."
Among the group is 81-year-old Phan Din who still crews on fishing boats. He has lived through all the conflicts of Vietnam's modern history and fully intends to keep fishing.
"We are used to having enemies," he says. "But we are clever people. I began work under the French colonialists as a driver for their officers. I had to take them to the beach with their mistresses and make sure their wives didn't find out."
As for Vo Van Giau, he has no plans to stop fishing. With his own boat repaired he will head out again to disputed waters. "We need to fish without this threat and we hope diplomatic negotiations quickly bring us peace," he says. "But we want the Chinese to stop attacking us."
More from the Magazine
In 2014 the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes travelled across the South China Sea in a fishing boat and became the first journalist to observe close-up how China is constructing new islands on coral reefs. In December he returned to the area in a small aircraft - provoking a furious response from the Chinese Navy.
China's Island Factory
Flying close to Beijing's new South China Sea islands
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
|
Sony has officially ended production of its PS Vita games console.
|
The handheld console has been gradually phased out over the past few years - and this weekend Sony announced it would be discontinuing the Vita's final two models.
The PS Vita struggled against rival devices as well as a surge in the popularity of mobile gaming.
With no plans for a successor, games critics say a Sony version of the successful Nintendo Switch is unlikely.
When the PS Vita launched, in Japan in 2011, it initially sold well. Independent research company Strategy Analytics reported sales of 300,000 units in the Vita's first week.
But these figures dropped sharply. Sony is estimated to have sold only 10-15 million units in the Vita's entire lifetime.
In comparison, Nintendo's Switch console has sold more than 32 million units, only two years after it first went on sale.
"Now that the PS Vita has officially reached the end of its lifecycle, I think it's time to admit that Sony's handheld console was a bit of a misstep," says Nathan Spendelow, from the technology website Expert Reviews.
"While the hardware initially represented a turning point for Sony, it struggled to achieve the same level of critical acclaim as Nintendo's DS family of portable gaming systems."
The years since the Vita's launch also saw an explosion in mobile gaming, with smartphones and tablets becoming powerful enough to run graphically intensive apps.
Although the Vita rolled out with high-profile titles such as Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation and LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, the beginning of the end came when Sony announced in 2015 that it would stop making its own games for the Vita - deciding to focus instead on titles for its PS4 console.
In 2018, Sony said it would cease physical production of Vita games and that 2019 would be the final year the device was manufactured.
A home for indie developers
Even though blockbuster games all but vanished from the console, the Vita "found a niche as a home for indie developers and with Japanese gamers", according to Stefan Langford, editor of games website TheSixthAxis. He cites the Bafta-award winning games Thomas Was Alone and OlliOlli as examples.
"They usually weren't exclusive to the Vita but there was something about indie games that often clicked on Vita more than on PS3 and eventually the PS4. It's something we're seeing again with indies flocking to Nintendo Switch," says Mr Langford.
But despite its niche appeal, the Vita ultimately failed to live up to Sony's expectations, he adds.
"It certainly comes as no surprise that the PS Vita has finally ended production, ultimately sounding the death knell of Sony's mobile gaming ambitions," says Mr Spendelow.
While the PS Vita has been consigned to history, Sony is believed to be readying a new games console. Last year, company president and chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida told the Financial Times that it was "necessary" for Sony to work on next-generation hardware. He declined to say whether this machine would carry the name PlayStation 5.
|
What are the cultural events to look forward to in 2014? The BBC's arts and entertainment team picks some of the big books , films , TV series , albums , exhibitions and shows for the new year. Click on the links or use the tabs above to navigate.
|
By Rebecca JonesArts correspondent, BBC News
The literary landscape will look a little different in 2014.
A new international book prize, The Folio, arrives in March. Then the Man Booker throws open its doors to any author writing in the English language - meaning US writers will be eligible for the first time.
Whether you are a fan of literary competitions or not, the shortlists and winners inevitably become the source of much discussion and debate. So which authors will be talked about over the next twelve months?
"Booker Bridesmaids" dominate - those writers who have been nominated for the prize in the past but have never won. Leading the pack is Sarah Waters, who has been shortlisted three times. Her new book, The Paying Guests, is set in London in 1922.
Or could it be third time lucky for The South African writer Damon Galgut, who has been shortlisted twice before? Arctic Summer is about E M Forster's first trip to India in 1912.
Colm Toibin is back too, with Nora Webster, set ten years after his Costa-winning novel "Brooklyn".
David Mitchell returns with his first novel for four years, The Bone Clocks which is published in September. It is a novel in six parts, set between 1984 and 2043, which centres on one female character, although each section is told from a different point of view.
Emma Donoghue follows up her international bestseller Room, with Frog Music. Again inspired by real events, it's a murder mystery set in nineteenth century San Francisco.
And Martin Amis revisits the Holocaust in his new novel The Zone of Interest, which is set in an unnamed Auschwitz.
Other familiar names returning in 2014 include Sebastian Barry, Ali Smith, Edward St Aubyn, Linda Grant and Philip Hensher
And Kamila Shamsie, Ned Beauman, Adam Foulds, Xiaolu Guo and Helen Oyeyemi, who were all selected by Granta as Britain's Best of Young British Writers in 2013, have new books on the way.
Among the American big hitters to look out for are Jonathan Lethem, with Dissident Gardens and E L Doctorow with Andrew's Brain.
Marilynne Robinson's new book, Lila, is based on the same fictional world as the Pulitzer prize-winning novel Gilead and the Orange prize-winner Home.
And while it may not win literary prizes, fans of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series can look forward to The Days of Anna Madrigal, which sees the 92 year old transgender landlady on a journey to the whorehouse she ran away from as a 16 year old boy.
Haruki Murakami is back with Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage. Published in Japan in April 2013 it sold more than one million copies there in its first six months.
And there is a new novel from the 2012 Nobel prize-winning Chinese literary superstar Mo Yan, called Frog. Set against the government's one-child policy, it is about a midwife in a rural community.
Closer to home, look out for a new novel from Nick Hornby. which follows the fortunes of the co- stars of a 1960s television sitcom.
There are big-hitting commercial bestsellers in waiting with new novels from Barbara Taylor Bradford, Jodi Picoult and Ken Follett; and new thrillers on the way from Stephen King and John Connolly and the King of Scandinavian crime Jo Nesbo.
2014 is a big year for anniversaries. There'll be plenty of non-fiction commemorating the First World War, including a new biography of the poet Wilfred Owen, by Guy Cuthbertson.
In February it is one hundred years since the birth of the cult writer William Burroughs and Barry Miles's new biography has been sanctioned by the Burroughs estate.
October sees the centenary of the birth of the Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas. His granddaughter, Hannah Ellis celebrates his life, work and legacy in a new collection.
And more than a decade in the making, there is a major new biography of Beethoven, written by the composer Jan Swafford.
So whatever your taste, plenty of books to look forward to in the coming months.
|
A man has denied causing the death by dangerous driving of a 96-year-old Cumbrian woman.
|
Shaun Ferguson was driving a Renault Scenic which collided with a car in which Eileen Lamb was a passenger at Old Hutton, near Kendal, in April 2015.
Miss Limb, from Endmoor, died 12 days later as a result of the injuries she received.
Mr Ferguson, 22, from Lancaster, pleaded not guilty at Carlisle Crown Court and was bailed until 21 November.
Related Internet Links
HM Courts Service
|
Best known for its white chalk rocks and annual music festival, the Isle of Wight is now at the centre of a government trial that leaders hope will help bring the country out of lockdown. The coronavirus contact-tracing app goes live to all islanders on Thursday, but there are mixed feelings on the eve of its public release.
|
'I won't be a guinea pig'
The app went live for local authority and health workers at 16:00 BST on Tuesday - two days before it goes live to the rest of the island.
But parish councillor Daryll Pitcher has refused to download it. He said he did not welcome being used as a "guinea pig".
"I am greatly concerned that this trial has been imposed on the Isle of Wight and I believe that the final say should have been local," he said.
Mr Pitcher, who is the Covid-19 response co-ordinator for the island's Wootton village, said he had concerns regarding his civil liberties and data security, because the app traces anyone who has recently been in contact with someone with the virus.
He said he felt the island was "not a suitable testing area" due to its demographics and geography, both of which vary from the UK's national average.
"There is no point testing in an area you can be reasonably certain it will never work," he added.
'We have to do something'
Shaun Davis, from Newport, said he was "all for" the app and believes there has been "a lot of positivity" about it from fellow islanders.
Mr Davis, who works for a wholesaler providing materials to organisations including the NHS and Ministry of Defence, said he did not share other people's data security concerns.
"Smartphones are traceable even without the app. We have to do something - the virus isn't going anywhere and we can't all remain in our homes indefinitely," he said.
The 36-year-old told the Press Association that using the app could lead to the eventual easing of lockdown and strict social distancing.
"I had to chuckle at Matt Hancock's comment, 'where the Isle of Wight leads, the rest of Britain will follow', because it has been joked that the Isle of Wight has always been a generation behind the rest of the country - so there's a first for everything."
'Could be a gimmick'
A nurse living on the island, who wants to remain anonymous, said the app "needs to be part of an effective strategy, otherwise it's a gimmick".
"The idea of using technology to support public health is an excellent idea," he said.
"The issue for me isn't about privacy - what good is that if we're bankrupt or dead? It's about effectiveness and competence."
The nurse said the NHS "doesn't have a strong history" of effective IT systems, noting that his own practice still uses paper for records, referrals and clinical requests.
He said he would download the app "in the absence of an alternative", but was critical of how the government had managed the crisis overall.
"I think this government wants to stamp a 'made in Britain' sticker on a final success," he said.
'Important to use'
Ben South, a 999 call handler, was among a group of NHS workers observed by the media and Cabinet Office staff as he installed the app moments after it went live to key workers.
He said: "Initially there's a screen to ask if you have any symptoms and if you don't, it will advise you to stay off the app and to come back when you do display any symptoms.
"All you need to do is put in your postcode and then you're basically fully signed up and ready to go."
Asked what he would say to anyone who had concerns or doubts about using the app, he said: "I'd just say how easy it is to use and how important it is to use - it's important to keep our NHS running and the country running."
'The Isle of Wight is ideal'
Councillor Debbie Andre who leads the biggest opposition group, Island Independents, on the Isle of Wight Council, has downloaded the app on her phone and said people should get behind it.
Mrs Andre said: "I think it falls to all of us to do everything we possibly can to conquer this virus and prevent a second spike coming back especially on the island, as we have one hospital who have been doing a fantastic job."
And on the Isle of Wight being the centre of attention in the UK's response to the pandemic, she said: "We are unique in terms of the fact we are an island, but we are in close proximity to the mainland and to major cities.
"So it makes us ideal, and it's not the first time we have been in the spotlight.
"We have a long history of scientific innovation, marine technology - we are the boating centre of the world with Cowes - so the island is quite use to being in the spotlight in a way."
|
Nothing can be as emotive as a child being removed from its parents by the state. Although it is an unfortunate necessity sometimes, forced adoptions have come in for heavy criticism from Clacton MP Douglas Carswell.
|
Deborah McGurranPolitical editor, East of England
The UKIP MP has called for special guardianship orders to be used more widely, which would allow more grandparents to look after children.
"Family courts are presiding over monstrous injustices," the MP said when he called for the opening up of family courts in a Westminster Hall debate.
Mr Carswell also made the point that some people manage the system better than others.
"It seems that articulate, highly-educated people who have access to information are able to fight off the system, but people who do not have access to information and are not as eloquent as lawyers tend to be trampled," he said.
"Many of the most tragic cases I have come across in Clacton involve people whose love for their grandchildren is as strong as anyone's, but who are just not very articulate and are therefore trampled over by the monstrously unjust and unfair system."
Lucy Allan, the Conservative MP for Telford, agreed, saying: "This is an issue that is long overdue for debate in this House."
The interest of the child
Edward Timpson, the minister for children and families, was not unsympathetic.
He said it was an important and sensitive area and set out the principle that the system of family justice in England was based on the premise that children live with their family wherever possible.
He said the key was what was in the best interest of the child, and that local authorities must consider placing a child with relatives - including grandparents.
"Where it is decided that it is not possible for children to remain with their parents, the law is clear that local authorities must consider placing a child with relatives, including grandparents and friends, before considering other permanency options," he said.
He reminded Mr Carswell that the number of special guardianship orders have doubled since they were introduced in 2005.
He concluded: "The president of the family division is consulting on the matter, and we look forward to his response, so that we may see what more we can do to ensure confidence in the family justice system."
Many grandparents may be happy to hear that.
|
Maggie Georgieva is turning a jar of preservative around in her hands. "This is it," she says. "This is 'The Hoff' - the famous yeti crab with a hairy chest," referring to the object suspended in alcohol.
|
Jonathan AmosScience correspondent@BBCAmoson Twitter
Most of us would be hard pressed to name a recently discovered creature from the deep, and this animal may even be the only one that triggers any sort of recognition.
The Hoff made headlines in 2012 after being spotted living 2,000m down in a volcanic region of the Southern Ocean.
A novel species, the researchers who found it joked that the crustacean's fluffy appearance had something in common with a certain American movie star. The nickname stuck.
Of course, The Hoff eventually got a proper title and description. It's correctly called Kiwa tyleri. And, as is customary, reference examples were lodged at the Natural History Museum in London, which is how a specimen comes to be in the hands of Dr Georgieva.
She's fascinated by hydrothermal vents. These are volcanic systems found along mid-ocean ridges - places where new sea-floor is created by the upwelling of magma.
In some locations, water can get drawn through cracks in the hot rock and become loaded with dissolved metals and other chemicals, before then being ejected back into the ocean. Specialised bacteria are able to exploit these hot fluids (up to 400C), to provide the energy foundation for a beautiful and bizarre collection of more complex organisms.
The Hoff, for example, "farms" the bacteria on its hairy chest. Comb-like mouthparts scrape up the microbes into a meal.
Dr Georgieva has another jar in her collection of what are known as tubeworms.
These do symbiosis in a slightly different way. The animals have no mouth parts, no stomach and no gut. Instead, they possess an organ called a trophosome which acts as a kind of shelter for the bacteria. The microbes pay their rent to the worms in nutrients.
Yet another jar contains a little shrimp, Rimicaris. It nurtures the bacteria under its shelly hood, or carapace. Rimicaris will swarm around vents in vast numbers. Thousands per square metre.
The shrimp needs to keep its farm of microbes in the optimum waters - close enough to make use of the scalding fluids and their chemical bounty, but not so close that there's a risk of getting cooked.
Rimicaris has no eyes, just an "eye-spot" - a concentrated patch of the light-sensitive pigment rhodopsin on its back. The thinking is it can use this feature to detect thermal radiation. But this cliff-edge existence is nothing compared with the peril faced by the fourth creature in Dr Georgieva's vent collection - the Pompeii worm.
It builds paper-thin tubes on the sides of the "chimney" structures where the fluids emerge. Temperatures inside these dens can top 80C. "Pompeii" seems an apt name and the worm uses a thick blanket of bacteria to help insulate it from harm.
"The remarkable thing about hydrothermal vents is that they can produce these unique and strange adaptations in animals," says Dr Georgieva. "We're trying to get an idea of how quickly animals can adapt to these environments. The adaptations tend to be related to getting symbionts and dealing with the harsh conditions, obviously.
"In order to get symbionts, one thing you have to do is make changes to your immune system - which you might expect because there'll be some bacteria you want to let in but others that you don't."
One interesting question is how some of the creatures have spread so far around the globe.
Vents are nutrient-rich oases in what is otherwise a resource-poor environment thousands of metres down from the sunlit surface of the ocean. And yet the likes of The Hoff and its five yeti-crab cousins have managed to reach widely separated volcanic ridges across the Southern Hemisphere.
Their last common ancestor probably lived 30-40 million years ago in the eastern Pacific. What we see today is the result of successful colonisations of vents by dispersed larvae. (Females release mini-Hoffs in big numbers to drift through the water column, some potentially making it to the next vent system).
It's all very precarious, to say the least, because vent systems are patchy. What is more, they will switch on and off through time, and when one dies so do all the local animals. Somehow a species must inhabit multiple locations - multiple stepping stones along a ridge - so that if one foothold is temporarily lost, the overall population will remain robust.
It's like a game of Whac-A-Mole, says yeti crab expert Nicolai Roterman from Oxford University. Successful dispersion ensures a species can pop back up in a new location. But the worry now is that certain human activities might soon load the game in favour of extinction by widening the gap between the places where a species could re-emerge.
It is one of the dangers posed by the proposed mining of metals at hydrothermal vents, believes Dr Roterman.
"The critical thing is if you start ploughing through and bulldozing hydrothermal vents, this human activity effectively simulates what is already happening naturally. It's then possible you could get to a situation where a meta-population simply collapses because it can't be sustained anymore."
The United Nations is meeting this week to begin discussions on the formulation of a treaty that would better regulate certain activities on the high seas - deep-sea mining among them.
Some of the creatures described by Nerc-funded Dr Georgieva - such as the Pompeii worm - can be seen currently in the Life In The Dark exhibition at the Natural History Museum.
|
A referendum will be held on 5 May on whether to keep the first-past-the-post system for electing MPs or to switch to the alternative vote. The BBC is asking a variety of people to give their personal view.
|
By Tim FarronPresident, Liberal Democrats
Did you know that most of us have an MP that we voted against?
That our elections are decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats? That the worst expenses scandals occurred in safe seats, many of which hadn't changed party since the Second World War?
Our current voting system, first-past-the- post, isn't fit for purpose anymore and is failing us.
It means that most people's votes don't count; it's created a system of safe seats and jobs for life, and was at the heart of the expenses scandal.
AV is a small change that would make a big difference.
'Seize the chance'
Put simply, it allows you to rank candidates in order of preference and requires every MP to have secured the support of at least half of their constituents.
It gives voters more power and politicians less, because it allows you to vote for the candidate you really want and not the one you dislike least to keep someone else out. It means all MPs will have to work harder for your vote by reaching out to more of their constituents.
What could be possibly be bad about that?
Opponents will say it will lead to more coalition government, when research clearly shows that's not true.
They say it is complicated, but what could be simpler than ranking your choices 1-2-3?
They say it will help extremist parties, yet the BNP are campaigning for a 'No' vote because they know it will make it harder, not easier, for them to get elected.
You don't have to take my word for it.
This issue is so important it has united my party, Labour, the Greens, Plaid Cymru, the SNP and UKIP.
And the no campaign? The Tories, the BNP and the Communists.
This is the first time we've ever been asked for our say on how we elect MPs.
We need to seize the chance to change the way we do politics once and for all, because the alternative is business as usual, jobs for life, politicians who are accountable to a minority of their constituents and the opportunity for reform will be lost for a generation.
|
Voters in Hartlepool are to be asked whether they want to keep a directly-elected mayor.
|
Councillors have approved plans for a referendum, and the poll will take place on 15 November.
Stuart Drummond, who originally stood as football mascot H'Angus The Monkey, has been elected for three terms since the post's introduction in 2002.
The referendum will take place on the same date as the election of a Police and Crime Commissioner.
Voters will be asked whether the current system should be replaced by committees of councillors.
Mr Drummond is also currently the chair of Cleveland Police Authority.
|
A woman who told police a former Labour peer attempted to rape her when he was a teenager and she was a child said she felt a "moral responsibility" to come forward, a court has heard.
|
Nazir Ahmed, 63, is on trial at Sheffield Crown Court charged with a number of sexual offences dating back to the 1970s.
The woman claims Mr Ahmed tried to rape her more than once.
Mr Ahmed, formerly known as Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, denies the charges.
More stories from around Yorkshire
'Moral responsibility'
The woman told detectives in 2016 she had become aware Mr Ahmed might have access to much younger relatives.
During an interview with specially trained detectives which was played in court, the woman said: "They are at significant risk because he's going to do what he did to me.
"They're so little and I now have a moral responsibility."
She alleged that on more than one occasion in the early 1970s, Mr Ahmed held her down and tried to rape her before he eventually let her go.
The woman said she told no-one at the time, explaining: "I thought I had let him do that to me and I felt dirty."
She added: "I have never forgotten, I have tried. I have really tried to erase that memory and I cannot do it."
She told police she had been through counselling and had talked about needing revenge.
"I have not had justice for what he did to me," she told detectives.
Mr Ahmed denies two counts of attempting to rape a girl under 16, indecent assault of a boy under 14 and raping a boy under 16, all in the early 1970s.
His brothers, Mohammed Farouq, 70, and Mohammed Tariq, 65, also from Rotherham, are accused of indecent assault of a boy under 14, but are unfit to plead and face a trial of the facts.
The trial continues.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
Related Internet Links
HM Courts & Tribunals Service
|
Kent Police have written to every school in Swale to warn that rising scrap metal prices has contributed to a rise in lead roofing thefts.
|
Officers said Holywell Primary School, Hartlip Endowed Primary School and Newington Primary School had been targeted in the past month.
The total repair bill for the three schools is estimated to be £6,000.
Adrian Fromm, a crime reduction officer with Kent Police, advised schools to use anti-climb paint to deter thieves.
"Unfortunately the effects of metal thefts can be far-reaching," he said.
"The theft of any lead can result in rainwater leaking through the roof into the fabric of the building, which can cause untold damage to schools."
|
An NHS trust is being prosecuted over the death of a woman in its care at a Southampton mental health hospital.
|
Teresa Colvin, 45, died at Southampton General Hospital on 26 April 2012 after she was found unconscious at Woodhaven Adult Mental Health Hospital.
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust has been charged by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) with a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
The trust is due to appear at Oxford Magistrates' Court on 20 November.
|
A motorist who died when his car crashed into an HGV in a lay-by has been named by police.
|
Callan Neal, 21, from Walsall, was driving a white Renault Clio on the eastbound A5 Wall Bypass near to Wall Island, Lichfield, at about 02:00 GMT on Saturday.
Specialist officers are supporting his family.
Staffordshire Police is continuing to appeal for witnesses.
Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, and sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.
|
The wombat is in trouble. Some are dying in bushfires, or being shot by farmers. Others are scratching themselves to death because of a mite infection. Only 115 of one species - the northern hairy-nosed wombat - remain alive in the wild.
|
By Georgina KenyonAustralia
"He was quite some flatmate - he took over the house, moved my fridge, re-arranged the furniture and then dug a hole right through the living room floor," said Ian, a wildlife volunteer who works in the Blue Mountains, 60km (37 miles) west of Sydney.
Ian was telling me about an infant wombat he had recently hand-reared, after its mother was hit and killed by a car.
"You get so attached to the cute little babies," he admitted. "It is my own fault - I should have released him back into the wild earlier."
Ian explained that the now-adult wombat had found new digs in the vast national park nearby.
Wombats are marsupials and are endemic to Australia. They are found nowhere else.
A wombat looks like an overgrown, stocky guinea pig, covered with thick grey fur and with a wide, flat, broad forehead. Fully-grown adults are about a metre long (3ft 2in) and about half a metre tall (1ft 6in). They weigh about 40kg (88lb).
But while their looks are pretty straightforward, people throughout history have found it less easy to understand their behaviour.
The Aborigines seem to have mixed feelings about them, using stories to try to explain why they are nocturnal and live underground. Legends describe the wombat as boastful, sometimes wise, but also stubborn and selfish.
According to one story, the wombat was once a giant, who dared to boast he was more powerful than the sun. After a contest of might, however, the wombat lost, and so today hides from shame, deep down in a burrow.
But another Aboriginal story tells of how wise the wombat can be. He comforts the other animals in the forest, after their friend, a cockatoo, has died, explaining to them all about forest spirits.
Wombats are fearsomely strong diggers, with very muscular front legs and sharp claws, usually used to excavate winding tunnels for their homes.
Yet despite their robust appearance, these animals are struggling to survive.
Many have been infected by a foreign mite, from foreign foxes, introduced for hunting by the early English settlers of Australia. Scabby tissue forms over the wombats' eyes and ears, and infections occur, ultimately causing their death.
Phil Borchard, a scientist, took me to see a family of Common Wombats living by the Shoalhaven river in southern New South Wales.
"Many are literally scratching themselves to death," he told me.
It was in the middle of the day, but still, one male wombat was out of its burrow, sick and looking for grass to eat. Its lovely, lush fur was all scratched away, leaving red skin, raw and sore.
What is more, it is still legal for Australian farmers to obtain a licence to shoot wombats - even though they are officially a "protected" species.
There are, in fact, three species of wombat: the Common wombat, the Southern Hairy Nosed and the Northern Hairy Nosed.
Of these three, conservationists are now most worried about the survival of the Northern Hairy Nosed. There are only 115 left in the wild, living in just one forest in Central Queensland.
This population of wombats is so small that the group is becoming inbred. Competition with cattle and sheep for grass to eat, drought, bushfires, as well as dingo and feral dog attacks have all whittled away wombat numbers.
But fortunately, a group of committed volunteers and scientists, working with the Queensland state government, has now put up fences to protect the wombats from predators, made tunnels for extra shelter, and is working with zoos to create breeding programmes.
These conservationists are well aware they have little time left.
When I met up with Ian again, back in the Blue Mountains, he had another new flatmate. In his arms was a tiny Common Wombat in a blanket, rescued from the pouch of its dead mother, another victim of a car.
"How can you not love this creature, and want to save it?" Ian asked me.
The tiny wombat had its eyes shut, snoring, completely oblivious to the troubles ahead which are threatening his ancient family's survival.
How to listen to From Our Own Correspondent:
BBC Radio 4: Saturdays at 11:30 and some Thursdays at 11:00
Listen online or download the podcast.
BBC World Service: Short editions Monday-Friday - see World Service programme schedule.
You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook
|
Three men and a woman who were arrested on Wednesday over an incident in Pitt Park in east Belfast have been released.
|
Dozens of masked men gathered in Pitt Park on 2 February and police said they were investigating links to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
A number of people have previously been arrested in relation to the incident.
Police said the four individuals had been released pending reports to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS)
The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Police have previously appealed for anyone with information or footage relating to the incident to come forward.
|
This is a transcript of Meet The 'Vulnerables': Jamie Hail as first published on 29 May 2020 and presented by Octavia Woodward.
|
OCTAVIA - Hello and welcome to the Ouch podcast. I'm Octavia Woodward, a journalist here at the BBC, and if you heard our last episode, you'll know that - according to the government - I'm "vulnerable!". Journalists, commentators and politicians have all been throwing that phrase around quite freely recently. It's been a weird couple of months for all of us - and even more so for disabled people. Some of us have been asked to sign "Do not resuscitate forms" by our doctors - and we're worried that if we do get coronavirus, we won't get the same level of treatment as others. I've always known I've been expensive to keep going. I have SMA, which means I have very weak muscles - and lungs - and I use an electric wheelchair. And I've always felt there was some kind of pressure to justify that expense. Now it feels a bit like like oh… maybe my life is deemed less valuable than other people's. I wanted to speak to people like me who might bteresting. For me - the idea of using a wheelchair *and* getting up *on stage* is… *very* daunting. I'm a bit of a cone affected by all of this - to find out more about them and what they think about "the V word". This! is "Meet the Vulnerables". This week I'm speaking to Jamie Hale someone whose work and… just whole outlook… I think is really introl freak - and any situation where I might be seen as the just the girl in the wheelchair, is something I'd avoid. But Jamie seems to have bags of confidence to just - be who they are - and not let any of that bother them. They've performed at the Barbican - the famous London arts venue - talking about their experience of being trans and disabled. And they're working on a major new Netflix show to boot. I want to know how that all works. And how you navigate the tricky world of media. Jamie, hello!
