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Since Italy became a Republic in 1946 there's been a steady predictability to its politics.
Citizens vote, no single party gets a majority, everyone negotiates, then a coalition government is formed.
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By James ReynoldsBBC News, Rome
The system relies on give and take, and compromise.
For decades, this has kept things moving, and prevented the country from ever having to call a second election in the same year. Since 1946 Italy has had 19 general elections, the same number as the UK.
But, in 2018, Italy's system has got stuck.
Two rival populist groups, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the right-wing League party, came out ahead in the 4 March general election.
Neither of the two party leaders has any experience in national government.
Who is who?
Luigi di Maio - Five Star Movement
Five Star was co-founded by comedian Beppe Grillo in 2009, as an anti-establishment movement dedicated to fighting against corruption and professional politics.
The movement is now led by 31-year-old Luigi di Maio, a former law student and volunteer steward at Napoli football club.
Mr Di Maio is keen to show that he lives like a normal citizen. During weeks of coalition talks, he drove himself to the president's palace in a small, silver car, instead of getting chauffeured in a black limousine like traditional politicians.
Matteo Salvini - The League
The Northern League was founded in 1991 as a breakaway movement for Italy's more wealthy northern regions. In 2013, Matteo Salvini took over as leader, and turned the regional movement into a national party, aiming to lead the country it had previously wished to leave.
Matteo Salvini, 45, also claims to be a non-traditional politician. He makes a deliberate point of being ill-at-ease in a suit, barely ever doing up the top button of his shirt while wearing a tie.
What is different this time?
The emergence of Five Star and The League is a reflection of Italians' unhappiness with a system that has left the country with weak economic growth of 0.3%, chronic youth unemployment of around 32%, and worries about social cohesion.
During three rounds of talks after the general election, Italy's President, Sergio Mattarella, tried to work out various configurations of a potential coalition government. But no-one was ready to back down.
But when the president's final option - calling an unprecedented second general election in the same year - seemed almost inevitable, alliances shifted and Five Star and The League got together and worked towards forming a government.
There has been no indication as to who might emerge as the leader. But a close aide to Mr Di Maio has suggested that an independent figure could become the next prime minister.
What would a populist government mean?
In many ways, a Five Star-League coalition is a natural choice. Each party campaigned as a populist, anti-system movement, wary of Italy's current relationship with the rest of the European Union.
Their potential alliance as government partners will concern many in Brussels. The loss of Italy as an automatic pro-EU voice would be a significant shock.
Italy is one of six countries which began the European project after World War Two. The founding document of post-war union, the 1957 Treaty of Rome, was signed in Italy's capital.
Now, for the first time, one of these founding members appears on the brink of forming a government wary of the union that it helped to create.
Five Star and The League have each called for a renegotiation of the EU's strict fiscal rules in order to fund their campaign promises - Five Star's universal income for the poor and The League's flat tax.
We don't yet know if the two parties, in coalition, will want to go further.
Brussels may be reassured to realise that Five Star has stepped back from an earlier promise to hold a referendum on the country's membership of the single currency. The League, which once promised to withdraw from the EU entirely, currently says it wants to reform the union from within.
What will happen next?
President Sergio Mattarella expects the parties to report back to him on Sunday or Monday. Then he will decide whether or not to go ahead with the formal nomination of an administration.
Mr Mattarella has warned that the next Italian government must not confront the European Union or destroy the euro.
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As Christmas approaches, many people will be experiencing a mixture of excitement and trepidation. But for many sufferers of social anxiety, this can be the most traumatic time of the year, writes Olly Ricketts.
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It is estimated that social anxiety disorder affects up to 10% of the UK's population.
The first clinical guideline on the subject, published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in May, defines the disorder as the "persistent fear of or anxiety about one or more social or performance situations that is out of proportion to the actual threat posed by the situation".
The festive period provides a unique combination of such situations. While a degree of worry about finances, potential drunken mistakes and the awkwardness of spending time with extended family is entirely rational, sufferers of social anxiety can obsess about such issues until they prove debilitating.
Physical symptoms include blushing, excessive sweating and shortness of breath, but the most incapacitating effects are caused by sufferers' fixation on their perceived social inadequacies. Potentially stressful events consume thoughts for months beforehand, and the often imagined disaster is analysed at great length afterwards.
A perceived threat can be triggered by anything from meeting new people to being watched while eating.
Christmas poses particular issues. Most obvious are the myriad social engagements and their often alcohol-fuelled nature, though there are other more surprising worries to face. Heather, 38, begins to worry about Christmas as early as September.
"I'd finished most of my own [Christmas] shopping in October because I started early to avoid crowds," she explains.
Heather's anxiety increases as Christmas approaches. A particular worry is the office party.
"Most years, I buy a ticket for the work do. I actually buy the ticket, knowing full well I won't go. I buy [it] to make sure people don't think I'm tight-fisted, or that I hate Christmas, or that I don't like their company."
Heather's constant fear that she will not live up to expectations even extends to buying presents for colleagues.
"For Secret Santa, I've spent three times the agreed budget on a gift to make sure it'll be accepted by the person. I feel sick at the thought of them publicly rejecting what I buy and everyone knowing I was the one who bought the inferior gift."
The triggers which cause social anxiety are so varied that it is difficult to describe a "typical" sufferer, either in terms of symptoms or personality. Although social anxiety can often develop early in life (NICE claims the "median age of onset" is 13), and many recover before adulthood, it can emerge at any age.
According to Dr Gillian Butler, consultant clinical psychologist and author of Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness, it is also "one of the only anxiety disorders to affect both men and women equally".
Even people that appear confident and extroverted can have the disorder. Social anxiety recently made headlines when actress Jennifer Lawrence spoke candidly about her battle with it.
The unpredictable and varied ways anxiety manifests itself means that while some, like Heather, will actively avoid events such as the office Christmas party, others' anxiety is fixated on the fear that they would be talked about if they did not go, and so they attend in spite of how uncomfortable they feel in such situations.
There are even people like 20-year-old university student Alex, who has experienced "paranoia, low self-esteem and lack of confidence" for 10 years, yet genuinely looks forward to the festive season, speaking excitedly about the "special atmosphere and general increase in the happiness of others" at this time of year.
Alex's social anxiety decreases when he is around his family. However, according to Butler, for some being around loved ones at Christmas can itself provide a trigger for anxiety.
"People can suffer with social anxiety in the family unit. You may as an older person feel a real fool talking to the children. It can bring back memories of adolescence and embarrassing times in the past," she explains.
Butler advocates cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to treat social anxiety disorder. CBT is based on the premise that symptoms are tackled, rather than the underlying causes of anxiety, and that if a person's negative thoughts regarding their perceived social inadequacy can be changed, in time their behaviour will change and their anxiety will reduce.
Although there are other treatments available, such as drugs, CBT is the most commonly prescribed method used to combat the disorder.
It is not without its critics, however. The therapy is typically prescribed in 11-week blocks, which some feel is too brief to make a lasting impact.
Chartered clinical psychologist Dr Oliver James believes that any benefits related to CBT are temporary, and effective treatment should deal with the causes as well as the symptoms of anxiety.
"It [CBT] encourages people to tell themselves a story about their anxiety and makes no attempt at all to understand the causes," he claims.
As many sufferers find speaking to an authority figure such as a doctor impossible, online treatments have become increasingly popular. As well as online CBT courses, internet forums can provide solace.
Alex and Heather are both members of SAUK, an internet forum for the socially anxious, which has amassed over 15,000 members (and regularly sees an influx of members over the festive period) since it launched in 2000.
Louisa Hatton, an administrator on the site, believes that SAUK provides a much needed sense of community.
"Because part of social anxiety is trying to avoid others seeing your fears, it can be refreshing to interact with other people who understand those worries and can empathise. It [SAUK] also empowers people to take a lead in their own recovery by giving them access to information and the experiences of others."
Louisa is proof that social anxiety can be conquered, having transformed herself from being "essentially housebound to almost social anxiety-free". Her advice to those that are feeling distressed in the run-up to Christmas is simple.
"Firstly, remember that although social anxiety is often isolating, you're absolutely not alone.
"Secondly, be proactive. Even simply looking into what social anxiety is can be a great first step towards taking control of your worries and fears."
Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook
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"I didn't want to overbuy as I didn't want to be a part of the problem. So I placed an online order on Amazon for 30 rolls for £18 - I thought that would definitely cover her for three months."
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By Lora JonesBusiness reporter, BBC News
Josh, a 25-year-old carer from Nottingham, is one of the many UK shoppers who have been trying to get their hands on a highly sought-after commodity: toilet paper.
He looks after his mum, a disabled cancer patient, and has been trying to make sure that she has enough supplies to last for 12 weeks - the amount of time people most at risk of coronavirus have been told to stay at home.
But Josh's delivery never came. He says it was listed as out for delivery by Hermes on several different days, but eventually it just disappeared from the portal. Josh believes it was stolen.
He says that he was offered a full refund for the purchase, but found the whole situation frustrating: "Panic buying just instigates panic buying, and we need to make sure that there's enough to go round for people like my mum."
Hermes told the BBC that it doesn't receive any information on what is inside the parcels it delivers, and that nearly all of its deliveries are successful.
Lulu, a university graduate, lives with her mum who is a nurse. She had a similar experience with a delivery from ethical toilet roll company Who Gives A Crap.
She's had a subscription with the firm for about six months. She believes that the £36 package of 48 rolls, which was clearly labelled as toilet paper, was stolen.
The Australian firm, which uses half of its profits to help build toilets in developing countries, told the BBC: "We've seen a small increase in concerns that deliveries may have been stolen, but nothing drastic. In most cases we are finding that the delivery just hasn't been completed yet."
Avant Garde Brands, which sells household products on Ebay and Wowcher, told one UK customer that it was starting to receive reports of toilet roll deliveries going missing too.
It said that the coronavirus pandemic had led to an "unprecedented" spike in demand for retailers.
'Crazy' loo roll sales
Shoppers are turning to online shops and more niche toilet paper companies so that they aren't caught short.
Bumboo offers subscriptions for its toilet rolls made from bamboo. For every box purchased online, it plants a tree.
Although the firm has only been trading for seven full months, managing director Fay Pottinger said that sales had gone "crazy" since the beginning of March, when "the full impact of panic buying set in".
She told the BBC that so far this month, sales have jumped by about 325% against the last. She adds this could have been much higher, had the company not run out of stock.
US firm No. 2, which also sells bamboo toilet paper, said that in the month-to-date, it had seen more than a 5,000% increase in its sales on Amazon's website before it sold out too.
Meanwhile, Who Gives A Crap's chief executive Simon Griffiths said that at the beginning of March, sales were up to five times higher than on an average February day.
He added that although consumers might be worried, "it's important to show compassion to each other right now, including to delivery drivers who are out there every day ensuring people can get basic necessities delivered to home".
'Snowball effect' of panic buying
Being stuck on the toilet with only one square left is seemingly one scenario most panic buyers are trying to avoid.
Dr Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, a consumer psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University, says when people are anxious, "they need to do something practical to make it feel like they are in control".
The focus on toilet roll "likely started on the basis of some people trying to be practical in that they wanted to stock up on basics in case they could not go out. There's then been a snowball effect as consumers observed each other stockpiling - they also had to do it."
She adds that seeing photos of empty shelves online "further fuels a vicious circle".
While stockpiling might ease some consumers' anxieties around the virus, people need to remember to stay "community-minded", said Tony Richards of Essity, one of the UK's largest toilet paper producers.
He reassured consumers: "Don't panic...we can get toilet roll on the shelves. We just need time."
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By-elections can be riotous affairs and Hartlepool's last one in 2004 was no different. The candidates included an ordained doctor who stayed in a tent, a multilingual karate brown-belt barrister who was attacked at the count and a two-time Eurovision Song Contest entrant.
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By Francesca WilliamsBBC News
Hartlepool has been Labour for years. Apart from a month in 2019 when MP Mike Hill was briefly suspended from the party, it has been red since 1964.
But, in 2004, former cabinet minister and key architect of New Labour Peter Mandelson put his comfortable majority up for grabs when he quit as the town's representative to become European Commissioner. No fewer than 14 candidates signed up for the resulting by-election.
One of them was Dick Rodgers, a doctor and ordained priest and the Common Good Party's only candidate. He does not stand in elections to win, he says, but to share ideas. Which is just as well. He's lost in European, parliamentary and local elections in Peterborough, Newark, Henley, Dunfermline and West Fife and the West Midlands, where he lives.
Distance from home is clearly not an issue though "Hartlepool is rather a long way away," he says. He rode up on his Honda C90 Cub - he likes motorbikes; "little ones, that are economical" - and pitched his tent on a campsite in Crimdon for the duration of the campaign. "It makes me feel like the SAS, inserting myself into the centre of things, quietly," he says.
He was happy living in a tent - it was warm and cheap - but he found Hartlepool could be challenging. "I think it was difficult to get a rapport, quite honestly," he says. "I found it quite difficult to get through, to really have a heart to heart with people on the doorsteps."
He also found he couldn't get around all that many houses by himself, and resorted to standing in the town centre with a placard. But he remembers when door-knocking nearly got the better of the Liberal Democrat candidate, Jody Dunn.
She was noted up to this point for her "charisma" and ability to charm even staunch Conservative voters, but the family law barrister was to say something she would come to regret. In her campaign blog - something so innovative back then it was still referred to as a weblog - she described a night of pouring rain and difficult door-knocking.
"We'd picked what appeared at first to be a fairly standard row of houses," she wrote. "As time went on, however, we began to realise that everyone we met was either drunk, flanked by an angry dog or undressed; and in some cases two or more of the above."
It was a gift for her Labour opponents which, in her words, they "milked". Immediately her tongue-in-cheek description of one street was taken as her opinion of the town's population in general. Labour hired a double-decker bus and followed her around town with it. "As I walked with volunteers they would follow me in the bus with loud speakers repeating the words that I'd said as though I had deliberately insulted people," she says.
She'd meant no disrespect with her "clumsy words", she says, but accepts it was naive not to anticipate the consequences, and that arguing context makes little difference in politics. "I absolutely regret giving them that sort of material but it was never said with any ill intent whatsoever," she says.
'Just cried'
She came so close to winning - reducing Labour's majority from 14,571 to 2,033 - that she clearly has considered the possibility her blog lost her the election. "I don't know whether the result would have been different," she says. But it feels like she does.
The campaign was as dirty as any and her closet was thoroughly searched for skeletons. Some newspapers accused her of being soft on drugs and asked if she had been "involved in some kind of orgy in the back of a van" at a party conference.
"You felt like you were looking over your shoulder the whole time," she says. "It did feel hard. There were times when I came home after a day of doing my best and just cried."
And then, on the night of the count, just as she started thanking her volunteers and the voters who had given her a "really warm welcome", Fathers 4 Justice candidate Paul Watson stepped forward and tipped purple powder over her head and shoulders.
"I wasn't sure what had been thrown at me but I knew something had," she says. "I represented something about the country that he hated.
"That made me really sad, that it had to finish on that note and I wasn't really able to say thank you in the way that I'd hoped."
Analysis
By Jonathan Swingler, BBC Look North
This was the first election I covered after finishing my journalism course and my tutors had never covered the scenario of one candidate attacking another. It was surreal to hear shouting and see Paul Watson, who represented Fathers 4 Justice, pour purple powder over the Liberal Democrat candidate Jody Dunn.
Having seemingly been targeted because of her profession, she carried out her media interviews that night with a smudged purple forehead and told me: "I've had better days." Watson was taken away by police and later pleaded guilty to assault.
I was living in Hartlepool at the time and the town had been turned into a colourful mix of placards as 14 candidates vied for votes. A turnout of just under 46% reflected a general antipathy to their efforts. Labour held on to what had previously been a safe seat but saw their 14,571 majority plummet to just over 2,000.
At the end of the night I asked one of their supporters what he thought. "It was crap," he muttered as he looked at a mic stand covered in purple glitter.
The campaign was more fun for Monster Raving Loony Party leader Alan "Howling Laud" Hope.
"I thoroughly enjoyed it," he says.
He particularly remembers fellow candidate Ronnie Carroll - the only singer to have represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest two years running. "We ended up on stage and, when it came to our turn to say something, we both sang Danny Boy," Mr Hope says.
Impromptu music should not have surprised anyone, given the party's campaign pledge to set up an inquiry to find out "if the Hokey Cokey is really what it's all about". That "went down really well", Mr Hope says. Well enough to persuade 80 people in the town to vote for him. He lost his deposit - as usual - but he didn't come last.
Mr Hope met one fan in a town pub who was so supportive he offered transport. "I tell you what, he said, I can get hold of a fire engine - do you want to use it as a campaign bus?".
As a man who once campaigned to incorporate the rules of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? in driving tests, he was clearly never going to turn down an offer like that. For the next few weeks they drove it around town transmitting party slogans via a loud hailer.
In the end, Labour came very close to losing.
Jody Dunn polled more votes than any Liberal Democrat before or since - except herself in the following year's general election - knocking the Conservatives into fourth place behind UKIP. She had slashed Labour's majority and another 10 days "might have just tipped it", she says.
She believes her party gave up on Hartlepool and moved on, missing the opportunity to capitalise on her gains eight months later. "They'd come in for the by-election and there was a huge presence everywhere," she says. "We only had a handful of volunteers for the general election.
"It just felt to me as though the Liberal Democrats thought 'well, we had our shot, it was a by-election, we had publicity for that, we're not going to get the same, we're just one of many constituencies in the general election, so let's concentrate on our marginals'. I don't think they quite realised that we had made that seat a marginal. It was probably a one-off in history but it was a marginal then."
There are a lot of eyes on Hartlepool again now. Dr Rodgers believes the country needs to pay more attention to the North.
"The North matters and rather cut-off parts of the North, like Hartlepool, do matter," he says.
Follow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
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The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has received an honorary degree from the University of York.
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He was presented the honour by the Provost of Vanbrugh College Rev Dr David Efird, of the Department of Philosophy.
Dr Sentamu was one of 11 receiving honorary degrees at the university's graduation ceremonies this week.
He has been Archbishop of York since 2005 and is a patron of more than 100 charities.
Other recipients of honorary degrees include author Anthony Horowitz, film and television director Ken Loach and Justice Albie Sachs. They will receive theirs on Friday.
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As grieving families come to terms with losing their loved ones in the fire that engulfed Grenfell Tower, one woman says her disabled mother never had a chance of escaping to safety from her home on the 18th floor.
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Nazanin Aghlani still has no confirmation of her mother Sakineh Afrasehabi's fate but is convinced she could not have survived.
Describing her family's anguish, she said: "We're not all right. We can accept death but being burnt alive?"
Mrs Aghlani said her mother had been registered as disabled and the family had been worried about her ability to escape her home in an emergency.
She claims repeated attempts to have her re-housed in more appropriate accommodation had failed.
"This property was not suitable for a disabled person," she said.
"She was put in a death trap. They should have thought of how she'd escape in a fire."
Mrs Afrasehabi, who was partially sighted and could not walk very far, also had diabetes and high blood pressure.