JAMIE - Hi Octavia, thank you for having me.
OCTAVIA - Thank you for being on this podcast, especially in these weird times. So I think my first question is - we both use electric wheelchairs and they're not the most subtle of mobility aids.. And for me the idea of being staired at more than is strictly necessary is slightly terrifying. But forgetting about that aspect, how do you deal with stage fright? Like do you get scared? You're clearly not someone who shies away from it.
JAMIE - Um, I used to have terrible stage fright. I think that I partly realised that people are going to stare at me, whatever I do. So I might as well give them something to stare at. And partly the more I performed, even when terrified, the more I became the an experienced performer and the more experienced I was, the more I felt an obligation to support other performers. And part of the obligation for me was pretending not to be terrified
OCTAVIA - And you did your first solo show called Not Dying. Can you explain that title a bit more to me?
JAMIE - At times while I was writing and preparing Not Dying, I'd been very critically ill very recently and things didn't look great. And then things suddenly improved dramatically after I started a new treatment. So it was very much a title and a show which is about living. Whatever your circumstances are.
OCTAVIA - And we've got a clip of it that we're going to play here.
CLIP FROM JAMIE'S SHOW -
When I started to write this show I was close to dying, and waiting for my numbers to come up. Not knowing how long I had left. Now I'm not dying. Not not dying, so to speak. Which meant I have to rewrite the whole damn show. And the rest of my life.
OCTAVIA - So is that what led you to working with Netflix?
JAMIE - Tangentially, yes. The show I'm working on, the lead writer found me through my poetry and got in contact with me and that was how I was recruited onto the team, I suppose.
OCTAVIA - That's amazing. So you've, you've been very generous and given us a tiny thing about what it's about. Cause obviously it's top secret, it's called chaos with a K. And I've got some notes here that it's "genre-bending series putting a modern twist on Greek and Roman mythology". Which sounds incredible.
JAMIE - It's going to be incredible. I can guarantee it. I can't say anymore at the moment. You'll just have to wait for it to come out.
OCTAVIA - Fine!
MUSIC
OCTAVIA - So you were obviously hired for your talents not as a disabled writer, but just as a writer who had a mutual interest with that director. But do you find that's a difficult balance to strike between - disabled performer and normal performer. Cause I mean like, I feel like with my work I really want to promote disabled stories, because, I didn't see them growing up, but also I kind of want to show there's more to me than that. And I don't want to be pigeonholed. How do you navigate that?
JAMIE - I really empathise with what you're saying. I feel very similarly. I think I am sometimes hired because as a disabled person I will offer a perspective that a non-disabled person won't offer. I want disabled kids to see their adult selves as they grow up. And if that means that I have to commit a lot of my work to being focused on disability, then I'll do it. But it's, it's challenging. Like, I'm never going to be pitching on an even keel with creatives without access needs. It will always be complicated and potentially expensive to accommodate me. So, anything I produce will always be produced by me as a disabled creative. In the creative industries, everyone has their own, I suppose, I hate to say it, but personal brand,
OCTAVIA - Yeah completely, I mean it's what we're told to do. I think I've been in so many meetings when they're like - What's your brand? What's your brand?
JAMIE - Exactly
OCTAVIA - But mentally, how do you make disability your brand when it's also your life?
JAMIE - I think I create a really clear distinction between myself as a creative and my personal life. Jamie Hale is my professional name. It's not what my friends and family know me as. And that kind of allows me to engage in the world as Jamie, but also have a bit of distance when I'm dealing with really upsetting topics.
OCTAVIA - I feel like I have a difficulty because when you feel like you're the voice for a minority, it also adds a lot of pressure. Do you feel that?
JAMIE - Very much so. I worry that if I step wrongly, I will either upset a sizable proportion of disabled people or we'll do something that sets back the cause so to speak. I'm always very aware that if I'm going to be perceived as speaking for a community, then I have to be accountable to that community.
OCTAVIA - I get that. A lot. I mean it's very difficult when you want to have your own personal views but obviously also you realize there isn't that much representation, but coming back to the balance, then, would you say you consciously market yourself as a disabled person?
JAMIE - No, but I would say that I am aware that I will always be marketed as a disabled person and that there's not much I can do to avoid that.
OCTAVIA - Do you feel the same obligation with trans issues? How do those two identities intersect for you?
JAMIE - I don't feel that same obligation with trans issues, partly because there are a number of very accomplished and prominent trans speakers who I have a lot of respect for. And I think partly because for me transition is something that I can choose to disclose or not. Whereas my body will always disclose that I'm disabled for me.
MUSIC
OCTAVIA - Do you mind giving our listeners some backstory to your transition? How has your disability played into that decision?
JAMIE - So I'm 28 now and I transitioned first socially and then medically in my mid to late teens. Um, I started testosterone just over nine years ago and had a double mastectomy eight years ago. I'm, I'm a lot more at home in my body for them, but I've reached a point where I can't safely transition any further. The respiratory complications in particular of further operations are just too dangerous. So I've kind of been stuck in a midpoint where my body will always be intermediate, which is something that I've kind of had to come to terms with.
OCTAVIA - Did you find it helpful having a form of control of your body?
JAMIE - As my impairment worsened quite rapidly, it was really helpful to me - with transition - to make these changes, and that it was my body and I was going to own it. So since then I've had several tattoos and a lot of piercings and it's been a very similar sense of wanting to claim ownership over over my body and my skin. And with transition, I have come to a position where I don't see myself as male and where it's important to me to be open about my backstory and my experiences and how they contributed to my identity.
OCTAVIA - So in terms of your disability, I know you've made the decision not to talk about the specifics of your condition. Can you explain why you don't like disclosing your diagnosis?
JAMIE - I'm really concerned not to be pigeonholed as the artist with this condition when I'm so much more than that. So it's really freeing for me to say, actually I'm not going to, I'm not going to adopt medical model terminology to describe my experiences. I'm just going to talk about things as they're necessary.
MUSIC
OCTAVIA - So, what're you working on now, in lockdown?
JAMIE - So my lockdown project has been my first play.
OCTAVIA - And what's it about?
JAMIE - It's about three generations of the same family - the son, his father and his grandfather - and it's about how their relationships build and fall apart under the stress of the epidemic. So at the moment it's written as a play, but it's also designed to be recorded by three pairs of actors, each of whom live together - and then over Zoom.
OCTAVIA - So you could film it in quarantine.
JAMIE - That's the idea.
OCTAVIA - That's genius.
JAMIE - Actors often if with other actors, and then housemates can be trained to do a bit of the camera work.
MUSIC
OCTAVIA - So coming onto Covid, which is the giant - I would say - elephant in the room. In this entire situation. So how are you coping at the moment?
JAMIE - I've been outside once since mid-March and that was to go to a hospital appointment. So I've tried to forget that the outside world exists and I've given myself lots of work to do so that I can't get bogged down too much in misery. I also find it really beneficial to think about the things I can influence. So even if I can't end the epidemic and go outside, I can go and look at the herb garden that I planted on my windowsill.
OCTAVIA - And how do you think the government response has been for disability and Covid?
JAMIE - I think it's been a bit of a disaster to be completely honest.
OCTAVIA - I think what inspired this podcast for me was there has always been that slight sense that life, that the disabled life could be like expendable. How have your family and friends coped with that?
JAMIE - I think my wife has really struggled because she is also barely going out. She's going out with the dog once a day in order to protect me. But otherwise I think I've actually seen more of my friends than I would otherwise have done just because in the past socializing was often either in an inaccessible venue or so far from me is to be inaccessible. Whereas now it's all happening on zoom.
OCTAVIA - It actually has been. I have thought - oh, if people were like this when I've been in hospital for a long time, it might have been a bit better. It is weird how everything's become accessible.
OCTAVIA - So what's the first thing you're going to do once lockdown is lifted.
JAMIE - Feel the sun on my face. I can do that kind of through the windows, but it's just not the same.
OCTAVIA - You've been listening to Meet The Vulnerables from BBC Ouch, if there's someone you think we should speak to for this series, please get in touch. We're @bbcouch on Twitter, find us on Facebook at BBC Ouch or you can email us on [email protected]
|
A plaque in honour of Leeds fund-raiser Jane Tomlinson has been erected at a site which was a focal point during many of her gruelling challenges.
|
It has been unveiled at the Victoria Gardens in Leeds, the place she passed through on some of her bike ride fund-raisers.
The gardens are also the finish line for Mrs Tomlinson's legacy event, the Leeds 10k, which is held every year.
Mrs Tomlinson raised £1.8m for charity before her death from cancer in 2007.
The married mother of three was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2000 aged 36.
Over the next seven years she went on to record major achievements as she outlived her initial six-month prognosis.
She raised money by completing a number challenges, including the Great North Run, London Marathon and the Ironman UK Triathlon.
Along with supporters she also completed fund-raising bike rides across America and from Rome back to the UK.
The plaque was erected by the Yorkshire Society in a ceremony attended by her husband Mike Tomlinson and daughter Rebecca.
|
Reshuffles rarely go as planned. Jeremy Corbyn already knows that - his team's first few days in the leader's office were marked by the fallout from a chaotic 24 hours as they struggled to put the shadow cabinet together.
|
Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter
So after a frenetic fortnight of speculation of a "revenge reshuffle" where the leader was alleged to be planning to kick out those who disagreed with him over bombing Syria, what are the prospects of a smoother start to the new parliamentary term?
The leader's team is starting to work the phones this afternoon to put together his new team.
Parliament feels pretty deserted as MPs haven't yet returned from their Christmas break but what can be tortuous conversations are getting under way, with the possibility that the new look team will be announced on Tuesday.
But if Mr Corbyn moves to sack those who have publicly disagreed with him, there's a danger it appears that he's given up on his much vaunted "new politics" - disagreement was meant to be allowed, discussions encouraged in the more grown-up discourse that he promised.
Don't forget, Jeremy Corbyn built his own career by being a serial rebel, voting against his party leader again and again and again.
For him to call for message discipline from the outset might have seemed ludicrous. And given the lack of support he had among Labour MPs, he was determined to try to build a team from all parts of the party to give him credibility in Westminster.
So now, just four months on, if he embarks on dramatic changes, sacks those who have publicly disagreed with him, like the shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn, there's a danger it looks like when his own authority is challenged he just can't take it.
But it's likely, in fact, that the next 24 hours will see fewer of the shadow cabinet shoved out, and more just shuffled around.
Do expect new occupants of the posts of shadow Foreign Secretary and shadow Defence Secretary - in those two areas the tensions over nuclear weapons and military action have proved too much of an embarrassment for Mr Corbyn.
But don't expect a dramatic purge of the shadow cabinet, and any moderates shipped out. Jeremy Corbyn does still want to show he is committed to including a range of views around his top table, and it seems he is not planning for pyrotechnics. But then again, reshuffles rarely go according to plan.
|
A dozen schoolchildren in blue and white uniforms beat their drums earnestly as they escorted Julius Malema's van down a dirt road and into the impoverished township of Itireleng on a hillside outside Pretoria.
|
Andrew HardingAfrica correspondent@BBCAndrewHon Twitter
Within seconds, a mood of almost giddy excitement seemed to ripple through the crowd of perhaps 500 people who had gathered on a dusty football pitch in the hot afternoon sun to listen to South Africa's most divisive, boisterous politician make his election campaign pitch.
An aide in a red beret - the catchy trademark of Mr Malema's party, the Economic Freedom Fighters - helped to haul the "Commander-In-Chief's" substantial frame on to the back of a truck, where two loudspeakers were already positioned in front of the crowd.
Mr Malema is 33 and rarely out of the headlines here - a contradictory figure who provokes strong reactions.
To some he is a laughable sideshow, egged on by the media and soon to be imprisoned.
Others fear a bullying demagogue whose populist, Mugabe-esque economic plans threaten to wreck South Africa's economy.
And plenty see him as one of the sharpest critics of all the ills that plague this nation 20 years after the arrival of democracy.
I would settle for a slice of each.
Today, Mr Malema - who faces fraud and racketeering charges as well as bankruptcy stemming from a tax investigation - was wearing his usual man-of-the-people jeans, offset by grey Louis Vuitton shoes, a Burberry shirt, Ferrari jacket and of course his own EFF beret.
South Africa's President, Jacob Zuma, can thrill a crowd with his singing, dancing, and isiZulu wisecracks. But no-one can quite match Mr Malema for his mesmerising blend of thunder and comedy.
In the course of an hour's unscripted speech, he mercilessly ridiculed Mr Zuma for the tax-payers' millions spent on upgrading his private home, and said Nelson Mandela would be spinning in his grave if he could see what the governing African National Congress (ANC) had become, and how a corrupt, narrow elite was profiting at the expense of a marginalised black majority.
But between the jabs and the jokes, what he did most often and perhaps most effectively, was to make promises - to bring water and proper toilets to the area; to double the social grants upon which about 16 million South Africans depend; to seize white-owned land and redistribute it to the poor; to nationalise the mines.
"You must give the ANC a wake-up call. Black people your time is now. Political freedom without economic freedom is an incomplete freedom," he said, to strong applause.
After his speech, Mr Malema plunged into the township, along dirt tracks, past corrugated shacks, communal water pumps and pit latrines. The entire population seemed to surge along in his wake.
Here, at least, it was hard to find anyone who didn't find the EFF's promises enticing - one way or another.
"He's promising us better things. We're going to have jobs, and water, and toilets and houses. We have been in freedom but we have nothing - just promises [from the ANC]," said Millicent Tsategi.
She shrugged off the fraud charges facing Mr Malema. "We are going to give him a chance so he can prove himself to us," she said.
'Let us reprioritise'
Jerry Tlhopane, a veteran ANC activist who told me he had finally broken ranks with the party he still professed to love, said he would be voting tactically on Wednesday - for the EFF.
"If I vote for ANC, I vote for corruption. The ANC has been infiltrated by people who want to get rich quickly. I'm not going to vote EFF because I believe it," he declared. Instead, he said he would vote for Mr Malema's party "because it is tough, it can challenge the ANC… I know the ANC fear them the most - that is the reason".
As Mr Malema plunged deeper into the township's narrowing alleys, I asked him how he responded to critics who say his populist economic policies are a recipe for disaster.
"There's no-one who is scared of me. People are happy to see me here. We are bringing a message of hope," he said, denying that his promise to increase social grants was unaffordable, and cheap populism.
"Cheap populism is building houses for politicians. We must take the money and give it to the needy. We don't have to give politicians expensive cars. Let us reprioritise."
Mr Malema dismissed the criminal charges against him as politically motivated - an attempt by President Zuma and the ANC to silence a man who had once been singled out as a future leader of the governing party before his expulsion.
"I have no case to answer. If they had a case against me they would have locked me up in jail by now."
As for nationalisation, he said: "This is our country - what we do with our country has nothing to do with those who are outside. We want our land back. We want our economy back.
"I'm contesting to be government. I don't get in a boxing ring to be second best. I'm getting in to win. I'm fighting to win."
Despite his claims, Mr Malema scares plenty of people in South Africa - not least in the ruling party.
A few weeks ago I sat with a senior figure close to President Zuma, who described the EFF in almost frantic tones as "fascist" and a very real threat to democracy.
Mr Malema has certainly captured plenty of headlines and will probably win several seats in parliament for the EFF at Wednesday's election.
But polls suggest that nationally, the party is unlikely to gain more than 5% of the vote. An impressive start, but hardly an imminent challenge to the ANC.
And yet it does seem likely that the EFF's radical, left-wing populism will have an impact on the ANC's own agenda, pulling it to the left, as the governing party tries to keep its increasingly shaky alliance with the trade union movement intact.
And besides, who knows if the pollsters have underestimated Mr Malema's support among registered voters?
|
The Smithwick Tribunal has heard that in 1980, the Taoiseach, "from the outset of the enquiry decreed" that the Warrenpoint killings were a "political crime and no assistance would be given to the RUC".
|
By Jennifer O'LearyDublin reporter
Eighteen soldiers died in the Narrow Water bomb attack close to Warrenpoint in August 1979.
The bombs were detonated from a site in County Louth.
Jack Lynch was the Taoiseach at the time of the attack in 1979.
Charles J Haughey was the Taoiseach in 1980.
The claim was made by Witness 68, a former deputy assistant chief constable of the RUC, who was also the chief investigating officer of the Narrow Water bomb attack.
Witness 68 said that he attended a meeting between senior Garda, including Assistant Garda Commissioner McLaughlin, and senior RUC officers, including RUC Chief Supt Bill Mooney, at Dublin Castle in 1980.
Witness 68 said that the meeting, which lasted an hour, became "acrimonious".
"Mr McLaughlin said that the Taoiseach, from the outset of the enquiry decreed that the killings were a political crime and no assistance would be given to the RUC," he said.
"Mr McLaughlin was very firm and said there was nothing further in relation to Warrenpoint and we were not to come back."
Witness 68 described himself as a "bag-carrier" compared to others at the meeting in Dublin Castle.
"I was investigating Warrenpoint, I was junior to all those who were present."
The chairman of the tribunal, Judge Peter Smithwick, deemed that "for better or worse" the evidence of Witness 68 should be given following an objection by a legal representative of Ireland's Attorney General.
Nuala Butler said the "public interest sought representation" at the tribunal in "exceptional circumstances" and was seeking to have the tribunal "restrain itself".
"Given the sensitivity of the matter it is not appropriate for the tribunal to hear the evidence, and it is not related to the matters within the tribunal's terms of reference, it is of no public interest," she said.
However, Judge Smithwick said the evidence should not be "smothered" on the grounds of its sensitivity.
Devastating evidence
Witness 68 also told the tribunal that the lives of "at least a dozen people in the border area could have been saved" had charges been brought against two men arrested following the Narrow Water atrocity.
Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan were arrested close to Omeath, County Louth, as suspects but were released without charge.
The former RUC officer said he was given to read, on Tuesday morning, a Garda forensic report on the County Louth scene.
"For the first time I am getting an insight into evidence which I find devastating against Burns and Brennan," he said.
"They were only charged with motoring offences.
"Why were they not prosecuted under the explosives act, conspiracy to bomb? They walked away without any charges at all."
"Mr Corrigan had an opportunity to do a great thing for the Garda Siochana that day but the fact of the matter is he did not.
"Those two men killed at least a dozen more people along the border area. If Mr Corrigan did what he was expected those lives could have been saved."
Mr Corrigan is one of three former gardai under the spotlight at the Dublin tribunal. He is now retired and denies all allegations of collusion against him.
The Smithwick Tribunal is investigating allegations of Garda collusion in the 1989 IRA murders of two senior RUC officers, Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan.
|
UK nationals and residents returning from "red list" countries will be made to quarantine in accommodation such as hotels for 10 days, Boris Johnson has said. While exact details of the policy remain unclear, similar schemes are already in place elsewhere, including in Australia and New Zealand. So how does it work?
|
By George BowdenBBC News
After finally securing her family's place in Australia's quarantine system, Keri McMenamin prepared for the worst - and ordered a vacuum cleaner.
The 38-year-old was returning to the country with her husband and two children after securing a job offer - leaving the UK in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic last year.
"It is literally luck of the draw," she says of where her family would spend 14 days together once they arrived. "You didn't know what to expect." Having done some research, Keri discovered Facebook groups busy with people relaying their experiences of quarantine.
"A lot of people were saying, 'Look, just expect the worst and then whatever you get is a bonus.'"
"There were people who had, like, filthy hotel rooms, appalling food, you know, really sort of tiny spaces, no opening windows, no balconies," she adds.
That's when she ordered the vacuum for a friend to deliver when the time came.
In the end, the family was taken to a hotel in Surfers' Paradise on the Gold Coast and given an interconnecting room. But still, the windows were sealed and their only time outside was 20-minute stints every two to three days.
"I think what kept us sane was having a routine," she adds. "Joe Wicks in the morning and our yoga in the evening and sort of keeping up your 12,000 steps a day walking around in loops." The vacuum came in useful.
There are strict caps on the numbers travelling to countries using hotels to quarantine arrivals.
Between July and October 2019, 7.5m people arrived into Australia to live, work and visit. But over the same period last year, when enforced quarantine was in place, just 72,111 people arrived, according to government figures.
People like Keri who have been through quarantine in Australia told BBC News that airlines will only confirm seats once a spot in a hotel is secured - leading to last-minute scrambles.
Online forums suggest expats desperate to get home are facing months of delays, cancellations and uncertainty - around 39,000 have said they want to return.
Quarantine hotel stays themselves are costly - with fees paid for by travellers.
In New South Wales, it costs the equivalent of around £1,700 per adult and £2,800 for a family of two adults and two children - billed after the quarantine is completed.
Arrivals into New Zealand are charged £1,630 for the first adult, with an extra £500 for each additional adult and £250 for each child.
The costs include the accommodation and a basic food service and even more basic cleaning - perhaps once per week, or not at all, with one change of linen and towels, depending on the facility.
But it comes on top of airfares, which have increased due to the pandemic. Fees can be waived for those who cannot pay and there are some exemptions.
Each region has its own rules. In Australia, packages can be brought in from outside, and in New Zealand some of those in quarantine are taken to fields to exercise.
'Fenced in'
Mark Dickinson, from Liverpool, has lived in New Zealand with his wife Lisa for four years but returned to the UK to see their newborn granddaughter in December - he spoke to the BBC 10 days into a 14-day isolation near Auckland.
"We had to have a test on day zero, then day three, then we're having a test tomorrow on day 11," Mark says.
"The area at the front of the hotel is surrounded by a double-guarded fence. It may have cost us £2,000 but if that means New Zealand stays safe, then we're happy doing it."
Many of those isolating found life does not stop in quarantine. Australian Brad Thiele started a new job and celebrated his 51st birthday alone in a 300 sq ft room at the Novotel in central Sydney.
After being asked by a person wearing a full hazmat suit at Sydney airport whether he had any concerns about being held in a room for 14 days, Brad was taken to the hotel with a blue-light police escort. On arrival, the military were on hand to ensure he checked in.
"I quite like practising meditation. So I was able to just sort of just sit and be at peace with the fact this was the first two weeks of the rest of my life having lived abroad in Britain for the past 23 years," he says.
"I had some regimen, it was important to get up in the morning, make the bed, shower, iron a shirt and be smart casual for work. Just finding a rhythm and a pattern in the day."
He's yet to decide whether to take the Novotel up on an offer of a 30% discount on a future stay.
Outbreaks
Other countries' experience of setting up a hotel quarantine system provides an insight into the sort of challenges politicians and civil servants in the UK may soon be grappling with.
Initially those in quarantine across the world complained about the quality of food being provided.
Then outbreaks at just two hotels in the Australian state of Victoria were traced to 99% of cases in a second wave across Melbourne that led to around 750 deaths.
A public inquiry found a lack of training, cleaning and contact tracing seeded infections into the local community.
Reports at the time suggested encounters between private security staff and those staying in quarantine caused the virus to spread. The inquiry did not find evidence to back up the claims.
But former judge Jennifer Coate criticised a lack of "health focus" in the quarantine system in Melbourne, saying risks "were foreseeable and may have actually been foreseen".
Meanwhile, New Zealand is investigating after a woman who had served 14 days in quarantine and tested negative twice went on to develop symptoms which were confirmed to be the South Africa variant of Covid-19.
The 56-year-old woman had recently returned from Europe and is said to have visited almost 30 places in New Zealand before her case was detected. Local officials say she is likely to have been infected by a fellow returnee.
'Normal life'
Back in Australia, knowing why the quarantine system is in place and the benefits it brings - the country has largely eradicated the virus - helps motivate people to keep to the rules, Keri McMenamin says.
She has just spent a public holiday going about the sort of activities many of us in the UK can but dream of - and her children will be in school this week.
"We went to a local gym and had a group workout with 30 people," she says.
"And then we went to the countryside, and the kids built little boats out of wood and mingled around and there were families picnicking.
"I almost feel guilty for having gone through this process and now living a normal life," she adds. "I feel like I don't want to talk to my friends in the UK about how easy our life here is and how normal it is."
|
Trafficked into the sex industry after defecting from North Korea, two young women spent years in captivity before finally getting the chance to escape.
|
By Su-Min HwangKorea editor
From the third floor of a residential tower block in the Chinese city of Yanji, two young women hurl their torn up, knotted bedsheets out of a window.
When they pull the sheets back up, a proper rope has been tied on.
They climb out of the window and begin their descent.
"Quick, we don't have much time," urges their rescuer.
Safely on the ground, they turn and run to a waiting people carrier.
But they are not yet out of danger.
Mira and Jiyun are both North Korean defectors and, years apart, both were tricked by traffickers.
After crossing the border into China, the same people who helped them to escape North Korea, known as "brokers" in the smuggling trade, handed them over to a sexcam operation.
Mira for the past five years, and Jiyun for the past eight, were confined to an apartment and made to work as "sexcam girls", performing often pornographic acts in front of a live webcam.
Leaving North Korea without the regime's permission is illegal. And yet many risk their lives to escape.
There is safe refuge in South Korea but the strip of land between North and South Korea is heavily militarised and filled with mines - it's nearly impossible to defect directly.
Instead, many defectors have to turn north and cross into China.
But in China, North Korean defectors are considered "illegal immigrants" and are sent back if caught by the authorities. Once back in their homeland, defectors are subject to torture and imprisonment for their "treason against the Fatherland".
Many defectors fled during the mid 1990s when a severe famine known as The Arduous March caused the death of at least one million people.
But since Kim Jong-un came to power in North Korea in 2011, the total number of people defecting each year has fallen by more than half. This decline has been attributed to tighter controls at the border and brokers increasing their price.
Mira defected when she was just 22.
Born close to the end of the famine, Mira grew up in a new generation of North Koreans. Thanks to a growing network of underground markets, known locally as Jangmadang, they could access DVD players, cosmetics, fake designer clothes, as well as USB sticks loaded with illegal foreign movies.
This influx of materials from outside helped persuade some to defect. The films smuggled in from China gave a glimpse of the outside world, and a motivation for leaving North Korea.
Mira was one of those affected.
"I was really into Chinese movies and thought all men from China were like that. I wanted to marry a Chinese man and I looked into leaving North Korea for several years."
Her father, a former soldier and party member, was very strict and ran the household to a tight schedule. He would even occasionally beat her.
Mira wanted to train as a doctor, but this was also stopped by her father. She became more and more frustrated and dreamt of a new life in China.
"My father was a party member and it was suffocating. He wouldn't let me watch foreign movies, I had to wake up and sleep at exact times. I didn't have my own life."
For years Mira tried to find a broker to help her cross the Tumen River and escape over the tightly controlled border. But her family's close ties to the government made many smugglers nervous that she would report them to the authorities.