She moved to Grenfell Tower last year after trying for a long time to move from her previous home, in Ladbroke Grove, because she had been struggling to manage the 40 steps needed to access her flat.
"She'd waited 17 years to get a transfer, and then they put her that high up," Mrs Aghlani said.
A spokesman for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council said: "We do not make direct offers of properties above 4th floor level in lifted blocks in the cases of people with disability access needs.
"However, through the council's choice-based letting system, Home Connections, housing applicants are able to choose to bid on lifted properties located on higher floors."
'Goodbye' phone call
Mrs Aghlani said she was offered flats on only the higher floors of tower blocks and claims the council told her: "we have too many disabled people."
She said she had sought legal advice on behalf of her mother who had been told she had not been near the top of the waiting list.
"My mum was forced to take anything that came along," she said.
"I had bid for so many one-bed flats for my mum, but we were refused anything and everything.
"She was getting so ill that she had no choice but to bid for Grenfell. I didn't want her to go, but she said she had no choice. "
On the afternoon before the fire, Mrs Aghlani visited her mother for a family get-together and left at about 19:30.
After the fire broke out, a friend came to help Mrs Afrasehabi and her sister, Fatima Afrasiabi, who was still with her, to get to their flat on the 23rd floor to get away from the smoke.
Mrs Aghlani said the friend was one of a family of seven who had lived together in the property.
At some point, firefighters told them to stay inside the flat, but a couple of the family managed to push past and get out.
"My mum couldn't have done that. She could hardly walk," she said.
"My brother was on the phone with them. She said her goodbyes to him over the phone.
"My aunt Fatima who was staying overnight at my mum's was crying for help and for someone to rescue them."
Mrs Aghlani has had to describe what dress fabric and rings her mother was wearing to the police in the hope she may be identified at some point.
"What's happened was so avoidable," she said.
"Those who have escaped the fire have lost everything - they don't have their homes, but they haven't lost their lives like my mum."
Interview by Sherie Ryder, BBC UGC and Social Media team
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A man who knocked out a 72-year-old National Trust volunteer in a "mindless" attack has been ordered to do 120 hours of community service.
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Scott Wade, 26, of Woodthorpe Road, Sheffield kicked and punched the parking warden in a row over a space at East Portlemouth, Devon, a court heard.
The unnamed man was working at the car park near Mill Bay beach last August.
Wade admitted assault and was ordered to pay £500 compensation and £250 costs by Plymouth magistrates.
A spokeswoman for the National Trust said: "This was a senseless and mindless act on a much loved member of staff who was just doing his job helping people to enjoy their visit to the coast in South Devon, we are pleased that the legal process has recognised this."
Related Internet Links
HM Courts Service
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The Department of Education, Sport and Culture in Jersey is trying to find further savings ahead of a debate on spending cuts on the island.
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The department has identified savings of nearly £1m in 2011, but needs to find £2.28m under targets set in a Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).
Details of savings by all departments will be debated on Tuesday.
The States of Jersey is aiming to cut spending by £50m over the next three years.
Education Sport and Culture Minister James Reed warned that he needed time for consultation.
He said: "I am confident that my department will achieve the expectations placed on it through the CSR process.
"However, if sufficient time is not set aside for consultation then my department's efforts to make considered and intelligent savings could be hampered."
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Robert Gabriel Mugabe was a man who divided global public opinion like few others.
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By Joseph WinterAfrica Editor, BBC News website
To some, he was an evil dictator who should have ended his days in jail for crimes against humanity.
To others, he was a revolutionary hero, who fought racial oppression and stood up to Western imperialism and neo-colonialism.
On his own terms, he was an undoubted success.
First, he delivered independence for Zimbabwe after decades of white-minority rule.
He then remained in power for 37 years - outlasting his greatest enemies and rivals such as Tony Blair, George W Bush, Joshua Nkomo, Morgan Tsvangirai and Nelson Mandela.
And he destroyed the economic power of Zimbabwe's white community, which was based on their hold over the country's most fertile land.
However, his compatriots - except for a small, well-connected elite - paid the price, with the destruction of what had once been one of Africa's most diversified economies.
In the end, this came back to haunt him.
The outpouring of joy on the streets of Harare which greeted his forced resignation in November 2017 echoed the jubilation in the same city 37 years earlier when it was announced he was the new leader of independent Zimbabwe.
Although he was allowed to see out his days in peace in his Harare mansion, it was not the end he wanted, having famously boasted: "Only God, who appointed me, will remove me."
Many Zimbabweans trace the reversal of his - and their - fortunes to his 1996 wedding to his secretary Grace Marufu, 41 years his junior, following the death of his widely respected first wife, Sally, in 1992.
"He changed the moment Sally died, when he married a young gold-digger," according to Wilf Mbanga, editor of The Zimbabwean newspaper, who used to be close personal friends with Mr Mugabe.
That sentiment was common long before anyone dreamed she might one day harbour presidential ambitions, which were the trigger for his close allies in the military and the ruling Zanu-PF party to oust Mr Mugabe from power.
Mugabe the man
While he was sometimes portrayed as a madman, this was far from the truth. He was extremely intelligent and those who underestimated him usually discovered this to their cost.
Stephen Chan, a professor at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, noted Mr Mugabe had repeatedly embarrassed the West with his "adroit diplomacy".
Mugabe in his own words:
"Cricket civilises people and creates good gentlemen. I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe; I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen" - undated
"Let the MDC and its leadership be warned that those who play with fire will not only be burnt, but consumed by that fire" - 2003 election rally
"We are not hungry... Why foist this food upon us? We don't want to be choked. We have enough" - interview with Sky TV in 2004, amid widespread food shortages
"Don't drink at all, don't smoke, you must exercise and eat vegetables and fruit" - interview on his 88th birthday in 2012
"[Nelson] Mandela [South Africa's first black president] has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of [blacks]... That's being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint" - 2013 state TV interview
As a former political rival of Mr Mugabe, who went on to serve as his home affairs minister, Dumiso Dabengwa witnessed the different sides of Zimbabwe's founding father.
"Under normal circumstances, he would be very charming but when he got angry, he was something else - if you crossed him, he could certainly be ruthless," he told the BBC before his death in May 2019.
Mr Dabengwa said the president would often let him win an argument over policy during the decade they worked together, or they would agree to compromise - not the behaviour of a dictator.
But something, he added, changed after 2000 and Mr Mugabe resorted to threats to ensure he got his way.
"He held compromising material over several of his colleagues and they knew they would face criminal charges if they opposed him."
This is not a picture recognised by Chen Chimutengwende, who worked alongside Mr Mugabe in both the Zanu-PF party and government for 30 years.
"In all the time I have worked with him, I have never seen him be vindictive or ill-treat anyone," he said.
Wilf Mbanga, editor, The Zimbabwean:
"He went from trying to convince you with his arguments to a man who would send his thugs to beat you up if you disagreed with him"
Watch: Wilf Mbanga on his friend Robert Mugabe
Mr Chimutengwende felt Zimbabwe's leader had been unfairly demonised in the Western media because of his policy of seizing land from white farmers whom he suspects of having influential supporters, especially in the UK, where many trace their roots.
Mugabe the teacher
The year 2000 marked a watershed both in the history of Zimbabwe and the career of Mr Mugabe.
Until then, he was generally feted for reaching out towards the white community following independence, while Zimbabwe's economy was still faring pretty well.
After coming to power in 1980, Mr Mugabe greatly expanded education and healthcare for black Zimbabweans and the country enjoyed living standards far higher than its neighbours.
In 1995, a World Bank report praised Zimbabwe's rapid progress in the fields of health and literacy. Run by a former teacher, the country had the highest literacy rates in Africa.
In her book, Dinner With Mugabe, Heidi Hollande said Mr Mugabe used to personally coach illiterate State House workers to help them pass exams.
Mr Mbanga recalls listening to the songs of US country singer Jim Reeves together.
"He could be very affectionate, he was an intellectual. He liked explaining things, like a teacher," said Mr Mbanga, but then saw a huge change in his former friend.
"He went from trying to convince you with his arguments to a man who would send his thugs to beat you up if you disagreed with him."
In fact, the warning signs were already there - the massacre of thousands of ethnic Ndebeles seen as supporters of Mr Mugabe's rival, Joshua Nkomo, in the 1980s and the start of the economic decline - but these were usually overlooked.
"Some say he had us all fooled, I am convinced he himself changed," Mr Mbanga said.
The journalist says that in his early years as president, Mr Mugabe genuinely believed in trying to improve the lives of his people, and introduced a "leadership code" which barred ministers from owning too much property.
"Look at him today, he is fabulously wealthy. He is not the person I knew," Mr Mbanga said in May 2014.
'Political calculator'
In February 2000, the government lost a referendum on a draft constitution.
With parliamentary elections looming four months later and a newly formed opposition party with close links to the "No" campaign posing a serious threat, Mr Mugabe unleashed his personal militia.
Some were genuine veterans of the 1970s war of independence but others were far younger.
TV footage of white farmers queuing up to make donations to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) meant Mr Mugabe was able to portray the opposition as stooges of the white community, and by extension the UK.
The invasion of white-owned farms achieved several goals for Mr Mugabe and his allies:
There was certainly a strong moral argument that land reform was needed in Zimbabwe but the way it was carried out was undoubtedly with political motivations uppermost.
Despite the widespread violence, intimidation and electoral fraud, the MDC gained almost as many elected seats as Zanu-PF in 2000.
Had it not been for the intimidation in rural areas, Zanu-PF may well have lost its majority.
Lovemore Madhuku, one of the leaders of the "No" campaign in 2000, described Mr Mugabe as an "an excellent political calculator", who adapted his tactics to the situation.
"There are moments when he chooses to be ruthless, others when he chooses to be magnanimous… He considers what is best - for him - in every situation and reacts accordingly," Mr Madhuku told the BBC.
He said Mr Mugabe might not have realised the damage the seizure of white-owned land would do to Zimbabwe's economy but in any case, he would not have cared, as long as he remained president.
Mr Chan agreed that, "in terms of Mr Mugabe's value-set, the ownership of the land is more important than the smooth running of the economy".
And the economy continued to decline until 2008.
After 28 years of Mr Mugabe's rule, the resourceful, largely self-sufficient country lay in ruins. The inflation rate had reached an unfathomable 231 million per cent and young Zimbabweans were voting with their feet, fleeing the country he had fought to liberate.
And yet, from this low point, he once more managed to outmanoeuvre his rivals and remain in power for another nine years.
'Mummy's Boy' to African liberator
The key to understanding Robert Mugabe is the fight against white-minority rule.
In the Rhodesia where he grew up, power was reserved for some 270,000 white people at the expense of about six millions Africans.
A host of other laws discriminated against the black majority, largely subsistence farmers.
They were forced to leave their ancestral land and pushed into the country's peripheral regions, with dry soil and low rainfall, while the most fertile areas were reserved for white farmers.
Reclaiming the land was one of the main drivers behind the 1970s war which brought Mr Mugabe to power.
The son of a carpenter who abandoned his family, as a child Mr Mugabe was said to have been a loner, who spent much of his time reading.
Ms Hollande wrote that after his elder brother died of poisoning when Mr Mugabe was just 10, his mother became depressed and the young Mugabe would do everything he could for her, to the extent he was teased as a "mummy's boy" at school.
He eventually qualified as a teacher and in 1958 went to work in Ghana, which had just become the first African country south of the Sahara to end colonial rule.
Encouraged by his Ghanaian wife, Sally, and the pan-Africanist speeches of Ghana's leader Kwame Nkrumah, Mr Mugabe became determined to achieve the same back home.
On his return in 1960, he started to campaign for an end to discrimination and was jailed for a decade after being convicted of sedition.
While in prison, his supporters wrested control of Zanu, the biggest party fighting white rule, and installed him as leader.
On his release, he was supposed to remain in the country but with the help of a white nun, he was smuggled over the border into Mozambique and the Zanu guerrilla camps.
'He loves power'
After Mr Mugabe won the 1980 elections which led to independence, he pursued a policy of reconciliation with the white community despite the bitterness built up during the war.
In a national address after becoming prime minister, he declared: "If you were my enemy, you are now my friend. If you hated me, you cannot avoid the love that binds me to you and you to me."
Four faces of Mugabe:
Before independence:
"He was a very nice guy. At that stage, he was not too sure of himself. There were very strong people in Zanu who were not afraid to oppose him. He would never take a decision on his own" - Dumiso Dabengwa
1980-90:
"He did everything he could to improve the lives of his people. He wanted education for all. He wanted health for all. He introduced a leadership code limiting Zanu-PF cadres to 50 acres of land" - Wilf Mbanga
1990-2000:
"I worked very harmoniously with him and discussed issues. He would let me have my way or we would reach a compromise" - Dumiso Dabengwa
2000 - 2017:
"After 2000, he started flexing his muscles. He brought in people who he could influence. Several people were compromised - he held something over them" - Dumiso Dabengwa.
"He has become fabulously wealthy. He is not the person I knew. He changed the moment Sally died [in 1992], when he married a young gold-digger [Grace Mugabe]" - Wilf Mbanga
He allowed Ian Smith, the Rhodesian prime minister who had once declared that black people would not rule the country for 1,000 years and who reportedly personally refused to let Mr Mugabe leave prison for the funeral of his then only son, to remain both an MP and on his farm.
At this point, according to Mr Madhuku, Mr Mugabe's hold on power was relatively weak, so he realised he had to reach out to his former enemies.
Former home affairs minister Mr Dabengwa said Mr Mugabe was even less self-confident earlier on in his political career.
"When I first met him in the 1960s, he was not sure of himself, of his position in Zanu," Mr Dabengwa recalled.
"There were very strong people in Zanu who were not afraid to oppose him. He would never take a decision on his own but would always check with them first."
But slowly, he consolidated control - first over the party which led the war against white-minority rule and later the country as a whole - until the point where his was the only voice that counted.
"He loves power, it's in his DNA," said Mr Madhuku.
Bonds forged in war
Throughout his time as president, his closest allies were always those with whom he had endured the hardships of life during the guerrilla war of independence.
When they felt their grip on power, and its trappings, were threatened, they reverted wholeheartedly to the conflict mentality.
"We are in a war to defend our rights and the interests of our people. The British have decided to take us on through the MDC," he told a 2002 election rally.
This meant opposition supporters were denounced as traitors - a label which could mean an immediate death sentence.
Mr Chimutengwende argued that the scale of the violence was exaggerated and in any case sought to distance it from Mr Mugabe: "It is not the leader who throws a stone, or asks his followers to throw a stone."
But Mr Dabengwa, the minister in charge of the police in 2000, said Mr Mugabe's Zanu party had been using such methods since the 1980 election.
He said that fighters from Zanu's armed wing had been sent out into rural areas to ensure villagers voted the "right" way, partly through all-night indoctrination sessions, known as "pungwes".
"People were told there were magic binoculars which could tell which way they voted and there were no-go areas for other parties," said Mr Dabengwa, whose Zapu party came a distant second in 1980.
"But the British declared those elections free and fair and so Zanu learnt that that was how to win an election."
Although he won those elections in 1980, and formed a coalition government with Zapu, the underlying tensions burst into open violence just two years later.
Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo was accused of plotting a coup and the army's North Korea-trained Fifth Brigade was sent to his home region of Matabeleland.
More than 20,000 people were killed in Operation Gukurahundi, which means "the early rain which washes away the chaff".
At the time, South African double-agent Kevin Woods was making daily reports in person to then Prime Minister Mugabe for the internal security force, the Central Intelligence Organisation.
"He obviously wanted to know exactly what Fifth Brigade was doing," he wrote in his autobiography.
In the end, a subdued Mr Nkomo once more agreed to share power with his enemy in order to end the violence in his home region - a forerunner of what later happened to the MDC.
Mugabe timeline
21 February 1924: Born
1964: Jailed after being convicted of sedition
1973: Becomes Zanu leader
1980: Becomes prime minister of Zimbabwe
1987: Becomes president under new constitution agreed under deal to end Matabeleland massacres
1992: Wife Sally dies
1996: Marries Grace Marufu
2000: Loses referendum, land invasions begin
2002: Wins presidential election amid widespread violence and fraud allegations
2005: Launches Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Rubbish), which forces 700,000 urban residents from their homes - seen as punishment for opposition supporters
2008: Comes second in election, violence leads his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw from run-off
2009: Forms coalition government
2013: Resoundingly re-elected, Tsvangirai returns to opposition
2017: Forced to resign after army seizes power
6 September 2019: Dies in Singapore, which he visits for hospital treatment
Before he was finally ousted, his political low point was in 2008, when MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat him in a presidential election, although not by enough for outright victory, according to the official results.
There were numerous reports Mr Mugabe was on the verge of resigning, although Mr Madhuku said he did not believe them, as the president subsequently demonstrated his determination to remain in power.
Again, a setback led to a sustained campaign of violence against his "enemies".
The army and Zanu-PF militias attacked MDC supporters around the country, killing more than 100 and forcing thousands from their homes.
It became obvious that Zanu-PF would not relinquish its grip on power and Mr Tsvangirai withdrew from the second round, saying it was the only way to save lives.
Zimbabwe's economy continued its freefall, reaching its nadir when people were dying from cholera in Harare because the country did not have the foreign currency to import the necessary chemicals to treat the water.
Under intense pressure, Mr Mugabe agreed to a coalition government with his long-time rival and, under MDC stewardship, the economy recovered.
But Prime Minister Tsvangirai was severely tarnished by working with Mr Mugabe - the president always managed to keep real power for himself and his allies.
By the time of the 2013 election, Mr Mugabe did not need to resort to extreme violence to win easily. He had once more demonstrated his remarkable skills of political survival and he remained in power until he was forced out in 2017.
Love-hate relationship with the UK
Mr Mugabe justified the 2000 land invasions by saying the UK's Labour government, in power since 1997, had reneged on a British promise to fund peaceful land reform.
While it might be expected that an avowedly Marxist liberation fighter would have more in common with the Labour Party than the Conservatives, the opposite turned out to be true.
Robert Mugabe:
"Mrs Thatcher, you could trust her. But of course what happened later was a different story with the Labour Party and Blair, who you could never trust"
Under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the UK accepted that as the former colonial power, it had the moral duty to help finance the process of buying white-owned land and redistributing it to black farmers.
But after a report found the process had been tainted by cronyism, British funding was put on hold.
The new Labour government took matters further and declared: "We do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe."
In 2013, Mr Mugabe observed: "Mrs Thatcher, you could trust her. But of course what happened later was a different story with the Labour Party and [former Prime Minister Tony] Blair, who you could never trust.
"Who can ever believe what Mr Blair says? Here we call him Bliar."
Despite the vitriol directed at the UK from 2000 onwards, Mr Mugabe was in some ways the epitome of an English gentleman.
He was usually turned out in immaculate, dark, three-piece suits and ties - until he was given a makeover in 2000 and advised to campaign in brightly coloured cloth emblazoned with his own face, like many other African leaders.
Visitors to State House were always offered tea to drink and he was a huge fan of cricket.