Finally after four years of trying, she found someone to help her.
Like many defectors, Mira didn't have enough money to pay the broker directly. So instead she agreed to be "sold" and work off her debt. Mira thought she would be working in a restaurant.
But she had been tricked. Mira had been targeted by a smuggling ring who recruit female North Korean defectors into the sex industry.
After crossing the Tumen River into China, Mira was taken directly to the city of Yanji where she was handed over to a Korean-Chinese man she would come to know as "the director".
The city of Yanji lies at the heart of the Yanbian region. With a large population of ethnic Koreans, it has become a busy hub for trade with North Korea, as well as one of the main Chinese cities where North Korean defectors live in hiding.
Women make up a large majority of defectors. But with no legal status in China, they are particularly vulnerable to being exploited. Some are sold as brides, often in rural areas, some are forced into prostitution or, like Mira, into sexcam work.
Arriving at the apartment, the director finally revealed to Mira what her new job would entail.
He paired up his new recruit with a "mentor" who would share her room. Mira was to watch, learn and practise.
"I couldn't believe it. It was so humiliating as a woman, taking off your clothes like that in front of people. When I burst into tears, they asked if I was crying because I missed home."
The sexcam site, and most of its users, were South Korean. They would pay by the minute, so the women were encouraged to hold the men's attention for as long as possible.
Any time Mira wavered or showed fear, the director would threaten her with being sent back to North Korea.
"All my family members work in the government, and I would be bringing shame to the family name if I returned. I'd rather vanish like smoke and die."
There were up to nine women in the apartment at any one time. When Mira's first roommate escaped with another girl, Mira was put together with another group of girls. This is how Mira met Jiyun.
Jiyun was just 16 when she defected in 2010.
Her parents divorced when she was two, and her family fell into poverty. She stopped going to school at 11 so she could work, and finally decided to go to China for a year to bring money back home.
But like Mira, she was also tricked by her broker and not told she would be doing sexcam work.
When she arrived in Yanji, the director tried to send her back to North Korea. He said she was "too dark and ugly".
Despite the situation, Jiyun did not want to go back.
"It's a kind of work that I despise the most, but I risked my life in order to come to China so I couldn't go back empty-handed.
"My dream was to feed my grandparents some rice before they leave this world. That's why I could endure everything. I wanted to send money to the family."
Jiyun worked hard, believing that the director would reward her for her good performance. Holding on to the promise that she would be able to contact her family, and send money back to them, she was soon bringing in more money than the other girls in the house.
"I wanted to be acknowledged by the director, and I wanted to contact my family. I thought I would be the first girl to be released from this work if I was the best in the house."
She would sometimes sleep for only four hours a night, in order to hit the daily target of $177 (£140). She was desperate to earn money for her family.
At times Jiyun would even console Mira, telling her not to rebel but to try to reason with the director.
"First, work hard," she would tell Mira, "and if the director doesn't send you home afterwards, then you can reason with him."
Jiyun says that during the years she was earning more than the other girls, the director favoured her a lot.
"I thought he genuinely cared for me. But on the days my earnings went down, the expression on his face would change. He'd tell us off for not trying hard, and doing other bad activities such as watching dramas."
The apartment was closely guarded by the director's family. His parents slept in the living room and kept the entrance door locked.
The director would deliver food to the girls, and his brother who lived nearby came every morning to empty their rubbish.
"It was a complete confinement, even worse than a prison," says Jiyun.
The North Korean girls were allowed outside once every six months, or if their earnings were high enough, once a month. In those rare moments, they did shopping or went to get their hair done. But even then, they were not allowed to talk to anyone.
"The director walked very close to us like a lover, because he feared we would run away," says Mira. "I wanted to walk around as I wished but I couldn't. We weren't allowed to speak to anyone, even to buy a bottle of water. I felt like a fool."
The director had appointed one of the North Korean women in the apartment to be a "manager", and she kept an eye on the rest when the director was away.
The director promised Mira that he would marry her to a good man if she worked hard. He promised Jiyun he would let her contact her family.
When Jiyun asked him to release her, he told her that she would need to earn $53,200 to pay for her trip. He then told her that he was unable to release her because he could not find any brokers.
Mira and Jiyun never saw the money they earned through their sexcam work.
The director initially agreed to give them 30% of the profits, and they were to receive this when they were released.
But Mira and Jiyun became more and more anxious as they realised they might never be free.
"Killing myself is not what I would normally think about, but I tried to take a drug overdose and tried to jump from the window," says Jiyun.
The years went by - five for Mira and eight for Jiyun.
Then a sexcam client of Mira's, who she had known for three years, took pity on her. He put her in touch with Pastor Chun Kiwon, who has been helping North Koreans defect for the past 20 years.
The client also remotely installed a messaging application on Mira's computer, so that she could communicate with the pastor.
Pastor Chun Kiwon is well-known among North Korean defectors. North Korean state TV frequently attacks him, calling him a "kidnapper" and a "con-man".
Since setting up his Christian charity Durihana in 1999 he estimates he has helped about 1,200 defectors to safety.
He receives two or three rescue requests a month, but he found Mira and Jiyun's case particularly distressing.
"I've seen girls who've been imprisoned for up to three years. But I've never seen a case where they've been locked up for this long. It really breaks my heart."
Chun claims the trafficking of female defectors has become more organised and that some North Korean soldiers guarding the border are involved.
The trafficking of women is sometimes referred to as the "Korean pig trade" by the locals living in the border region of China. The women's price can range from hundreds to thousands of US dollars.
Although official statistics are hard to obtain, the UN has raised concerns about high levels of trafficking of North Korean women.
The US State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report has consistently designated North Korea as one of the worst human trafficking nations.
Over the course of a month, Chun kept in touch with Mira and Jiyun on the sexcam site, posing as a client. That way, the girls could pretend they were working while planning their escape.
"Usually imprisoned defectors are not aware of their location because they are taken to an apartment blindfolded or at night. Luckily, they [Mira and Jiyun] knew that they were in Yanji and they could see a hotel sign outside." he says.
Working out their exact location from Google Maps, Chun was able to send a volunteer from his organisation Durihana to scout out the apartment ahead of the escape.
Getting out of China is dangerous for any defector.
Most want to get into a third country, and to a South Korean embassy, where they will be granted a flight back to South Korea and asylum.
But travelling across China without ID is dangerous.
"In the past, defectors could get away with travelling with fake ID. But these days, the officials carry around an electronic device which can tell whether the ID is real or not," explains Chun.
After escaping from the apartment, Jiyun and Mira began their long journey across China with the help of Durihana volunteers.
Without any ID they could not risk checking into a hotel or hostel, and so were forced to sleep on trains or spend sleepless nights in restaurants.
On the last day of their journey in China, after enduring a five-hour climb up a mountain, they finally crossed the border and entered a neighbouring country. The route and the country they entered cannot be named.
Twelve days after escaping from the apartment, Mira and Jiyun met Chun for the first time.
"I think I'm perfectly safe only when I receive citizenship in South Korea. But just meeting pastor Chun made me feel safe. I cried at the thought of having found freedom," says Jiyun.
Together, they travelled by car for a further 27 hours to the nearest South Korean embassy.
Chun says some North Koreans find the final part of their journey particularly difficult to bear, unused as they are to car travel.
"The defectors often get car sick and sometimes faint after vomiting so much. It's a hellish road, travelled by those seeking heaven."
Just before arriving at the embassy, Mira smiles nervously and says she feels like crying.
"I feel like I've come out of hell," says Jiyun. "Many feelings come and go. I may never see my family again if I go to South Korea and I feel guilty. That was not my intention of leaving."
Together the pastor and the young women entered the embassy gate. A few seconds later, only Chun returns. His job is done.
Mira and Jiyun will be flown directly to South Korea, where they will undergo a rigorous screening process by the national intelligence service to make sure they are not spies.
Then they will spend up to three months at the Hanawon resettlement centre for North Koreans, where they will be taught practical skills to adjust to their new life in South Korea.
Defectors learn how to do grocery shopping, how to use a smartphone, are taught the principles of the free market economy and receive job training. They can also receive counselling. Then, they will become official citizens of South Korea.
"I want to learn English or Chinese so I can become a tour guide," says Mira when asked about her dreams in South Korea.
"I want to live a normal life, drinking coffee in a cafe and chatting to friends," says Jiyun. "Somebody once told me that the rain will one day stop, but for me, the monsoon season lasted for so long that I forgot the sun existed."
|
Countless small acts of kindness are being reported across the country as Scotland deals with the coronavirus pandemic. Here are just a few examples of the help being offered to NHS workers and others across Scotland.
|
By Calum WatsonBBC Scotland News website
Free socks for nurses
A Glasgow-based travel equipment firm has donated 5,000 pairs of compression socks to nurses at Scotland's hospitals.
The socks, commonly worn during long haul flights to maintain blood flow, are popular with nurses as a way of combating fatigue during long shifts.
Online company Trtl said its sales had dropped by 95% in recent weeks and it was happy to donate surplus stock, worth £250,000, to frontline staff.
Socks have been distributed at hospitals in Glasgow, Paisley, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dundee - with another 5,000 pairs due to be shipped to London next week.
3D printed masks
GP Robbie Coull has been working with schools which have 3D printers to produce his own protective masks.
He says he has been using them in his own surgery for lower risk cases, so that the N95-certified masks can be saved for higher risk situations.
There have also been reports of acetate being donated to make visors in some areas - but health officials are stressing that equipment must be properly tested and for quality control reasons, unofficial protective equipment is not encouraged.
Trucks to move equipment
NHS Western Isles has thanked two local businesses who provided vehicles to move equipment at Stornoway Hospital.
The health board wanted to clear areas at the hospital, so they would have more space available for treating patients.
Fifteen thousand paper tape measures
Staff at Ikea, at Braehead, handed over fruit, sandwiches and 15,000 paper tape measures to staff at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
The tape measures will be used to check the height of patients admitted to intensive care, which is necessary to adjust ventilator settings.
The tape measures can then be binned, reducing the risk of cross-infection.
New scrubs for health workers
In Shetland, a charitable group has been set up to up make scrubs - the clothing worn by health workers.
Volunteers are busy at their sewing machines, using materials that have been donated by members of the public.
Hotel rooms for NHS staff
Peterhead FC chairman Rodger Morrison has offered NHS staff directly fighting the outbreak free use of bed and breakfast rooms at his Cock and Bull restaurant near Balmedie.
Similar offers have been made by hotels across Scotland. Manorview Hotels is offering rooms in its eight west of Scotland sites to NHS staff who may want to shorten their commute or just need a rest after a long shift.
The Lodge at Perth Racecourse has also reportedly been made available as a closed facility for NHS and other emergency staff.
Thank you and applause
This letter was left for Debbie Doolan, a radiographer working at Inverclyde Royal Hospital.
On Thursday evening thousands of Scots joined the UK-wide Clap for our Carers event - a huge round of applause to thank doctors, nurses, carers, pharmacists and other NHS staff working hard to help those affected by coronavirus.
Handwashing 'enforcers'
Volunteers have been helping to ensure proper hand hygiene is being maintained at Glasgow's superhospital.
Earlier in the week, a consultant anaesthetist at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital complained that the hand gel station was "tucked away" and many visitors were failing to wash their hands properly.
There have also been reports of hygiene products being stolen from hospitals.
While most hospital visiting has been suspended, those still allowed to visit are now being met by volunteers armed with hand sanitiser.
Free gloves
In Edinburgh, catering business owner Wendy Paterson has been giving away disposable gloves and hand sanitiser to passersby from her garden.
The 47-year-old has set up a table and erected signs along her fence alerting people to the free products.
She said: "Our postman said it has really helped him recently as his gloves and ripped in a letter box, and now he's able to come here every day for a new pair.
"My neighbours also have been coming for the gloves before they go to the supermarket."
Surprise cheque
A beauty therapist who has no income while her business is closed during the lockdown said she was close to tears when a client sent her a cheque in the post to help her out.
Carole Fortune, from Oxgangs in Edinburgh, said the act of kindness had left her "touched" and "surprised".
Ms Fortune, 55, who has two children, said: "We don't get our self employed government grant until June, so when I saw the £100 cheque in the envelope I couldn't believe it.
"For a client to think about me in this way and to send me a gift like this is incredibly kind. I'm so touched. It is very tough times at the moment."
Do you have a story of how people in Scotland are responding positively to the coronavirus crisis? You can share your experiences by emailing [email protected].
Please send photographs if possible, and include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist.
|
A suspect has appeared in court charged with murdering a man found stabbed to death in Kent.
|
Dennis Jones is alleged to have killed 31-year-old Luke Sullivan at a property in High Street, Rochester, on 21 November.
The 35-year-old, also of High Street, appeared at Maidstone Crown Court and was remanded into custody.
He is due to appear again at the same court on 10 July ahead of a trial listed for 7 December.
|
The body of a man has been found in a flat after it caught fire in the early hours.
|
Neighbouring residents reported the blaze in Seaside Road, Eastbourne to the emergency services shortly after 02:00 GMT on Sunday.
The fire was confined to the flat and the occupants of nearby properties were evacuated Sussex Police force said.
Officers have not yet identified the victim and say his death is currently being treated as unexplained.
Anyone who saw anything suspicious around Cloister Court in Seaside Road is being asked to contact the police.
Related Internet Links
Sussex Police
|
An amnesty for thousands of militants in south-eastern Nigeria has brought relative stability to the region, enabling its huge oil industry to recover but, as the BBC's Will Ross reports, some are questioning how long the peace can hold.
|
"If I'd set eyes on you back in those days we would not be talking like this," says Tobine with a menacing smile. "I would have made a call to find one or two ways to make money out of you."
Tobine means he would have kidnapped me for ransom.
Until the 2009 amnesty agreement, he was a militant in the Niger Delta where rival gangs fought each other for supremacy and targeted the oil companies. The insecurity was costing Nigeria tens of millions of dollars every day as oil production was severely disrupted.
"We were doing some bad, bad things; raping, kidnapping busting the pipelines just to make money," says the man who fellow militants used to call Jah Rule.
Tobine is 25 and is reminded of these experiences every time he looks in the mirror. There is a deep vertical scar below his eye - a souvenir from the day he was attacked by a machete-wielding man from a rival gang.
But Tobine's life has taken a dramatic turn and now he hopes to get a job with one of the oil companies whose pipelines he once attacked. He is among a group of 40 trainees graduating from a pipeline-welding course in Port Harcourt.
"I'm doing great. I'm proud about myself, but I want to go higher. My parents are proud of me. I want to make them more proud," he says, adding he has no desire to return to the bush as he now wants to help his family, including his six-year-old daughter.
Anger issues
As the course ends, there is concern as to whether jobs will follow. There is a worrying lack of job opportunities.
"They say the idle man is the devil's workshop. I don't want my mind to go to any evil thing at all, so I have to look for something to do," says another trainee - 32-year-old Abiye Godgift.
It has not been an easy task for those who had the job of not only training the ex-militants, but also changing their whole attitude to life.
"These are people who in the past had questionable characters," says Ikioye Dogianga, the head of IK Engineering Global Ltd which trains personnel for the oil industry.
"They have stained their hands in blood and have done so many things, so it takes you a great deal to train them to the standard they are now.
"There were issues of them getting angry very quickly. They were highly temperamental. They felt they were the authority themselves," says Mr Dogianga who intends to offer jobs to the five best trainees in order to motivate the next class.
The amnesty was introduced in 2009 by the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.
All 26,000 people who have benefited from the amnesty are entitled to a monthly allowance of approximately $400 (£255). For how long, no-one knows. This is an expensive undertaking with the government spending $400m this year alone.
The former militant leaders are now mostly based in the capital, Abuja, where they are living in relative luxury. Money was a key factor in ending the violence.
Although many are awaiting promised training, close to half the beneficiaries have been offered courses in a variety of skills from carpentry to marine engineering, and 20 people were sent abroad to learn to be pilots.
Not all the beneficiaries were perpetrators of the violence in the Niger Delta. Many were victims.
"When I was seven, my village was burnt down by militants who didn't want it to develop," says 17-year-old Blessing Ogunga who is studying for her O-levels at Emarid College in Port Harcourt.
"I remember that Saturday morning. People said everybody should shift from the village as bad boys were coming to burn down the village."
Blessing dropped out of school at the age of 10 because her parents could not afford the fees.
"My dad became a militant as he wanted to get the money to send me to school. He wanted me, the first daughter of the family, to graduate, so I would be able to speak for the family, to stand with my rights and speak," says Blessing, who wants to be a computer engineer.
Time bomb
The result of the amnesty is that the Niger Delta is relatively peaceful and oil production has soared. The government says at the height of the militancy, only about 800,000 barrels a day were produced compared to the current output of around 2.3 million barrels.
But not everyone is convinced that the peace is permanent and there are fears that re-arming has been taking place in the Delta.
"This is a dangerous time bomb.
The Boko Haram issue in the north of Nigeria
is child's play compared to what is going to happen in the Niger Delta," says Onengiya Erekosima, the reintegration and peace-building officer in the amnesty commission.
Having played a role in persuading militants to embrace peace, he warns that a large number of guns are still in dangerous hands and says the whole amnesty has become a money-making exercise.
"Militant leaders are pretending they had more boys following them than they really had and they are doing it to make money.
"They are coming to the amnesty commission to say 'the names we brought were not the real people' and now they want to change the names," says Mr Erekosima.
There is also concern that the amnesty programme was not rolled out to all areas of the Niger Delta.
Just prior to the 2009 amnesty, there was no violence in the area known as Ogoniland. There has also been no oil production there since 1993 when Shell pulled out following years of agitation by the local population calling for a fair share of the oil wealth and an end to pollution.
"The amnesty programme was lopsided. The Ogoni people did their own agitation through peaceful advocacy… while others resorted to violence. This violence appears to have been responded to through the amnesty," says Bariara Kpalap, the chair of the region's Kegbara-Dere town council.
"In a situation where the government only looks for issues that relate to the flow of oil in the Niger Delta without thinking of addressing poverty… then peace in the Niger Delta will be elusive," says Bariara Kpalap who also feels the amnesty has favoured the Ijaw people - President Goodluck Jonathan's own community.
President Jonathan has given his full backing to the programme and has ensured the money is flowing to the Delta. But the amnesty has not been gazetted into law and some feel that makes it precarious.
"I see the future as very bleak because my impression is that if President Goodluck Jonathan is no longer in power, the co-operation the federal government has been receiving from the Niger Delta may no longer be there," says Erabanabari Kobah, an environmental campaigner.
"Some are still holding their guns and are watching what will happen," he warns.
|
As the water recedes in Houston, three families return home to survey the damage from Hurricane Harvey. L ike so many other s , they have no flood insurance and no way of paying for repairs.
|
By Joel GunterBBC News in Houston
At each house it was the same: a neat line, visible from the street, that showed where the flood finally abated. The lines ringed the small, one-storey homes in northeast Houston, where three bayous wind through the streets carrying water to the bay. For many of those returning home for the first time, the line would separate what was salvageable from what was lost.
At James and Rose Hert's house, a few hundred yards from the Greens Bayou, the line crossed the screen door about 5 ft from the ground. The water came in so fast it was up to Rose's neck by the time they waded onto the front lawn on Saturday, she said. At 59, recently recovered from thyroid cancer, and with arthritis that forces her to walk with a cane, Rose can't move fast. Neither can James, who's 63 and has nerve damage to his right leg and partial vision in his left eye.
The couple first made their way to a neighbour's house, on higher ground, but that too filled with water. Eventually they were pulled from the flood by a man with a truck, who drove them to a bus which took them to the mass shelter at the downtown convention centre. "I was terrified for my life," said Rose. "But that man was like an angel sent from heaven."
Their small, two-bedroom house, part-clapboard and part-brick, was a wedding anniversary present for Rose, purchased 23 years into the marriage and paid for with nearly all the money they had. Rose called it her castle. With the money left over she bought furniture - two couches, an armchair, a wooden dining table and a new refrigerator.
The most important piece of furniture though was an old one - an antique secretary desk handed down through three generations of women in Rose's family. She planned to pass it on to her daughter. She cried at the shelter when she thought about it. She couldn't face going back to the house, she said, so when James returned for the first time on Thursday he went without her.
When he turned the key in the lock, the door wouldn't budge. It would be the same at other houses, the first sign that the furniture inside had been picked up by the water and soaked and dumped back down where it didn't belong. He couldn't have known, as he forced the door, that it was Rose's secretary desk in the way, toppled onto its back, one leg already broken, but the glass, miraculously, intact.
As the door inched open, the rank odour of the water hit. It had seeped into the couches and the carpets and pooled between the floorboards. Underneath the water line, the walls were stained and Rose's prize furniture lay tumbled about. The fridge was on its side, blocking off the kitchen. None of it was salvageable.
Above the water line, the couple's marriage certificate hung unscathed in a frame, alongside James's army discharge and diploma, and a picture of Rose's late mother. "I guess that's something," James said.
Earlier, at the shelter, as he kissed Rose goodbye, his eyes had filled with tears. He was not given easily to emotion, she said. Maybe for a two-tour veteran of Vietnam, with 12 years service, the flood did not seem too tough. Later, at the back of the house, where the water line was 7 ft high and the deck was caked in mud, he paused for a cigarette and stood in silence looking down towards the bayou.
"There's $20,000, $30,000 worth of damage here," he said, looking back. "We just don't have it. We don't."
Insurance experts estimate that only about 20% of those in Houston's worst hit areas have flood insurance. The Herts don't have any. The premiums were too high, they said. They live off $1,100 dollars a month in disability payments. After their other bills and outgoings, that leaves about $100 spare.
The number of homeowners across Houston with flood insurance dropped 9% over the past five years and as much as 23% in some counties. Harris County, where James and Rose live, has 25,000 fewer flood-insured properties than it did in 2012, according to an Associated Press review of government data.
Mary Woodard and her husband Herman couldn't afford the insurance either. The floodwater that washed through their house, a few miles south of the Herts in a low-income neighbourhood by the Hunter Bayou, was the latest in a long list of financial and personal hardships for the couple.
Herman, who's 63, had to retire from his work as a removals man last year after a stroke badly affected his right side. Mary, who's 59, worked 14 years in the local courthouse before retiring in 2011, after a diagnosis of osteoarthritis.
"It's the stink that gets you," Mary said as she pushed open the front door, entering her home for the first time after six nights in two different shelters. The tiled floor was slick with mud, the furniture soaked, the bases of the wooden cabinets warped. Food had floated out of the lower drawers and off the shelves and begun to rot on the floor. Mary didn't really care about what was beneath the water line, she wanted to know if the pictures of her first son and her first daughter had survived.
"I lost him when he was only eight years old," she said, fighting back tears. "That's when he got drowned in the pool. And my daughter, she got killed just about 12 years ago now. Her boyfriend killed her. That's why I was so glad to see those pictures. That was very important to me that they survived. Very important."
Much of Mary's income had been diverted to helping raise her daughter's four sons, as well as to taking care of her other three children. It didn't leave much for savings to help her and Herman through retirement. Like the Herts, they have about $100 spare each month.
"We don't have the insurance or anything," she said. "The few companies we did talk to, they were either too high or they didn't carry the flood insurance."
There was no money to pay for repairs, she said, they would have to move on. "We'll salvage what we can. I probably couldn't stay in this house anyhow, not after this."
The only hope for couples like the Woodards and the Herts is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fema will give money to uninsured homeowners to cover repairs and emergency costs. The grants are capped at a maximum of $33,300, but most will get significantly less.
At the convention centre in Houston, a long line of people formed early every morning, waiting for hours to find out if they can claim. Mary and Herman had spoken to a Fema agent on Wednesday and he told them someone would be in touch within 10 days. By that point, they'd been in the shelter for five sleepless nights.
"I've had maybe eight hours sleep since I got there," said Mary. "You get an hour here, an hour there. There are people walking all around you and people fighting. It's a lot of chaos. It's 2am before it starts to get quiet."
The first call from Fema will tell Mary and Herman whether they are eligible. Then they will have to wait up to 30 days for an adjustor to visit the property and assess how much they can claim. In the meantime, they hope Fema will pay for a hotel room. Mary's eldest son and her elderly mother both live in Houston but they both flooded just the same as Mary. "Eventually we all winded up at the convention centre," she said.
James and Rose had been told they needed to go online to apply for relief. They had spent five days in borrowed clothes - James in an old sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms, Rose in a pink nightgown - and they were overwhelmed. Three attempts to apply on a borrowed smartphone had failed as the Fema website repeatedly crashed.
Rose sat in the cavernous hallway of the convention centre and wept. She looked exhausted. She was still recovering from her brother's suicide last year, she said, and the loss of her mother two years before that. And now this. Two years after moving in, her dream home was gone.
"We put a tin roof on, we put new flowers in, we painted it," she said. "We fixed it up. It was my little castle, like no one else could describe it. It was all I ever wanted."
But it was cheap, too, partly because it needed fixing up, partly because it sits on low ground near the bayou, and that puts a significant premium on the flood insurance. Just over the road, where the ground is higher, flood insurance costs about $200 a year. On the Herts' side of the road, the premiums can run into the thousands of dollars.
Texas law stipulates that anyone in a Special Flood Hazard Area must have flood insurance, but only if you have a mortgage, people who own their homes are exempt. And the vast majority of those flooded by Hurricane Harvey fall outside the hazard zones and they never expected to see water washing through their homes.
"There's a lot of people here that have never been flooded," said Mark Hanna, from the Insurance Council for Texas. "And if you don't have to have flood insurance, and you've never been flooded before, a lot people say 'Hey, the water's have never been this high, we'll be OK'.
"People weren't prepared for a thousand-year flood. Who is?"
Frank and Melvin Lee Rogers never thought it would happen. The two brothers had been flooded once before, when Storm Alison came through in 2001, but it was nothing like this. They escaped on Saturday with just the clothes on their back and one of their cats, a tiny kitten called Squeaky.
Frank, 70, and Melvin Lee, 63, live in the Lakewood neighbourhood by the Halls Bayou, which cuts across the bottom of the street on its way to the Buffalo Bayou further south. The water had washed through the trees, leaving detritus in the branches as it went, including an old manual lawnmower which hung tangled 10 ft off the ground.
"I live down on the corner there, the white house with the blue trim," said Frank, as they crossed the bayou on foot on the way home. "You can see the dirt on the side of the house. That's the water line right there."
At the front door, the smell was so strong it seeped out of the building. Inside, a floating couch had punched a hole in the wall and smashed through a glass coffee table. Scores of worms and a small snake lay dead on the carpet. A wall calendar, neatly marked off for each day before Saturday, was cut in half by the water line, the last two weeks of the month underwater.
Frank, a Vietnam veteran who settled in Houston and became a plastics mould operator, called out for Goldy, their five-year-old cat, who they couldn't find when the water began coming in through the walls. "No Goldy," he said. "She's gone, or dead."
Outside, his car had drifted 6 ft and was hanging off the edge of the driveway, with a film of mud over the body and the motor flooded. The mailbox was just high enough. He pulled the catch to one side and looked in. "We've got mail!" he said, cheered at finding something dry.