"Cricket civilises people and creates good gentlemen. I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe; I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen," he once said.
'Beaten Christ'
He was educated by Jesuits in the Katuma mission near his birthplace in Zvimba, north-west of Salisbury (now Harare), where he was taken under the wing of an Irish priest, Jerome O'Hea.
This is presumably where he developed his abstemious nature - he did not drink alcohol or coffee and was largely vegetarian.
Wilf Mbanga:
"If he had died after 10 years in power, he would have been my hero forever"
His second wife Grace said he used to wake up at 05:00 for his exercises, including yoga.
This healthy lifestyle was no doubt one reason why he lived until the age of 95.
For many years, his health was a constant source of speculation.
A 2008 US cable quoted in Wikileaks suggested Mr Mugabe had been diagnosed with cancer, giving him between three and five years to live.
This prognosis turned out to be false, and on his 88th birthday Mr Mugabe joked he had "beaten Christ" because he had died and been resurrected so many times.
'Spoilt legacy'
While he was vilified in the West, his anti-colonial rhetoric did strike a chord across Africa, even among many who condemned his human rights record.
At the 2013 memorial service in Soweto for Nelson Mandela - who replaced Mr Mugabe as Africa's most admired anti-colonial fighter - Zimbabwe's president was wildly cheered by the young South African crowd, even as they booed their own then leader, Jacob Zuma.
"A lot of people think that pan-Africanism is a thing of the past but that is not true," said Mr Mugabe's staunch ally, Chen Chimutengwende.
"While imperialism and racism exist, pan-Africanism is still needed," he told the BBC.
But Zimbabwean journalist Wilf Mbanga said that in his latter years, Mr Mugabe had far more support outside his home country than within.
"Those young South Africans who praise him do not have to live under his rule," he said, pointing out that many Ghanaians had less than fond memories of life under pan-African hero Kwame Nkrumah, who had inspired Mr Mugabe.
So how will Mr Mugabe be remembered?
Mr Chan said that until 2000, Mr Mugabe had a "good report card", although the verdict later turned to "disastrous".
"If he had died after 10 years in power, he would have been my hero forever," said Mr Mbanga.
"But look at the schools and hospitals now.
"He has spoilt his legacy. Now, people will remember him for driving people out of Harare, Gukurahundi, election violence and everything else."
Joseph Winter was the BBC's Zimbabwe correspondent from 1997 until he was expelled in 2001
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Voters in West Yorkshire will elect their first mayor on 6 May. The successful candidate will have powers over transport, adult education and policing, and they will also take control of housing. The BBC asked voters about their experiences, and put their concerns to the candidates.
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Matthew Jeffrey, from Lower Wortley in Leeds, spent seven years trying to find suitable and affordable housing after he was evicted by a private landlord with no notice.
"I had a job and everything and one day the landlord just turned up and said he wanted me out the next day," he said.
"He changed the locks and I lost all my stuff."
Mr Jeffrey later took the landlord to court and received compensation, then three years ago, he faced a similar situation.
"It was terrible. I went into mental health problems, depression, anxiety. It was a struggle," he said.
"I had to go the council every day at half eight and sit there for two hours to pester them until I got a bit more priority and a council flat.
"I never ended up sleeping rough, but I quite easily could have done."
Mr Jeffrey, 38, wants those standing for mayor to explain how they would tackle a lack of affordable homes and homelessness.
"There's money there, we are meant to be the fourth richest country in the world, and if we can't support our homeless and vulnerable, what does that say about our society?"
All seven candidates (in alphabetical order) were asked for a short, one-policy answer to Mr Jeffrey's concerns:
Waj Ali, Reform UK
"One of my election pledges is to donate 50% of my mayoral salary from the first two years to combating overnight homelessness.
"Our homeless people are sleeping on the streets. Let's get our people off the streets; the ex-servicemen, the mental health crisis people.
"We've got to free up these council buildings and I am willing to put my money where my mouth is."
Tracy Brabin, Labour
"As someone who grew up in a council flat, I absolutely understand the value of social housing.
"I am committed to 5,000 homes being built that are social housing and affordable, because the waiting lists are far too long for too many properties.
"It's got to be in the right place at the right price to make sure people like Matthew can feel secure."
Bob Buxton, Yorkshire Party
"We need to build greener homes, including social housing, on regenerated ex-industrial sites and we need the new infrastructure to go with the new housing.
"Too often, we get the housing without the infrastructure to go with it."
Andrew Cooper, Green Party
"Yes, we've got to build more social housing, that's really important, but public housing is a public good and so we need to end the right-to-buy council housing.
"Because a lot of that council housing ends up as private sector housing and ends up as exactly the sort of places that our questioner was evicted from.
"That has got to end. We have got to have more social housing. We've got to make sure there is an alternative. Not poverty housing, but an alternative to owner-occupation, which millions of people simply cannot aspire too."
Stewart Golton, Liberal Democrat
"We need to challenge government to actually give us the powers to make a difference.
"At the moment, the housing minister has held back the spatial planning powers that the West Yorkshire mayor was meant to have.
"They will be given to us in time after the government has made it easy for their housing developer friends to develop the kind of housing they want.
"Unfortunately we are having too much executive-style housing built locally and not enough affordable housing that people can actually get their first rung on the ladder, whether through rent or buying."
Thérèse Hirst, English Democrats
"We have to build more social housing, not on greenfield land - it has to be on brownfield sites. Rents have to be controlled and low, so people can afford to pay their rents.
"I am quite passionate about inner city poverty and one of the things we can do is use our compulsory purchase orders to actually target really deprived areas within our inner cities, obviously with the consent of the residents who live there, and bulldoze some of these buildings that need to be bulldozed and put in new homes."
Matt Robinson, Conservative
"We actually need to make sure we protect our greenbelt and we put new homes in sustainable locations and we look at brownfield regeneration sites.
"Regeneration of communities is good for jobs, it's good for the local area and creates business opportunities too and that's what I want to do.
"I want to make sure that West Yorkshire authorities are coming together, working with the mayor to have a homelessness strategy that marries up across borders and links to mental health support as well."
A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections
Who can I vote for in my area?
Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster'
A special programme with all the candidates- A Mayor for West Yorkshire - will be broadcast at 14:20 BST on Sunday on BBC One in Yorkshire.
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UN climate negotiators are meeting in Bonn amid a welter of reports indicating that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have broken records, while international attempts to curb greenhouse gases are not doing enough to avoid dangerous levels of warming. Our environment correspondent Matt McGrath has travelled to Switzerland to see if technology to remove CO2 from the air could be the answer to this ongoing carbon conundrum.
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By Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent
While CO2 concentrations are now higher than they have been in at least 800,000 years, the gas still only accounts for a tiny 0.04% of our atmosphere.
However, extracting carbon dioxide from well mixed air is not just technically difficult, it's expensive as well.
A half-hour outside Zurich stands one of the frontline attempts to develop a commercial approach to sucking down CO2.
On the roof of a large recycling centre at Hinwil stand 18 metal fans, stacked on top of each, each about the size of a large domestic washing machine.
These fans suck in the surrounding air and chemically coated filters inside absorb the CO2. They become saturated in a few hours so, using the waste heat from the recycling facility, the filters are heated up to 100C and very pure carbon dioxide gas is then collected.
This installation, called a direct-air capture system, has been developed by a Swiss company called Climeworks.
It can capture about 900 tonnes of CO2 every year. It is then pumped to a large greenhouse a few hundred metres away, where it helps grow bigger vegetables.
This is not supposed to be a demonstration of a clever technology - for the developers, making money from CO2 is critical.
"This is the first time we are commercially selling CO2; this is the first of its kind," co-founder Jan Wurzbacher told BBC News.
"It has to be for business; CO2 capture can't work for free."
Right now Climeworks is selling the gas to the vegetable growers next door for less than $600 per tonne, which is very expensive.
But the company says that this is because it has built its extraction devices from scratch - everything is bespoke. The firm believes that like solar and wind energy, costs will rapidly fall once production is scaled up.
"The magic number we always say is $100 per tonne," said Jan Wurzbacher.
"We have drawn a road down to the region of $100 and that is something we think is feasible. We can do it by scaling up the mass production of our components. I'd say half of the way to go there - we know what to do. We just have to do it over the next two or three years."
One of the things about CO2 that makes it attractive for developers is that it has many uses in the world.
From fish food to concrete; from car seats to toothpaste - entrepreneurs are trying to use carbon dioxide as a raw material. There's also a roaring trade in CO2 in the US, where it's being used, without irony, to boost the extraction of oil from wells.
One of the most ambitious plans is to extract CO2 and turn it into fuel.
A couple of years ago, car manufacturer Audi announced it had developed what it called "e-diesel", a liquid fuel made from water and CO2. Climeworks supplied some of the CO2 for the trials. Driving down the price of capturing CO2 is key to making this idea work.
"If you have to pay $100 per tonne of CO2 that makes roughly 25 cents per litre of gasoline," said Jan Wurzbacher.
"It is a reasonable amount per litre or per kilogramme of natural gas."
Making fuel or other products out of CO2 might help but it won't achieve the type of large scale take-down from the atmosphere that many scientists now fear will be necessary over the next 20-30 years if the goals of the Paris climate agreement are to be met.
'Natural' solution
The terms of the pact state that there needs to be a "balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases" in the second half of this century. To reach that balance, many experts believe we will have to resort to technological means of taking carbon out of the air.
"There are some things we can do in the real near-term but to get to zero emissions we will probably need some technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere," Dr Glen Peters from the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research told BBC News.
"So we need to focus on getting things deployed that we know already work and at the same time we also need to focus on developing new technologies that will help us go the last part of the journey."
Back in 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested that BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) might be one way to do this. BECCS involves growing plants that suck down carbon, then burning them to make energy while capturing and burying the carbon that is released.
Critics point out that to make a real impact with BECCS would take up way too much land that could be used for planting food.
However, a recent study showed that a simpler approach, including planting more trees and better management of soils and grasslands, could actually make a significant difference.
The report said that this could account for 37% of all actions needed by 2030 - the equivalent to China's current emissions from fossil fuel use.
So would the world be better off planting trees than waiting for Climeworks and others to perfect their technology?
"We're not against trees," said Anka Timofte, an engineer with the company.
"It is all about the efficiency of the surface area that you are using. Our machine has a higher capacity of removing CO2 from the air and this CO2 can be re-used, and our machines are location-independent, so we could place them in the desert or anywhere there is an energy source."
Climeworks has big ambitions. Recently it opened a plant in Iceland. CO2 is captured and buried underground where it will eventually turn to stone.
The Swiss company wants to capture 1% of global emissions of CO2 by 2025. But to make a small dent in the global picture would require the use of 750,000 units similar to the one installed in Hinwil right now. It would also require huge amounts of energy to run these devices.
'Magical techno-fixes'
The Swiss company is not alone. There are similar efforts underway in Canada with a company called Carbon Engineering, and a Finnish-German consortium is also in the direct air-capture business.
So plentiful are they becoming that environmental groups have started to map the progress of these and other geo-engineering projects that aim to curb climate change through technology.
Many greens are deeply suspicious of these efforts. They argue that we need a fundamental rethink of the way that we produce and consume to put sustainability at the heart of everything we do.
"We need to step back and actually question what are all the possible pathways to a climate safe future," said Lili Fuhr from the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
"Have we seriously explored them and are they not more realistic than relying on these magical technologies that in my view hold immense risks and uncertainties and are certainly harmful for many people around the planet?"
Other critics are worried that if the technology works, then it will encourage politicians not to make the cuts in carbon and rapidly move to renewable energy.
Question of time
Climeworks' Jan Wurzbacher rejects this idea. He says it is all a matter of timing.
"If you had asked me 20 years ago I would have said that, yes, you should just focus on reducing emissions.
"But as of today we may have passed the point of being able to achieve it just by that. People say we will need to remove 10 gigatonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere every year by 2050. It's not enough to develop it then; you need to deploy it and scale it, and that will take 30 years!"
Lili Fuhr doesn't agree. She says that approaches to capturing carbon are all part of a self-preservation strategy by the fossil fuel industry.
"For many decades the fossil fuel industry has funded climate sceptics and in that way tried to prevent climate action. But they've seen that is not working, so instead of denying, they are beginning to come up with these magical techno-fixes that would help prolong the lifespan of their industry.
"What we are seeing is a shift in the broader denial-ism and prevention strategy of the fossil fuel industry."
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Nequela Whittaker was once a feared gang leader in south London. Now she's a youth worker on those same streets, writes Jo Morris, and she wants her story to be heard by young people who might be tempted by gang life - especially girls.
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"'Mouthy,' that was my street name."
It's what they used to call Nequela Whittaker. She earned the name as a teenager for her cocky manner and habit of getting into fights.
"I would really know how to humiliate or wind people up," she says. "My reputation for fighting was well-known. I loved conflict for a long time."
By the time she was 14, Whittaker had been arrested for actual bodily harm (ABH) and grievous bodily harm (GBH).
"I was savage," she says.
"I've seen friends murdered, people injured. Mass brawls. Stabbings. Shoot-outs happening in front of me.
"You have people who follow you - you have a crew. You go to any lengths - robbery, kicking in people's front doors."
As the years went by she found it increasingly troubling, she says, but that world is difficult to escape.
"Once you're in it, you're in it. You've got to think how your peers will take you saying, 'I feel regret. It's not me.'"
Off the rails
As a young girl growing up in Clapham with her mum and older siblings, Whittaker was a normal law-abiding child.
Her mum wanted her to take advantage of every opportunity, so she played the violin, did drama and athletics - but Whittaker says that made her stick out.
"I was different, and back then different wasn't cool."
A long bus journey to her school in Croydon made her a target for a group of girls from another school, who picked on and humiliated her.
"They called me 'nerd', 'hairy legs'. They made fun of my violin, they dissed my shoes, cussing my attire - it was no fault of my own, it was what my mum could afford."
Talking about this still upsets her.
For more than a year Whittaker ignored the girls, until finally she reached a tipping point.
"I decided there were two types of people in this world - people who take all the stuff that's thrown at them and people who don't. I didn't want to be that person who always got picked on every day."
She started using the money her mum gave her for violin lessons to buy cannabis to sell at school. And she formed a gang of girls.
"The switch just came, and I became the aggressor: 'Let's go and get these girls now.'"
Her gang beat up two of the girls from the other school.
"I went for one friend in one week and the other friend the next week. We battered her. It was for the humiliation I had been feeling so long."
What did that feel like? "Power," she says.
"It was like: 'OK, I am somebody now. My voice has been heard. The streets are awake. They're listening.'
"I went from being the black sheep to the head of the throne. It gave me a sense of belonging that I had been looking for."
Whittaker thinks the need to belong is one factor that drives young people to join gangs - and it certainly was in her case.
Her father had left the family when she was only two years old.
"My dad's a crack addict. Lovely guy, but everyone has something that they love in life and unfortunately his addiction is drugs," she says.
And as a young gay woman she never felt completely accepted by her mother.
"My mum is a wonderful woman, but she's old-school and she was bringing quite a lot of her traditional Caribbean ways, and I didn't feel like I belonged in that setting for many years because of my sexuality.
"For many years I didn't feel listened to."
When Whittaker was out of sight, her mum had no idea what she was doing.
"Back home I was sweet and innocent, but on the streets I was this horrible little girl," she says.
"My mum would think I was going to school playing the violin. I wore a very good disguise."
Whittaker was arrested for beating up the two girls and received a youth offending referral.
After that, there was no turning back.
"I figured: 'I have a criminal record, might as well make it as long as possible.'"
She quickly became what is known on the streets as a "10-star general".
"Beating people up, weapons, guns, humiliation - making a boy or girl walk down the street naked. It got worse before I calmed down," she says.
She started selling crack and cocaine outside London, running what's called the "country lines". Gangs often use girls because police stop them less often.
"I was selling heavily in Scotland. Glasgow, Birmingham, all over Britain," she says.
Eventually she was arrested in Scotland and charged with misuse of drugs with intent to supply Class A and B.
She was 17 when she was sentenced to four years in a Scottish prison - a long way from south London and way out of her comfort zone.
How did she feel on her first night?
"Petrified. I was petrified. Not being near anyone I knew and so far from home. When I arrived, my room was like a dark cave, and a girl was sitting on the bottom bunk, rocking. My tears hit the ground and I said: 'I can't do this.'"
The prison officer allowed her to make a phone call.
"I phoned my mum and said: 'I can't do this.' I was crying, and she said: 'Yes you can. You put yourself in this situation. Only you can get yourself out of it. Chin up. You've got this.'"
And her mum turned out to be right.
Whittaker says her time inside was the best period of her life.
She discovered that she had a knack for listening, and that other inmates trusted her with their problems.
"I found a role - I gave advice. I supported girls," she says.
She went from selling drugs to unofficially counselling girls with addiction problems.
"I reconnected with the girl I was before I made the wrong decisions."
Her transformation earned her a new nickname. "Mouthy" became "Wisey".
She says being in jail gave her "time to see where I wanted to place myself in the real world". But this wouldn't have happened, she says, if she had been jailed in London.
"I would have been in the same environment, fighting for my reputation. That ego overrides everything."
In 2009, at the age of 20, she left prison. Nine years later she has a social science degree, lives with her mum and works at a youth club in south London. There, she is always on the lookout for girls like her former self, at risk of getting into gangs.
"Everybody thinks it's only boys involved in gangs but it is not," she says. "The community needs to help guide females as much as males."
She acknowledges that women are often sexually exploited by male gangs, but in some cases, she says, girls can hold as much power as boys.
I meet her at the youth club - where this evening she is running a girl's night.
Before the session starts she talks to a 15-year-old girl, who has been in trouble for fighting.
Whittaker is reminded of herself at that age - so much energy, but channelled the wrong way.
"Trouble finds me," says the teenager, who has been seeing Whittaker for a year to help with anger management.
"She understands me," she says. "Other people think they understand me."
Where does she think she'd be if she hadn't met Whittaker?
"I'd probably be sitting down at the police station: 'Why did you have a fight? Why did you attempt to stab someone?'"
It makes a difference knowing Whittaker has lived the life.
"They see me as 'Niks from the street' - I'm not badgering, I'm not the police, I'm not social services. They have more trust in someone who has gone through it," Whittaker says.
"I have a real knowledge of the world that they're from. Many parents don't understand what it's like for their young people. They don't see what's happening on the streets, when they leave their front door.
"For me, it's about showing them: 'I'm interested in your world.'"
Whittaker wishes she'd met someone like herself when she was a teenager to challenge the decisions she was making.
I leave her preparing a meal for 20 young people who will be relying on the evening's youth club for their dinner.
"It's a big thing, to go from being part of the problem to now being part of the solution," she says.
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A pensioner has been charged with murder after an 80-year-old woman was found dead at a house in Cumbria.
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The body of Meryl Parry was discovered by police, who were called to The Dale, Ainstable, near Carlisle, in the early hours of Tuesday.
John Michael Parry, 81, was found to be in need of medical attention when officers arrived at the property.
Mr Parry was remanded in custody by North Cumbria magistrates in Carlisle pending a Crown Court hearing.
Police have so far not revealed how Mrs Parry died.
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A man has admitted an immigration offence linked to an alleged people-smuggling operation which resulted in the deaths of 39 Vietnamese nationals.
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Their bodies were found in a refrigerated lorry trailer in Grays, Essex, in October.
Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, a Romanian national, of Hobart Road in Essex, appeared at the Old Bailey earlier.
He admitted one count of conspiring to assist unlawful immigration between May 2018 and October 2019.
He will be sentenced at a later date, following the trial of other defendants accused over the deaths.
The bodies were found shortly after the lorry arrived on a ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium in the early hours of 23 October.
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A multi-million pound extension to help accommodate a growing sixth form at the Isle of Man's largest secondary school has been opened.
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The £3.2m three-storey addition at Ballakermeen High School has been built to help accommodate more than 300 sixth form students.
The school was awarded the money from the government's capital fund after Tynwald voted in favour in 2013.
It includes four new classrooms, a larger dining room and tutorial space.
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Activists and squatters have moved in to a derelict Romford pub, The Bitter End, with the aim of transforming it into an independent environmental and cultural space. In April, photographer Ed Gold spent three weeks living alongside them, documenting their lives as they worked to regenerate the building into the newly named The Better End.
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"The history of the building goes back as far as 1426, when a timber framed pub stood here, which burnt down in Victorian times," says Gold.
"It was rebuilt. And the 40-room building became a brewery, sauna, gym, snooker hall and then a pub again.
"When the squatters moved in, it was in collaboration with ReSpace Projects, a not-for-profit organisation who have regenerated other empty urban buildings.
"After consulting with the owner, more than 20 'caretakers on rotation' from the UK, Germany, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Jordan and Australia have been renovating the premises for community use, such as an art gallery, market, workshop space, independent cinema and a community fair that encourages local productivity.
"The caretakers here aren't told what to do but take it upon themselves to renovate areas daily in the fields they are good at, like electrics, carpentry and plumbing."
Ned, 53
"I've been here a month in this particular project.
"But I have 30 years' experience in community projects.
"The basement is flooded so I'm clearing the floor to gain access to the sump pump, which has stopped working, to drain the basement.
"The water is a combination of a small number of leaks in the building.
"We have health and safety requirements to meet.
"They want to make sure we are safe."
"We are setting up schools in these types of buildings to teach people how to be self-empowered.
"We're teaching everything that people can bring home and use in their own lives.
"The younger members can then take these skills to other communities they might find themselves a part of and also have the confidence to teach.
"The ethos of the building being to invite craftsmen in to share their skills and empower others."
Kasia, 35
"I'm from Poland. I came over almost 14 years ago for friendship reasons rather than economic reasons. I didn't squat in Poland.
"I was living in London for so long on my own, working, studying.
"I used to be a carer. And it was fulfilling to do something useful even if on a small scale. I became disillusioned when I realised that I was unable to sustain myself financially.
"The less I have, the better I feel. I am very comfortable without having to stress about gathering things.
"I have no problems with detaching myself. It's more important to have good relationships with people and yourself.
"When we first got here, there was only four of us and we lived outside under shelter on the ground floor.
"When we got here we found excrement and a lot syringes. The building was in a derelict state. Random people had come here and were destroying it."
Tyrone, 28
"I've been homeless before, but I never squatted.
"My other half and me decided it was actually cheaper me moving out than me living there with her and my daughter.
"With what I was earning, it was cheaper to move out. So, we decided I'd come here but we'd stay together and live separately.
"I'm a handyman here, anything with a drill. I'm redoing the toilets, a lot of concreting, floorboards, painting and decorating. Probably everything in the house, I've done it, hung doors, stuff like that.
"I like the idea of something that is not being used and breathing life into it, as too many places are being wasted."
Emily, 25
"I'd moved to London in 2010 to study geography at LSE. In the first two years, I was in student accommodation and it was eating up all my money. I looked into other options and researched squatting in London.
"I want to be nomadic because there is so much of the world to see and I'd like to settle for months at a time in different places, to get involved in community projects."
"I've been here about a year and a half on and off. It's been hard. The conditions the first time we got here were very challenging. I've enjoyed fire safety, which has been a major concern. And I've got into plastering, taking out rubbish and recycling, gardening, making the outside space look nice, and decorating.
"I like the beautiful historic building itself, which is in need of a lot of love and attention, the creativity with it, and knowing the people very well who I have lived with for many years in various places, as well as meeting new people locally and from other projects."
Ceilidh, 20
"I came to squatting since moving out of the woods, where I went straight from home.
"I left home when I was 19. I was living in a two-bedroom flat with my two little sisters. So, I shared a room and never had my own space - five people in a two-bedroom flat: my mum, her partner, my two half-sisters and me.
"There is a 10-year and seven-year age gap. So, it was hell living with them, especially when I was turning 13 and coming into puberty."
"I absolutely adore it here, this way of living. The one thing I didn't have at my mum's was much conversation as she was always at work and my sisters were at school.
"Squatting means if you want something you have to go and do it, like if you want to go and get water you have to go get it, and the community aspect, helping each other out, building up your skills and learning from each other.
"I want to be the person that people come and ask me how to do stuff rather than me ask what to do next."
Big Charlie, 28
"I couldn't get housing benefit as I was in the wrong age bracket. They told me to go share. And that was already what I was doing. I wasn't getting enough hours in my job to pay rent. So, I packed a backpack and just left. I went from a pub upbringing to losing a job in a pub. So, now is like getting a second shot.
"There was a fire after the pub closed because of trouble and drugs. And the company didn't want to pay for security for the building so agreed to let us stay here. They liked the idea that we come in and clean the place up.
"I want it to be about the local people that have lost their local venue and a place to go.
"I want a place for people to come and do yoga, to converse, to do mechanics, for all the people that don't have a creative place to feel that they can come to this place and use here."
Liam, 30
"I have kind of known people and social groups that have been involved in squatting for ages, but I have never squatted myself until now.
"I don't think that anybody anywhere in the world should be homeless, especially as there are so many empty homes.
"I know it's not as easy as just putting people in homes. It's more about the way the government treat people with mental health issues."
"I'd been trying to manifest a life where I could utilise my carpentry skills and incorporate music into that as well and have a good balance of the two.
"The less stressed in life you are, the more creative you are going to feel."
Photography and interviews by Ed Gold
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The anti-police brutality protests in Nigeria created a powerful movement that appeared to shake those in power, but after a turbulent fortnight, BBC Hausa editor Aliyu Tanko considers where it goes from here.
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A potent mix of street protests and social media has given young Nigerians a voice that has shattered the country's culture of deference.
As the #EndSARS hashtag went viral, so did a defiance of the elite in Nigeria.
The trashing of the palace of the highly respected oba, or traditional ruler, of Lagos was symbolic of this mood.
The youths dragged his throne around, looted his possessions and swam in his pool.
What began as a protest against the hated police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars) has become a conduit for the youth to vent their anger with the people who have been in charge of Nigeria for decades, and demand change.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo warned in 2017 that "we are all sitting on a keg of gunpowder" when it comes to the young.
His comments were about the continent in general but they apply to Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with 200 million people, more than 60% of whom are under the age of 24.
The majority of those of working age do not have formal employment and there are few opportunities to get a good education. Earlier this year, government statistics showed that 40% of Nigerians lived in poverty.
'Not usual mischief-making'
But those currently in power at first misunderstood what was going on this time, activist and writer Gimba Kakanda told the BBC.
"The #EndSARS protests were initially perceived as another of the youths' episodic mischief-making that would fizzle out if left unaddressed," he said.
"This mind-set of the political class, almost overly condescending, was the reason for its slow response to this unprecedented movement and left them all on the edge."
The question is where does that movement go now?
The success of the protest in forcing concessions from the government - such as a promise to disband Sars, and wider police reform - has given Nigerian youths confidence and they believe that they can make a difference.
A few days into the protests, activists were able to establish a helpline that could respond to emergencies. They also provided legal services to those in need and even set up a radio station.
These were financed through crowdfunding and were cited as examples of how Nigeria could be better if it were not for the politicians who often seem more interested in what they can personally gain, rather than how they can improve the country.
But there has also been an ugly side.
While those who backed and came out in support of the #EndSARS movement were peaceful, another segment of the youth saw the protests as an opportunity.
They vandalised shops, raided warehouses and targeted the businesses of prominent politicians.
Although the approach of these two groups is different, they do share one thing in common: a disdain for those in charge.
It is unlikely though that they can find common cause. Any move in that direction may affect the spread of the movement across the country because some will find it hard to sit at the same table as people with "questionable character".
'Buhari missed the point'
There is nevertheless an awareness on the part of the authorities that poverty and hardship are national security threats, activist Mr Kakanda said.
"The government has realised that it can no longer take such outrage for granted as it has done before," he added.
But it continued to make missteps in trying to quell the mood.
President Muhammadu Buhari's address to the nation on Thursday evening "missed the point by a wide margin", according to blogger and columnist Japheth Omojuwa.
Mr Buhari called for an end to the protests and the beginning of a dialogue, but "he will be remembered for threatening Nigerians just because they asked their government to commit to justice".
Nevertheless, Mr Omojuwa believes that the #EndSARS movement can achieve something.
It should not focus on long-term ambitions of gaining political power, he argues, but rather should make sure that the authorities stick to their promise of reform and bringing errant policemen to justice.
It is these small steps that may eventually bring wider change.
More about Nigeria's #EndSars protests
This tumultuous fortnight and particularly the shooting of protesters in Lagos on 20 October will be remembered in Nigeria for a long time.
Those in power are clearly worried that the country's huge young population can no longer be ignored, or, failing that, cajoled.
It is getting organised as evidenced by the huge donations received by a relatively unknown group - the Feminist Coalition - that rallied support for the protests and shook the foundations of Nigeria.
The fact that these young women said they would regroup makes the elite jittery and clearly indicates that the system needs to work for all and not for the privileged few.
From this episode, Nigerian politics has changed forever because the youths have realised how powerful they are and what they can achieve when they unite for a common goal.
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If you've ever complained about being forced to sleep in an airport after a delay, spare a thought for one Zimbabwean family who have finally left Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport where they've lived for the past three months.
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The family - four children under the age of 11 and four adults - first arrived in Bangkok in May.
When they tried to leave in October for Spain, they didn't have the right visas.
They couldn't legally re-enter Thailand as they'd overstayed their tourist visas and had to pay a fine. But they said they could not return to Zimbabwe because they faced persecution.
The family's situation came to light when an employee at Suvarnabhumi airport posted a photo of himself with one of the children in December saying they were living there "because of the unsettled situation" at home.
Officials at that time explained that they'd tried to help the family make arrangements with Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) to fly via Kiev to Dubai instead - and then on to a third country - bypassing European immigration.
But according to a UIA spokesperson, the family cancelled their tickets for the final leg of their journey, leading them to be sent back from Dubai to Bangkok.
The family asked for assistance from the UN, saying they feared persecution in Zimbabwe after the November unrest which saw the removal of long-term leader Robert Mugabe.
The UN said at the time that it was "exploring options". Thailand does not provide legal status to refugees and asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, the family stayed inside the departure area, being looked after by airport staff.
According to a Thai immigration bureau spokesman, they finally left Bangkok on Monday afternoon.
Pol Col Cherngron Rimphadee told the BBC's Thai Service that the family had departed for the Philippines. A UNHCR refugee camp is located there, but it was not clear whether it was their final destination.
A UNHCR spokeswoman told the Coconuts website that the agency would not comment on individual cases.
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A murder investigation has started after a man was found dead at an allotment in a Derbyshire town.
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The man was found by police on land near Prospect Drive, in Shirebrook, at about 10:00 GMT on Sunday.
The force said his injuries suggested he had been assaulted but formal identification had not yet taken place and efforts to trace his family were ongoing.
Officers are keen to speak to witnesses or local residents with CCTV.
Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
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A man has died in a house fire, police have said.
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A neighbour called emergency services to the address on Blacklands Close, Saffron Walden at about 02:30 GMT.
The man, who was in his 50s, was found inside the property, but died at the scene, Essex County Fire Service said.
Essex Police said his death was being treated as "unexplained", while a spokesman for the fire service said the cause of the blaze was yet to be established.
He added that it had been recorded as "both possibilities" of "accidental or deliberate".
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Anyone who regularly watches their children play competitive football will have seen the phenomenon of the Aggressive Football Dad. There's a fine line between parental enthusiasm and the dark side, writes comedian Ian Stone.
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Most Sunday mornings, while you're lazing around in your pyjamas eating croissants and drinking tea, I'm dragging myself out of bed and driving to some windswept playing field to watch football.
Why? Well, because I've played football since I was a kid and by a process of osmosis, my 10-year-old son has picked up the same love for the beautiful game.
It's not just me, of course. There are something in the region of 200,000 volunteers - mostly fathers and mothers - involved in children's football. And this is relatively new, emerging over the past couple of decades.
You shouldn't feel sorry for us. It may not look like it but we love being there. My dad came to all of my games and now I see why.
Having said all that, I try to keep a lid on the maelstrom of emotions that I go through watching my offspring play football. I do this because it's the right thing to do but also because my father, on occasion, struggled with the concept of self-control.
He once ran on the pitch at an amateur game in front of 500 people and offered the referee his glasses. That was 38 years ago and I'm still not sure I'm over it.
There's a bit of me that sympathises with my father's behaviour. Only by watching your child play football can one truly understand how involved you get.
Shouting encouragement from the sidelines is good - "Come on boys!" and that sort of thing. But when behaviour goes beyond that, there's a problem.
There's inappropriate shouting like "get in hard" or "break his legs", which is bad enough when shouted at adults, but when it's directed at eight-year-olds it rather stops me in my tracks.
Some parents go in for excessive tactical instruction, call it coaching if you like, from the touchline. It's confusing for the kids, who don't know whether to listen to their coach or their parent.
Bad language is not uncommon - I see parents swearing at children, not always their own, or shouting abuse at the referee. And there are occasions when things go too far and become physically violent.
On the sidelines, I've heard horror stories like the dad who offered to fight any of the parents of the opposing under-10s on the touchline when the decision went against his son.
Or the mother who marched onto the pitch, swore at all the opposition, and then dragged her boy off. On Mother's Day.
One friend told me how his kid was basically assaulted by a very aggressive opponent. When my friend ran on to the pitch to see if he was OK, the dad of the offending child swore and told him to get back.
The child then assaulted three or four other kids, with his dad shouting at any parent who tried to intervene.
But mostly we're proud parents who do it just for the joy of seeing our children outside, exercising, and in a team. The miniscule possibility that our child might just be the one who makes it all the way to the top of the game - and enables us to retire and live in elegant splendour - can send some parents over the edge.
Because of that small minority, some coaches - my son's included - adopted the FA's Respect campaign, a grass-roots initiative to encourage parents to behave in a respectful manner towards officials, the children and each other.
You may remember an advert featuring Ray Winstone watching his child play football and rapidly losing his mind. This wasn't uncommon behaviour.
Now, in the new world of Respect, we stand behind plastic barriers and bite our tongues. In children's football, at any rate, it's said to have made a difference.
It's clear there's something deeper going on. Take league tables. Every fan loves a league table. But for kids under 11, it's felt the constant analysis of their team's status engenders a pressurised environment that's detrimental to their development.
If you don't believe league tables feature large in the world of little children's football, have a look around the FA's Full Time website. The number of hits on the page for the Under-7 North section of the North Wiltshire Youth and Minor League? It's at 8.5 million.
Now for under-11s downwards, league tables are being phased out over the next few years. This represents a huge cultural change.
The FA has changed goal, team and pitch sizes to reflect the age of the participants. Anyone who's seen an eight-year old standing in a full sized goal knows why.
As an internal FA email I've seen notes: "People are starting to get to grips with the fact a 10-year-old isn't half a 20-year-old."
At the very least, it's hoped these changes help kids retain the joy in playing that attracted them to the game in the first place, and that teenagers continue to play football through their lives.
In the meantime, it's on with the thermals, jumper, gloves, scarf, hat and heavy coat. I'm off to watch some football. Enjoy your lie-in.
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A fountain in Northampton is to be turned off during the hosepipe ban, even though the water used is recycled.
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A spokesman for Northampton Borough Council said the feature on Market Square would remain dry to avoid "causing concern".
The decision was taken by the town's marketing management team, which thought people might believe the feature was wasting water.
The fountain was built in 2010 and cost £98,000.
A spokesman for the council said: "It's hard to spread that message to everyone who will come into town over the summer, so rather than cause concern, Northampton Borough Council has decided to switch the fountain off until the ban is over."
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Energy group E.On is to seek damages of about 8bn euros ($10bn; £6.4bn) from the enforced shutdown of German nuclear power stations, it has said.
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It follows a report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the country's power generators will seek a total of 15bn euros in damages.
A spokesman for E.On told the Reuters news agency that it was confident that the court action would succeed.
The shutdown was ordered by Berlin after Japan's Fukushima disaster.
As well as deciding to phase out nuclear power, the German government also imposed new taxes on the industry.
E.On and RWE had already filed complaints with Germany's constitutional court, arguing that the nuclear exit decision had harmed them as they had to shut down reactors early.
E.On said its complaint was not specifically about Germany's withdrawal from the nuclear sector, but about the lack of compensation for the companies affected by what was effectively a policy U-turn.
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The brightest stars in television gathered in Los Angeles on Sunday night for the 71st annual Primetime Emmy Awards.
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But before the ceremony had even kicked off, there had already been enough glitz, glamour and glitter on the red carpet to power an episode of Strictly Come Dancing.
Here's a round-up of some of the most eye-catching suits and dresses.
(Disclaimer: The red carpet wasn't actually red this year, it was purple.)
The Emmy Awards took place Sunday night at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles.
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A man who had been charged with the murder of a pedestrian has died in prison, it has been confirmed.
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Simon Mellors, 56, of Berkeley Court, Nottingham, had been charged over the death of Janet Scott who was hit by a car on 29 January in Nottingham.
Mr Mellors had also been accused of the attempted murder of another man in the same collision.
A prison service spokesman said he died in HMP Manchester on Sunday and an investigation had been launched.
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With more than 1,300 reported deaths from Ebola in West Africa, the virus continues to be an urgent health crisis, but it is also having a devastating impact on the economies of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
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By Richard HamiltonBBC News
"The economy has been deflated by 30% because of Ebola," Sierra Leone's Agriculture Minister Joseph Sam Sesay told the BBC.
He said President Ernest Bai Koroma revealed this staggering and depressing news to ministers at a special cabinet meeting. "The agricultural sector is the most impacted in terms of Ebola because the majority of the people of Sierra Leone - about 66% - are farmers," he said.
Twelve out of 13 districts in Sierra Leone are now affected by Ebola, although the epicentres are in the Eastern Province near the borders with Liberia and Guinea.
Road blocks manned by police and military are preventing the movement of farmers and labourers as well as the supply of goods.