Around him, those neighbours who had returned, mostly Hispanic families, played music and shouted to each other as they threw furniture, carpeting and wet sheetrock out onto the front lawns.
Frank stood back and surveyed the damage. They would have to sell up, he said. But about $20,000 in repairs lay between them and a sellable house. "I don't have that kind of money," he said. "That's the point, I don't have the money. And it's hard to go to the bank and borrow money when your house is flooded. They'll tell you you're a risk."
It wasn't so much the money that prevented them getting flood insurance in the first place, said Melvin Lee, Frank's younger brother by seven years. "We just didn't see this coming," he said. "We had no idea it would be this bad. I don't think anyone thought it would be this bad."
Five days after the flood washed away his mobile phone, Frank reached his sister. She told him she would collect him and Melvin Lee from the house. They set their few possessions down outside - a handful of dry clothes in a clear plastic bag, and Squeaky, in a carrier donated by the shelter - and began to wait.
Back at the convention centre, Mary and Herman were getting ready to bed down for a sixth night on their cots, surrounded by thousands of others. Mary was making sure to keep her phone charged at the charging station, so she wouldn't miss a call or an email from Fema. They were relieved to have seen the home, they said, despite the state of it.
James was relieved too. It seemed like knowing was better than not knowing, no matter how bad the damage. As he took one last look around his house and got ready to leave, he flicked a light switch absentmindedly. The bulb over the dining table caught him by surprise. "We have light!" he said. "That's a start!"
On the drive back from the house he was upbeat. He told the story of how he first met Rose. "I was fixing her boyfriend's car, so I had my shirt off and in those days I was still pretty well built. Anyway, it wasn't long after that I was working on another guy's car near her house, and she had a nice tree there I could use for pulling motors. She jumped up on the truck to help get some bolts out and that was that."
At the shelter, Rose waited anxiously for James to return. When he found her, he told her about the house. It wasn't bad at all, he said. The glass in the secretary desk was intact and the power was still on. The two dogs next door, which Rose loved, had survived, and the picture of her mother was hanging exactly where she left it. She cried with relief. James took her arm and walked her back to their cots, before getting in line again to speak to Fema. "I can wait another few hours," he said. "I've got time."
.
|
Eloise Stark struggled to make sense of why she felt different until she was diagnosed with autism at the relatively late age of 27, having hidden her "quirks" her whole life. It is hoped that a new tool developed by researchers will help professionals recognise sooner those who don't know they have the condition and the tricks they use to fit in.
|
I realised I was different when I went to primary school. I would talk about things I was interested in but that was not what everyone else seemed to be interested in. For example, I liked psychology and would talk about that and everyone else was talking about boys. I just had mismatched interests and I always felt more comfortable talking to adults than my peers. I did not quite know how to become a best friend to someone or to play what others were playing.
I was really badly bullied. Someone spat on me once, while others would react by getting angry. I would respond by saying "that's a violation of the criminal behaviour act" or something like that. It was not how people would expect you to react.
My strategies began at primary school - I wanted to fit in. Many people with autism are hyper-sensitive to sensory experiences, for example [some] don't like wearing socks because they feel tight around their ankles, or they don't like bright lights or loud noises.
At school we had to have our hair tied up but I hated the feeling of that so would wear it down and get in trouble, with people thinking I was just trying to be cool. I would wear the same clothes as everyone else but it was always a bit tokenistic because I did not understand the deeper reasoning for why they might be wearing it. I was always battling between comfort and expectation.
The teenage years were excruciating because you do not want to the one that stands out. There is a much greater pressure for girls to conform and be part of a social group. If a boy plays on his own he is seen as independent but if a girl does it people say something must be wrong.
I adapted to try and fit in. I learned from an early age that you are expected to make eye contact, then read that, actually, people do not keep constant eye contact and that was something of an epiphany for me. So I started to look away for two seconds for every four sentences of a conversation. I know that if someone makes a joke, I am expected to laugh, whether I find it funny or not.
Socialising is a bit like being among a crowd of people and all of a sudden you forget how to walk. Everyone around you is walking around nonchalantly and you have to think through every aspect of how to put the motor sequence together to stay upright and transition from one foot to the other. That's what it is often like to be autistic but trying to fit in. It takes energy, thought, and even though you might appear to walk just like everyone else, it takes a lot more effort to appear normal. I would sometimes get home and have a meltdown because I was so tired of having to keep eye contact.
The camouflage checklist
Autism is usually diagnosed in childhood but a growing number of adults are being diagnosed with the condition, many of whom develop strategies to hide their symptoms around neurotypical people - those not on the spectrum - which in turn can create a huge mental strain.
Researchers from Cardiff University, King's College London and the University of Bath have come up with a 31-point checklist to help health workers find out if people are using camouflage strategies and if they could therefore have autism.
Such strategies include:
Dr Lucy Livingston, a psychology lecturer from Cardiff University who led the research, said: "At the moment, professionals know very little about these strategies and what to look for. The new tool, if found to be effective, could help clinicians assessing adults for autism and help them understand how hard the individual could potentially be working to keep up this appearance.
"Ultimately, this could mean that autistic people receive a more accurate and timely diagnosis."
Before I got diagnosed, I did not understand why I felt different. It was lonely. Just as I didn't understand neurotypical people, they did not understand me. There is an assumption sometimes that people with autism lack empathy, but when a neurotypical person talks to an autistic person it can actually be the neurotypical person who is lacking empathy.
When I got the diagnosis [three years ago] it just clicked into place and I found there were other people like me and I was not the only one. Diagnosis as a child would have made a difference - I would have understood myself better and been able to have a more positive autistic identity rather than feeling like a part of it was missing.
I am learning to be more authentically autistic and authentically Eloise, even if that means that I sometimes stand out. With people I do not know, I feel I need to fit in still, for example if I had a job interview I would feel I had to camouflage. But with friends and family, and increasingly larger circles, I'm learning to be authentic and just be me. It's wonderful and very liberating.
There are so many stereotypes about autism, like in Rain Man or [the idea] they are all cis-men who really like maths. It's actually so much more diverse than that and the more people realise that the better. I'm a bit mischievous really and when I tell people I have autism and they say "oh, you don't look like it", I reply: "Well what does someone with autism look like?" That flummoxes them.
I spent much of my teens and 20s trying to fit in and compensate for my autistic quirks, but as I hit my 30th year, it dawned on me that it doesn't really matter whether I do "fit in" and actually, as long as I am flourishing in my own individual way, I can drop the compensation, camouflaging and my mask - and that is OK.
The National Autistic Society and NHS have information about exploring an autism diagnosis as an adult.
You might also be interested in:
|
North Korea has threatened to defend its sovereignty by launching pre-emptive nuclear strikes against both the United States and its ally, South Korea, claiming that Washington is itself preparing to attack the North with nuclear weapons.
|
By Dr John Swenson-WrightChatham House
The ostensible trigger for this warning from Pyongyang has been a two-week-long set of extensive joint military exercises involving primarily some 13,000 US and South Korean forces on the Korean peninsula, scheduled to start on 11 March.
The threat comes on the back of an earlier warning from the North to abrogate the Armistice Agreement of 1953 marking the cessation of hostilities between North Korea and the US and its allies during the Korean War.
Notwithstanding the North's strident claims that the US is planning an unprovoked assault on the North, the exercises - known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle - are defensive in character and have been taking place routinely, in varying form, since the 1970s.
This year's exercise marks a departure only in being directed by the South Korean joint chiefs of staff rather than by the Combined Forces Command linking together US and South Korean top military officials.
A more plausible explanation for Pyongyang's bellicose, provocative rhetoric is the unanimous passage of a new UN Security Council Resolution (2094), sharply condemning North's Korea's rocket launch of December 2012 and its apparent detonation of a nuclear device on 12 February.
Historically, the North has routinely used belligerent statements when the council has been about to pass resolutions, possibly in an effort to discourage it from reaching an agreement.
Effective measure?
If blocking an agreement was the North's goal, it appears to have signally failed to achieve this.
Resolution 2094 was passed unanimously by all 15 members of the Security Council.
It significantly tightens existing sanctions intended to restrict the North's development of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme, while introducing a more extensive set of new measures focusing on freezing the North's financial transactions, prohibiting the opening of bank branches, limiting bulk cash transfers (a common way for the North to gain access to finance), and restricting trade connected to any of the North's illicit activities.
The resolution also targets individuals and institutions explicitly connected with the North's WMD program, strengthens interdiction measures to limit the transfer of WMD technology by land, sea and air, and also prohibits the transfer of luxury commodities - such as jewellery, yachts and cars - to the North.
While 2094 has important declaratory weight in signalling the international community's clear opposition to the North's recent provocations, it is unclear how effective the new measures will be in impeding or reversing the North's nuclear programme.
Targeting luxury commodities may impose temporary pain on the North's leaders, but it is questionable whether the list of commodities is sufficiently extensive to make a difference.
Tightening controls on the flow of cash to the North may make it more difficult for the regime to protect its assets, but the North's leadership has become more agile in eluding financial restrictions since 2005 when the US treasury successfully closed down access to some of the bank accounts of senior North Korean officials.
Most importantly, the interdiction provisions involve conditional language that could function as a loophole for non-compliance, mandating states to inspect cargo, but only if they have "reasonable grounds" to believe that cargo contains prohibited items.
Diminishing opportunity
Pyongyang's bellicose rhetoric and its decision to close the air and sea space on its east and west coasts have heightened regional anxieties that the North may be planning to engage in some form of military provocation.
The threatened pre-emptive nuclear strike seems more bluff than reality, since the North's leaders know it would be suicidal, and an attack on the US seems impracticable given the still technically rudimentary quality of the North's ballistic missile programme and the unproven state of its nuclear miniaturisation technology needed to place a nuclear warhead atop a missile.
A more troubling possibility is that the North might choose - out of irritation with the UN - to precipitate a border clash with South Korea, either on land or sea, as it did before in 2010.
With US and South Korean forces primed to respond to any such action, there is a risk of limited conflict escalating rapidly into something far more uncontrollable and potentially destructive.
Offsetting this pessimistic prognosis is the positive sign that the North has yet to single out the new Seoul administration of President Park Geun-hye for direct rhetorical condemnation.
By contrast, in 2008, when Lee Myung-bak became president, the North was unreservedly condemnatory and critical of the new government.
With the door still open, in principle, for dialogue and diplomatic negotiation (a route that China continues to advocate), there may still be an opportunity, albeit a rapidly diminishing one, for a negotiated settlement.
|
Paper and card one week, plastics the next - it is easy to be fooled into believing the afterlife of our waste is simple. It is far from it, as the story of one woman's weekly refuse shows.
|
By Laurence CawleyBBC News
Margaret Bates, professor of sustainable waste management at the University of Northampton, allowed the BBC go through her rubbish, weigh it out and chart its myriad journeys from the kerb outside her home in East Haddon, Northants.
The black bag and a random sock
Her non-recyclable black bag waste, which contained mainly food wrappers, such as crisp packets, dog food wrappers and an old sock, weighed in at 1.5kg (3lb 4oz).
The contents - described by Prof Bates as "evidence of a very poor diet" - will travel 30 miles (40km) to a landfill site in Cranford, in east Northamptonshire.
As of 1 April however, that journey will be shortened to just 13 miles (21km) when it is turned into a fuel at Malpass Farm in Rugby, for use at a neighbouring cement works.
Defra said England's household waste rose 180,000 tonnes between 2013/2014 and 2014/2015.
Food, glorious food
A brief peek inside Prof Bates' two weighty green bags reveals a mixture of eggs, chopped cabbage and other vegetables.
Hitting the scales at 4kg (8lb 13oz), her food waste is bound for Fernbrook Bio's treatment site 23 miles (37km) away in Kettering.
There it is either composted or turned into biogas which, as well as powering the complex, is also put into the gas network.
According to National Grid, the bio-methane made from her food waste could go anywhere in the UK.
Glass action
Prof Bates' 2.2kg (4lb 13oz) of glass recycling - all wine and beer bottles - is taken 113 miles (182km) up the M1 to URM (UK) in Knottingley, West Yorkshire, where it is separated and crushed into three main colours: clear, amber and green.
"Our aim is to ensure as much glass as possible is recycled in the UK and turned back into containers," said Lee Glover, quality manager at URM (UK).
"Many of the containers produced in the UK will be used within the UK but can also be shipped anywhere in the world."
As well as supplying glass manufacturers across the UK, URM (UK) cullet also supplies firms across Europe including Spain, The Netherlands and France.
And if URM (UK) finds errant material in Bates' glass waste, her recycling efforts could end up beneath our feet as glass aggregate in paving blocks.
Plastic fantastic
Prof Bates' 1lb 12oz (800g) of plastic waste (and her aluminium cans) is sent to plastic recycler Jayplas 66 miles (106km) away in Alfreton, Derbyshire. There it is sorted by type.
"With plastics," says Prof Bates, "they could end up absolutely anywhere and turned into virtually anything.
"It could go into clothing, food packaging or it could end up being turned into street furniture, such as bollards or benches."
Mike Maxwell, operations director at Jayplas, said the bulk of the plastics he dealt with went to UK and European markets with some types going to China.
Soft drinks and water bottles, he said, were sent 84 miles (135km) to a special plant in Corby for cleaning before being turned into vegetable trays, new bottles and food-grade packaging across the UK.
The rest of the plastic cast offs, he said, would most likely end up either in the UK or in Europe, having been turned into anything from nappies to plant pots.
"Everything gets traded on an international level," says Prof Bates. "So you might get a tonne of plastics coming from Northamptonshire mixed with a tonne of plastics coming from the Netherlands and ending up in China being converted into some kind of plastic bag or box or any other kind of plastic good.
Such a journey from Daventry to China is a 5,800-mile (9,334km) trip. Or double that if the goods made from the plastics return to the UK.
Metals
One week steel cans will fetch £75 per tonne, two weeks later they will fetch up to £90. Aluminium cans are worth about 10 times as much.
Jayplas sells Prof Bates' used aluminium cans to Novelis, a US-based company which is part of the multinational Aditya Birla Group, based in Mumbai, India.
A spokesman for the company said it recycled aluminium products at a number of sites including its plant in Nachterstedt in Germany and turned them into "high value aluminium ingots to feed our European manufacturing network".
Paper and card
As for Prof Bates' card and paper waste, it will be squeezed into bales and taken first to DS Smith's Cambridge depot and then on to Kemsley, a total trip of 165 miles (264km).
Joy Brown, of DS Smith, said: "Within two weeks, her waste paper could be back on the shelves as new packaging material."
So her recycling will not only travel the globe but will do so again and again, as it is further recycled and reincarnated by other people, in other places, into other things.
What does Prof Bates make of all this?
"Having looked at my waste and what I have just put out - probably more carefully than I have ever looked at my own waste before - I think I will be much more aware of the level of packaging I buy and try and buy things loosely such as vegetables and fruit.
"But ideally what we would like is to have the reprocessing infrastructure all in the UK, because then it means we are keeping the value of our materials rather than having to send it off only to then buy it back from those countries."
A Defra spokesman said: "Waste going to landfill fell by 20 per cent in 2014-2015 and the total amount of all waste recycled was up by 1.3%. This reflects hard work by local authorities and a desire from people to recycle more."
Inside Out East will look at why people are producing more and more rubbish despite the recycling effort on Monday at 19:30 GMT on BBC One.
|
Tory MP Huw Merriman revealed this week he has lost four inches from his waistline as a result of Brexit-related stress, and it has since emerged that civil servants around the UK were offered counselling to help prepare for no deal.
|
By Hamish MackayBBC News
But it is not just those directly involved in the political process who are suffering. Many people have contacted the BBC to say how recent political developments - or a lack of - are having an impact on their mental state.
Paul Groom, 61, had a heart attack two years ago and says both he and his cardiologist believe Brexit-related anxiety contributed towards it.
"I think about Brexit every day, no matter what," says Mr Groom, who retired to France with his wife two years ago.
"We were living in Devon. We planned to sell our UK house and put the equity into our future financial plan. Then came Brexit.
"Our whole lives have been put on hold since then. We, along with many others, have no idea of where our lives are going to end up."
"Me and my wife are both losing sleep over it," adds Mr Groom, who voted to remain in 2016. He worries that he may have to move back to the UK.
"At the moment, if I wake up in the night the first thing I do is check my phone to see what else has happened in Parliament."
The worry and subsequent lack of sleep, Mr Groom believes, has negatively affected his physical health as well as his mental wellbeing.
"I've never had heart issues before," he says. "Lifestyle is the main cause but, as my cardiologist says, the stress doesn't help.
"It makes you do things you wouldn't have done otherwise - you eat differently, you maybe drink a bit more, you worry more, you have less sleep and all this can contribute to health issues like mine."
'It's ridiculous'
And it's not just those who voted remain who are suffering anxiety as a result of the UK's current political journey.
Rachel Muse, 50, who voted to leave in 2016, says she thinks about Brexit every day.
"It's something that very much plays on my mind," says Ms Muse, who is a chef from Salisbury.
"It's ridiculous but I'm finding it very stressful."
She adds: "I don't have many hobbies - work takes up a lot of my time - but my main hobby is following the news, finding out what's going on in Westminster and Brussels.
"I would normally make a point of listening to the news. I listen to PM and the Six O'Clock News because I want to know what's going on and how it's going on."
Recently, however, Ms Muse says she is no longer tuning in.
"I'm procrastinating so I don't have to listen to it," she says - adding she no longer watches the News at Ten so she doesn't have to think about Brexit before going to sleep.
But is being this affected by current affairs a common occurrence? Or are we living in extraordinary times?
'Constant stream of information'
"I think that's a really important question," says Dr Louise Theodosiou from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
"In the past decade, our awareness of current affairs has escalated.
"Going back a decade, people I work with might have got up in the morning and switched on the radio or the television, but it wouldn't be a situation where they could immediately have an update on debates that happened overnight.
"You can now get news sent to you very rapidly - but what's challenging about that is obviously the information is presented in a succinct form, which means people might be getting headlines but not developing a full understanding.
"Yes, it's right to keep yourself informed because information can reduce anxiety - but the constant stream of information can be really challenging."
Brexit anxiety - who is affected?
A survey of more than 2,000 people carried out in March by research company Britain Thinks suggested that:
So, what can people do to reduce that anxiety?
"The first thing to do is to tell people around you how you are feeling," says Dr Theodosiou. "We can all normalise something and put it into context and introduce a sense of humour."
Another important factor, Dr Theodosiou adds, is to "spend time away from the stream of information in a constructed way". For example, avoiding technology during meal times or when you wake up in the morning.
Finally, Dr Theodosiou says, gentle exercise can help alleviate stress.
"Even things like walking up and down stairs if you're getting public transport, taking the opportunity to walk a little bit where possible, can make a difference."
|
North Korea on Sunday kicked off a huge propaganda festival, featuring enormous co-ordinated displays unlike anything else in the world.
|
The spectacle is called the Arirang Mass Games and will run throughout September to mark the country's 70th anniversary.
It features tens of thousands of performers.
The event is striking but the United Nations has in the past said children are forced to take part, or to help in the build-up.
All pictures subject to copyright.
|
Nasa has been developing a "megarocket" to send humans to the Moon and, eventually, Mars. The last critical tests of the giant launcher's core section are expected to take place within the next few weeks. Sometimes compared to the iconic Saturn V, can the Space Launch System (SLS) help capture the excitement of lunar exploration for a new generation?
|
By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News website
In southern Mississippi, near the border with Louisiana, engineers have been putting a remarkable piece of hardware through its paces.
A giant orange cylinder is suspended on an equally imposing steel structure called the B-2 test stand on the grounds of Stennis Space Center, a Nasa test facility outside the city of Bay St Louis.
Measuring about 65m (212ft) from top to bottom, the cylinder represents the core of a space vehicle more powerful than anything the world has seen since the 1960s.
It's called the Space Launch System (SLS) and it consists of the liquid-fuelled core stage - with four powerful RS-25 engines at its base - and two solid fuel boosters which are strapped to the sides.
The fully assembled vehicle provides the massive thrust force necessary to blast astronauts off the Earth and hurl them towards the Moon. Under Nasa's Artemis programme, the next man and the first woman will be despatched to the lunar surface in 2024. It will be the first crewed landing on Earth's only natural satellite since Apollo 17 in 1972.
It may use technology developed for the space shuttle, but in many ways, the SLS is a modern heir to the Saturn V, the gigantic rocket that lofted the Apollo lunar missions.
After a decade of development, the SLS is now approaching a critical stage. A year-long programme of testing for the core stage is coming to an end. Called the Green Run, it's designed to iron out any issues before the rocket's maiden flight, scheduled for November 2021.
On 12 January this year, the first SLS core stage was shipped to Stennis on a barge from the New Orleans factory where it was assembled. It was then lifted by cranes and installed in a vertical position on the B-2 test stand.
Ryan McKibben, SLS Green Run test conductor at Stennis Space Center, told BBC News: "When you actually see the real deal, with the real avionics, the real tanks - the liquid hydrogen tank which holds 500,000 gallons and the liquid oxygen tank with over 200,000 gallons - it is an incredible vehicle."
The Green Run is split into eight parts - or test cases. Since the beginning of the year, engineers from Nasa and Boeing, the rocket's prime contractor, have been working through these individual tests. They have included powering up the avionics (flight electronics), evaluating the performance of different systems and components, and simulating problems.
"We're very fortunate to be able to put it through its paces: power it up, do leak checks, even pressurise some systems," says Ryan McKibben.
"One of the test cases, test case five, we ended up gimballing the engines - that's when we move them around hydraulically so that you can do course corrections during flight. It's been a lot of fun."
During its first mission next year, known as Artemis-1, the SLS will launch an uncrewed Orion capsule on a loop around the Moon. It will allow Nasa to evaluate the capsule before astronauts are allowed on.
The remaining two core stage tests are crucial. Number seven, known as the wet dress rehearsal (WDR) involves a full loading of the core stage tanks with liquid hydrogen (LH2) - the rocket's fuel - and liquid oxygen (LOX), which makes the fuel burn. Together, these are known as propellants.
A waterway snakes through the grounds of Stennis Space Center, linking it to the nearby Pearl River. This allows heavy equipment and hardware to be shipped between different Nasa sites. A total of six barges carrying LH2 and LOX will be docked near the B-2 test stand during the wet dress rehearsal.
The cold (cryogenic) propellants will be piped from these barges to the core stage tanks. This is relatively easy with hydrogen - a very light fluid, but oxygen is heavy, and has to be pumped.
The loading will take place over about six-and-a-half hours. After the tanks are full, they will be continually topped up, because the propellants are at temperatures of several hundreds of degrees below zero and some of it boils off over time. The liquids also flow through the turbopumps - which feed propellant to the engine combustion chambers - and the engines themselves. This helps prepare the systems to be started.
Engineers will gather data and compare it against mathematical models to check that the entire system behaves as expected.
The Stennis teams will simulate a launch countdown during the WDR, taking things up to the T-minus (time remaining) 33 seconds mark.
"We'll spend about two weeks looking at the data to make sure all the systems behaved as expected," John Shannon, vice president and SLS programme manager at Boeing, told journalists last month.
"We'll go out and inspect the vehicle, make sure there are no surprises."
The eighth and final test, called the engine "hotfire", will pick up from the 33-second mark. With the core stage anchored to the stand, the hotfire will see its four powerful RS-25 engines fired together for the first time.
"It's a full duration burn - that's what we're targeting," said Mr McKibben. "It's exciting to light more than one off at the same time... We haven't done that for close to 40 years at the site."
Aside from the engineering data it will generate, the test will demonstrate the awesome power of the SLS.
The engines - the same ones that powered the now-retired space shuttle orbiter - will generate a whopping 1.6 million pounds of thrust. That's roughly the same as six 747 airliners at full power.
Although the propellants are at hundred of degrees below freezing when they're fed to the RS-25 engines, the exhaust that emerges is 3,315C (6,000F) - hot enough to boil iron.
"We fire down into a bucket that has a lot of water going into it. The water keeps it from burning straight through the test stand," said Ryan McKibben.
Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water are directed into the flame bucket to cool the exhaust. In addition, tens of thousands of gallons will be used to create a water "curtain" around the engines to suppress the noise generated when they fire for 8.5 minutes.
This is done to protect the core stage from vibrations while it is anchored to the stand.
"We are definitely excited, because you don't get to try out a new space vehicle very often," says McKibben.
Engineers have recently been troubleshooting an issue with a pre-valve, which supplies liquid hydrogen fuel to the RS-25 engines. But Mr McKibben says this is "something we're more than capable of handling".
The testing has largely proceeded smoothly, but there was a five-week stop due to Covid-19. In addition, work at the site also had to be shut down six times due to tropical weather, given the particularly active hurricane season.
Originally scheduled to take place in early to mid-November, the wet dress rehearsal and hotfire are now expected to take place within the next six to three weeks.
Teams are conscious of meeting a January timeline for delivering the core stage to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will undergo final processing and preparations for launch in November 2021.
McKibben says he believes teams can still meet this schedule, but adds that it depends on how the core performs during WDR.
The SLS has long been a lightning rod for those who would prefer Nasa to hand over more of its activities to commercial companies, and those who believe the government rocket, designed specifically to carry humans and based on proven technology, is the best option for deep space exploration.
The SLS will have cost more than $17bn by the end of this year, but without significant modifications, no existing commercial rocket can send Orion, astronauts and heavy cargo to the Moon in one go.
There is no clear sign as yet of the direction in which a Joe Biden administration might take the human spaceflight programme.
The Artemis effort enjoys bipartisan support. But some Capitol Hill lawmakers may not necessarily be as wedded to the timeline, announced last year by Mike Pence, of landing humans on the Moon by 2024.
There's no doubt that the Moon programme has recaptured some of the excitement of the Apollo era. Mr McKibben says he is in awe of what the Saturn V engineers did back in the 1960s. It's not lost on him that the B-2 test stand was built to test the five engines of the Saturn's first stage.
Going mobile with his laptop, Mr McKibben shows me a car he owns: a navy Dodge Dart from 1969 - the year Neil and Buzz touched down in the Sea of Tranquility.
"It's something an old test guy that would have been testing the Saturn V would have driven," he tells me.
"I'm kind of a nostalgic person."
Follow Paul on Twitter.
|
The ticket office at Norwich bus station has been saved one day before its planned closure.
|
National Express Coaches has agreed to take over the desk from Monday.
Norfolk County Council had decided to close the ticket office and information desk from Saturday 2 April, a move it said would save £250,000.
Now National Express will run it, initially selling tickets for its own buses, park and ride, First Bus and Chenery Coach.
|
Friday is the 92nd anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King - and, after extensive historical research, Jordan J Lloyd has added digital colour to black-and-white photographs of Dr King and other public-domain images of the US civil rights movement in the 1960s.
|
"People have a right to access their history," Lloyd told BBC News.
"And colour removes a level of abstraction that usually distances ourselves from the past
"All of a sudden, the photo feels real, more visceral."