"We are definitely expecting a devastating effect not only on labour availability and capacity but we are also talking about farms being abandoned by people running away from the epicentres and going to areas that don't have the disease," Mr Sesay added.
Food shortages
However, the chief co-ordinator for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), David McLachlan-Karr, thinks that the road blocks are absolutely crucial to containing the outbreak.
"A robust response to quarantining epicentres of the disease is absolutely necessary," he told the BBC. But he admits agriculture in Sierra Leone has been brought to its knees.
"We are now coming into the planting season which means a lot of agriculture is not happening, so down the line that will create food shortages and pressures on food prices. We are starting to see a rise in inflation and pressure on the national currency as well as a shortage of foreign exchange," he said.
The UNDP has appealed for $18m (£11m) to bolster Sierra Leone's health system while the World Food Programme says the total cost of its emergency operations in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia is $70m.
In Guinea and Liberia the economic predictions may be less catastrophic but they are still worrying. The World Bank said it was expecting GDP growth in Guinea to fall from 4.5% to 3.5%.
The Liberian economy had been expected to grow by 5.9% this year but the country's Finance Minister, Amara Konneh, said this was no longer realistic due to a slowdown in the transport and services sectors and the departure of foreign workers because of Ebola.
Mining impact
The world's largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal has seen work disrupted on its iron ore mine expansion project in Yekepa in Liberia, after contractors declared "force majeure" and moved people out of the country.
Simandou, in the forests of eastern Guinea, is Africa's largest iron ore mine and infrastructure project. Vale, the world's biggest iron ore producer, was involved in Simandou until April. It evacuated six international members of staff and put the rest of the workforce in the area on leave.
Rio Tinto, the world's third largest mining company, which owns a share in Simandou, has donated $100,000 to the World Health Organization's work in the area and is also making sanitation equipment available to local people there.
A smaller British company, London Mining, has moved out some its non-essential expatriate staff from Sierra Leone, where mining has accounted for much of the country's recent growth. According to the International Monetary Fund, Sierra Leone's output grew by 20% last year; excluding iron ore mining, it grew by 5.5%.
But like Rio Tinto, London Mining has also donated money towards tackling the spread of Ebola, and educating local communities about the virus.
Borders closed
In Sierra Leone, commercial banks have reduced their hours of business by two hours to reduce contact with clients and the country's tourism industry has taken a severe knock - some hotels are empty and are laying off staff.
The closure of borders in West Africa and the suspension of flights are also having a detrimental effect on trade, severely limiting the ability of countries to export and import goods.
Recent examples are the closure of Cameroon's lengthy border with Nigeria and the announcement by Kenya Airways that it is suspending flights to and from Sierra Leone and Liberia.
All three West African nations are already poor countries, but the Ebola outbreak could make them even poorer. Sierra Leone and Liberia have both emerged from horrific civil wars and managed to rebuild their economies.
Liberia has been trying to revive its mining sector which before the civil war accounted for more than half its export earnings. But now there are fears that all the good work that has been achieved since those conflicts could be destroyed. There are also concerns that widespread poverty could force people to resort to criminality.
'Fundamentals'
Meanwhile some international investors are nervously watching the Ebola outbreak unfold. Dianna Games, chief executive of Johannesburg-based consultants Africa@Work, says fears about the virus could damage Africa's economic revival of recent years.
"Ebola has made a dent in the Africa Rising narrative," she told the BBC. "The stereotypes of Africa as a place of poverty and disease have started to re-emerge again."
She thinks Nigeria is the only affected country that has the health system and infrastructure to deal with Ebola. At the moment there have only been 12 confirmed cases, all of which were linked to the death of one man from Liberia in July.
In the long run, Ms Games believes history will view the 2014 Ebola outbreak as a temporary blip rather than a permanent U-turn in the continent's fortunes.
"The fundamentals pushing this Africa Renaissance are still there," she said.
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After 37 years of capers from Compo and his pals, Last of the Summer Wine says goodbye this week. One thing it has taught us, says Yasmeen Khan, is that elderly people can still have fun.
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Narrow cobbled streets in picturesque villages would ordinarily seem an unnatural place to be cluttered with a film crew, several cameras and mounds of cables.
But growing up in West Yorkshire's Holme Valley, seeing the cast and crew of Last of the Summer Wine filming against the backdrop of the Pennines became a regular fixture of my youth.
Even as a child, however, I realised that one thing differentiated this cast from what I was otherwise used to seeing on the TV - there were no women trussed up in huge dresses for a costume drama, neither was there a young cast dressed in tight jeans and shoulder pads screeching fast cars around the streets.
This cast was older and clad in woolly hats, wellies and tweed. This was picture-postcard England featuring picture-postcard oldies.
Having amassed 31 series over 37 years and put the village of Holmfirth firmly on the tourist trail, Last of the Summer Wine has become the world's longest running sitcom.
The comedy has endured over decades in which tastes in television, programme styles and audience numbers have changed.
Focusing on the misadventures of three elderly men in a Yorkshire village, the classic line up of Compo, Clegg and Foggy - played by Bill Owen, Peter Sallis and Brian Wilde respectively - saw the show through its most successful years.
The show also made an icon of Kathy Staff who played Nora Batty, the wrinkled, stocking-clad object of Compo's affections.
Andrew Vine, journalist and author of a new book about the series, called Last of the Summer Wine, feels that its success is largely down to how youthfully the characters were portrayed by writer Roy Clarke.
"Roy was in his 40s when he was commissioned to write the first episode and he was lukewarm about its premise. But for him the breakthrough came when he stopped thinking about them as old men and started thinking of them as kids; they were all single and free of responsibilities.
"Suddenly it presented a positive image about older people; the characters refuse to accept that their age should be a limitation and that's why the storylines can focus, for example, on the men attempting to use some ridiculous new invention with inevitable comedic consequences.
"Bill Owen maintained that the programme had helped to change attitudes towards older people, while director Alan JW Bell said they had many letters from older people saying how much the show had inspired them to get out and enjoy themselves."
'Natural end'
At its peak in the late 1970s, the programme was hitting between 18 and 20 million viewers, around a third of the available audience at the time.
In a multi-channel environment where television now competes against entertainment activities including social networking and gaming, it is perhaps surprising that a whimsical show about the elderly has remained on screen for nearly four decades.
Jane Lush, ex-BBC controller of entertainment, feels the show came to a natural end.
"When I was at the BBC, Last of the Summer Wine was barely discussed when it came to recommissioning; it seemed like a staple, a programme that would always be there, like The Sky at Night. But it's inevitable that a show that has run for so long and had so much success, would end at some point."
Last of the Summer Wine's humour is often caper comedy - mention the show and inevitably there will be someone who says it's about bumbling old men accidentally rolling down hills in tin baths.
Taking a sample of other older characters from British comedy of the last four decades, from Steptoe (Steptoe & Son), Captain Mainwaring (Dad's Army), Victor Meldrew (One Foot in the Grave) and Grandad in Only Fools and Horses, they are often depicted as grumpy, eccentric or ineffectual. But Ms Lush believes that old age is not unfairly stereotyped.
"I don't think older people are characterised any differently to other age groups in comedy, after all comedy is about exaggeration. There are many older characters on television that are successful, particularly in comedy.
"Nana from the Royle Family was well-loved, One Foot in the Grave's Victor Meldrew and Catherine Tate's Nan are both fantastic older anti-heroes. In Candy Cabs we have some wonderful older characters, including a woman who uses a mobility scooter.
"Older age is a rich vein for humour; the demise of Last of the Summer Wine does not mean we've seen the last of older people on television."
Despite Andrew Vine's assertion that viewers enjoyed Last of the Summer Wine because of its somewhat whimsical portrayal of older life, television reviewer and star of series Grumpy Old Women, Kathryn Flett, thinks the makers of programmes, including Last of the Summer Wine, still have some way to go in accurately portraying older people.
"Television is still obsessed with youth. There is not enough representation of older people and when they are on screen, they're often presented in a slightly bonkers universe that is heavily tinged with nostalgia, as programme makers seem to assume older audiences are obsessed with the past.
"It's either that or we have them dying in Casualty or as a matriarchal dame in a costume drama. Older people are in a ghetto of ageism on TV and programme makers are missing a trick."
The show is often dismissed as irrelevant, especially among younger people, yet the final series has pulled in an average of more than four million viewers. For some of them, its appeal has more to do with the richness of the characters than the age of them.
Yet as television bosses are accused of pandering to the tastes of young, affluent urbanites, it may be some time before the sight of elderly men rolling down the Yorkshire hills in a tin bath appears on our screens again.
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For 10 years Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon showed how to be a successful political duo. They campaigned hard, won elections and brought to the fore a shared dream of Scottish independence. That irresistible combo is gone, having given way to personal silences and a public war of words. As MSPs continue investigating the Scottish government's mishandling of complaints against Mr Salmond, we look at their story.
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By Glenn CampbellPolitical editor, BBC Scotland
As the clock ticked past midday, I waited in the first minister's walnut panelled office for Nicola Sturgeon to give her first interview on the scandal.
It was Friday 24 August 2018 - the day the Daily Record splashed on allegations of sexual misconduct made against her predecessor, Alex Salmond.
The first minister was said to be so upset that her advisers worried she might cry on camera.
When it came to it, Nicola Sturgeon kept her composure but there was clear emotion in the interview that followed. Her voice wavered slightly when she told me how "incredibly difficult" the situation was.
At about the time she was speaking to me, Alex Salmond was telling journalists gathered around a Linlithgow pub table that while he was "no saint" he had not harassed anyone.
The Scottish government had investigated complaints about him from two civil servants, under a new procedure signed off by Nicola Sturgeon. That was not news to the first minister because Alex Salmond had told her privately about the investigation several months before.
What then could have brought Scotland's leader close to tears?
This was, of course, a watershed moment when a private burden finally had to be shouldered in public. And, according to one source close to Nicola Sturgeon what was also significant was confirmation from the civil service that it had sufficient confidence in its investigation to refer the complaints to the police. That is said to have shattered the first minister's confidence in the denials Alex Salmond had given her.
Having controversially met or spoken to him five times during the investigation - in which she insists she played no part - she broke off contact with him in July.
Nicola Sturgeon's long standing alliance with her predecessor was in the process of breaking down and the day of the Daily Record scoop was probably when it became irretrievable. Alex Salmond was effectively at war with the government he once led and therefore with the woman who replaced him - his protégé, Nicola Sturgeon.
There was a lot to cry about.
'He believed in me'
The Salmond/Sturgeon association spans three decades - she had backed him for the party leadership in 1990 and he encouraged her to stand for Westminster two years later, when she was just 21.
"He believed in me long before I believed in myself," she once said.
Alex Salmond was a mentor, ally and friend. You could trace his influence in her early speaking style and in the way she sometimes scoffed at rivals during debate.
He appointed her to the SNP front bench when they were both elected to Holyrood in 1999. However, a little over a year into the new parliament Alex Salmond gave up the leadership, passing the reins to John Swinney. When he resigned in 2004 Nicola Sturgeon made her move for the top party job.
The then 34-year-old entered the contest, but when it looked like she would lose to rival Roseanna Cunningham Alex Salmond came to the rescue. His decision to make a leadership comeback saved her from defeat. Instead, she became a winner, running as his deputy on what they styled as a joint ticket.
This was the beginning of the powerful political partnership that has dominated Scottish politics and made a big impact on the UK political scene in the early part of this century. They led the SNP into government for the first time in 2007, to an overall majority at Holyrood in 2011 and within touching distance of independence in 2014.
They worked well together. Not least because Alex Salmond tended to let Nicola Sturgeon and other trusted ministers do their jobs without interference. As his deputy, her skills and personality seemed to complement his. Where he revelled in the spotlight, she was more naturally reserved. While he enjoyed painting the big picture, she was content to fill in the detail.
They offered each other advice and challenge in private, and presented a united front in public - a discipline upon which the SNP's success was built.
That's not to say there were no disagreements. When the NHS faced a budget squeeze after the financial crash, Nicola Sturgeon took a stand. According to one Alex Salmond ally, she "pushed very hard" to protect cash spending and won the first minister's support. Had she failed, another source said, she was prepared to resign.
The pragmatist
Nicola Sturgeon's confidence grew further during the independence campaign. From 2012, she took charge of referendum preparations as the Scottish government's so called "Yes" minister. It was during this period that she started coming into her own, establishing an approach that was distinct from his.
Contrast, for example, the responses they gave to protests by independence supporters against the BBC. Alex Salmond defended those involved, arguing they must be allowed to express a view. Nicola Sturgeon advised that they spend their time campaigning for a "Yes" vote rather than against the BBC.
Where he could be strident, she was more pragmatic is how one source close to Alex Salmond put it.
While their relationship remained strong throughout the referendum there were points of tension.
Nicola Sturgeon was frustrated not to be involved in Alex Salmond's preparation for his first debate with the pro-Union leader Alistair Darling. The head-to-head, hosted by STV, saw Alex Salmond struggle with currency questions.
When he set off for China in November 2013 without leaving detailed comments on the latest draft of the independence White Paper, her team questioned his commitment. The first minister's feedback would eventually filter through from the People's Republic.
None of this caused a serious rift between them - that would come later, once Alex Salmond had left office.
On 18 September 2014 the independence vote was lost by 55% to 45% and within two months of that date Alex Salmond was gone as party leader and first minister.
From big boots to high heels
As Nicola Sturgeon prepared to take over, she acknowledged Alex Salmond had left "big boots to fill".
However, she also asserted her political independence. "I will wear my own shoes" she said "and they will have higher heels".
She promised a more female friendly-leadership that would give priority to key issues of gender equality and seek to advance the interests of women. That's a pledge that may have weighed heavily as she thought of her response to the #MeToo movement a few years later.
The key point about this transfer of power is that it fundamentally changed this political couple's relationship. She was no longer the understudy, she was now the principal performer.
The new first minister travelled the country, addressing large audiences in what became known as her "rock star tour" and under her leadership the SNP won spectacularly at the 2015 Westminster election.
By contrast, Alex Salmond's political power was on the wane. He could have pursued a career in business, academia or on the lecture circuit but he could not resist the pull of politics.
Drifting apart
As part of the 2015 landslide, he returned to Westminster, as MP for Gordon, in search of a new role. The party appointed him international affairs spokesman with a certain licence to stir things up. Friends said it was difficult for him to adjust. According to one MP, he did not take kindly to no longer driving the bus.
When Alex Salmond publicly suggested a referendum might not be the only route to independence, the new driver asserted her authority. Nicola Sturgeon made clear that winning a referendum was now the established way to leave the UK.
Within a few months of replacing him, Nicola Sturgeon dropped Alex Salmond's policy of a blanket 3p cut to corporation tax in the event of independence. He was not consulted. He was, however, brought into the loop for some decisions, such as the ill-fated call for indyref2 in early 2017.
They were still in touch but nothing like as much as when they were partners in power. With one at Westminster and the other at Holyrood, they saw each other less and were gradually drifting apart.
The relationship deteriorated more seriously after the 2017 general election which saw Alex Salmond defeated for the first time in 30 years of parliamentary service.
When Nicola Sturgeon phoned to offer her commiserations, she found Alex Salmond unavailable. It was, apparently, two or three weeks before they spoke.
Alex Salmond was dealing with the death of his father around that time as well as the loss of his parliamentary seat. But there was something else.
A friend of his said he was "not very impressed" with the SNP's election campaign, considering it insubstantial and lacking in energy and purpose. The party lost 21 of its 56 seats in this first election after the Brexit referendum and the Scottish Conservatives won 13 - enough to sustain Theresa May in office with help from the DUP.
Holyrood comeback?
If that was one source of tension in Alex Salmond's relationship with his successor, others soon emerged as he began a new career outside politics. Appearing in his own show at the Edinburgh Fringe, Alex Salmond was accused of sexism when he explained the absence of any high profile female guests with the double entendre that he "couldn't make them come".
Nicola Sturgeon said he was "not sexist" just as she had done two years earlier when Alex Salmond told Conservative minister, Anna Soubry in the Commons to "behave yourself woman". The first minister's defence of her predecessor was more qualified this time. She said he was not always as funny as he thought and that perhaps his joke belonged in the era of Benny Hill.
It was apparent to some in the SNP that she was wearying of him. As one MP put it, he was "seen as a nuisance" by the leadership during 2017.
The lowest point came in November of that year, when it was announced that Alex Salmond was to host his own show on the Kremlin-backed TV station, RT. Nicola Sturgeon has since spoken of her "incredulity" at this decision. It would increase the distance between them. As one Nicola Sturgeon ally put it - "the first minister cannot take advice from a presenter on Russian state TV".
The week before Alex Salmond's TV show was announced, SNP MSP Mark McDonald was forced to resign as a Holyrood minister over inappropriate behaviour.
The Scottish government's wider response to the #MeToo movement, following this departure, would set these political titans on a collision course. There was speculation that if Mr McDonald stood down, Alex Salmond might want to fight the Aberdeen Donside by-election.
According to friends of Alex Salmond that was wrong - he had no interest in making another Holyrood comeback and Nicola Sturgeon's team did not take it seriously either. Even if they found him annoying, they did not appear to regard him as a political threat. They would not however have been unaware that Alex Salmond had helped nurture new talent at Westminster, including the QC turned MP, Joanna Cherry, whom some see as a future leader.
What appeared to be of concern to team Sturgeon in November 2017 was an enquiry from Sky News about allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour by Alex Salmond at Edinburgh Airport. He denied wrongdoing and nothing was broadcast at the time, but according to a later account from Nicola Sturgeon, it raised suspicions about her predecessor's conduct.
On the first minister's instruction, the Scottish government was revising its procedures for dealing with complaints of bullying and harassment against ministers, following Mr McDonald's resignation. Nicola Sturgeon specifically told the civil service that the new policy could apply to former ministers and she put that in writing after the Sky News enquiry.
This note was sent after her private secretary met a potential complainer against Alex Salmond from within the civil service. The Scottish government insists the first minister did not know about that.
Supporters of Alex Salmond suspected the new policy was designed with him in mind, however, the Scottish government rejects that claim. What is clear is that Nicola Sturgeon chose an approach that would not exempt her predecessor.
Success in court
Had she decided otherwise, there might never have been a scandal. Alternatively, one might have blown up in the media anyway and she might have faced criticism for protecting an old friend.
Complaints of sexual harassment against Alex Salmond from two female civil servants were lodged and a seven month investigation by the Scottish government followed. Those findings were shelved when the 66-year-old successfully challenged the complaints handling process in court. It decided the investigation was "tainted by apparent bias" and he was awarded more than £500,000 in legal costs.
But the former first minister faced a much bigger legal battle ahead.
In January 2019, Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond was arrested and charged with a string of sexual offences against women he had worked with at the Scottish government or the SNP, during his term as first minister.
When he looked at the names on the charge sheet - according to a Salmond ally - "that was when it hit him" that this could be a conspiracy.