In 1963, a multiracial rally of a quarter of a million people marched peacefully on Washington to highlight racial injustices and put pressure on Congress to pass a civil-rights bill proposed by President John F Kennedy.
The rally received worldwide media coverage - but the federal government took no political action to deal with the issues raised.
"Progress is made through struggle," Lloyd says.
"And I think a lot of people today can make a parallel between social and racial inequality in the 1960s and today."
Lloyd sourced the photos from the Library of Congress - but his research also unearthed a handful of colour photos actually taken on the march.
"Shooting in colour at the time was prohibitively expensive to reproduce," he says.
"And nowadays, the genuine colour images can only be used by purchasing an expensive license.
"Skin is a complex topic.
"It is also what we're naturally drawn to when we look at photographs for the first time.
"People's skin tones vary by ethnicity but also by age too, which has to be taken into account along with the ambient lighting and weather conditions of the day.
"In these photos, we can make a determination of the weather by looking at things like shadows and the weather reports from the day of the march.
"Critics of colourised work conflate the results of a technological process, like AI [artificial intelligence], and claim it's cultural vandalism.
"I believe that the laborious process of restoring, researching and colourising photographs make an authentic supplement [to history], rather than a substitute.
"Something familiar can then be seen and explored with a different perspective."
"[The civil-rights movement] is such an important part of America's history and is often consigned to small black-and-white photos in textbooks and online."
Lloyd's photos are available to be freely used and adapted, at Unsplash.
"This important part of American history deserves to be viewed and shared by as many people as possible, whether it be in class presentations, on posters, book covers, et cetera," he says.
|
Here is the full text of Theresa May's Mansion House speech setting out her vision for the UK's relationship with the EU after Brexit.
|
I am here today to set out my vision for the future economic partnership between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
There have been many different voices and views in the debate on what our new relationship with the EU should look like. I have listened carefully to them all.
But as we chart our way forward with the EU, I want to take a moment to look back.
Eighteen months ago I stood in Downing Street and addressed the nation for my first time as Prime Minister.
I made this pledge then, to the people that I serve: I know you're working around the clock, I know you're doing your best, and I know that sometimes life can be a struggle.
The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours. We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives. When we take the big calls, we'll think not of the powerful, but you. When we pass new laws, we'll listen not to the mighty but to you. When it comes to taxes, we'll prioritise not the wealthy, but you. When it comes to opportunity, we won't entrench the advantages of the fortunate few. We will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.
We are living through an important moment in our country's history.
As we leave the European Union, we will forge a bold new positive role for ourselves in the world, and we will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us.
That pledge, to the people of our United Kingdom is what guides me in our negotiations with the EU.
Five tests
And for me that means five things:
First, the agreement we reach with the EU must respect the referendum. It was a vote to take control of our borders, laws and money. And a vote for wider change, so that no community in Britain would ever be left behind again. But it was not a vote for a distant relationship with our neighbours.
Second, the new agreement we reach with the EU must endure. After Brexit both the UK and the EU want to forge ahead with building a better future for our people, not find ourselves back at the negotiating table because things have broken down.
Third, it must protect people's jobs and security. People in the UK voted for our country to have a new and different relationship with Europe, but while the means may change our shared goals surely have not - to work together to grow our economies and keep our people safe.
Fourth, it must be consistent with the kind of country we want to be as we leave: a modern, open, outward-looking, tolerant, European democracy. A nation of pioneers, innovators, explorers and creators. A country that celebrates our history and diversity, confident of our place in the world; that meets its obligations to our near neighbours and far off friends, and is proud to stand up for its values.
And fifth, in doing all of these things, it must strengthen our union of nations and our union of people.
We must bring our country back together, taking into account the views of everyone who cares about this issue, from both sides of the debate.
As Prime Minister it is my duty to represent all of our United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; north and south, from coastal towns and rural villages to our great cities.
So these are the five tests for the deal that we will negotiate.
Implementing the decision of the British people; reaching an enduring solution; protecting our security and prosperity; delivering an outcome that is consistent with the kind of country we want to be; and bringing our country together, strengthening the precious union of all our people.
Crucial moment
We are now approaching a crucial moment.
There is no escaping the complexity of the task ahead of us. We must not only negotiate our exit from an organisation that touches so many important parts of our national life. We must also build a new and lasting relationship while, given the uncertainty inherent in this negotiation, preparing for every scenario.
But we are making real progress. At the end of last year, we agreed the key elements of our withdrawal.
We are in the process of turning that agreement into draft legal text. We have made clear our concerns about the first draft the Commission published on Wednesday - but no-one should be in any doubt about our commitment to the Joint Report we agreed in December.
We are close to agreement on the terms of an implementation period which was a key element of December's deal. Of course some points of difference remain - but I am confident these can be resolved in the days ahead.
Both the UK and the EU are clear this implementation period must be time-limited and cannot become a permanent solution. But it is vital to give governments, businesses and citizens on both sides the time they need to prepare for our new relationship.
With this agreed, I want both sides to turn all our attention and efforts to that new relationship.
But before we can do that, we need to set out in more detail what relationship we want, building on my Lancaster House and Florence speeches.
So last month, I spoke in Munich about the security partnership we seek. And today, I want to talk about the other pillar of that relationship: how we build our economic partnership.
Not Norway nor Canada
In my speech in Florence, I set out why the existing models for economic partnership either do not deliver the ambition we need or impose unsustainable constraints on our democracy.
For example, the Norway model, where we would stay in the single market, would mean having to implement new EU legislation automatically and in its entirety - and would also mean continued free movement.
Others have suggested we negotiate a free trade agreement similar to that which Canada has recently negotiated with the EU - or trade on World Trade Organisation terms.
But these options would mean a significant reduction in our access to each other's markets compared to that which we currently enjoy.
And this would mean customs and regulatory checks at the border that would damage the integrated supply chains that our industries depend on and be inconsistent with the commitments that both we and the EU have made in respect of Northern Ireland.
This is a wider issue in our negotiations and I want to dwell on this for a minute.
Successive British governments have worked tirelessly - together with all the parties in Northern Ireland and with the Irish Government - to bring about the historic achievement of peace.
This is an achievement that we should all be proud of, and protect. That is why I have consistently put upholding the Belfast Agreement at the heart of the UK's approach.
Our departure from the EU causes very particular challenges for Northern Ireland, and for Ireland. We joined the EU together 45 years ago. It is not surprising that our decision to leave has caused anxiety and a desire for concrete solutions.
We have been clear all along that we don't want to go back to a hard border in Ireland. We have ruled out any physical infrastructure at the border, or any related checks and controls.
But it is not good enough to say, 'We won't introduce a hard border; if the EU forces Ireland to do it, that's down to them'. We chose to leave; we have a responsibility to help find a solution.
But we can't do it on our own. It is for all of us to work together. And the Taoiseach and I agreed when we met recently that our teams and the Commission should now do just that.
I want to make one final point. Just as it would be unacceptable to go back to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, it would also be unacceptable to break up the United Kingdom's own common market by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea. My personal commitment to this is clear.
As prime minister of the whole United Kingdom, I am not going to let our departure from the European Union do anything to set back the historic progress that we have made in Northern Ireland - nor will I allow anything that would damage the integrity of our precious Union.
Hard facts
So existing models do not provide the best way forward for either the UK or the EU.
But before I turn to what a new and better model might look like, I want to be straight with people - because the reality is that we all need to face up to some hard facts.
We are leaving the single market. Life is going to be different. In certain ways, our access to each other's markets will be less than it is now. How could the EU's structure of rights and obligations be sustained, if the UK - or any country - were allowed to enjoy all the benefits without all of the obligations?
So we need to strike a new balance. But we will not accept the rights of Canada and the obligations of Norway.
The second hard fact is that even after we have left the jurisdiction of the ECJ, EU law and the decisions of the ECJ will continue to affect us.
For a start, the ECJ determines whether agreements the EU has struck are legal under the EU's own law - as the US found when the ECJ declared the Safe Harbor Framework for data sharing invalid.
When we leave the EU, the Withdrawal Bill will bring EU law into UK law. That means cases will be determined in our courts. But, where appropriate, our courts will continue to look at the ECJ's judgments, as they do for the appropriate jurisprudence of other countries' courts.
And if, as part of our future partnership, Parliament passes an identical law to an EU law, it may make sense for our courts to look at the appropriate ECJ judgments so that we both interpret those laws consistently.
As I said in Munich, if we agree that the UK should continue to participate in an EU agency the UK would have to respect the remit of the ECJ in that regard.
But, in the future, the EU treaties and hence EU law will no longer apply in the UK. The agreement we reach must therefore respect the sovereignty of both the UK and the EU's legal orders. That means the jurisdiction of the ECJ in the UK must end. It also means that the ultimate arbiter of disputes about our future partnership cannot be the court of either party.
The next hard fact is this. If we want good access to each other's markets, it has to be on fair terms. As with any trade agreement, we must accept the need for binding commitments - for example, we may choose to commit some areas of our regulations like state aid and competition to remaining in step with the EU's.
The UK drove much of the policy in this area and we have much to gain from maintaining proper disciplines on the use of subsidies and on anti-competitive practices.
Furthermore, as I said in Florence, we share the same set of fundamental beliefs; a belief in free trade, rigorous and fair competition, strong consumer rights, and that trying to beat other countries' industries by unfairly subsidising one's own is a serious mistake.
And in other areas like workers' rights or the environment, the EU should be confident that we will not engage in a race to the bottom in the standards and protections we set. There is no serious political constituency in the UK which would support this - quite the opposite.
Tensions
Finally, we need to resolve the tensions between some of our key objectives.
We want the freedom to negotiate trade agreements with other countries around the world. We want to take back control of our laws. We also want as frictionless a border as possible between us and the EU - so that we don't damage the integrated supply chains our industries depend on and don't have a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
But there are some tensions in the EU's position too - and some hard facts for them to face as well.
The Commission has suggested that the only option available to the UK is an 'off the shelf' model.
But, at the same time, they have also said that in certain areas none of the EU's third country agreements would be appropriate.
And the European Council's Guidelines aspire to a balanced, ambitious, and wide-ranging deal, with common rules in a number of areas to ensure fair and open competition.
This would not be delivered by a Canada-style deal - which would not give them the breadth or depth of market access that they want. And it is hard to see how it would be in the EU's interests for the UK's regulatory standards to be as different as Canada's.
Finally, we both need to face the fact that this is a negotiation and neither of us can have exactly what we want. But I am confident we can reach agreement.
Future partnership
We both want good access to each other's markets; we want competition between us to be fair and open; and we want reliable, transparent means of verifying we are meeting our commitments and resolving disputes.
But what is clear is that for us both to meet our objectives we need to look beyond the precedents, and find a new balance.
As on security, what I am seeking is a relationship that goes beyond the transactional to one where we support each other's interests.
So I want the broadest and deepest possible partnership - covering more sectors and co-operating more fully than any Free Trade Agreement anywhere in the world today. And as I will go on to describe we will also need agreements in a range of areas covering the breadth of our relationship.
I believe this is achievable because it is in the EU's interests as well as ours.
The EU is the UK's biggest market - and of course the UK is also a big market for the EU. And furthermore, we have a unique starting point, where on day one we both have the same laws and rules.
So rather than having to bring two different systems closer together, the task will be to manage the relationship once we are two separate legal systems.
To do so, and to realise this level of ambition, there are five foundations that must underpin our trading relationship.
First, our agreement will need reciprocal binding commitments to ensure fair and open competition.
Such agreements are part and parcel of any trade agreement. After all, why would any country enter into a privileged economic partnership without any means of redress if the other party engaged in anti-competitive practices?
But the level of integration between the UK and EU markets and our geographical proximity mean these reciprocal commitments will be particularly important in ensuring that UK business can compete fairly in EU markets and vice versa.
A deep and comprehensive agreement with the EU will therefore need to include commitments reflecting the extent to which the UK and EU economies are entwined.
Second, we will need an arbitration mechanism that is completely independent - something which, again, is common to Free Trade Agreements.
This will ensure that any disagreements about the purpose or scope of the agreement can be resolved fairly and promptly.
Third, given the close relationship we envisage, we will need to have an ongoing dialogue with the EU, and to ensure we have the means to consult each other regularly.
In particular we will want to make sure our regulators continue to work together; as they do with regulators internationally. This will be essential for everything from getting new drugs to patients quickly to maintaining financial stability. We start from the place where our regulators already have deep and long-standing relationships. So the task is maintaining that trust; not building it in the first place.
Fourth, we will need an arrangement for data protection.
I made this point in Munich in relation to our security relationship. But the free flow of data is also critical for both sides in any modern trading relationship too. The UK has exceptionally high standards of data protection. And we want to secure an agreement with the EU that provides the stability and confidence for EU and UK business and individuals to achieve our aims in maintaining and developing the UK's strong trading and economic links with the EU.
That is why we will be seeking more than just an adequacy arrangement and want to see an appropriate ongoing role for the UK's Information Commissioner's Office. This will ensure UK businesses are effectively represented under the EU's new 'one stop shop' mechanism for resolving data protection disputes.
And fifth, we must maintain the links between our people.
EU citizens are an integral part of the economic, cultural and social fabric of our country. I know that UK nationals are viewed in entirely the same way by communities across the EU. And this is why at every stage of these negotiations, I have put the interests of EU citizens and UK nationals at the heart of our approach.
We are clear that as we leave the EU, free movement of people will come to an end and we will control the number of people who come to live in our country.
But UK citizens will still want to work and study in EU countries - just as EU citizens will want to do the same here, helping to shape and drive growth, innovation and enterprise.
Indeed, businesses across the EU and the UK must be able to attract and employ the people they need. And we are open to discussing how to facilitate these valuable links.
Market access
Reciprocal commitments to ensure fair and open competition, an independent arbitration mechanism, an ongoing dialogue, data protection arrangements and maintaining the links between our people. These are the foundations that underpin the ambition of this unique and unprecedented partnership.
It will then need to be tailored to the needs of our economies.
This follows the approach the EU has taken with its trade agreements in the past - and indeed with its own single market as it has developed.
The EU's agreement with Ukraine sees it align with the EU in some areas but not others. The EU's agreement with South Korea contains provisions to recognise each others' approvals for new car models, whereas their agreement with Canada does not. Equally, the EU's agreement with Canada contains provisions to recognise each others' testing on machinery; its agreement with South Korea does not.
The EU itself is rightly taking a tailored approach in what it is seeking with the UK. For example, on fisheries, the Commission has been clear that no precedents exist for the sort of access it wants from the UK.
The fact is that every Free Trade Agreement has varying market access depending on the respective interests of the countries involved. If this is cherry-picking, then every trade arrangement is cherry-picking.
Moreover, with all its neighbours the EU has varying levels of access to the Single Market, depending on the obligations those neighbours are willing to undertake.
What would be cherry-picking would be if we were to seek a deal where our rights and obligations were not held in balance. And I have been categorically clear that is not what we are going to do.
I think it is pragmatic common sense that we should work together to deliver the best outcome for both sides.
Trade in goods
Let me start with how we do this for goods.
This is the area where the single market is most established and both the UK and the EU have a strong commercial interest in preserving integrated supply chains that have built up over forty years of our membership.
When it comes to goods, a fundamental principle in our negotiating strategy should be that trade at the UK-EU border should be as frictionless as possible.
That means we don't want to see the introduction of any tariffs or quotas. And - as the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union set out in his speech in Vienna last week - we must ensure that, as now, products only need to undergo one series of approvals, in one country, to show that they meet the required regulatory standards.
To achieve this we will need a comprehensive system of mutual recognition.
The UK will need to make a strong commitment that its regulatory standards will remain as high as the EU's. That commitment, in practice, will mean that UK and EU regulatory standards will remain substantially similar in the future.
Many of these regulatory standards are themselves underpinned by international standards set by non-EU bodies of which we will remain a member - such as the UN Economic Commission for Europe, which sets vehicle safety standards. Countries around the world, including Turkey, South Africa, South Korea, Japan and Russia, are party to the agreement.
As I said in my speech in Florence this could be achieved in different ways.
Our default is that UK law may not necessarily be identical to EU law, but it should achieve the same outcomes.
In some cases Parliament might choose to pass an identical law - businesses who export to the EU tell us that it is strongly in their interest to have a single set of regulatory standards that mean they can sell into the UK and EU markets.
If the Parliament of the day decided not to achieve the same outcomes as EU law, it would be in the knowledge that there may be consequences for our market access.
And there will need to be an independent mechanism to oversee these arrangements.
We will also want to explore with the EU, the terms on which the UK could remain part of EU agencies such as those that are critical for the chemicals, medicines and aerospace industries: the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, and the European Aviation Safety Agency.
We would, of course, accept that this would mean abiding by the rules of those agencies and making an appropriate financial contribution.
I want to explain what I believe the benefits of this approach could be, both for us and the EU.
First, associate membership of these agencies is the only way to meet our objective of ensuring that these products only need to undergo one series of approvals, in one country.
Second, these agencies have a critical role in setting and enforcing relevant rules. And if we were able to negotiate associate membership we would be able to ensure that we could continue to provide our technical expertise.
Third, associate membership could permit UK firms to resolve certain challenges related to the agencies through UK courts rather than the ECJ.
For example, in the case of Switzerland, associate membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency means that airworthiness certifications are granted by its own aviation authority, and disputes are resolved through its courts. Without its membership, Swiss airlines would need to gain their certifications through another member state or through the Agency, and any dispute would need to be resolved through the ECJ.
Fourth it would bring other benefits too. For example, membership of the European Medicines Agency would mean investment in new innovative medicines continuing in the UK, and it would mean these medicines getting to patients faster as firms prioritise larger markets when they start the lengthy process of seeking authorisations.
But it would also be good for the EU because the UK regulator assesses more new medicines than any other member state. And the EU would continue to access the expertise of the UK's world-leading universities.
And, of course, Parliament would remain ultimately sovereign. It could decide not to accept these rules, but with consequences for our membership of the relevant agency and linked market access rights.
Customs partnership
Lastly to achieve as frictionless a border as possible and to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, we also need an agreement on customs.
The UK has been clear it is leaving the Customs Union. The EU has also formed a customs union with some other countries.
But those arrangements, if applied to the UK, would mean the EU setting the UK's external tariffs, being able to let other countries sell more into the UK without making it any easier for us to sell more to them, or the UK signing up to the Common Commercial Policy.
That would not be compatible with a meaningful independent trade policy. It would mean we had less control than we do now over our trade in the world. Neither Leave nor Remain voters would want that.
So we have thought seriously about how our commitment to a frictionless border can best be delivered. And last year, we set out two potential options for our customs arrangement.
Option one is a customs partnership between the UK and the EU. At the border, the UK would mirror the EU's requirements for imports from the rest of the world, applying the same tariffs and the same rules of origin as the EU for those goods arriving in the UK and intended for the EU.
By following this approach, we would know that all goods entering the EU via the UK pay the right EU duties, removing the need for customs processes at the UK-EU border.
But, importantly, we would put in place a mechanism so that the UK would also be able to apply its own tariffs and trade policy for goods intended for the UK market. As we have set out previously, this would require the means to ensure that both sides can trust the system and a robust enforcement mechanism.
Option two would be a highly streamlined customs arrangement, where we would jointly agree to implement a range of measures to minimise frictions to trade, together with specific provisions for Northern Ireland.
First, measures to ensure the requirements for moving goods across borders are as simple as possible.
This means we should continue to waive the requirement for entry and exit declarations for goods moving between the UK and the EU. And we should allow goods moving between the UK and the rest of the world to travel through the EU without paying EU duties and vice versa.
Second, measures to reduce the risk of delays at ports and airports. For example, recognising each other's "trusted traders" schemes and drawing on the most advanced IT solutions so that vehicles do not need to stop at the border.
Third, we should continue our cooperation to mitigate customs duty and security risks. And fourth, measures to reduce the cost and burden of complying with customs administrative requirements, including by maximising the use of automation.
And recognising the unique circumstances in Northern Ireland, and our shared commitments to avoiding a hard border, we should consider further specific measures.
80% of North-South trade is carried out by micro, small and medium sized businesses. So for smaller traders - who as members of the community are most affected but whose economic role is not systemically significant for the EU market - we would allow them to continue to operate as they do currently, with no new restrictions.
And for larger traders we would introduce streamlined processes, including a trusted trader scheme that would be consistent with our commitments.
Both of these options for our future customs arrangement would leave the UK free to determine its own tariffs with third countries - which would simply not be possible in a customs union.
I recognise that some of these ideas depend on technology, robust systems to ensure trust and confidence, as well as goodwill - but they are serious and merit consideration by all sides.
So to conclude on goods, a fundamental principle in our negotiating strategy is that trade at the UK-EU border should be as frictionless as possible with no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
We believe this can be achieved via a commitment to ensure that the relevant UK regulatory standards remain at least as high as the EU's and a customs arrangement.
We recognise this would constrain our ability to lower regulatory standards for industrial goods. But in practice we are unlikely to want to reduce our standards: not least because the British public would rightly punish any government that did so at the ballot box.
Farming and fishing
This approach to trade in goods is important for agriculture, food and drinks - but here other considerations also apply.
We are leaving the Common Agricultural Policy and will want to take the opportunity that brings to reform our agriculture and fisheries management.
The UK has among the highest environmental and animal welfare standards of any nation on earth. As we leave the EU we will uphold environmental standards and go further to protect our shared natural heritage. And I fully expect that our standards will remain at least as high as the EU's.
But it will be particularly important to secure flexibility here to ensure we can make the most of the opportunities presented by our withdrawal from the EU for our farmers and exporters.
We are also leaving the Common Fisheries Policy. The UK will regain control over our domestic fisheries management rules and access to our waters.
But as part of our economic partnership we will want to continue to work together to manage shared stocks in a sustainable way and to agree reciprocal access to waters and a fairer allocation of fishing opportunities for the UK fishing industry. And we will also want to ensure open markets for each other's products.
Trade in services
Just as our partnership in goods needs to be deeper than any other Free Trade Agreement, so in services we have the opportunity to break new ground with a broader agreement than ever before.
We recognise that certain aspects of trade in services are intrinsically linked to the single market and therefore our market access in these areas will need to be different.
But we should only allow new barriers to be introduced where absolutely necessary.
We don't want to discriminate against EU service providers in the UK. And we wouldn't want the EU to discriminate against UK service providers.
So we want to limit the number of barriers that could prevent UK firms from setting up in the EU and vice versa, and agree an appropriate labour mobility framework that enables UK businesses and self-employed professionals to travel to the EU to provide services to clients in person and that allows UK businesses to provide services to the EU over the phone or the internet.
And we want to do the same for EU firms providing services to the UK.
And given that UK qualifications are already recognised across the EU and vice versa - it would make sense to continue to recognise each other's qualifications in the future.
There are two areas which have never been covered in a Free Trade Agreement in any meaningful way before - broadcasting and, despite the EU's own best efforts in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, financial services.
But we have some ideas for how we can do this - and it is in all our interests to explore these.
On broadcasting, we recognise that we cannot have exactly the same arrangements with the EU as we do now. Currently, because of the "country of origin" principle, a company based in the UK can be licence by Ofcom and broadcast into any EU member state and vice versa.
The relevant directive will not apply to the UK, as we leave the EU, and relying solely on precedents will hurt consumers and businesses on both sides.
The UK's creative hub leads to the development of products that European consumers want - the UK currently provides around 30% of the channels available in the EU. But equally, many UK companies have pan-European ownership, and there are 35 channels and on-demand services, which are offered in the UK but licensed in the EU.
So we should explore creative options with an open mind, including mutual recognition which would allow for continued trans-frontier broadcasting - recognising the enriching role that British broadcasters and programme makers play, not only in British - but more broadly in our common European - culture.
Financial services
Similarly, on financial services, the Chancellor will be setting out next week how financial services can and should be part of a deep and comprehensive partnership. We are not looking for passporting because we understand this is intrinsic to the single market of which we would no longer be a member. It would also require us to be subject to a single rule book, over which we would have no say.
The UK has responsibility for the financial stability of the world's most significant financial centre, and our taxpayers bear the risk, so it would be unrealistic for us to implement new EU legislation automatically and in its entirety.
But with UK located banks underwriting around half of the debt and equity issued by EU companies and providing more than £1.1 trillion of cross-border lending to the rest of the EU in 2015 alone, this is a clear example of where only looking at precedent would hurt both the UK and EU economies.
As in other areas of the future economic partnership, our goal should be to establish the ability to access each others' markets, based on the UK and EU maintaining the same regulatory outcomes over time, with a mechanism for determining proportionate consequences where they are not maintained.
But given the highly regulated nature of financial services, and our shared desire to manage financial stability risks, we would need a collaborative, objective framework that is reciprocal, mutually agreed, and permanent and therefore reliable for businesses.
There are many other areas where the UK and EU economies are closely linked - including energy, transport, digital, law, science and innovation, and education and culture.
On energy, we will want to secure broad energy co-operation with the EU. This includes protecting the single electricity market across Ireland and Northern Ireland - and exploring options for the UK's continued participation in the EU's internal energy market.
We also believe it is of benefit to both sides for the UK to have a close association with Euratom.
On transport, we will want to ensure the continuity of air, maritime and rail services; and we will want to protect the rights of road hauliers to access the EU market and vice versa.
On digital, the UK will not be part of the EU's Digital Single Market, which will continue to develop after our withdrawal from the EU.
This is a fast evolving, innovative sector, in which the UK is a world leader. So it will be particularly important to have domestic flexibility, to ensure the regulatory environment can always respond nimbly and ambitiously to new developments.
We will want our agreement to cover civil judicial cooperation, where the EU has already shown that it can reach agreement with non-member states, such as through the Lugano Convention, although we would want a broader agreement that reflects our unique starting point.
And our agreement will also need to cover company law and intellectual property, to provide further legal certainty and coherence.
The UK is also committed to establishing a far-reaching science and innovation pact with the EU, facilitating the exchange of ideas and researchers. This would enable the UK to participate in key programmes alongside our EU partners.
And we want to take a similar approach to educational and cultural programmes, to promote our shared values and enhance our intellectual strength in the world - again making an ongoing contribution to cover our fair share of the costs involved.
In all these areas, bold and creative thinking can deliver new agreements that are in the very best interests of all our people - both in the UK and across the EU. And in the face of a worrying rise in protectionism, I believe such agreements can enable us to set an example to the world.
A beginning, not an ending
For the world is watching.
We should not think of our leaving the EU as marking an ending, as much as a new beginning for the United Kingdom and our relationship with our European allies.
Change is not to be feared, so long as we face it with a clear-sighted determination to act for the common good. Nor is Brexit an end in itself.
Rather, it must be the means by which we reaffirm Britain's place in the world and renew the ties that bind us here at home. And I know that the United Kingdom I treasure can emerge from this process a stronger, more cohesive nation.
A United Kingdom which is a cradle for innovation; a leader in the industries of the future; a champion of free trade, based on high standards; a modern, outward-looking, tolerant country, proud of our values and confident of our place in the world.
This is an optimistic and confident future which can unite us all.