One of those who testified against him in court has since told the BBC that it is "utterly absurd" to suggest nine women would perjure themselves as part of a political plot. Their evidence did not persuade a jury to convict and on 23 March last year - hours before the UK went into coronavirus lockdown - he was acquitted of the 13 sexual assault charges he faced.
Alex Salmond is now trying to expose what he believes was a conspiracy, accusing Nicola Sturgeon of multiple rule breaches including misleading the Scottish Parliament. She denies his claims.
Their toxic feud has destroyed their relationship and caused deep divisions within the SNP. It also threatens damage to the first minister's reputation and to the independence dream she still shares with Alex Salmond. While she seems confident of weathering the storm, her credibility has hardly been enhanced by the revisions she's made to her story along the way.
For example, having told Holyrood she learned about the investigation into Alex Salmond directly from him, she now acknowledges that "allegations of a sexual nature" were mentioned at a meeting she had days earlier and claims to have forgotten.
Exactly what did she know and when, what meetings were held and why, where does party business end and government business begin? These are the questions being picked over by a committee of MSPs at Holyrood.
What next?
The inescapable point is that Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon cannot both be telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth as they are obliged to do under oath before the committee.
What started three years ago with complaints about the former first minister's behaviour has led to intense scrutiny of Nicola Sturgeon's conduct in handling those complaints. If Alex Salmond can prove his allegations, a clamour for her resignation will follow - ironically at a time when her party and its goal of independence are polling strongly.
If his claims are not proven, he is unlikely to give up the fight. Some of his supporters have called for him to be readmitted to the SNP. Others hope that he will stand in this May's Holyrood election for one of the newly formed independence parties.
While those who know him well think that unlikely, they note he has not publicly ruled it out. As one MP put it "you just never know what Alex is going to do next".
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If you're determined to pull off an elaborate hoax, top tips would seem to include: Be bold, be dedicated - and don't wait for 1 April.
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By Bethan BellBBC News
But while pulling the wool over the eyes of the general public is one thing - such as the Panorama spaghetti crop hoax of 1957 - tricking the experts takes another level of cunning.
The following people, who among them fooled doctors, scientists, the Royal Navy and historians, deserve a special mention.
Breeding like... rabbits
Unlikely as it sounds, in the 18th Century a woman called Mary Toft convinced doctors she had given birth to rabbits. Yes, doctors. And yes, rabbits.
Mrs Toft, a servant from Godalming in Surrey, surprised her family by going into labour. Even more surprisingly, she produced something resembling a kitten.
Her explanation was rooted in the long-discredited theory of "maternal impression" - caused by being startled by a rabbit in a field in 1726 . From that moment, she said, she dreamed about, and had a "constant and strong desire" to eat, rabbits.
An obstetrician named John Howard, who seems to have been less than rigorous with his examinations, was convinced by her story. He wrote to some of England's greatest doctors and King George I, informing them of the miraculous births - including the momentous occasion when his patient produced nine dead bunnies.
The King sent his doctor to investigate. The medic, who arrived when Mrs Toft was in labour with her 15th rabbit, was certain she was genuine - and took some of her offspring back to London to show the monarch and Prince of Wales.
A surgeon was then sent by the royal household to have a look. The surgeon, apparently more sensible than the others, examined the rabbits and found that dung inside one of them contained corn - proving it could not have developed inside Mrs Toft's womb.
Meanwhile, Mrs Toft was busy giving birth to other unusual things, including a cat's legs and a hog's bladder.
Medical opinion was divided - until a man was caught sneaking a rabbit into Mrs Toft's room.
She was eventually forced to admit she had manually inserted the dead rabbits and then allowed them to be removed as if she were giving birth.
The hoaxer was later charged with fraud and imprisoned. She spent a few months in prison then returned to relative obscurity.
As for the King's doctor - he met an unhappy end after being convinced by the scam. He published a pamphlet called A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets but after the ruse was exposed, he lost favour with the court and died a pauper.
A true gift horse
They say the bookie always wins - but in 1898 a mystery syndicate managed to gammon the establishment and make themselves a tidy sum with an audacious scam.
The Sportsman, a leading racing paper, was contacted by the Trodmore Hunt Club to tell them of the August Bank Holiday meeting at Trodmore Racecourse in Cornwall. All the information generally provided by racecourses - rules, purses, the names of patrons, stewards, sponsors and officials - were provided.
The racecard was a good one, and a man calling himself Mr Martin, from the Trodmore Hunt Club, said he would telegraph the results to the office. The Sportsman printed it.
Bookmakers took bets as usual, and when the results came through punters collected their winnings. The following day, rival newspaper The Sporting Life printed the results after seeing them in The Sportsman.
However, there was a discrepancy in the odds given on one of the winning horses, called Reaper. The Sportsman had it down as 5-1, while Sporting Life had it at 5-2.
The newspapers needed to check which was correct, so tried to contact the racecourse.
At the same time, bookmakers were suffering after having to pay out on Reaper - a horse nobody had heard of. Some of them started to investigate its pedigree.
It emerged that there was no such place as Trodmore, let alone a racecourse. The people behind the hoax had made themselves hundreds of thousands of pounds by betting on non-existent horses, in non-existent races on a non-existent track in a non-existent village.
They were never caught.
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A Woolf in sheik's clothing
When not pioneering the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device, Edwardian novelist Virginia Woolf and her Bloomsbury chums were not averse to a practical joke.
In 1910, a telegram was sent to HMS Dreadnought which was then moored in Portland Harbour, Dorset. The message, purportedly signed by the Foreign Office, said the ship must be prepared for an imminent visit by a group of Abyssinian princes.
Six of the jesters turned up and despite their crude costumes of turbans and beards glued to their chins, the "princes" were welcomed with an honour guard and given a 45-minute tour of the vessel.
Soon after they left, some of the sailors began to have doubts about the "Abyssinians". One of the officers reported that he thought the "interpreter had a false beard".
The following day, the ringleader of the trick, Horace de Vere Cole, pranced into the Foreign Office and told them of the hoax.
He also contacted the press. The Daily Express reported with barely-disguised glee on how "the 'princes' were shown everything - the wireless, the guns and the torpedoes, and at every fresh sight they murmured in chorus 'bunga bunga'".
For a few days the navy was something of a laughing stock. Sailors were greeted with cries of "bunga, bunga" wherever they went.
The Admiralty was embarrassed and annoyed, and wanted the posh pranksters to be prosecuted - but as they had broken no laws, the issue faded.
The story of the hoax continued to resonate, nowhere more so than in the navy itself. The mocking phrase even ended up in a Portland music hall song:
"When I went on board a Dreadnought ship,
"Though I looked just like a costermonger,
"They said I was an Abyssinian prince,
"Because I shouted Bunga Bunga.".
Of the group, only Cole, who sounds exhausting, continued to revel in such japes.
Ruffled feathers
The Hastings Rarities affair was a long-running ornithological fraud eventually exposed by a statistician.
A taxidermist called George Bristow was a dab hand at stuffing birds. His glass-eyed aviary was used as a register of the birds that had been found in Hastings and its surroundings, leading to their inclusion on the official list of the British Ornithologists' Union. An extraordinary array of rare species of birds was reported from a very small area in a very short time.
Between 1892 and 1930 Mr Bristow had stuffed more rare birds than all other British taxidermists combined. It was later believed he had succeeded in his deception by importing frozen birds from other countries and claiming they were found in his neighbourhood.
It wasn't until the August 1962 issue of British Birds magazine that the fraud was exposed. John Nelder published his article A Statistical Examination of the Hastings Rarities which led to many of the birds being removed from the official list.
However, Mr Bristow may have known what he was on about - as eventually almost all of the expunged birds were readmitted to the list after they were genuinely proven to be in the country. Although not all in Hastings, all at the same time.
Missed the boat
The very first newspaper to have existed was a German publication issued in 1594 - but in 1776 an English historian, Dr. Thomas Birch stirred things up when he donated a bundle of documents to the British Museum with no explanation of their origin or context. Included in the bequest was a manuscript and two printed copies of The English Mercurie, dated 23 July, 1588.
It contained an account of the English battle with the Spanish Armada. The typeset and archaic spelling led people to accept the document as real.
Its existence remained unquestioned for 60-odd years. Then in 1839, the keeper of printed books at the British Museum, Thomas Watts, came upon the original manuscript in the archives. He compared it to other examples of Dr Birch's correspondence and recognised the handwriting as that of Birch's friend Philip Yorke, second Earl of Hardwick. The two had apparently created The English Mercurie as a literary game.
However, although the hoax was debunked nearly 200 years ago, copies of the Mercurie are still mistakenly referred to as factual accounts - and both the National Library of Australia and the Library of Congress have it catalogued among historical documents from the Tudor and Stuart periods.
Made in Taiwan?
George Psalmanazar, a blond-haired man with blue eyes, convinced English intellectuals of the 18th Century that he was the first native of Formosa - modern day Taiwan - to visit Europe. His accounts of life on Formosa were popular with London society and he was persuaded to write a book about his "homeland".
He spoke in Latin and claimed men in Formosa wore nothing but a metallic disc to preserve their modesty, that husbands were allowed to eat their wives if they were unfaithful, and the hearts of young boys were sacrificed to the gods every year. A healthy Formosan breakfast involved chopping the head off a viper and sucking its blood out.
He was invited to speak at public events and was also questioned by Edmund Halley - he of comet fame - at the Royal Society. The eminent astronomer disbelieved Psalmanazar's tale, and asked questions designed to expose him.
Undaunted, Psalamanazar replied to them all with a flamboyant insouciance, seemingly having an explanation for everything. When asked why his skin was so pale, he said he was a member of the Formosan aristocracy which lived underground.
Psalmanazar never revealed his real name or where he was from - although in his memoirs, which were published posthumously, he admitted his persona and background were entirely made up.
His books - An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, and Memoirs of ****. Commonly known by the name of George Psalmanazar; a reputed native of Formosa - are both still available in several languages.
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A man has denied murdering a woman found stabbed to death after she failed to return home from work.
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The body of Basildon debt collector Tina Cantello, 49, was found in a house in the town on 9 June, a day after she was reported missing.
Post-mortem tests found she died from multiple stab wounds to the chest.
Geoffrey Hutton, 38, of Langdon Hills in Basildon appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court earlier where he entered a not guilty plea.
Mr Hutton was remanded in custody to appear at the same court for trial on 5 November.
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The States of Guernsey has given the go ahead for Les Beaucamps High School building to be demolished.
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In June, the Education Department proposed that £35m should be spent on rebuilding the site.
The new school building and community sports centre have now been agreed by planners, although the original building has to be knocked down first.
Les Beaucamps was built in the late 1950s and currently has more than 500 pupils.
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There's a moment in the pseudo-documentary Rude Boy where leather-clad fans of The Clash are filmed queuing at the Glasgow Apollo - scruffy, grinning and making some questionable two-fingered gestures to the camera.
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By Mary McCoolBBC Scotland news
For Chris Brickley, this is the sort of material that transports him back to some of the most memorable gigs of his life in Scotland from the late 1970s and 80s.
Not professionally-shot images of artists enthralling fans on stage, but the messier snapshots of crowds, fashions and venues - many of which are no longer in operation.
It's this side of Scottish music history the 52-year-old is attempting to preserve.
He intends to self-publish a book of some 2,000 amateur shots of concerts across Scotland from 1974 to 1990, from high profile artists to memorabilia, ticket stubs and backroom gigs.
"I wanted to do something that's a lot of work, but that people would like," he said. "It's not just an exercise in navel-gazing, it's important to our culture.
"Music used to be so democratic - people could just pitch up and go to gigs. Things cost so much more these days.
"The other angle is that I love street fashion, what people actually looked like.
"The ones I like the most are the crowd shots where you're right in front - you not only see the band, you see the backdrop. People's hair, split ends and leather jackets."
Over the past year Chris has painstakingly sourced images through social media, all from amateur photographers who posted their old shots for nostalgia's sake.
The collection includes shots of some of the biggest names of the era - David Bowie at the legendary Glasgow Apollo in 1978, The Clash in 1985 at Edinburgh's Coasters and the Pixies at The Venue in Aberdeen in 1989.
But Chris also went to great lengths to feature towns and villages which he says are "rarely mentioned in Scottish music history".
He said: "I am a huge fan of The Cramps and The Fall - there is an infamous tour they did co-headlining in 1980 and they played the Stagecoach Hotel in a wee village outside Dumfries on a Monday night.
"I looked into it as a venue - it was just off the M74 and it was a great stop-off point and a lot of great bands played there, like Simple Minds and The Pretenders.
"There's a great story there. That's what it's all about. Everyone knows the Apollo (in Glasgow) but when you dig down, that's the nature of gig-going."
The 500-page photobook has secured £14,000 in sponsorship as well as £4,000 which was raised through crowdfunding.
Details of when it will be published have yet to be finalised, but Chris says he is working against the clock.
He added: "Some of the hardest pictures to source were places such as the Mars Bar and Zhivago's - that's where Simple Minds started playing their gigs. They achieved great success by playing every single toilet you'd go in.
"Most of these places are gone and we're losing people as we go. That's why this has to be done now."
All images are copyrighted.
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A Porsche driver "put lives at risk" by passing novice motorcyclists and pedestrians at speeds of up to 113 mph, a road safety group has said.
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David Richard Judd, 30, from Doncaster, was caught on camera on the A631, near Market Rasen, last May.
At a hearing at Lincoln Magistrates' Court he was banned for six months and ordered to pay fines and costs of £815.
Mr Judd, who had been driving home from Skegness, was found guilty of careless driving and speeding.
But John Siddle, from the Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership, said he was "very lucky".
"Given that there were pedestrians and novice motorcyclists using the road anything could have happened," he said.
He added that only 10 out of 45,000 people caught speeding in Lincolnshire last year were travelling at more than 100 mph.
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Farmers face a significant fall in the value of their European subsidy payment this year due to a fall in the value of the euro against the pound.
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By John CampbellBBC News NI Economics & Business Editor
Single farm payments are set in euro and converted to sterling each year using the exchange rate on 30 September.
In 2013, the rate was one euro to 84p. This year it is one euro to 78p, a cut of 7%.
In cash terms, this will take about £25m out of the rural economy.
The DUP MEP Diane Dodds said it was the lowest exchange rate in seven years and was "bad news for our farmers and NI plc".
Even in good years, subsidies account for the majority of farm incomes in Northern Ireland.
In 2013, the single farm payment totalled £259m, about 87% of farmers' total income.
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Until recently, Hong Kong was considered a poster child in its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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By Helier CheungBBC News
Despite sharing a border with mainland China, where the first cases were reported, Hong Kong kept its infection numbers down and was able to avoid the extreme lockdown measures introduced in parts of China, Europe and the US.
But now, it's been hit by not even a second, but a third, wave of infections. The government has warned its hospital system could face collapse, and it's just had a record high number of new infections in a day.
What went wrong, and what lessons are there for countries juggling both the pandemic, and the economic pain caused by lockdown?
Quarantine exemptions and 'loopholes'
Hong Kong had its first Covid-19 cases in late January, leading to widespread concern and panic buying, but infection numbers remained relatively low and the spread was controlled quite quickly.
It experienced what became known as its "second wave" in March, after overseas students and residents started returning to the territory, leading to a spike in imported infections.
As a result, Hong Kong introduced strict border controls, banning all non-residents from entering its borders from overseas, and everyone who returned was required to undergo a Covid-19 test and 14-day quarantine.
It even used electronic bracelets to track new arrivals and make sure they stayed at home.
That, combined with the widespread use of masks and social distancing measures, worked - Hong Kong went for weeks without a locally transmitted case, and life seemed to be heading back to normal.
So how did the "third wave" - that has led to more than 100 new cases for nine days in a row - arrive?
"It's quite disappointing and frustrating because Hong Kong had really got things very much under control," says Malik Peiris, Chair of Virology at the University of Hong Kong.
He believes there were two flaws in the system.
First, many returnees opted to quarantine for 14 days at home - an arrangement that's common in many countries including the UK - rather than in quarantine camps.
"There is a weakness there because other people in the home are not under any form of restriction, and will still be coming and going," says Prof Peiris.
However, he believes the more serious problem came from the government's decision to exempt several groups of people from testing and quarantine when they entered Hong Kong.
Hong Kong had exempted about 200,000 people, including seafarers, aircrew and executives of companies listed on the stock exchange, from quarantine.
It said the exceptions were needed to ensure normal daily operations continued in Hong Kong, or because their travel was necessary to the city's economic development.
As an international city and trading port, Hong Kong has a high number of air links, and many ships change crews there. The territory also depends on imports from mainland China and elsewhere for food and essential goods.
Joseph Tsang, an infectious diseases specialist and doctor, describes the exemptions as a significant "loophole" that increased the risk of infection, particularly from seafarers and air crew who also visited tourist spots and used public transport.
The government initially said that the quarantine exemptions were not to blame, but later admitted there was evidence that the exemptions were behind the latest outbreak.
They have now tightened rules for air and sea crews - but it can be difficult to enforce. There was alarm earlier this week when a foreign pilot was reportedly spotted sightseeing while awaiting Covid-19 test results.
And balancing public health, practical concerns and the economy can be hard - a union representing pilots at FedEx has asked the company to stop flights to Hong Kong because it says the stricter Covid-19 measures, including mandatory hospital stays for pilots who test positive, create "unacceptable conditions for pilots".
Benjamin Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong, says Hong Kong's experience with quarantine problems could also happen in other countries.
"In the UK, you also have a 14-day quarantine at home, so you would have the same potential issue with leakage."
Meanwhile, New Zealand and Australia have a mandatory hotel quarantine policy, which is "a good concept… although there's the issue of who pays for it", he adds.
Like Hong Kong, the UK also exempts certain travellers from border rules, including drivers of goods vehicles, seafarers and aircrew.
Social distancing measures were lifted
Hong Kong's quarantine exemptions have been around for months, but the third wave didn't hit until July.
Prof Peiris believes this is because of a second crucial factor - social distancing measures were significantly rolled back in June.
"As long as social distancing measures were in place the system could cope - but once measures were relaxed" the imported infections spread rapidly, he says. "It's a lesson for everybody."
Dr Tsang recalls that by late June the government had allowed public gatherings of up to 50 people, while there were celebrations for Fathers' Day and Hong Kong's handover anniversary.
"Many citizens were fatigued after months of social distancing, so when the government said things seemed fine and relaxed restrictions, they started meeting with friends and family.
"I think it's very unfortunate - many factors combined at the same time."
However, Prof Peiris stresses that Hong Kongers had been "extremely compliant" with social distancing and hygiene measures during in the first and second waves - "in fact, they were even a step ahead of government instructions, wearing face masks before they were compulsory."
He believes the reintroduction of social distancing measures now are already having an effect, and hopes that Hong Kong will be back to close to zero local infections within four to six weeks.
At that point, he adds, the challenge will be to stop imported infections - particularly once social distancing measures are lifted.
It's a challenge other countries will also face once they are successful in containing the virus within their borders, because "when you get to low levels of transmission within your population, having unregulated introductions from outside can lead to disaster."
Did the pro-democracy protests spread the virus?