A Global Britain which thrives in the world by forging a bold and comprehensive economic partnership with our neighbours in the EU; and reaches out beyond our continent, to trade with nations across the globe.
The approach I have set out today would: implement the referendum result, provide an enduring solution, protect our security and prosperity, helps us build the kind of country we want to be, and bring our country together by commanding the confidence of those who voted Leave and those who voted Remain.
It is an approach to deliver for the whole of our United Kingdom and our wider family of overseas territories.
I am in no doubt that whatever agreement we reach with the EU, our future is bright. The stability and continuity of centuries of self-government, our commitment to freedom under the rule of law, our belief in enterprise and innovation, but above all, the talent and genius of all our people - and especially our young people - are the seeds of our success in the future, as they have been the guarantors of our success in the past.
I look forward to discussing our future partnership with our European friends.
Because although we are leaving the EU - and in that regard we will become separate - we are all still European and will stay linked by the many ties and values we have in common. And because it is only by working together that we will find solutions that work for all our peoples.
Yes, there will be ups and downs in the months ahead. As in any negotiation, no-one will get everything they want. We will not be buffeted by the demands to talk tough or threaten a walk out. Just as we will not accept the counsels of despair that this simply cannot be done.
We will move forward by calm, patient discussion of each other's positions. It is my responsibility as Prime Minister to provide that leadership for our country at this crucial time. By following the course I have set out today, I am confident we will get there and deliver the right outcome for Britain and the EU.
A generation from now what will be remembered is not the rough and tumble of negotiation but whether we reached an enduring solution cast in the interests of the people we are all here to serve.
So my message to our friends in Europe is clear.
We know what we want. We understand your principles. We have a shared interest in getting this right. So let's get on with it.
|
Six people have been arrested after a child was abducted at knifepoint and taken about 200 miles (320km) away from home.
|
North Wales Police said the child was taken from Anglesey at about 16:00 GMT on Wednesday.
The child was found on Wednesday evening in Northamptonshire after a car was stopped in the English county.
Police said the incident was not a stranger attack and that the child was recovered safely and was unharmed.
Det Ch Supt Gareth Evans, from North Wales Police, said: "This has been a frightening incident for those involved.
"Can I reassure our communities on Anglesey that this was not a stranger attack, the incident is isolated and we are dealing with those we suspect were involved."
|
A man's body has been found on Cader Idris in Snowdonia by mountain rescue teams looking for a missing tourist.
|
They found the body on ground above Llyn Cau on Wednesday afternoon. It has not yet been formally identified.
A French man, aged 30, failed to return to his hotel on Sunday and his car was found near a Cader Idris trail head.
Aberdyfi and South Snowdonia search and rescue teams were called in with two dogs from Search and Rescue Dogs Wales and a Coastguard helicopter crew.
|
The US Congress has agreed to raise the debt ceiling until March 2015, averting another crisis that almost four months ago threatened to trigger a default on US debt and plunge the global financial markets into chaos.
|
By Jamie RobertsonPresenter, BBC World News
Raising the debt ceiling is the only way the US government can raise more money to pay off its debts. Without agreement, it runs the risk of default.
The issue has been an on-again-off-again headache for almost three years. But this time, it never really had the look of the honest-to-goodness end-of-capitalism crisis that came to a head last October.
Back then, just a couple of weeks short of defaulting on its debt, with the markets in crisis alert and the government in shutdown, Congress finally agreed to a temporary solution delaying the problem until this month.
Rather than the bang that some were expecting, it has now vanished with little more than a whimper.
This crisis had none of that drama: much of the fire has gone out of the Republican fight to keep the debt ceiling where it is.
Instead, mid-term elections in November have become their focus, and reluctantly they allowed the ceiling to be raised until March 2015.
The problem was that the "habit of governing by crisis" as President Barack Obama called it, was hurting the Republicans more than the Democrats. House Speaker John Boehner had tried to attach conditions to the bill, but simply couldn't get agreement from his party.
Drawing a line
Instead, accepting the realpolitik of an election year, he agreed to vote with 27 other Republicans for a "clean bill", no strings attached, to let the bill through.
He's been pilloried by right-wing groups of the GOP, most specifically the Tea Party, for "giving up".
But a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief, not least Mr Boehner himself, who, according to Reuters, was seen strolling from a news conference afterwards singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah".
Now that a political line has been drawn under the debt ceiling debate, there is the question of where it leaves the economy. Republicans would argue that it leaves it with an ever-escalating debt.
But it has restored some faith among investors.
The deal in the House of Representatives came after the US markets had closed, but Asian and European equities rose - though they were also reacting to strong economic numbers out of China and optimistic comments from the new head of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen.
Madhur Jha, senior global economist at Standard Chartered, said: "The problem of the debt ceiling will of course keep coming back, but the economy has a year in which to recover, and by 2015 there may well be a real recovery taking place, which will help the economy fiscally."
Dangerous debts
Even with the start of the painful and unpopular sequestration last year, which is aiming to knock $1.1tn off the budget over the next eight years by forcibly cutting billions off spending each year, debt levels are only really going to come down as the economy grows.
Madhur Jha says: "Debt is not a problem if your economy is growing. There is a lot of debate as to what the proper level of debt should be for a developed economy, say 70%.
"The economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff wrote a paper saying historically, growth has not suffered significantly until debts reached 90% of a nation's GDP. But it's still not clear. However, once you get over 100%, it really does begin to have structural effects on the economy."
However, Justin Urquhart Stewart, co-founder of Seven Investment Management, believes the US could be at a turning point. He says that there are signs that the annual budget deficit is coming under control.
He says: "If they can get it down to around 2% of GDP, then they will be able to hold the overall debt levels steady, and who knows, even reduce it. The sequestration helped last year on the spending side, but it is really the growth that is doing the work."
If that happens, there may not need to be another raising of the debt ceiling - a distant, if not forlorn hope. But there is a growing belief that the debt ceiling process is itself doing little to help the economy.
Faith in US economic governance has taken a real battering over the last three years, as the debt ceiling issue has been a circus for political fights between Republicans and Democrats.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world has looked on, knowing that if no deal was done and the US defaulted, the result would be, in the words of the US Treasury, "catastrophic economic consequences".
Who needs a debt ceiling?
So why not just do away with the whole political palaver? There are few other countries in the world where total debt is monitored in such a single-minded way.
Proponents of the process say it keeps Congress accountable. Opponents say it dates from a period when the President had far more influence in spending, and that a responsible Congress should be able to control spending as and when it was needed.
Mr Urquhart Stewart says: "The system is unable to distinguish between debt investment, long-term debt for the building of infrastructure, like power networks and bridges, and short-term 'household' debt.
"Each should be judged on its own merits and the debt ceiling process doesn't do that."
|
An inmate and a prison worker were taken to hospital after three separate fires were started at a Bridgend prison.
|
Firefighters were called to HMP Parc at about 21:05 BST on Thursday after the juvenile prisoner set fire to a paper tissue in the young offenders' unit.
Two more fires - one in a cell and another involving clothing - happened just after 22:00 and 23:00.
A lighter was taken from the offender. Both were discharged from hospital.
Security firm G4S, which runs the prison, said: "The offender involved will face the consequences for breaking prison rules and our staff will work with him to try and prevent a repeat of this damaging behaviour."
|
Japan reports suicides faster and more accurately than anywhere else in the world. Unlike most countries, here they are compiled at the end of every month. During the Covid pandemic the numbers have told a disturbing story.
|
By Rupert Wingfield-HayesBBC News, Tokyo
In 2020, for the first time in 11 years, suicide rates in Japan went up. Most surprising, while male suicides fell slightly, rates among women surged nearly 15%.
In one month, October, the female suicide rate in Japan went up by more than 70%, compared with the same month in the previous year.
What is going on? And why does the Covid pandemic appear to be hitting women so much worse than men?
Warning: Some may find the content of this story upsetting
Meeting face-to-face with a young woman who has repeatedly tried to kill herself is a troubling experience. It has given me new respect for those who work on suicide prevention.
I am sitting in a walk-in centre in Yokohama's red-light district, run by a suicide prevention charity called the Bond Project.
Across the table is a 19-year-old woman, with bobbed hair. She sits motionless.
Quietly, without any emotion, she starts to tell me her story. It started when she was 15, she says. Her older brother began violently abusing her. Eventually she ran away from home, but it didn't end the pain and the loneliness.
Ending her life seemed the only way out.
"From about this time last year I have been in and out of hospital many times," she tells me. "I tried many times to kill myself, but I couldn't succeed, so now I guess I have given up trying to die."
What stopped her was the intervention of the Bond Project. They found her a safe place to live, and began giving her intensive counselling.
Jun Tachibana is the founder of the Bond Project. She is a tough woman in her 40s with relentless optimism.
"When girls are in real trouble and in pain, they really don't know what to do," she says. "We are here, ready to listen to them, to tell them - we are here with you."
Ms Tachibana says Covid seems to be pushing those who are already vulnerable closer to the edge. She describes some of the harrowing calls her staff have received in recent months.
"We hear lots of 'I want to die' and 'I have no place to go'," she says. "They say 'It is so painful, I am so lonely I want to disappear'."
For those suffering physical or sexual abuse, Covid has made the situation much worse.
"A girl I talked to the other day said she is getting sexually harassed by her father," Ms Tachibana tells me. "But because of Covid her father is not working so much and is at home a lot, so there is no escape from him."
A 'very unusual' pattern
If you look at previous times of crisis in Japan, such as the 2008 banking crisis or the collapse of Japan's stock market and property bubble in the early 1990s, the impact was largely felt by middle aged men. Large spikes were seen in male suicide rates.
But Covid is different, it is affecting young people and, in particular, young women. The reasons are complex.
Japan used to have the highest suicide rate in the developed world. Over the last decade it has had great success in reducing suicide rates by around a third.
Professor Michiko Ueda is one of Japan's leading experts on suicide. She tells me how shocking it has been to witness the sharp reverse in the last few months.
"This pattern of female suicides is very, very unusual," she tells me.
"I have never seen this much [of an] increase in my career as a researcher on this topic. The thing about the coronavirus pandemic is the industries hit most are industries staffed by women, such as tourism and retail and the food industries."
Japan has seen a large rise in single women living alone, many of them choosing that over marriage which entails quite traditional gender roles still. Prof Ueda says young women are also far more likely to be in so-called precarious employment.
"A lot of women are not married anymore," she says. "They have to support their own lives and they don't have permanent jobs. So, when something happens, of course, they are hit very, very hard. The number of job losses among non-permanent staff are just so, so large over the last eight months."
One month really stands out. In October last year, 879 women killed themselves. That is more than 70% higher than the same month in 2019.
Newspaper headlines sounded the alarm. Some compared the total number of suicides by men and women in October (2,199) to the total number of deaths in Japan from Coronavirus up to that point (2,087).
Something particularly strange was happening.
On 27 September last year, a very famous and popular actress named Yuko Takeuchi was found dead at her home. It was later reported that she had taken her own life.
Yasuyuki Shimizu is a former journalist who now runs a non-profit organisation (NPO) dedicated to combatting Japan's suicide problem.
"From the day the news of a celebrity suicide is reported, the number of suicides increases and stays that way for about 10 days," he says.
"From the data we can see that the suicide of the actress on 27 September led to an extra 207 female suicides in the next 10 days."
If you look at the data for suicides by women around the same age as Yuko Takeuchi, the statistics are even more stark.
"Women in their 40s were most influenced out of all the age groups," Mr Shimizu says. "For that group it (the suicide rate) more than doubled."
Other experts agree that there is a very strong connection between celebrity suicides and an immediate uptick in suicides in the days following.
The celebrity phenomenon
This phenomenon is not unique to Japan, and it is one reason why reporting on suicide is so difficult. In the immediate aftermath of a celebrity suicide, the more it is discussed in the media, and on social media, the greater the impact on other vulnerable people.
One of the NPO's researchers is Mai Suganuma. She is herself a victim of suicide. When she was a teenager, her father took his own life. Now she helps to support the families of others who have killed themselves.
And just as Covid is leaving relatives unable to grieve for those who have succumbed to the virus, so it is making life for the families of suicide victims much more difficult.
"When I talk to the family members, their feeling of not being able to save the loved one is very strong, which often results in them blaming themselves." Mai Suganuma tells me. "I too blamed myself for not being able to save my father.
"Now they are being told they must stay at home. I worry the feelings of guilt will grow stronger. Japanese people don't talk about death to begin with. We do not have a culture to talk about the suicides."
Japan is now in a so-called third wave of Covid infections, and the government has ordered a second state of emergency. It is likely to be extended well into February. More restaurants and hotels and bars are closing their doors. More people are losing their jobs.
For Prof Ueda there is another nagging question. If this is happening in Japan, with no strict lockdowns, and relatively few Covid deaths, then what is happening in other countries where the pandemic is much worse?
If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article, help and support can be found at this BBC Action Line.
If you are in Japan you can contact the Bond Project, Japan Suicide Countermeasures Promotion Center or Life link.
|
Across the world today, journalists are under sustained attack.
|
Amol RajanMedia editor@amolrajanon Twitter
We know a lot more about it, as we know about the death of George Floyd, because of smartphones. When I say attack, I don't mean the broad ways in which their trade has been undermined, or their daily lives made more difficult, for example by the digital destruction of many traditional business models.
When I say attack, I mean punched, beaten, bloodied and killed. For doing their job.
Jamal Khashoggi is one of the most high-profile victims of recent years, murdered and mutilated for having the temerity to point out, on more than one occasion, that the House of Saud has not been a historic champion of universal human rights.
Further back, but still very much within living memory, Anna Politkovskaya was killed for daring to get close to the truth about the modern Russian state, not least its activities in Chechnya.
Just this week, we have seen a grim escalation, as protests and riots in response to Floyd's killing tear at the fabric of America. The attacks on journalists have been led by the US President, who has regularly cast them as "enemy of the people".
On Saturday night, police in Minneapolis shot rubber bullets at two members of a Reuters crew in Minneapolis. Cameraman Julio-Cesar Chavez said: "A police officer that I'm filming turns around and points his rubber-bullet rifle straight at me."
Radio reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez took a rubber bullet to his throat.
Yesterday, live on Australian television, a cameraman was punched near the White House. Footage from a different angle clearly shows he displayed no aggression toward the police officer who used the edge of a police shield to hit the cameraman's stomach before punching the lens.
A few days ago, my very distinguished colleague Pete Murtaugh was charged at by police officers, not far from the White House. The BBC's Paul Danahar, who runs the BBC News' bureaux across the Americas, was right to say that Peter was "clearly identifiable as a member of the media". The camera is always a giveaway, you see.
Danahar went on: "The team had been following all directions from the police as they covered the protests in front of the White House. The assault took place even before the curfew had been imposed, and happened without warning or provocation."
It must be exceptionally tough for police officers trying to uphold law and order. That said, in each of the cases I have mentioned, the journalist was probably identifiable as a member of the media.
And as for Pete Murtaugh, you've never heard of him, have you? Well, here's your moment. He's a father of three, universally adored in the BBC's Washington bureau, and widely regarded as one of the outstanding news cameramen of his generation. He lives just outside the city, and is an exceptionally kind and smart bloke.
A few years ago, when I door-stepped Rupert Murdoch outside his office in New York, a lot of people got in touch to say well done (often from within his company, as it happens). But the credit wasn't mine. It was almost all Pete's.
I had been looking the other way, facing the camera, when eagle-eyed Pete looked in the distance and saw him coming out of the office. He shouted, "It's Murdoch!". For some reason, despite being in New York specifically to cover a story about Rupert Murdoch, something about Pete's accent, and my misspent youth, made me think, 'Why has he suddenly brought up the A Team?'. But that's a story for another day.
Between them, Pete and my magnificent producer colleague Elizabeth Needham-Bennett, got us in position to ask the questions.
I had the easiest job of the lot, saying mere words. Look at the clip of that moment: you can clearly see Pete's reflection in Murdoch's car window. My job was to articulate a few sentences. Pete's job was infinitely harder: running with a very heavy camera on his shoulder; adjusting the focus and light exposure; and constantly and instantly responding to my movements and that of Murdoch's driver and security personnel - while keeping the shot tight.
Most people could ask Rupert Murdoch some questions on a Manhattan Street. How many could do what Pete Murtaugh did that day, let alone as well as he did? One in 10,000?
It's a skill, and that's why we call it a trade, and camera men and women are as much part of the trade as reporters are. In fact, to my mind, they're more important.
If you're lucky in news broadcasting, you get to work in teams of three: reporter, producer, camera operator. The reporter is the one who often gets the credit, and is always the best paid. But if the reporter wasn't there, and the camera operator was, you'd still have pictures for the news. Whereas if the camera man or woman wasn't there, you'd have nothing.
The single biggest and most frequent mistake made by those currently attacking journalists as enemies of the people is the tendency to react emotionally to some provocation by a high-profile journalist by impugning the whole trade. It's as if, in the minds of these journalist-haters, one famous anchor is by default an ambassador for the millions of people who work in the trade around the world.
This is how fame distorts. It gives a false picture to many people of what - and, crucially, who - constitutes journalism.
Naturally, President Trump isn't representative of public opinion, but you can see him make this conflation often. When he didn't like a line of questioning by CNN's Jim Acosta, he would attack him - and then by extension CNN.
When he didn't like a line of questioning by NBC's Peter Alexander, he didn't just attack Alexander, but NBC and Comcast, which owns it.
You see this in many of the attacks against the BBC. Of course, a huge number of criticisms of the BBC are entirely valid and necessary. Moreover, modern media has countless failings, many of them accentuated in recent years by social media. That's why the media these days is so often the story itself.
But the species of criticism which begins from disapproval of what one well-paid, high-profile figure says on a particular occasion, to eviscerate the whole organisation, as if that one person represents more than 20,000 others, is sloppy.
Journalism, as I have said elsewhere, is a noble trade whose higher callings are to inform the citizenry, apply scrutiny to power, and enlighten a culture, by spreading ideas and ideals.
Cameramen and women, and producers and sub-editors and fact-checkers, all contribute to this effort. Most of them are not famous. In fact, most people in journalism - though obviously not all - are decent, civilised, public-spirited people who enjoy elegant sentences, could get paid better elsewhere, and are in it more to scratch an itch for information than adulation.
They are local reporters knocking on doors to make sure silenced voices are heard, or sitting in tedious council meetings to ensure bureaucrats don't get away with deceit, or fixing interviews with people who want to contribute to a phone-in. In their small way, all these courses of human action fortify the collective effort of the trade.
What, after all, are camera operators who chronicle the unrest in America today doing, if not informing the citizenry, and so helping to apply scrutiny to power? The work is vital, the danger growing; and the reward often smaller than you think, financially at least.
They also, I can report, have a preference not to be targeted by democratically elected leaders - or punched in the face. Is that too much to ask?
If you're interested in issues such as these, please follow me on Twitter or Facebook; and also please subscribe to The Media Show podcast from Radio 4.
|
President Trump's promise to build a "great wall" along the US-Mexico border remains one of the central and most controversial promises of his presidency. But scientists from the University of Arizona are starting to unravel the effect that such a wall could have on a desert ecosystem it will cut through. The team is studying wildlife in the Sonoran Desert, which stretches across the border from Arizona into Mexico and is already divided by a barrier at the border. BBC science reporter Victoria Gill joined the team in a search for some of the desert's most endangered animals.
|
By Victoria GillScience reporter, BBC News
Its proximity to the border gives Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument a dangerous reputation.
But as you bump along dirt roads of this set-aside swathe of the Sonoran Desert (and if you do not tune in to the pre-recorded park radio announcement that warns of "illegal activity related to proximity to the international border"), it is the wild beauty of this landscape that hits you first.
Forests of tall saguaro cactus stand with arms stretched upward - seemingly triumphant - silhouetted against the rising Sun. These impressive, swollen plants can grow 20m (65ft) in height - sucking up and storing liquid from bursts of rainwater that can fuel an impressive two centuries of prickly growth.
But I am here with my friendly and almost intimidatingly competent PhD student host Stephanie Doerries and her softly spoken colleague Andrew Antaya - looking for some much more elusive desert life. We're in search of endangered Sonoran pronghorn.
"There are only 228 individuals in 800,000 hectares (two million acres), so they can be quite difficult to find just by going to a hilltop," Stephanie says.
That's why she and Andrew take their somewhat desert-ravaged truck, which is packed full of camping gear, scientific equipment and a huge cooler of ice-cold water, out into the desert at dawn. The fleeting cool of first light can be the best time to catch a glimpse of these shy creatures.
Sonoran pronghorn are unique to the North American continent - in a different family from antelope that roam the plains of Africa. They are found throughout North America, but the Sonoran subspecies lives only in this desert.
Their evolutionary race with the now extinct American cheetah made them the fastest land animal on the continent.
But they are built for distance as well as speed - each individual could have a home range as large as 2,800 sq km (almost 1,000 sq miles), as they walk the arid landscape foraging for leaves and cactus fruit.
Their critically low numbers and their cross-border range have made this animal a central character in the ongoing discussion about the impact of President Trump's promised "impassable" border wall.
As Stephanie and Andrew's trackers pick up the faint "blip, blip, blip" of a nearby radio-collared pronghorn, they both peer intently and silently through their scopes.
In these wide desert plains, the small hill we have climbed gives a clear view several kilometres in every direction.
"I got them," Stephanie says, triumphantly.
Only with her expert help - lining up the view perfectly through her scope - do I manage to catch a glimpse of a female with her delicate, twin fawns. Pronghorn typically have twins.
Stephanie begins to make meticulous notes. Is she standing or lying down? Alert or resting? In which direction is she moving?
"What we can hopefully help to understand," she says, "is what it's like to be a pronghorn in the Sonoran Desert along the US-Mexico border. What happens when you encounter humans or vehicles on the landscape?"
Stephanie has much more data to collect before she and her colleagues can draw out a clear answer to this. She will spend hours just finding an animal before she can begin watching and recording its behaviour. But initial data suggests that pronghorn do respond differently to human disturbance than to "more natural disturbances". And if these disturbances take the animals' attention away from foraging or from looking out for predators, that could be lethal.
People are not an obvious feature of the landscape here - on hiking trails and stunning mountain drives, the views are of arid, empty wilderness. But Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument stretches right up to the US-Mexico border, and that location brings a level of human activity.
US border patrol trucks are on the move here constantly, checking the border fence and dragging large tyres that smooth out the dirt track and make border crossers' footprints easy to spot.
Purple flags demarcate water supply tanks, where those who head north and into the US desert on foot, can find a potentially life-saving drink. Stephanie hikes and camps alone in the desert on a regular basis and she has seen and even crossed paths with groups of people who were walking north.
"In three years of field work," she says, "I've encountered border crossers twice on foot and we simply avoided each other. While driving, I've encountered two groups waiting along the roadside for assistance. I stopped a safe distance away and left water in the road for them.
"I've also observed border crossers on about half a dozen occasions while scanning my surroundings from an observation point."
Divided Desert
The most obvious human disturbance here though is the structure that cuts right through Sonoran pronghorn range - the physical barrier at the international border.
The protected land of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument includes about 50km (30 miles) of the international border. On either side of the official crossing point, at the tiny US entry port of Lukeville, there is a high pedestrian fence. It is a tight, metal grill structure about 7m (23ft) high and is just 8km (five miles) in length. Beyond that, stretching out towards the mountains, is a low vehicle barrier.
Stephanie's supervisor and the lead researcher on the pronghorn study, Prof Dave Christianson, from the University of Arizona, shows me the point at which the high, impermeable fence ends.
It is a strange sight; the imposing fence stops abruptly. And standing by the low barrier - designed to be permeable for wildlife but to stop cars driving into the US desert - you can quite easily poke your toe through the wide gaps between the posts and have one foot in each country.
Standing by this low barrier, scanning the surroundings, Dave points out how unproductive this harsh, hot landscape appears to be.
"But we find hundreds of species that evolved not just to survive here, but to thrive," he tells me. Those species all evolved long before any fence was built, but the fence itself is what has made this area such a fascinating ecological experiment.
"When human beings suddenly change the landscape like this, it's a great opportunity to be paying attention, and to see what happens," Dave says.
So how much of an impact could severing the connection with Mexico have on the species he studies?
"Potentially a very, very large impact," he says. "Pronghorn still attempt to cross the border, but a barrier here is likely cutting off a large part of pronghorn range that they need to survive.
"That's critical, because for species like pronghorn - large animals that need to move - being able to go where the forage is and where mates are is a critical part of their survival."
Importing Mexico's animals
The US government has spent more than a decade investing in the conservation of endangered Sonoran pronghorn.
In the nearby Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, the US Fish and Wildlife Service runs a captive breeding programme, centred on a large desert pen for the animals. This was built following a devastating drought that saw the number of US Sonoran pronghorn fall to just 21 animals.
Animals from Mexico have been brought across the border and into the pen for this programme. And each year a few carefully selected adults are released to supplement and help sustain the wild population.
According to the wording of the executive order President Trump issued in January this year, the low "wildlife-friendly" fence could soon be replaced with a "contiguous, impassable physical barrier". And, Dave says, this would cut off vital pronghorn range altogether.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, President Trump reinforced his promise that "we're building the wall, don't you worry about it", to chants of support from the audience. "In fact," he added, "it's going to start soon. Way ahead of schedule."
With little visible progress more than three months later, a legal obstacle - also with its origins in Arizona - has since threatened to slow his plan.
In April the Center for Biological Diversity and congressman Raul M Grijalva sued the Trump administration over its proposed border wall. Their suit called on federal agencies to conduct an "in-depth investigation of the proposal's environmental impacts".
Despite this, and amid a cloud of scandal surrounding the Trump administration, t that will be asked to submit design proposals for the new border wall. When I asked the Office for Customs and Border Protection whether semi-permeable barriers - designed to mitigate the impact on wildlife of the existing border fence - would be replaced with the impassable barrier prescribed by President Trump's executive order, the response was equivocal.
"We cannot address future construction," said a representative, but "I can tell you that the environment has been one of the main considerations on previous construction projects".
Science without borders
I go along with my University of Arizona hosts across the border to Mexico, where they introduce me to their collaborator in the neighbouring Pinacate reserve.
Miguel Grageda is the natural resources management coordinator at the reserve - a Unesco World Heritage site.
After spending the day on the US side of the desert - searching for pronghorn until late in the evening - it is dark by the time we reach the reserve, so we head straight to our campground, with a plan to start our exploration on this side of the border early in the morning.
Miguel is responsible for monitoring many of the species of animals and plants in the reserve. But listed, endangered species are his key focus, and what the researchers call a "biological corridor" - for both the pronghorn and the aptly named bighorn sheep - spans the border. Both species range over wide areas to find food.
Miguel has been working with the Arizona team for the past two years, helping gather genetic information - from samples of animals' droppings - that could ultimately reveal how much interbreeding there is between the groups of animals across the border.
Genetic mixing gives species the biological armour to adapt to environmental changes or disease, so it is also crucial for their long-term survival.
"There is a highway along the borderline, and that has already affected the relationship between the populations of these animals in the US and Mexico," Miguel tells me. "And now this new issue - the wall they want to build along the border, which is also going to be a limit.
"These animals need to move all the time… and they have become trapped in the reserve."
As Miguel and Dave chat quietly, they share their concerns that, in future, the logistics of their international collaboration may become more difficult. And Miguel does not hold back with his view on the construction of a new border wall.
"The pronghorn don't know where one country ends and another starts," he says. "They don't know about boundaries. So to me having a wall makes no sense.
"That won't stop the social problems, but it will increase the problems for wildlife - on both sides of the the line; not just in Mexico, but also in the United States."
We pack up our tents and head out into the reserve, with Miguel advising Dave about where we might have the best chance of seeing bighorn sheep - an even rarer sight than the pronghorn.
Dave and the team will have to wait to see whether there will be a new structure for them to study in this desert - a wall that would slice this precariously connected habitat in half.
Follow Victoria on Twitter
|
Attempts to encourage women to go for a potentially life-saving smear test don't always fall on deaf ears, but if you're a victim of sexual assault then an insensitive remark urging you to "get over it" or "just get it done" could be enough to put you off for years.
|
By Annie FluryBBC News
A survey for Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust found many women don't go for regular smear tests because of embarrassment and you'd be hard-pushed to find any woman who says they look forward to it.
However, for women who've survived sexual assault the experience, or even the thought of it, can be almost as traumatic as the original offence.
Jo, 49, who was raped when she was young, said she has only summoned the courage twice since her 20s to go for a smear test and said that even making the call to book an appointment "can leave me in bits".
While Donna, who was sexually assaulted both as a child and an adult, said "the very thought of a smear test leaves me feeling terrified".
Both women find the distress they experience overrides any potential benefits that a smear test might bring.
Here, in their own words, they explain how they have attempted but failed to overcome their fears.
'Vulnerable and violated'
Donna, 37, who's from the Midlands, said candidly: "I know I might be putting my health at risk as a result.
"Last year I had just reached the point where I knew I had to swallow my fears and go. I had been looking at the support that might be available given my past.
"Around this time I attended a doctor's appointment for a cold virus and mid-appointment was tackled by my male GP in a verbally aggressive manner about the fact I had not been for a smear test.
"His manner and attitude did nothing to take into account any genuine reasons or fears I may have had, and left me feeling vulnerable and violated all over again.
"Subsequently I am back to square one, and the very thought of a smear test leaves me feeling terrified.
"I have looked at attending a clinic for survivors of sexual assault but the only one is in London and this would involve a long journey and time off work."
'Barely able to speak'
"I'm not being precious," said Jo, who's from London. "I'm not being a silly girl.
"I know I'm putting my health at risk because of something that someone chose to do to me but I can't do it.
"I became very anxious in the lead-up to the appointments, and, somewhat inevitably, become tearful as soon as I walked into the room.
"By the time I got on the bed, I was openly crying and barely able to speak.
"On both occasions, I've tried to pre-empt things and explained to an untrained receptionist why I needed to have the last appointment of the day and the most patient of nurses.
"And although the nurses were lovely, I was so tense on both occasions I had to be asked to come back and try again as they had not been able to collect enough cells.
"Of course, I have not gone back."
If you need help dealing with rape or sexual assault you can find information here.
If you have concerns about attending a cervical screening following a sexual assault you can contact Rape Crisis for support.
You might also be interested in:
|
Dr John Wright of Bradford Royal Infirmary says he's noticed that his medical colleagues show a preference for one vaccine, while members of the public often prefer another. He argues that this isn't a time to be choosy.
|
The dash for vaccines has thrown up a rather peculiar situation. With so many pharmaceutical companies competing in this greatest of scientific races, we now have a variety of vaccines, and people are starting to ask me, "Do I get a choice?" And "Which vaccine would you recommend?"
The concept of consumer choice when it comes to immunisation, or even medications, is alien. No-one asks about the brand of their annual flu jab, or which company produces the MMR vaccine that will protect their precious children. But the intense global relief that greeted the Pfizer covid vaccine, and then Moderna, AstraZeneca and most recently Novavax and Janssen vaccines (though the last two are still awaiting regulatory approval) has created brand awareness in a population that has had a crash course in epidemiology and infectious diseases.
My answer is a simple one: we take whatever vaccine we are given and thank the lucky Northern stars that we live in a developed country. The idea of choice seems so wrong, when there is such an acute shortage of vaccines across the world.
In Italy, however, it's reported that police unions are refusing the AstraZeneca vaccine in the belief that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are more effective, and some Italian doctors are said to be rejecting it on the grounds that it takes longer to provide immunity. It is still too early to make such claims: as evidence accumulates from the continuation of vaccine trials and real-world evidence we will get a clearer picture.
Comparing vaccines is not as simple as comparing cola drinks or cars. The clinical trials that have reported very early results will continue for their full 12-month duration and the results will become more reliable with time. We have yet to start vaccine trials that can make head-to-head comparisons between different vaccines, so it may be that early results reflect different populations, or dosing regimes.
Side-effects after the vaccines will also vary - some may cause localised problems such as sore arms, others systemic effects such as flu-like symptoms. Again, as vaccine roll-out continues we will get a better picture of these profiles.
In my very unscientific straw-polling of preferences I find my medical colleagues have a slight preference for the Pfizer vaccine - they tend to be more comfortable than non-medics with new mRNA technologies and preliminary trial data suggested better clinical effectiveness, which is a key part of all our clinical decision-making.
However when Pfizer's summary trial data was recently released by the US Food and Drug Administration it turned out that over 3,000 suspected but not confirmed cases of Covid were not included in the heavily publicised press releases, so the vaccine may well be less effective than the original 95% claim.
Front-line diary
Prof John Wright, a doctor and epidemiologist, is head of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, and a veteran of cholera, HIV and Ebola epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. He is writing this diary for BBC News and recording from the hospital wards for BBC Radio.
In my patients and non-medical colleagues there seems to be a greater preference for the AZ vaccine. People are comforted by its made-in-Britain roots, and its more traditional, tried-and-tested viral vector platform, using a harmless virus to deliver the gene for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into the patient's body. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine (made by its subsidiary Janssen), takes the same approach.
The Novavax vaccine uses a novel nanoparticle technique - it consists of a laboratory-made SARS-CoV-2 spike protein together with an adjuvant, an agent that signals to the immune system that it must take defensive action. The UK has ordered 60 million doses, so Novavax is likely to be widely used as the roll-out continues.
There is a dismissive scepticism about Russian or Chinese alternatives both among doctors and members of the public, although the effectiveness of the rather scarily named Sputnik V looks pretty good and as yet unpublished results for Sinovac's CoronaVac, which have been circulating in the medical community, also look promising.
I was due to have my hospital (Pfizer) vaccine just before Christmas, but the SARS-CoV-2 virus nipped in just beforehand and gave me a dose of the real thing. I have held out for a couple of months before re-joining the queue. It is likely that I will maintain a good immune response for the first two or three months, and I feel that while the vaccine is so precious, someone else will benefit more than me, so I would rather give up my dose to those in greater need. However having had possible reinfection already I don't want to push my luck by leaving it too long.
While being choosy about vaccines seems inappropriate to me, the reality is that some older health workers already have a choice and I will soon be in this position myself. My hospital is providing the Pfizer vaccine to all our staff. It will not be so long before my GP offers me the AZ vaccine or possibly the Novavax vaccine that I have been helping to trial, assuming it is licensed by then.
I would of course take any of these vaccines: they have all turned out to work much better than we could have imagined. If I had a choice then it would be an ethical decision. Which vaccine manufacturer reflects the zeitgeist of our collective humanity during the pandemic - the kindness and compassion, the sharing and donating?
I'm impressed by the companies that have offered to make doses available on a not-for-profit basis to low and middle-income countries. Others may have different ways to assess a company's ethics, but this is surely a time when we should encourage the pharmaceutical industry to show us what corporate social responsibility truly means.
Follow @docjohnwright, radio producer @SueM1tchell on Twitter
|
A man who died after collapsing at the finish line of a marathon in Ireland had only taken up running within the last year, one of his friends has said.
|
Ricki Savage, 27, from Ramsgate, Kent, had a suspected heart attack at the Airtricity Dublin Marathon last Monday.
David Lehmann, who had known him since childhood, said he was "happy-go-lucky" and extremely fit.
Mr Savage had been running for the British Heart Foundation, and more than £8,000 has been raised in his memory.
Mr Lehmann said: "It wasn't the first time he'd gone for a long run - granted it was his first marathon attempt - but he was an extremely fit lad.
"I'm sure he knew what he was doing... he'd been training for a number of months."
Mr Savage had been one of more than 14,000 runners taking part in the marathon.
|
German police say they now have an armed assailant at Cologne's main railway station "under control" and the woman he took hostage is receiving medical treatment.
|
She had minor injuries from the incident but he is reported to have serious injuries.
There was a full evacuation of the station, one of Germany's biggest transport hubs.
Local media say the incident does not appear to have been terror-related.
Earlier there were unconfirmed reports of shots being fired.
Police quoted by the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger daily said a couple were involved, and the man had argued with the woman in a McDonald's restaurant, before holding her in a pharmacy at the station.
Reports speak of at least one explosion during the incident.
Deutsche Bahn cancelled or delayed train services in Cologne during the stand-off.
|
Police are looking for fly-tippers who left a hull-of a mess after dumping an entire boat in a country lane.
|
Police were called to a single track road at Thornton, Milford Haven, at about 07:30 BST on Wednesday, following reports the road was blocked.
Pembrokeshire council workmen removed the 10ft (3m) fishing vessel that had been cut in two and abandoned.
Dyfed-Powys Police are appealing for information from anyone who may have seen the boat being towed on 18 June.
|
An 82-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman of the same age was found at a house.
|
The woman was discovered at a house in Trehernes Drive, Stourbridge, West Midlands, on 23 January.
A post-mortem examination has proved inconclusive.
The death is being treated as suspicious and the man is being questioned while the exact circumstances are established, West Midlands Police said.
Specialist officers are supporting the woman's family and anyone with information has been asked to contact the force.
Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, and sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.
|
Have you ever had a dream where you've been dropped into a terrifying situation that you're totally unprepared for; maybe taking a penalty at the World Cup final, or performing open heart surgery?
|
By Will ChalkNewsbeat reporter
How about playing songs you've only just learnt, on stage, in front of 50,000 people?
That's exactly what happened to Ben Young - except he was wide awake at the time. After years working as a roadie for some of the biggest artists on the planet he was called in, at the last minute, to play guitar with Linkin Park in Brazil.
It's what inspired him to start his own band, Knifes, with fellow roadies Warren Johnson and Brian Diaz.
Between them they've worked with everyone from the Black Eyed Peas to Slipknot and Fall Out Boy. Now they're trying to make it on their own.
"We landed in Brazil and our production manager called me," Ben explains, "I thought he was going to tell me what flight I needed to get on, but he said Linkin Park's guitarist Brad wasn't coming - and that I had to play the shows.
"It's weird because, as a roadie, you've been on the stage before - but the actual experience is so different because you're concentrating so hard on which part of the song comes next."
Even if you've got the notes down perfectly, you also need to perform.
"I rocked out, but in my own little zone," laughs Ben, "part of me loves performing, but another part of me knows there's like 60 people in the band's crew, and they would not stop making fun of me if I took it too far".
As it turned out, though, another member of that crew was in a similar boat - Warren Johnson, now Ben's bandmate in Knifes, had filled in for Linkin Park both on drums and behind the DJ booth.
"Linkin Park's drummer is also a film director, so it started out with me covering for him in rehearsals when he couldn't make it," Warren says.
"And it got to the stage where if we were playing in my hometown or it was my birthday, he would let me come up on stage and play a song instead of him.
"My birthday was actually the last Linkin Park show ever. I played a couple of songs - it was the ultimate present."
After Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington took his own life in 2017, both Ben and Warren started working for Fall Out Boy - where they recruited yet another roadie, Brian Diaz, to be their bassist.
They've since recorded two EPs - the first of which is out next month and was, sneakily, made using some of the finest equipment money can buy.
"We were working with Linkin Park while they recorded One More Light and they had this room set up with like three different drum sets," Warren explains.
"They left it set up that way for like two weeks and they weren't using it the whole time, so we snuck in one day and recorded our first five songs.
"Then, in order to get the second set of tracks up to par, we had to do the same thing with a different band... but I don't think we're allowed to talk about that."
Before lockdown, the band were all still working in the industry (Warren operates Slipknot's animatronic masks) - but they say, ideally, they'd like things to be different.
"I try to underplay what our goals are for this because, like, I'm a just a roadie, but secretly of course we'd love to be bigger than the bands we work for," Ben says.
He also admits that, after fifteen years of touring, he doesn't have the same hunger for it he once did.
You might also like:
"The most partying and debauchery I got into was in the van and trailer days playing tiny clubs - these days, with the big bands who've got families and whatever, it's just a job."
Brian adds: "I go back and forth from playing tiny bar shows with Knifes, to working on massive stadium shows with other bands.
"It's really taught us to be flexible."
Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
|
"Nobody enters a pregnancy thinking they'll end up with a baby on SCBU [special care baby unit], it's not the journey that they've chosen, but it's the journey they've been given."
|
By Monica RimmerBBC News
For parents with babies on a special care unit it can be one of the scariest and worrying times of their lives.
But at Wrexham Maelor hospital, they make sure when a baby is ready to go home, they mark the occasion in a positive way.
An "end of treatment" bell has taken pride of place on the unit.
Nurses and staff on the ward along with the baby's family read out a verse and ring the bell to mark the end of treatment - an occasion where there "isn't a dry eye", according to the ward's manager Karen Hughes.
Theo Shaw was born 12 weeks early, weighing just 2lb 11oz (1.2kg).
He spent more than two months in intensive care.
For his mother Amanda Shaw, 40, from Wrexham "it was a very, very, worrying time".
"He had chronic lung disease, which is very common in premature babies.
"It was quite traumatic seeing Theo with all these tubes and things helping him to breathe."
Amanda and her husband Stephen - who also have a daughter Amy, 21, and son Ethan, 10 - were the first to ring the bell.
"I started to choke a little bit, because I was like 'this is really happening', because you don't truly think it's going to happen until it does.
"It gives you such a rush, it's such an amazing feeling because it signifies Theo's journey and ended his treatment.
"He's gone through the worst of it, he's gone through the biggest storms ever.
"It was positive vibes everywhere, because everyone is just as happy as you."
Mrs Shaw said Theo has now been home for one month and is "doing really, really well," but still needs oxygen at night.
"He now weighs 10lb 6oz (4.7kg) and is three and a half months old," she added.
Louise Jones, 35, from Llay is in the unit with her daughter Shelby-Lou who was born almost two months early, weighing just 1lb 11oz (765g).
"It's something to look forward to and know that you can hit that milestone and that achievement... and then you can start a new beginning," she said.
Karen Hughes said the ceremony of the bell-ringing is "an amazing achievement when you've cared for these babies and you see them going off the ward".
"It's time for the parents and the staff to reflect on what a wonderful team has been around this family and helped support them and we do get emotional.
"There isn't a dry eye when the mum or dad reads the verse and rings the bell - we all feel it.
The bell was donated by the End of Treatment Bells organisation, set up by Tracey Payton and her husband Phil.
Their daughter Emma rang an end of treatment bell after leaving hospital in Oklahoma, United States, where she was being treated for a rare soft tissue cancer.
"We loved it, we were counting down the days to ring it.
"We showed the video to the ward manager in Manchester when we got back and offered to have one made, it was only ever going to be one bell," Mrs Payton said.
But demand soon grew for bells on other wards.
The couple set up a Facebook page and began raising money to provide bells to hospitals around the UK.
"Some people will never finish their treatment and we're very mindful of that, but it was a goal for us.
"She'd [Emma] got through this, it should be marked in some way.
"You see families just leave, it's such an anticlimax.
"I think I'd have felt really cheated if that was it... it's really unfair that they're there in the first place."
|
The nature of Brexit will ultimately be decided by the governments of the 27 remaining EU nations and the UK. But the figures who negotiate the detail of the deal will be hugely important.
|
Many would argue that Germany's Angela Merkel and the UK's Theresa May are the two most important people in the Brexit negotiations.
But here are eight figures who will also be crucial to what happens.
Of the four from the UK, three are within the Exiting the EU department. On the EU side, the figures represent the Commission (the EU's executive cabinet), the Council (the leaders of each member state) and the parliament of elected MEPs, who will have to approve the final deal.
The EU negotiators
A seasoned master of French and EU diplomacy, chief negotiator Michel Barnier will go head-to-head with UK Brexit Secretary David Davis.
They used to be sparring partners in the 1990s, when they were rival Europe ministers with contrasting visions of the EU.
Like Mr Davis, Mr Barnier does not owe his current status to his country's elite club of politicians. He did not attend the prestigious Ecole Nationale d'Administration, incubator of French political high-flyers.
He has already given a clear indication of the tough stance he will take in negotiations - from guaranteeing the rights of Polish students and Romanian nurses in the UK, and British pensioners living in Spain.
He is also adamant that the "sequencing" of the talks is key - the UK won't get to negotiate a trade deal until separation terms are agreed that preserve the integrity of the EU single market, and the UK settles its outstanding bills.
Michel Barnier made his mark in French politics by organising the 1992 Winter Olympic Games in the French Alps. And for a long time he was regarded as a provincial - some called him "the ski instructor".
He served as France's Europe minister and was briefly foreign minister.
He stems from the Gaullist tradition. It was Charles De Gaulle who famously said "Non" to the UK joining the Common Market.
Since 2010, Mr Barnier has been big in Brussels. As internal market commissioner he had oversight of the City of London at a sensitive time - in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. That role caused jitters in UK business circles, as Mr Barnier pushed through financial reforms.
While some in the City disapproved of new EU regulations on bank capital reserves and bankers' bonuses, other officials found him more accommodating to City interests later on. And his opposite numbers in the Brexit talks will hope for the same pragmatism.
Who is Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier?
Sabine Weyand - one of "the Commission's best and brightest", according to its president, Jean-Claude Juncker - was picked as Mr Barnier's deputy chief negotiator in September.
She studied at Cambridge University in the 1980s, and knows well the country whose exit from the EU she will be helping to engineer.
But this German national is best known as a veteran at representing the Commission and its interests. And that makes her a formidable opposite number.
She has 23 years' experience in trade relations and more than a decade at the Commission itself.
One Brussels lobby group predicted Ms Weyand was unlikely to give much ground in trade talks on any UK hopes of a la carte access to the EU, particularly any weakening of the EU single market ideal of free movement.
Those who have seen Ms Weyand in action speak highly of her as being far from a faceless cog in the Brussels machinery.
Cecile Toubeau, whose group campaigns for sustainable transport inside Europe, came into contact with her at the time the VW emissions scandal blew up in 2015.
"She was very straightforward, she got to the point quickly, she understood the issues that we were bringing," says Ms Toubeau. "She was open to what we said but I felt she was able to say, 'That's politically not something we can consider'.
"She was no-nonsense and honest - she really knew her stuff. She didn't need to look to her assistants for guidance."
In its list of the most influential women in Brussels, the politico.eu website put Ms Weyand at number eight, calling her a "Commission problem-solver".
She served in the cabinet of French former EU trade chief Pascal Lamy from 1999 to 2004, and later helped steer the EU's climate policies.
She also monitored national governments' economic and financial performance in the Commission's Secretariat-General.
In the run-up to the Brexit vote, Donald Tusk did all he could to find a deal to keep the UK in the EU. He was apocalyptic when he warned that the UK leaving could end "in the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilisation in its entirety".
His efforts came to nothing and as the result emerged he tried to calm the waters in Brussels, saying "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger".
But in the wake of PM Theresa May's re-election without a parliamentary majority, he warned the UK to make up for lost negotiating time, tweeting: "We don't know when Brexit talks start. We know when they must end. Do your best to avoid a 'no deal' as result of 'no negotiations'."
As president of the European Council, his challenge is to keep Europe's leaders united as they negotiate Britain's exit.
Mr Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, is loathed by Poland's nationalist government that tried and failed to unseat him. But he has the respect of other European leaders for his handling of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the migrant crisis and the Greek debt negotiations.
He has warned the UK not to expect to cherry-pick its way out of the EU and he has rejected British threats to walk away without a deal. But he has spoken of his aspiration for a "smooth divorce" with the two sides breaking up as "good friends".
Mr Tusk is from Poland's Kashubian minority and grew up in Gdansk, the Baltic port city where anti-communist demonstrations, led by the Solidarity trade union, erupted in the 1980s.
He was active in Solidarity while studying history at the University of Gdansk.
As prime minister, Mr Tusk led Civic Platform (PO), which espoused free market policies. His government cut jobs in the state sector, pursued privatisation, cut taxes to woo foreign investors and tried to persuade Poles abroad to come home.
Didier Seeuws, a hard-working diplomat with an eye for detail, was quickly tapped by Donald Tusk to head the Council's task force for the Brexit negotiations.
While the Barnier-Weyand Commission task force will do the "heavy lifting" in the negotiations - dealing with the technical detail of Britain's exit from the EU - the Council team will be tasked with keeping the remaining 27 national governments happy and shaping the EU's longer term strategic relationship with the UK.
Mr Seeuws will also have to bear in mind the views of MEPs - the European Parliament will have to approve the final deal.
Mr Seeuws's team is said to have been meeting twice a week in preparation for negotiations - prompting unhappy comparisons with the UK side's state of preparation in some of the media.
Mr Seeuws is respected for his role in handling the Greek debt negotiations - working through the night until dawn and overcoming divisions between heads of state to achieve a deal.
From 2007 to 2010, the 51-year-old technocrat from the Flemish city of Ghent was Belgium's deputy ambassador to the EU, where he is said to have negotiated a breakthrough on the European patent system - following a 30-year deadlock.
The ambassador he served under, Jean De Ruyt, told the BBC his political instincts were "always spot on" and that he "trusted his judgement and recommendations completely".
"Apparently modest and obliging, he is capable of mastering the most complex of technical issues and understanding immediately the political stakes, but at the same time able to explain in simple words what has been discussed or decided.
"I have no doubt that Didier will often be able to reach a fair compromise when, as expected, difficult negotiations will reach a stalemate."
Prior to this, Mr Seeuws served for several years as spokesman for the Belgian prime minister, none other than Guy Verhofstadt, the man chosen as chief Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament.
Eventually, Mr Seeuws took up a job as right-hand man to Donald Tusk's predecessor at the European Council, Herman van Rompuy. He has since worked at the Council as head of transport, telecommunication and energy.
The UK negotiators
Olly Robbins is the top UK official at the Brexit talks.
At the start of the process, he was the top civil servant in David Davis's Exiting the EU department.
But he has now moved to the Cabinet Office to work more directly for the prime minister, following reports of tensions with Mr Davis.
The move was seen as a sign of Theresa May taking more control of Brexit negotiations.
He cut his teeth at Gordon Brown's Treasury, helping to co-ordinate public spending policy, before going on to serve in senior behind-the-scenes roles for both Tony Blair and Mr Brown in Downing Street. By civil service standards, his rise was meteoric - he was Mr Blair's principal private secretary by the age of 31.
He gained a reputation for being a skilled mediator in the frequent disputes between No 10 and the Treasury.
"In all my dealings with him, he really embodied the essence of the impartial civil service, and he's very popular," former Olympics minister Lady Jowell, told website Politico.
After a spell as director of the civil service and as David Cameron's deputy national security adviser, Robbins became the senior civil servant in charge of immigration policy at Theresa May's home office.
When Mrs May became prime minister she drafted Robbins in as her senior EU adviser, prompting speculation the government wanted to put the free movement of people at the heart of Brexit negotiations.
Robbins generated some headlines in 2016 when he was ejected from a Home Affairs select Committee hearing by then chairman Keith Vaz for failing to give information about the UK Border Force's budget on time.
He was also caught on camera "grinning sheepishly" as Mrs May handed her handbag to him at an EU summit in Malta.
A career diplomat, with a reputation as a low-key but solid operator, Sir Tim Barrow was drafted into the role of UK ambassador to the EU following the resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers, who had accused the government of "muddled thinking" over Brexit.
Sir Tim was Britain's ambassador in Moscow between 2011 and 2015, a turbulent period in relations between the two nations, and previously served as Britain's ambassador to Ukraine.
The diplomat started his foreign office career in 1986 at the UK embassy in Brussels before going on to serve as a private secretary to Labour foreign secretary Robin Cook, advising on the EU, Russia and Middle East.
"It's the toughest negotiation in our lifetimes and I think he is up to it," Britain's former ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"I have seen him in Brussels. He knows the corridors, he knows the characters. But actually more importantly I saw him in Moscow where he was incredibly resilient as ambassador there, dealing with Putin in a very testing time in our relationship and Tim had a reputation of being bulletproof out there."
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale said Sir Tim was less likely to be criticised by Brexit supporters than some other potential candidates for the job, as it "would be very hard to say that Sir Tim Barrow is an out-and-out pro-European".
A fluent Russian speaker, Sir Tim was educated at Arnold Lodge in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, and Oxford University.
As director general of the Department for Exiting the EU, Sarah Healey is, in effect, second-in-command of the civil service machine tasked with delivering Brexit.
She comes fresh from a similar role at the culture department and also led cross-government efforts to promote more women into senior civil service roles through job-sharing arrangements.
Her previous claim to fame was as a contestant on University Challenge - she won the BBC Two quiz in 1998 and twice competed in the Champions of Champions competition for Magdalen College, Oxford.
Healey studied modern history and English at Oxford and gained a postgraduate degree in social policy from the London School of Economics before embarking on a career in the civil service.
Her former boss at the culture department, Tory MP Ed Vaizey, told the Times she was "incredibly sharp and intelligent", adding "there are no flies on her at all".
She worked briefly for Iain Duncan Smith, when he was work and pensions secretary, and, before that, was director of strategy and funding at the education department under Michael Gove.
She recently told a think tank conference that, as a student of history, freedom of information was an issue "close to my heart".
"One of the things I reflected on when I took this job was that my children, if they were to take history degrees, would write essays on what we were doing so it was terribly important that they do have access to the archives of the time," she said.
Profiles by Becky Branford, Paul Kirby and Brian Wheeler. Illustrations by Gerry Fletcher.
|
Tim Davie formally takes over as the BBC's director general on Tuesday. He replaces Lord Hall, who has stepped down after seven years in the role. BBC media editor Amol Rajan looks ahead to the challenges Mr Davie will face.
|
Amol RajanMedia editor@amolrajanon Twitter
The BBC's new director general is a global deal-maker facing a daunting set of challenges. Alas for him, many of the forces that will determine his legacy are beyond his control.
Tim Davie has landed one of the most privileged jobs in Britain and global media, leading thousands of creative people at a remarkable moment in history.
Aside from that, it's hell.
Always the front-runner, he has taken a significant pay cut to have the fight of his life. In this blog, based on recent conversations with over a dozen senior figures in the media industry within the BBC and beyond, I will give a summary of just some of the challenges he faces.
Before that, a few words on him, his credentials, and - crucially - the forces beyond his control.