Many of Hong Kong's pandemic struggles will apply to other cities, but the territory has also experienced another crisis - a political one - over the past year.
On 1 July, thousands of people took part in a pro-democracy rally, despite the march being banned by authorities who said it broke social distancing guidelines. Hundreds of thousands also voted in opposition primaries in mid-July, despite the government warning that the primaries could breach a new security law.
Since then, Chinese state media have blamed both events for triggering the third wave of infections, while one politician called it "absolutely irresponsible behaviour".
However, health experts say there is no evidence of them causing the spike in infections.
Prof Cowling says scientists "are able to link together cases to identify chains of transmission, and there are no clusters attributed to those events," while Prof Peiris argues that the events "may have aggravated things slightly, but I don't think it was a major determinant one way or the other".
Meanwhile, Dr Tsang says research has shown that "the strain of coronavirus in the third wave is different from those in previous waves" - in particular, it has type of mutation seen in aircrew and seafarers from the Philippines and Kazakhstan, so he believes the strain was imported.
There have been similar discussions around the world - particularly in light of anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd - over whether demonstrations can lead to a spike in infections, with some experts suggesting that outdoor events where participants wear masks and take precautions could be lower risk than initially expected.
Could the outbreak affect Hong Kong's elections?
There is widespread speculation that Hong Kong's government could postpone September's elections to Hong Kong's parliament - the Legislative Council - citing the spike in infections.
Several local media reports, quoting anonymous sources, say the government is set to postpone elections by a year.
Opposition politicians have accused the government of using the pandemic as an excuse to delay elections, especially as the opposition had performed strongly in local elections late last year.
However the move has been welcomed by some, including former Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang, who told local media: "The government won't be able to absolve itself of blame if polling stations turn into hotbeds for spreading the virus.
"It's also nearly impossible for candidates to canvass votes given the social distancing rules."
Prof Cowling says that social distancing measures reintroduced by the government have already stopped case numbers from accelerating over the past week.
"I'm not sure it's necessary to delay the elections - certainly not for a year. You could consider delaying them for two weeks or a month, because by then we'd almost certainly have [local infection] numbers back down to zero."
He adds that there are many ways to make elections safer, including increasing the number of polling stations and staff to reduce wait times, ensuring polling stations are well-ventilated, and testing all polling station staff two days before the election.
Governments have taken very different approaches to this - at least 68 countries or territories postponed elections due to Covid-19, while 49 places held elections as planned, says the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
Singapore held its general elections earlier this month - and had its highest turnout in recent years, says Eugene Tan, a law professor and political commentator at Singapore Management University.
"There is never a good time for an election during a pandemic," he says, but the vote went ahead with several safety measures in place and "demonstrates that it is possible to protect public health even as people go about exercising their democratic right to vote."
However, he believes that making a decision on whether to proceed with elections is a tough judgement call for governments, particularly if public trust is low.
"If you delay elections you could be accused of waiting for a more favourable time [for the government] - but if you go ahead you could be accused of playing fast and loose with people's lives. The worst thing would be to have an election, and then have a spike in the number of cases."
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In late March, India's cities went still as the country locked down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Workplaces shut, public transport stopped and people stayed home. But photographer Parul Sharma ventured out to document the deserted capital, Delhi.
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By Aparna AlluriBBC News, Delhi
"The lockdown was too much for a restless person like me," Sharma told the BBC in a phone interview. "I usually don't like to be in the confines of home. So I decided to go out."
Her family needed some convincing, but they finally came around. So on 3 April, about a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the lockdown on TV, Sharma stepped out in the late afternoon to chase the best light.
For the next few months, she drove around the city, armed with a camera and the necessary passes, which allowed journalists, officials and essential workers such as doctors and nurses to move around.
"I could see the clouds and birds, but no trace of humans," she said. "It was magical, like getting into la la land. Still and motionless but also beautiful."
The result: about 10,000 striking photographs of an unusual moment in Delhi's history. A collection of these stark photographs are now part of her new book Dialects Of Silence, published by Roli Books.
Her first stop, she recalled, was one of her favourite spots in Delhi, and not too far from home. Connaught place, a Georgian-style circular colonnade, lies at the heart of Delhi. The colonial-era construction was a business district for decades before it became a popular hub for shops, restaurants and bars.
But some businesses have stayed on, like the iconic Regal theatre, one of Delhi's oldest and best-known cinema halls.
"I didn't go to landmarks, I went to places that brought back memories of my childhood," Sharma said.
Connaught Place is usually teeming with people - street vendors, shoppers, office goers grabbing a quick lunch or after-work drinks. But on that day, Sharma said, all she encountered was "emptiness and solitude".
"That has its own beauty. And it spoke volumes, as did this aura of absence that was prevalent everywhere," she said.
But the places Sharma sought through her memories were veritable landmarks, including Khan Market, a partition-era business complex that is now a posh, often buzzing, shopping enclave in central Delhi. Its facade is occupied by the famous Bahrisons bookstore, which closed its doors indefinitely for the first time.
The writer William Dalrymple said Sharma had produced a "startling portfolio of a locked-down, masked, visored, sanitised, padlocked and disinfected Delhi, almost empty of its people and taken over by bored jawans and preening monkeys". Never had the Indian capital, he said, looked "so unfamiliar, or so surreal".
But no part of locked down Delhi stood in starker contrast to its usual state than Old Delhi, the nearly 400-year-old neighbourhood that was once the seat of the Mughal empire.
"It was like a ghost town. It was most astonishing to see," Sharma said.
The narrow lanes, flanked by crumbling buildings that hint at past splendour, are always packed with people and vehicles of all sorts, from cycles to carts to cars.
Even the Jama Masjid, Delhi's most famous mosque, had gone quiet. Driving through Old Delhi in the night, Sharma said, felt both "eerie and beautiful".
"My quest was to seek beauty," she said. But then things changed as the lockdown progressed, Covid-19 case numbers gradually climbed and she continued to shoot.
For the people of Delhi, the novelty of the lockdown - and the desolate charm it brought to Indian cities - was soon punctured by uncertainty and challenges. Sharma often drove past AIIMS, one of India's biggest public hospitals, on her way to and from shoots. One day, she decided to stop and talk to the people who were camped outside because the hospital had shut down its outpatient wing to focus on Covid-19 care. It was there she decided to turn her lens on those suffering amid the pandemic.
Sharma visited the AIIMS' Covid-19 wing, where she photographed doctors as they put on the now-familiar PPE suit.
She also visited a Covid-19 care centre, where she photographed residents, including a young girl. "She was having a good time. She asked the PPE doctors to braid her hair," Sharma recalled, laughing.
Her shoots took a different turn as she began to document the human toll of the pandemic - the prostitutes in Delhi who were running out of money, the hungry homeless and poor, who were suddenly jobless. It was then that she began to encounter some resistance. "I was dissuaded as a woman. I faced a lot of questions," she said.
But she continued, going wherever her curiosity took her. "I don't like to be a distant spectator," she said.
Her work took her to Muslim cemeteries, Hindu crematoriums and to a Christian coffin-maker, who said he had never had to make so many coffins in such a short period of time.
"Death was the most frightening and most tragic," Sharma said. "There were no flowers, no goodbyes, no relatives. It was lonely for the dead."
By June, the lockdown began to ease and the "new normal" emerged. Sharma chronicled that too, including sparsely staffed, indoor shoots as advertising and films gingerly resumed activity.
Sharma's book, which was released at the end of August, won praise for its haunting and intimate portrayal of one of the world's busiest cities rendered still.
It was a "first-hand document of what Delhi went through", she said.
All images are copyrighted.
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In 2013, Brett Fallon doused himself in petrol and stepped into an open fire. The former landowner had blamed one of Australia's biggest banks for destroying his business and grinding him into suicidal despair. He survived, but only just.
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By Phil MercerBBC News, Sydney
"I thought, 'Bugger it, I can't beat these bastards.' I decided to terminate matters by tipping 15 litres of petrol over my head and walking into an open fireplace.
"I was in a coma for close to seven months, I received 40 or 50 skin grafts, I've had a multitude of operations and fingers amputated," he tells me.
"When I came out of the hospital and tried to get some clarity into my matters of banking I found that wall of silence still existed."
Mr Fallon has claimed his overdraft was cancelled by ANZ Bank and he was charged punitive rates of interest on other loans.
The bank says it has tried to assist Mr Fallon. In a statement, an ANZ spokesman said: "Since 2007… ANZ sought to work with Mr Fallon, including by providing him with a significant period of time to sell properties to reduce his debt."
But Mr Fallon is not alone. Reckless advice by rogue financial planners, overcharging and a lack of accountability have made highly profitable banks in Australia deeply unpopular.
Avalanche of criticism
The government wants to make it easier for disgruntled customers to seek redress through a new "low-cost, speedy tribunal", while the opposition believes that a powerful Royal Commission is the only way to forensically investigate the nation's biggest banks.
The industry has responded to an avalanche of criticism, and has pledged to regain the community's trust.
For Tanya Hargraves it is an empty promise. The 65-year-old graphic designer and publisher, who lives on the outskirts of Canberra, is the victim of alleged predatory lending.
She told the BBC that she was convinced by her bank to take out a A$1.6m (US$1.9m; £935,000) property loan, but she soon realised her mistake as she began to fall behind with her repayments. She alleges Commonwealth Bank staff were unwilling to help as her life unravelled, and a property portfolio disappeared.
"They have left me destitute. They have stolen A$535,000 of my money. It is straight out theft. It happens so much in this country, it is wrong," she says.
"You can't fight [the banks] because you don't have the finances. Most of the lawyers… don't want to take on such a large organisation.
"There is no mercy. They don't care," she adds.
The Commonwealth Bank has denied any inappropriate behaviour and said the case had been subject to an independent review by the Financial Ombudsman Service, which found the bank had given "genuine consideration to the applicant's requests for assistance with her financial difficulty".
'Trust gap'
In October, the bosses of Australia's big four banks were called to appear before the House of Representatives Economics Committee in Canberra. The tone was one of contrition.
"In recent years it is clear a trust gap has opened up and we as an industry and as individual banks need to work harder to close that gap," Brian Hartzer, chief executive of Westpac Bank, told MPs.
The Australian Bankers' Association (ABA) later insisted the sector would strive to become more accountable and transparent.
"Consumers are demanding action now, and we are responding," said ABA chief executive Steven Munchenberg.
"The industry is making major changes that address concerns about how bank staff are rewarded, the protection of whistleblowers, the handling of customer complaints and dealing with poor conduct. We are doing this with independent oversight."
Bank bashing is an Australian pastime that has its roots in the nation's fierce anti-authoritarian streak and its mistrust of large organisations, and its politicians.
Avenues of redress
"In the last couple of decades banks, particularly the big banks, have been re-identified as somehow the source of capitalist problems in Australia," explains Chris Berg, a senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, a free market think-tank.
"We have got many complex regulatory challenges, but the idea that the banks are acting against the interests of the Australian population is utterly false."
Angry customers currently have various avenues of redress: the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal and the Credit and Investments Ombudsman Scheme.
They handle thousands of complaints each year, but a panel of experts is looking at whether those three dispute resolution measures can be replaced by a single super-agency to make the process easier and quicker.
'Absolutely horrendous'
In Charleville, 680km west of Brisbane, farmer Catherine Stuart is taking her grievances to Australia's Federal Court.
She had problems with her lender, Rabobank, and her A$3m debt and has alleged a restriction of trade. Mrs Stuart says her family were forced to leave their property in 2014.
"[The court case] is very, very complicated and many farmers are going through the same thing. We certainly need a banking inquiry or something to get to the bottom of this," she told the BBC.
"It is horrendous, absolutely horrendous. The effects on the family are just indescribable. The unconscionable behaviour of these financiers has a lot to answer for."
Rabobank Australia and New Zealand has denied any wrongdoing. "We worked patiently and supportively with them (Catherine Stuart and her family) for more than four years as they attempted to resolve their financial difficulties. It is only when all reasonable avenues… have been exhausted that the bank moves to recovery action."
Australia's big four banks make billions of dollars in profits each year. But like them or loathe them, the majority of Australians have a financial stake in them with many superannuation - or pension funds - invested in the likes of Westpac and ANZ.
Brett Fallon's contempt for the banks still rages but he is slowly recovering from his self-inflicted wounds, running a campsite for tourists near the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland.
"I look after backpackers from all over the world. They have been a godsend to me these young people. I've created a wonderful new life for myself," he says.
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The recent announcement that data from individuals' GP records would be shared with researchers inside the NHS - and potentially outside - was controversial.
In this week's Scrubbing Up, Prof Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, says while the decision is up to each of us, population data like this is crucial for making progress in tackling diseases.
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By Prof Peter JohnsonCancer Research UK
Patient information is a very controversial issue.
We live in an age when all manner of information about us is collected and shared all the time and, understandably, everyone worries about who is looking at their data and what they're doing with it.
But using our records for medical research is not about some sort of free-for-all with people's data.
It is about doing the right thing and using the information that we collect in the NHS to benefit patients in the future.
We need the proper safeguards, and I am as sceptical as anyone about the idea of selling the data outside the NHS, but that is not a reason to discard the whole idea.
When we think about cancer research, we might picture scientists working in labs or patients on clinical trials, but this isn't the full story.
There are researchers making vital discoveries and saving lives right now, who will never touch a test tube and may never meet a patient.
These are the population researchers who work with vast databases of patient records, who have made some of the most important discoveries in medicine, and their type of research is as important as ever.
Cancer research is a huge success story, we know so much more now than we did 50 years ago.
But we don't know everything.
Patient data can be used to answer some of the big questions about cancer: what causes it, how do we treat it and how do we cure it?
For us, one of the most valuable parts of the NHS is the National Cancer Registration Service, which covers the whole of the UK and stretches back over 40 years.
This system provided the data needed to show that mesothelioma is caused by asbestos exposure and gave us the evidence behind the new innovations in the bowel screening programme.
It gives us some of the best information in the world about how well or badly we are doing, and is vital for making sure we keep improving cancer treatments all the time.
Serious threat
But without access to people's records to track how a type of treatment works this is a wasted opportunity.
Cancer registries have already saved many lives and in the future they will save many more.
However, they are under serious threat from legislation in the European Union.
The registries collect data from cancer patients automatically, although patients can object to their details being shared.
Under the new European Data Protection Regulation, this would become illegal and we are worried our national cancer registries could collapse completely.
If cancer registration is allowed to fail in this way, a unique weapon in the fight against cancer will be lost.
Our registries are a precious resource and we must protect them.
It is absolutely critical that the UK government lobbies effectively in the EU to ensure that registries and other population research is protected from this regulation.
The choice is yours.
Population research involves huge numbers, but we always remember that behind every database containing a million pieces of information, there are a million individuals and their care.
We work with information from millions of people, but every one of those has generously shared their information and is making an individual contribution to our research.
We respect that and recognise what a valuable thing this trust is.
Unlike many of the people involved in this debate, I'm not here to tell you what to do.
It's your data, it's your decision.
Everyone in England has a decision to make.
NHS England is soon going to be uploading GP records into a central database, which will be used in planning healthcare and in research.
This can be a huge force for good, if we get it right.
We need to make sure that we have rules to protect us properly, but at the same time make sure we can carry on with essential research.
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Kelsey was just 14 years old when she was introduced to drugs and taught how to steal from shops by an older man in order to pay for them. She is now 22 and has served seven prison sentences for shoplifting.
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By Chris Hemmings & Dan Clark-NealVictoria Derbyshire programme
But she says people like her are getting away with shoplifting more than ever before - and shopkeepers report that it can cost them thousands of pounds in stock each month.
Official figures show that while the number of offences has increased over the last five years across England, the number of people being arrested and charged with shoplifting has decreased.
"Nine times out of 10 [you get away with it]. And you're not bothered about the consequences," Kelsey told the Victoria Derbyshire programme.
"Once you do get caught, it's a four-month jail sentence and you're out in two months."
Kelsey - whose surname and location we have chosen not to reveal - said she knew it was wrong and is now on treatment for heroin addiction and is no longer shoplifting.
The 2014 Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act defined "low-value shoplifting" as a summary offence, which meant police forces decided they would no longer investigate thefts from shops of a value under £200.
Anyone who is caught in the act of stealing goods of less than £200 can still be arrested and face prosecution but the act allows them to plead guilty by post. They only have to attend the magistrates' court if they choose to deny the offence.
Home Office statistics show the number of offences of shoplifting in England rose by nearly 23% between 2013 and 2017.
Figures from 27 of 38 police forces in England - obtained by the BBC - show that during the same period arrests of shoplifters dropped by 17% and charges fell by 25% in that time.
'Everyone's at it'
Kelsey says that, before she gave up shoplifting for good, she had continued to offend because she knew she would only get a short sentence. The last time she was prosecuted, and despite her previous convictions, she was only given a suspended sentence.
"People are just going in the morning to get their first [fix] of the day. They steal £40 worth of stuff and sell it for £20 to get three bags [of heroin]," she said.
"If you go down to the town centre, everyone's at it."
That is a view that is shared by many shopkeepers up and down the country.
Paul Cheema, who owns two convenience stores in Coventry, says the losses he faces from shoplifting are now so high, he recently had to close a third store.
"We've never known shop crime as bad as it's been for the last two or three years," he said.
"Some weeks we were losing £1,000 worth of stock. Can I survive that? No."
On top of those losses, Paul says he has had to increase investment in deterrents, including CCTV and tagging expensive items such as meat and alcohol.
Chris Noice, from the Association of Convenience Stores, said his members had told him thefts were increasing - and he was concerned about the number of times shoplifting quickly escalated to violence when thieves were challenged.
"Anecdotally, years ago if someone was challenged they just drop stuff and run off. Now they're leading to violence and it's because they think police won't respond to that," he said.
The Freedom of Information request by the Victoria Derbyshire Programme asked every police force in England how many people had been arrested for shoplifting each year between 2013 to 2017 and, subsequently, how many charges were brought for shoplifting in each of those years.
Surrey Police had a 69% drop in arrests during that period - the biggest drop of any force who responded to the FOI request. Surrey also saw a drop in charges of more than 46%.
A statement from Surrey Police said: "Increased demand, combined with the increasingly complex nature of criminal investigations and financial challenges have led to forces making difficult decision as to how we use resources and prioritise our response to certain crime types or incidents."
Police 'finding alternatives'
The number of charges for shoplifting brought by the Metropolitan Police nearly halved in five years, dropping from 9,596 in 2013 to 5,252 in 2017.
Sgt Rob Harris leads a policing team covering Britain's busiest shopping street - Oxford Street in London.
He says that while arrests may be going down, his team now uses alternatives to arrests to deal with shoplifters, such as street cautions.
"The vast majority of it we're dealing with out on the streets and never bringing them in to custody in the first place," he said.
"We've got a limited number of officers so we can't deal with every single one... so shops will self-assess and decide whether it's worth calling us or not."
Between 2010 and 2017 there has been a 20% drop in real terms in police funding in England and Wales, which has led to 20,000 fewer officers.