Davie is a commercial creature with a genuinely global perspective. A detailed analysis of recent BBC annual reports will show he was an effective revenue raiser at BBC Studios, the commercial wing of the BBC. Its job is to make deals with distributors.
Davie is becoming director general (DG) after several years of deal-making around the world. Making a deal with No 10 is now his most important task.
And this commercial and global experience is in marked contrast to the three most recent director generals, much of whose relevant experience at the BBC was in the News division. Davie does have experience of editorial leadership, from his time running the Audio and Music services.
Talking of which, several former BBC executives championed Davie because of the commitment to collective responsibility he showed when the decision was made to scrap BBC 6 Music in 2010. I am told he was privately against the decision, but fronted it publicly, taking a lot of heat for a move he disagreed with. The decision was eventually reversed by then-DG Mark Thompson.
Similarly, when the BBC was in a deep crisis after the departure of George Entwistle in 2012, as acting DG, Davie walked the newsroom floor and showed visible leadership. Staff I have spoken to on the shop floor today appreciated that.
He is a sports nut with three children. He runs marathons, supports Crystal Palace, and has more than once answered the phone with "I'm just listening to the football, what's happening?" He also has a cultural hinterland, having been chairman of Comic Relief and the Creative Industries Council, and on the board of the Tate.
He was the first in his family to go to university, and earned a scholarship to Whitgift School in Croydon. Aside from turning down the chance to run the Premier League, he has been approached in recent years by tech companies who wanted to poach him.
A common mistake in appreciations of any institutional leaders' legacy is to condemn them for failing to defeat forces that were in fact beyond their control. Most DGs' legacies and reputations are dominated by how they responded to challenges they couldn't possibly have foreseen when they got the job. These might include an error broadcast at 6.07am on the Today programme, a prank call made by a famous presenter, or revelations around the sordid history of someone like Jimmy Savile.
It's important at an early stage to be clear about what Tim Davie can't control. He can't control the fact that the BBC no longer has anything like a dominant position in entertainment or sport. He can't control the fact that the most powerful companies in human history are competing with the BBC for eyeballs and attention. He can't control the fact that young people will increasingly be tempted to spend time with the products of those companies.
He can't control the fact that upholding levels of trust and a reputation for impartiality earned over a century is much, much harder in the age of social media. He can't control the fact that lies and conspiracy theories about him and the BBC will circulate every minute on social media. Greg Dyke had to worry about a lot, including what happened at 6.07am on the Today programme, but he didn't have to worry about that.
Effective leadership recognises the limits of power. It also recognises the vitality of key relationships. Davie can't control the most important appointment of his tenure, which is the likely replacement of Sir David Clementi as BBC chairman next February. His successor will be chosen by the government.
In idle moments I have wondered - because that's what media editors do - if one name that No 10 might consider is David Cameron. I have no evidence of any interest he may have in the role, or any discussion of it. It's just a thought.
Recent chairmen of the BBC, from Chris Patten to Christopher Bland, have been associated with Conservative circles. Cameron's only job outside politics was working for Michael Green of Carlton, a television firm. The BBC is one expression of the Big Society. And the biggest challenge facing Davie is his coming political negotiation with a No 10 operation that, before the pandemic, told Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times it would "whack" the BBC. The headline on that article was "No 10 tells BBC licence fee will be scrapped". So decent connections to the current government may prove handy.
Then again, Cameron did once call Dominic Cummings "a career psychopath".
Aside from all the forces, and appointments, beyond his control, Davie's inbox is daunting. Here are just some of the challenges he will confront.
Negotiations with No 10
Davie, who was a minor local Conservative official in the 1990s, hasn't been active in politics for over two decades. He's about to become very active. In 2022, when the BBC celebrates its centenary, he will lead a negotiation with No 10 over the licence fee from 2027. This will be nasty, brutish and long.
Often it will be played out in public. Davie needs to be prepared to resign - as Mark Thompson once threatened to - if he thinks the BBC is getting a bad deal. A threat of resignation will be ineffective unless he is prepared to follow it through. At just 53, and having by then a couple of years under his belt in the job, he knows that if he did leave he could get a job elsewhere fast (and almost certainly better paid).
Funding
How should the BBC be funded in the year 2027?
This is a very complex question with moral, technical and political elements. Presumably his stance in negotiations with No 10 will be to ask just how ambitious the government wants to be for the BBC. A persuasive argument might run something like this:
This is the Asian Century. Britain is (and you can be subtle about this point) a declining power, in relative terms at least. What have you/we got that allows us to punch above our weight? Answer (aside from our universities, scientists, etc) - the English language, great heritage brands, and phenomenally talented and creative people. Which institution best aligns those? The BBC. So unleash us, prime minister, to be a global force, not just in the market, but with the unique contract with the public which the licence fee represents.
But that's where it gets complicated. To turn the BBC from a £5bn organisation into one that can compete with Disney, Netflix, Apple and Amazon means raising money. That means commercial activity. But each commercial salvo made by the BBC has an impact on rivals who don't have recourse to the licence fee. This prompts them to lobby government, and often shapes regulation.
The other issue is that the BBC currently benefits from huge economies of scale. Move to a different model, including with a direct-to-consumer offer to international audiences, and some of those efficiencies can be lost.
Davie knows there are two trend lines that are hurting the corporation. The first is the cost of making programming around the world, which is hyper-inflationary. To cap the BBC's income is to make it, in relative terms, smaller and smaller in this new landscape.
The second trend line is the diminishing attachment of young audiences to BBC content. This can't be helped. Blame the internet. But income from young people, as licence fee payers, is vital; and if they disappear, then so too do the BBC's claims to universality, of giving something to everyone. This is the argument against a subscription model, which by definition caters to subscribers.
How, then, should the BBC be funded in 2027, to compete with tech giants and persuade young people to part with cash? Davie needs a very strong answer.
Programming
Ultimately, the BBC is judged on the quality of its output. This requires hiring the best and most creative people in the world (the terrible industry phrase for this, "talent", overlooks the importance of people who aren't on air).
Making great programmes that cut through in a golden age of audio and television is very hard. Especially when other people come along and poach your best people. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is one of the most exciting actors and writers in the world today. Her breakthrough shows were on the BBC. She might spend the bulk of her career at the BBC. But right now, Amazon has bought her time.
The promise of being on the BBC, with its prestige and big audiences, is valuable; but rivals are energised, and there's nothing Davie can do about that.
Trust
The coronavirus pandemic has shown demand for the BBC's news operation remains huge. That is partly a verdict on public interest in the story; but it's also a verdict on what BBC News staff have done day in, day out for years.
Nevertheless, trust, like all social goods, is easily destroyed, and not easily generated. For BBC News, impartiality and accuracy are the two keys. Both are much harder in the age of social media. Richard Sambrook, a respected former BBC executive now at Cardiff University, is conducting a review of how social media is affecting the impartiality of the BBC. That may have value, but the much, much bigger issue is the effect social media is having on accuracy.
In journalism, accuracy is foundational and sacred. Without accuracy, debates about impartiality are otiose. Under the current royal charter, the DG is both chief executive and editor-in-chief. Dauntingly for him, Davie is now responsible for the accuracy of all BBC output.
Culture and people
The BBC needs to reflect Britain as best as possible. That means cognitive diversity as much as other, more often discussed types of diversity. Tim Davie is privately educated (albeit on a scholarship), an Oxbridge arts graduate, and lives in the south-east.
He has led many of the BBC's efforts to improve its ethnic minority diversity. He will inherit from Tony Hall a pay structure reformed in the aftermath of the outcry over equal pay. The BBC has made progress on the gender pay gap across the organisation. Many outstanding cases of equal pay for equal work need to be resolved, and could yet generate damaging headlines.
But there's more to diversity than immediately visible classifications. Four urgent areas that need attention are the number of non-metropolitan staff (those who live in rural communities or small towns); the number of non-graduates; the proportion of staff who are from a science background rather than the arts and humanities; and the domination of London.
On the first of these, Davie has the advantage of being proudly suburban. On the last, Lord Hall has made significant progress in boosting BBC operations in Salford, Glasgow and elsewhere. On all of them, Davie has a solution readily available: the deeply rooted network of local staff around the country who are plugged into their communities, and look and sound like them. Massively ramping up the flow of producers and editors from local BBC services to the national headquarters is an easy potential win.
Many big executive jobs at the BBC are an invitation to hell, granted with all good wishes from the staff and public. Tony Hall had the hardest job of any DG in the BBC's history. Tim Davie's will be much harder.
Welcome, boss.
If you're interested in issues such as these, please follow me on Twitter or Facebook; and also please subscribe to The Media Show podcast from Radio 4.
|
A teenager has pleaded not guilty to the murder of a pensioner who died after a violent break-in at his home.
|
Arthur Gumbley, 87, died in hospital three weeks after he was attacked during a burglary in Endwood Drive, Sutton Coldfield, on 21 November 2017.
Jason Wilsher, 19, of Barlestone Road, Bagworth, Leicestershire, entered his plea at Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday.
He was remanded into custody to face a trial set for 4 March 2019.
In a statement after Mr Gumbley's death, his family said: "He truly was a person that, not only us as a family, but the people that knew him, looked up to and respected.
"Words can't express the extent of our loss."
|
The armies of the world's two most populous nations are locked in a tense face-off high in the Himalayas, which has the potential to escalate as they seek to further their strategic goals.
|
By Anbarasan Ethirajan and Vikas PandeyBBC News
Officials quoted by the Indian media say thousands of Chinese troops have forced their way into the Galwan valley in Ladakh, in the disputed Kashmir region.
Indian leaders and military strategists have clearly been left stunned.
The reports say that in early May, Chinese forces put up tents, dug trenches and moved heavy equipment several kilometres inside what had been regarded by India as its territory. The move came after India built a road several hundred kilometres long connecting to a high-altitude forward air base which it reactivated in 2008.
The message from China appears clear to observers in Delhi - this is not a routine incursion.
"The situation is serious. The Chinese have come into territory which they themselves accepted as part of India. It has completely changed the status quo," says Ajai Shukla, an Indian military expert who served as a colonel in the army.
China takes a different view, saying it's India which has changed facts on the ground.
Reports in the Indian media said soldiers from the two sides clashed on at least two occasions in Ladakh. Stand-offs are reported in at least three locations: the Galwan valley; Hot Springs; and Pangong lake to the south.
India and China share a border more than 3,440km (2,100 miles) long and have overlapping territorial claims. Their border patrols often bump into each other, resulting in occasional scuffles but both sides insist no bullet has been fired in four decades.
Their armies - two of the world's largest - come face to face at many points. The poorly demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) separates the two sides. Rivers, lakes and snowcaps mean the line separating soldiers can shift and they often come close to confrontation.
The current military tension is not limited to Ladakh. Soldiers from the two sides are also eyeball-to-eyeball in Nathu La, on the border between China and the north-eastern Indian state of Sikkim. Earlier this month they reportedly came to blows.
And there's a row over a new map put out by Nepal, too, which accuses India of encroaching on its territory by building a road connecting with China.
Why are tensions rising now?
There are several reasons - but competing strategic goals lie at the root, and both sides blame each other.
"The traditionally peaceful Galwan River has now become a hotspot because it is where the LAC is closest to the new road India has built along the Shyok River to Daulet Beg Oldi (DBO) - the most remote and vulnerable area along the LAC in Ladakh," Mr Shukla says.
India's decision to ramp up infrastructure seems to have infuriated Beijing.
Chinese state-run media outlet Global Times said categorically: "The Galwan Valley region is Chinese territory, and the local border control situation was very clear."
"According to the Chinese military, India is the one which has forced its way into the Galwan valley. So, India is changing the status quo along the LAC - that has angered the Chinese," says Dr Long Xingchun, president of the Chengdu Institute of World Affairs (CIWA), a think tank.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme at the Wilson Center, another think tank, says this face-off is not routine. He adds China's "massive deployment of soldiers is a show of strength".
The road could boost Delhi's capability to move men and materiel rapidly in case of a conflict.
Differences have been growing in the past year over other areas of policy too.
When India controversially decided to end Jammu and Kashmir's limited autonomy in August last year, it also redrew the region's map.
The new federally-administered Ladakh included Aksai Chin, an area India claims but China controls.
Senior leaders of India's Hindu-nationalist BJP government have also been talking about recapturing Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A strategic road, the Karakoram highway, passes through this area that connects China with its long-term ally Pakistan. Beijing has invested about $60bn (£48bn) in Pakistan's infrastructure - the so-called China Pakistan Economic corridor (CPEC) - as part of its Belt and Road Initiative and the highway is key to transporting goods to and from the southern Pakistani port of Gwadar. The port gives China a foothold in the Arabian Sea.
In addition, China was unhappy when India initially banned all exports of medical and protective equipment to shore up its stocks soon after the coronavirus pandemic started earlier this year.
How dangerous could this get?
"We routinely see both armies crossing the LAC - it's fairly common and such incidents are resolved at the local military level. But this time, the build-up is the largest we have ever seen," says former Indian diplomat P Stobdan, an expert in Ladakh and India-China affairs.
"The stand-off is happening at some strategic areas that are important for India. If Pangong lake is taken, Ladakh can't be defended. If the Chinese military is allowed to settle in the strategic valley of Shyok, then the Nubra valley and even Siachen can be reached."
In what seems to be an intelligence failure, India seems to have been caught off guard again. According to Indian media accounts, the country's soldiers were outnumbered and surrounded when China swiftly diverted men and machines from a military exercise to the border region.
This triggered alarm in Delhi - and India has limited room for manoeuvre. It can either seek to persuade Beijing to withdraw its troops through dialogue or try to remove them by force. Neither is an easy option.
"China is the world's second-largest military power. Technologically it's superior to India. Infrastructure on the other side is very advanced. Financially, China can divert its resources to achieve its military goals, whereas the Indian economy has been struggling in recent years, and the coronavirus crisis has worsened the situation," says Ajai Shukla.
What next?
History holds difficult lessons for India. It suffered a humiliating defeat during the 1962 border conflict with China. India says China occupies 38,000km of its territory. Several rounds of talks in the last three decades have failed to resolve the boundary issues.
China already controls the Aksai Chin area further east of Ladakh and this region, claimed by India, is strategically important for Beijing as it connects its Xinjiang province with western Tibet.
In 2017 India and China were engaged in a similar stand-off lasting more than two months in Doklam plateau, a tri-junction between India, China and Bhutan.
India objected to China building a road in a region claimed by Bhutan. The Chinese stood firm. Within six months, Indian media reported that Beijing had built a permanent all-weather military complex there.
This time, too, talks are seen as the only way forward - both countries have so much to lose in a military conflict.
"China has no intention to escalate tensions and I think India also doesn't want a conflict. But the situation depends on both sides. The Indian government should not be guided by the nationalistic media comments," says Dr Long Xingchun of the CIWA in Chengdu. "Both countries have the ability to solve the dispute through high-level talks."
Chinese media have given hardly any coverage to the border issue, which is being interpreted as a possible signal that a route to talks will be sought.
Pratyush Rao, associate director for South Asia at Control Risks consultancy, says both sides have "a clear interest in prioritising their economic recovery" and avoiding military escalation.
"It is important to recognise that both sides have a creditable record of maintaining relative peace and stability along their disputed border."
|
India's decision to revoke special autonomous status for the part of Kashmir it controls was met with outrage by the opposition and dismay by many others - but large numbers of Indians have been celebrating, writes BBC Gujarati's Dipalkumar Shah.
|
In Kashmir, an unprecedented military presence on the streets and a state-wide communications lockdown mean that little has been heard from the state, but all indications so far are that the move has been met with anger.
However, in the rest of India there are many who support the decision to revoke Article 370 - as the constitutional provision granting the region special status is known. This is because Kashmir remains a sensitive and important issue to many Indians who consider it a fundamental part of their national identity and pride.
In fact, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has long opposed Article 370 and revoking it was a part of its 2019 election manifesto.
So while a sense of outrage has dominated global headlines and the main opposition Indian National Congress spoke out vehemently against the bill, it was by no means universally unpopular across India's political spectrum.
In a surprising move, the Bahujan Samaj Party led by charismatic Dalit (formerly known as untouchables) leader Mayawati, and anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party supported the decision to revoke Article 370.
Both parties are traditionally associated with liberal and progressive movements, so their position is an indication of just how emotive the issue of Kashmir is.
Other regional parties including the YSR Congress and the Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh state, and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu also backed the move.
In Indian-administered Kashmir, both major political parties - the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference (NC) - spoke out against it.
'Darkest day in Indian democracy'
Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister of the state was among the first to condemn the decision.
Despite the internet shutdown in the region, she was able to tweet on 5 August, calling it "the darkest day in Indian democracy".
She added it was a betrayal of Kashmir's decision to align with India in 1947.
"We have been let down by the same nation we ceded to," she told author and columnist Aatish Taseer in an exclusive interview for the BBC.
NC leader and another former state chief minister Omar Abdullah called the move a total "betrayal of trust" of the people of the state.
Since then, neither leader has been heard from and there is no clarity on where they are.
The Kashmiri Pandit reaction
But there is one significant section of Kashmiris celebrating the revocation of Article 370 - the high-caste Hindus from the region, known as Kashmiri Pandits.
The Pandits, who had co-existed with their Muslim neighbours for generations, were forced out of Kashmir valley in the 1990s as Muslim militancy grew.
Militant groups targeted them by killing their men, burning their homes and damaging their places of worship. Mosques would make calls for them to leave the valley.
Their population in the valley dwindled from 300,000 to between 3,000 and 5,000 with most of them settling in neighbouring Jammu or fleeing to other parts of India.
BBC Hindi spoke to some Kashmiri Pandits after the decision.
"On 19 January 1990, I was in hospital - I came to know of the warnings to Kashmiri Pandits to leave Kashmir or die. We heard such warnings from mosques. It was a terrifying experience for us. I relived these memories when I watched on TV that there is an atmosphere of fear in Kashmir. I want to say one thing - today they must have understood the pain of Kashmiri Pandits," Ashok Bhan said.
"It's a really good decision by the Modi government. Kashmiri Pandits are happy with this step," Ashok Kumar Mattu said.
Celebrations on Indian streets
This sentiment was echoed in other areas across India.
When the news broke on Monday, people in cities like Delhi and Mumbai took to the streets to show their support.
But the celebrations were particularly pronounced in the western state of Gujarat where people beat drums, danced and distributed sweets on the roads.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah - who made the announcement about Article 370 - are both from Gujarat. Mr Modi served as chief minister four times and Mr Shah was one of his most trusted ministers.
"In the last seven decades Kashmir was deprived of development. Protests and militancy disrupted peace. Now Kashmir will be a part of mainstream politics and policies. In true spirit, now Kashmir will become a real heaven, " Mayank Patel, one of the street party organisers, told the BBC.
Himanshu Ladaviyam, the leader of a Dalit social group, was also a part of the celebrations.
"Narendra Modi and Amit Shah finally abrogated Article 370. They have fulfilled a decades-old dream of 1.2 billion people," he said.
Kashmir's anger is still largely unheard
As Kashmir remains under a complete lockdown, few voices are coming out.
Mr Modi appeared on state media on Thursday to defend his highly controversial decision and said a "new era" was beginning for the region, where "hindrances" to its development had been lifted.
But it is debatable how many Kashmiris heard him, and what effect if any, his speech would have on them.
Hundreds of people, including politicians, activists, business leaders and professors are being held in makeshift detention centres in an effort to quell protests.
But violence is already breaking out.
BBC reporters saw some protesters throwing stones at security forces, and spoke to residents who said they feared that the violence could intensify.
"People of Kashmir are very angry," said Iqbal, a local travel agent.
"They are like a volcano that will eventually erupt and India is unaware of the consequences."
|
Ask yourself which toys are most collectible: train sets, die-cast cars, and - it almost goes without saying - Star Wars figures. The most obsessively collected examples tend to have one thing in common - they were originally marketed at boys.
|
By Caroline LowbridgeBBC News
While these toys aren't collected exclusively by men, women are less likely to have vast collections of them. So which vintage toys are women seeking out?
Blythe
Thanks to her peculiarly oversized head and bulging eyes that change colour with the pull of a string, not many girls wanted to play with Blythe when she was introduced in 1972.
But Blythe has become strangely popular in recent years and original dolls now sell for between £500 and £2,000, depending on their condition.
"They were only released for a year," says Laura Kate Shippert, one of the organisers of BlytheCon UK, which was held in Bristol earlier this month. "They failed terribly; people thought they were a bit freaky and scary."
Their popularity in recent years was sparked by a book called This is Blythe, in which photographer Gina Garan featured the dolls artfully posed like real fashion models. Others then started picking up second-hand Blythe dolls - which were relatively cheap at the time - dressing them in glamorous outfits and photographing them in exotic locations.
The renewed interest has led to new Blythe dolls being produced, known in the community as "Neo Blythes" - and these are pretty valuable too.
"They are anywhere from £100 to £400 new, then after a while some become more popular and harder to find, and the prices will fluctuate," says Laura Kate.
She has 17 Blythe dolls, but only one is an original from 1972. She paid £400 for it about 10 years ago, which was "a steal" even at the time.
Laura Kate considers her own collection to be quite small compared to other people's.
"I know someone who owns like 40 of them and I think 'but you could own a house'," she says. "If that's what makes her happy and that's what she wants to spend her money on, she's an adult, she can make her choices. It's not cocaine."
My Little Pony
The My Little Pony phenomenon began when the toys were launched in 1982. About 150 million ponies were reportedly sold in the 1980s, with their popularity boosted by an animated TV series. Actor Danny DeVito even lent his voice to the 1986 film My Little Pony: The Movie.
Martina Foster loves My Little Pony so much she has a "pony room" in her house filled with somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 of them, worth between £10,000 and £15,000.
Martina was seven years old when she was given her first one - a pony called Tootsie printed with lollipop "cutie marks". She rediscovered them while searching eBay as a student, then got her old ones out of the loft.
"I thought, 'I'll buy the ones that I always wanted, just for fun'," she says. "Then you get sucked into it."
Martina says the market fluctuates but rare ones in good condition can now fetch thousands of pounds. The most she has spent is a £200 for a pony called Rapunzel - "a bargain" because it is now worth about £500.
Martina is vice chairman of this year's UK PonyCon, which is being held in Nottingham this weekend. As well as attracting collectors of the original toys, the convention attracts fans of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic animated series, which launched in 2010.
While My Little Pony was marketed towards girls in the 1980s, many fans of the animated series are adult men.
"It is fairly watchable even for grown-ups," says Martina. "You can watch it as an adult and there are some witty things in it and in the end it's all about friendship and accepting other people."
Pippa
Pippa was marketed as "the pocket money fashion doll" when she was sold in the 1970s, but Vectis Auctions has sold Pippa dolls for as much as £1,400 in recent years. She and her friends are much shorter than normal fashion dolls at only 6.5 inches (16.5cm) tall, which meant production costs were low.
Heather Swann started collecting them about 20 years ago after picking one up in a charity shop for 50p. She wanted to collect them as a way of recapturing her childhood.
"Isn't that why people collect toys?" she says.
After Heather's charity shop find she started buying more dolls through eBay.
"They were much cheaper then, as ladies of a certain age were just beginning to find them," she says. "Unfortunately they are now becoming expensive and many collectors are after them."
Heather describes her collection of about 50 dolls as "medium size", as many women have hundreds. She has seen individual dolls sell for hundreds of pounds but the most she has ever spent is £40.
"I don't tend to buy the expensive dolls, I now just look out for the ones which need a transformation," she says. "I enjoy the process of restoring them."
Care Bears
Care Bears were originally painted in 1981 to appear on greetings cards, before the characters were turned into soft toys in 1983. A television series followed, as did books, a plethora of merchandise, multiple LPs and a film in 1985 for which Carole King was persuaded to write and perform songs for the soundtrack.
Jennifer Hawkins loves Care Bears so much she had her favourite one, Bedtime Bear, tattooed on her arm.
"I was looking around earlier and I think I've got something Care Bears-related in every room, except my bathroom," says Jennifer, who lives in Gloucester with about 200 Care Bears.
"But they make me happy so I'm quite happy to have them everywhere. I like the cuteness, I like having the little faces to talk to, I like the fact that they represent different feelings."
Jennifer got one of her favourites - called Beanie - "as a comfort" when her grandfather died the day after her 14th birthday.
"He [Beanie] comes pretty much everywhere with me now," she says.
She estimates her collection is worth "a few thousand". The most she spent on an individual bear was £140, which was a 25th anniversary version of Bedtime Bear, and resisted the temptation to spend £500 on an original 1980s Bedtime Bear that was still in the box.
"Unfortunately I can't afford to spend a month's rent on one bear," she says. "That's definitely a bit too much."
Barbie and Sindy
Barbie was launched in 1959 and swiftly became a cultural icon, gathering fans among each new generation of girls.
Linda Richardson was not one of them. When her mother gave her Barbies, she chopped their heads off.
"My passion was always cowboys and Indians and motorbikes and all that stuff," says Linda, who lives in Cumbria. But she now has an "obsession" with dolls and has more than 500, worth about £35,000 at a "conservative estimate".
Her passion was ignited 15 years ago on a trip to buy presents for her son.
"I saw these Native American Indians and they happened to be Barbies and that just set it off, really," she says.
She did not buy the dolls at the time but started researching Barbie online and "found a whole new world".
Most of the ones she buys are aimed at collectors, rather than the typical Barbie dolls made for children. She keeps them protected behind glass doors in a room lined with bookcases.
She also has some "de-boxed" dolls she puts in dioramas, photographs and posts on Instagram. "It's just something to do," she says. "It keeps me out of trouble."
Others favour Barbie's rival, which went on to become the best-selling fashion doll in the UK when it launched in 1963.
Melanie Quint only had one Sindy as a child but now has 60 or 70, worth between three and four thousand pounds.
"I decided to sell all of my childhood dolls and when I looked on eBay I realised there was this massive collecting and restoration community," she says.
Instead of selling her dolls she ended up buying more.
"It's nostalgia at the end of the day," says Melanie. "You look at the face and the doll and the fashions and it takes you back to the way you were when you were a child."
Melanie now runs Dollycon UK, which is for collectors of all dolls but has a particular focus on Sindy. A particular highlight is the "hilarious" cosplay competition, where people dress up as particular dolls.
"It's very tongue-in-cheek," says Melanie. "They pick some of the weird outfits, the 70s stuff. It's really funny seeing what they do.
"We had one woman last year who dressed as Action Man Frogman, in a full suit with flippers on. I couldn't speak, it was hilarious."
You might also be interested in:
|
A man accused of punching a police horse after fans clashed with officers following a Tyne-Wear derby has denied violent disorder.
|
Barry Rogerson, 45, of Hartlands, Bedlington, was charged after trouble flared in Newcastle city centre when the Magpies lost 3-0 to Sunderland.
The horse, Bud, of West Yorkshire's mounted section, was not hurt in the incident on 14 April.
Mr Rogerson pleaded not guilty at Newcastle Magistrates' Court.
He was granted conditional bail and will appear before Newcastle Crown Court on 23 September.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.