Sgt Harris said that has made police forces look at different ways of dealing with crimes such as shoplifting.
The Home Office said in a statement: "We are clear that all crimes reported to the police should be taken seriously, investigated and, where appropriate, taken through the courts and met with tough sentences."
Watch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 BST on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel in the UK and on iPlayer afterwards.
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An Australian court has temporarily banned the sale of Samsung Electronics' tablet computer in Australia, a victory for Apple in its global patent dispute with the South Korean company.
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Apple has accused Samsung of copying its touch-screen technology for its Galaxy Tab 10.1.
The two companies are embroiled in legal battles in nine countries.
Samsung is one of Apple's biggest challengers in the smartphone and tablet industry.
The decision by the federal court threatens to hurt Samsung's position in the Australian market, as it could miss the lucrative Christmas season.
The two companies have been locked in patent disputes since April, with each accusing the other of infringing patents.
Apple has already won a victory in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, banning the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. An appeal hearing is expected in that case.
Last week, Samsung said it would try to stop the sale of Apple's iPhone 4S in France and Italy, accusing the company of infringing 3G transmission patents.
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Almost 3,000 calls were made to West Midlands Ambulance Service on Friday, making it the busiest day of the year.
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The ambulance service called it "mad Friday" and a spokesman said 20% more ambulances were on call at peak times.
The high call-out rate is expected to continue over the weekend as "the partying continues".
Assistant chief ambulance officer Craig Cooke said: "We know from previous experience that this weekend would be extremely busy for us."
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The skipper of a boat has been injured in an accident off the coast of Cornwall.
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Falmouth Coastguard said man received serious hand injuries on a private angling vessel off Newquay.
The 58-year-old was brought ashore by the crew of the RNLI Newquay lifeboat and transferred to the Cornwall Air Ambulance.
He has been flown to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth. His condition is not known.
The RNLI said a member of Newquay's Deputy Launching Authority brought the fishing boat back to port.
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The centenary of the Royal Air Force's oldest squadron of aeroplanes was marked this month in Lincolnshire - an area so associated with the RAF it became known as Bomber County. But what is the significance now?
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The small Lincolnshire village of Scopwick has no more than a few hundred residents, but for many people around the world it is a site of pilgrimage.
In the cemetery is the grave of John Gillespie Magee, who wrote the poem High Flight shortly before before being killed in a World War II flying accident.
His poem lived on, becoming popular among aviators and being made the official poem of the Royal Canadian Air Force, in which Magee served.
"People come to visit his grave on a fairly frequent basis," said Rev David Woods, vicar for Holy Cross Church, Scopwick.
"Last year there was a contingent who came from Canada."
"I think some of the Magee family have been to visit the grave," he said. "And people from Scopwick have close connections with them."
The village is one of just many places in Lincolnshire with significance for aviators and military aviation enthusiasts.
The RAF now has six operational stations in the county, but during World War II there are thought to have been more than 100 military airfields, including dummy airfields and emergency landing strips.
Military historian Bruce Barrymore Halpenny said the exact number is not known because a lot of paperwork was destroyed after the war, but it is accepted that there were more than in any other county.
"At the outset of World War II the bulk of all bombers took off from Lincolnshire hence it, and it alone, became known as Bomber County," he said.
The county's proximity to Germany made it ideal for airfields, according to Harold Panton, who set up the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre.
The flatness of the county's farming land also made it well-suited, he said.
Mr Panton and his brother Fred set up the centre as a tribute to their brother Christopher, who was shot down and killed on a bombing raid over Nuremberg in March 1944.
It is based on the old wartime airfield of RAF East Kirkby, and is now a family-run museum with a collection of wartime vehicles including a Lancaster bomber.
Mr Barrymore Halpenny's research has shown that after the war many airfields were returned to their owners.
"There are still several abandoned buildings, especially the control towers that can be seen dotted around the county; haunting reminders to the past and the great sacrifice of so many brave men and women."
Lincolnshire's aviation heritage is also remembered through a display team called the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, a collection of aircraft which includes Spitfires and Hurricanes.
Based at RAF Coningsby, the team performs across the UK, recently making an appearance at the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William, who himself learnt to fly at another of the county's air bases - RAF Cranwell.
But the most famous Lincolnshire display team is undoubtedly the Red Arrows, whose are based at RAF Scampton.
The base was previously home to the 617 Squadron, famously known as the Dambusters for their raids on German dams.
Lincolnshire is also the RAF's main home for the Typhoon jet, with four squadrons at Coningsby.
These include the No 3 (Fighter) Squadron, described as "oldest fixed-wing squadron" in the RAF - created by its forerunner, the Royal Flying Corps.
The "fixed wing" distinction means it was the first to exclusively operate aeroplanes, as the No 1 and No 2 squadrons used hot air balloons.
"There's a big argument as to who is the oldest," said Wing Commander Dicky Patounas, the current officer commanding No 3 (Fighter) Squadron.
"Three squadrons were formed on exactly the same day, 13 May 1912.
"No 1 was equipped with balloons only. No 2 was equipped with a mixture of balloons and aeroplanes, but we have only ever operated with aeroplanes."
In contrast, the RAF describes the Typhoon as its most modern and versatile multi-role aircraft, and it is these jets which will be used to provide security during the Olympics.
A memorial to Bomber Command personnel killed during World War II is due to be dedicated and unveiled in London on 28 June.
Bomber Command 'home'
There are also plans for one to be built in Lincoln, although the city's cathedral already has two such memorials.
One is a stained glass window in the Airmens' Chapel and the other is a memorial stone on the ground outside the Airmens' Chapel.
There is also a book which records the 26,911 names of the personnel stationed in Lincolnshire who died.
Duty chaplain Canon Michael Boughton said the cathedral is regularly visited by relatives of those who died.
"The ones that have actually flown are getting fewer but families come," he said.
"The thing I hear most as a duty chaplain is that the cathedral was a landmark for the people flying back to England, directing them they were very nearly home, and that's why they come back."
BBC Radio Lincolnshire will be exploring the county's aviation heritage when it broadcasts live from RAF Coningsby on Sunday 20 May, as part of its One Week in Lincolnshire project.
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At the age of 11, Tom Gregory became the youngest person ever to swim the English Channel, driven on by an extraordinary coach. It's a little-heralded feat of endurance that won't be bettered.
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By Owen AmosBBC News
It was 05:00 on 6 September 1988 and Tom Gregory stood on the tip of France. Behind him was his coach, John Bullet. In front of him was the vast, black, English Channel. Tom, in swimming trunks, faced the water. Out there, somewhere, was home.
John went to his car. He took a block of grease from the footwell and, in the glow of the headlamps, rubbed it into Tom's skin. On the water, a light appeared in the dark. A small boat came to shore. Tom put on his cap and goggles, and walked into the Channel. He followed the boat, and, when it got too deep, he started to swim. He didn't stop for 12 hours.
Tom was 11 years old.
Tom Gregory moved to Eltham, in south-east London, when he was six. His cousins were in the local swimming club, so he and his older sister, Anna, joined as well. Most of the swimmers, says Tom, were from the council estates that surrounded the pool.
"It was very earthy," he says. "Almost all the kids were older. I was terrified."
The club was run by John Bullet, the manager of the local pool. He could be difficult - "old school, like Brian Clough", says Tom. But he changed people's lives.
"He used to boast - and this was the 1980s, remember - that no-one who'd been through his club was unemployed," says Tom. "By any standard, he was a world-class coach, and he was operating out of a council pool in south-east London. He took kids from estates and helped them do amazing things."
Eltham is less than 70 miles from Dover, and the club's forte was channel swimming. From 1972 to 1988, they completed 14 relays between England and France. In 1979, a 12-year-old from the club, Marcus Hooper, became the youngest person ever to swim the English Channel. John soon set his sights, well, lower.
"In hindsight, I think John was looking for someone to break another world record," says Tom. "He saw this chubby, gregarious, slightly cheeky seven-year-old boy and thought - he looks like the sort of kid."
Aged eight, Tom swam the one-mile width of Windermere in the Lake District, chosen because of its similarity to the Channel (deep, cold, and choppy). A year later, he did half a length (about 5.5 miles) and in the summer of 1987, he completed the full length, aged 10.
By this time, says Tom, Eltham Training and Swimming Club was a "movement".
"It was more than a club - it was everyone's lives. People say 'you must have had pushy parents' - but nothing could be further from the truth. They are lovely people. They just watched from the side with a mixture of fear and amazement."
After swimming Windermere, Tom began preparing for the Channel. That meant months of sacrifice, both in and out of the pool.
"People who die while swimming the Channel - and they do - tend to die of hypothermia," says Tom. "If you can handle the cold you're halfway there."
Channel swimming achievements
From Christmas 1987, Tom didn't touch hot water. All showers and baths were cold. From spring 1988, he slept under one sheet, with the window open. That summer, he swam a length and a half of Windermere.
"After that, I knew it was on," says Tom. "John had got me to the point where I believed it was possible. It became a burning ambition to get across."
On the evening of 5 September, he headed for Dover, fuelled by a "tray of mum's shepherd's pie". On the late-night ferry to France, he and John had a fry-up.
"These were the days before sports nutrition," says Tom.
They drove in the dark to Cap Gris Nez, the closest part of France to England. Tom entered the water and followed the small boat to a fishing trawler, which would guide him across the Channel.
Although Cap Gris Nez is only 20 miles from Dover, Tom's route was 32 miles - Channel swimmers follow an "S" shape, because of the tides.
"To begin, it's an unnerving feeling," he says. "It's dark, there's a swell. You have this real sense of '32 miles to go'. There's a real fear of failure."
But he got off quickly. By the middle third, Tom says, he was "on it".
"I knew I was swimming fast. We got well over halfway in under five hours, so we were on for a sub-10 hour swim. That year, I think that would have got me a Rolex for the fastest swim, never mind the youngest."
Before long, Tom saw the White Cliffs of Dover. But they were almost a mirage.
"I remember the narrow band of white on the horizon," he says. "And every time I looked up, it didn't get any closer. It's mental torture. I kept my head down, kept the gaps as long as possible, but they never got nearer. And that's when the pain kicks in."
His shoulder blades, he says, felt like they were rubbing together across his back. His legs burnt. His body started shutting down.
"You know that warm and cosy feeling before you fall asleep? It's like that. You start drifting off and then you're startled by something - a foghorn, or the thud of the engine, or the smell of diesel. At one point, I remember a hovercraft coming past, and it really made me jump. You lose all situational awareness."
For most of the swim, Tom only saw John when he stopped for digestive biscuits and bottles of warm tomato soup. But in the final third, John made eye contact, and didn't let go.
"He knew I was going through the pain barrier," says Tom. "He was encouraging me, but it was miserable. It feels like depression. At one point I was teary. But I was too scared to stop. Not scared of anybody - just scared of not completing it."
Eventually, the White Cliffs became closer. As they approached the shore, the trawler stopped, and John jumped in the small boat to guide Tom home.
"It's strange - I'd been so exhausted, but for the final five or 10 minutes, I powered to shore. It was like I was on autopilot. I remember John in the tender just shouting 'Go! Go! Go!'"
Tom swam towards Shakespeare Cliff, a shingle beach to the west of Dover. About 20 people, including his parents, were watching. Eventually, Tom saw pebbles. For the first time since Cap Gris Nez, there was land beneath his feet.
He put one foot down. Then another. He stopped swimming.
He had made it from France to England in 11 hours and 54 minutes. He was 11 years and 336 days old. No one has done it younger, and no one ever will. In November 2000, the Channel Swimming Association banned under-16s from attempting the crossing.
"When I reached the shore, I was a few notches off compos mentis," he says. "I was dazed, confused. I'd been in cold water for 12 hours, with a high rate of exertion. I'd been told you had to take three unaided steps after reaching land, otherwise you hadn't made it. But I couldn't stand up. I was on my knees.
"Those steps became massively important. It was a Neil Armstrong moment. Eventually I did three steps, and I sat down. I remember being surrounded by people cuddling me."
After warming up, Tom and John headed on the trawler to Folkestone harbour, where television crews were waiting (only the Evening Standard made it to Shakespeare Cliff).
He appeared on ITN and Blue Peter, where he was given a gold badge ("awarded in exceptional circumstances for outstanding achievement"). He even made the New York Times.
"But, once the fuss died down, I didn't really talk about it," says Tom. "John didn't want me to become a big head."
Tom, now 39, went on to university and then Sandhurst, becoming an officer in the Royal Anglian Regiment. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now works for accountancy firm Deloitte, living in Surrey with his wife and daughter.
After swimming the English Channel, John and Tom discussed swimming the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and south-west Scotland, as well as the Thames, and a relay of the Lakes, travelling between them on helicopter. There was also talk of Olympic training.
And then, five months after Tom broke the record, John died. He was 50.
"He was at the baths, five o'clock in the morning as usual, and he had a massive stroke," says Tom. "He never recovered. He went to hospital and there was a constant procession of people by his bed. Kids who he helped over the years - families whose lives he'd changed. People who loved him.
"For me, it was like losing a father. It ruined me. I used to spend so much time with him. I remember being in school, singing a hymn, and bursting into tears."
According to an Eltham newsletter, more than 300 people attended John's funeral, "despite the fact he had no family at all".
"If John Bullet was alive today, he'd be getting Unsung Hero Award at the Sports Personality of the Year," says Tom. "He did countless relays of the Channel, and broke two world records, all with kids from a two-mile radius of Eltham Baths. It was incredible. But when John died, the club sort of died. It lived on thanks to some very selfless people, but my connection went.
"This isn't false modesty, but the Channel swim wasn't about me. It was about the club. I was part of a movement, and I represented all of us. It only happened because of the courage and vision of John. I guess I was the lucky one who got the challenge."
The crack-of-dawn starts, the hours in the pool, the weeks in Windermere, the cold showers, the open windows, the burn, the pain, the tears. Could any child enjoy that?
"Oh yeah," Tom says, surprised at the question. "I loved it. That club changed people's lives."
More from the Magazine
In 1987, Lynne Cox, an American long distance swimmer, braved the frigid waters of the Bering Strait to swim between the US and the Soviet Union in a bid to promote peace between the Cold War enemies.
The icy swim that warmed Cold War relations (July 2015)
Get Inspired Swimming page
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Firefighters have tackled a large fire in Aberdeen.
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The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said they were called to the blaze at the disused primary school in Bucksburn on Inverurie Road at about 21:30 on Wednesday.
They said four fire engines attended the blaze, which engulfed the roof of the building.
It is understood the school, which has not been in use since 2013, was due to be demolished.
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Relatives of the dead gathered in New York to mark the 12th anniversary of 9/11. Meanwhile, 1,400 miles away, the man who says he masterminded the attacks awaits his trial.
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By Tara McKelveyBBC News Magazine
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walked into a courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, one morning in August. The door stayed open for a moment and sunlight fell across the floor.
Laura and Caroline Ogonowski watched him from a gallery behind three plates of glass. They are daughters of John Ogonowski, the 50-year-old pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.
Tom and JoAnn Meehan were also there. They lost their daughter, Colleen Barkow, 26, in the World Trade Center. Rosemary Dillard's husband, Eddie, 54, died in the jet that crashed into the Pentagon.
The room was quiet.
Mohammed adjusted his turban with both hands, as if it were a hat. He was short and overweight, and he walked in a jerky manner - like a Lego Star Wars character, someone in the gallery remarked later.
"He has a high voice," says the court illustrator, Janet Hamlin. "I expected a baritone. Darth Vader."
Mohammed and the other four defendants, Walid bin Attash, Ammar al-Baluchi (also known as Abd al-Aziz Ali), Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi are accused of helping to finance and train the men who flew the jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
They face charges that include terrorism and 2,976 counts of murder, and they could be executed.
US v Mohammed has been described as the trial of the century. At the centre of the drama is the world's most notorious al-Qaeda member.
"If we were a different country, we might have taken him out and shot him," says a spokesman for the Guantanamo detention facility, Capt Robert Durand, during the hearing.
The legal proceedings against Mohammed provide a chance for people in the courtroom and others to observe him and also to deepen their understanding of al-Qaeda. In addition, his public image reflects the different ways that people have looked at al-Qaeda over the years.
"History consists not only in what important people did," wrote David Greenberg in Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image, a book that looks at the ways that President Nixon has been perceived over the years, "but equally in what they symbolised".
Mohammed, a 48-year-old mechanical engineer, is thought to be a mastermind of al-Qaeda violence and a brilliant, bloody tactician. He was captured in Pakistan on 1 March 2003, less than three weeks before US troops entered Iraq.
People in the US were on edge. They wondered when al-Qaeda would strike again. Meanwhile Pentagon officials were preparing for a military intervention in Iraq. Bush administration officials spoke of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. "The evidence is overwhelming," Vice-President Dick Cheney said in a television interview.
Like other widely-held ideas about al-Qaeda, this one turned out to be untrue.
In 2009, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Mohammed would be put on trial in New York, setting off a political firestorm. The controversy reflected an ongoing and emotionally charged debate regarding national security - is al-Qaeda a serious threat?
President Barack Obama and his deputies were trying to move the nation beyond an age of fear. Not everyone believed the threat had diminished, though.
Conservatives were outraged, saying Mohammed was a danger to Americans and should be tried in a military court. Holder eventually gave up his plans, and prosecutors in Guantanamo filed charges against Mohammed in 2011.
Since that time Mohammed has in the public eye become a comical figure, a man who attempted to re-invent the vacuum cleaner while in prison. "A shoo-in for the Gitmo science fair", said late-night television host David Letterman.
Meanwhile Mohammed and the other defendants were supposedly reading EL James' 50 Shades of Grey. This turned out to be a rumour.
Nevertheless the attempts to ridicule him show how the public's view of al-Qaeda has softened. An essayist for the Washington Post called him "the Kevin Bacon of terrorism", alluding to a parlour game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which players find different ways Bacon is connected with other actors.
Once an icon of terror, Mohammed has been turned into an object of derision.
Mohammed's image has also gone through a transformation within al-Qaeda. He was "popular" in the 1990s, according to the authors of The 9/11 Commission Report. (It was compiled by members of a bipartisan federal commission chaired by a former New Jersey governor, Thomas Kean, and a former Indiana congressman, Lee Hamilton.)
Mohammed's colleagues described him as "an intelligent, efficient, and even-tempered manager", wrote the authors.
His reputation "skyrocketed" after 9/11, says Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer and the author of Understanding Terror Networks. When Mohammed was arrested, he became a "martyr". He can no longer communicate with al-Qaeda, though, and consequently has little influence on the organisation.
The legal proceedings against him are unfolding in a corrugated-metal building in a compound known as Camp Justice. Prosecutors want the trial to start in one year. Defence lawyers baulk, saying that it will take much longer to resolve the legal issues surrounding the case.
Mohammed's lawyers say that he was tortured while he was held in CIA-run "black sites", reportedly in Poland and Romania. The evidence against him is tainted by the brutality of these interrogations, the lawyers say, and therefore the charges should be dropped.
On a more fundamental level the defence lawyers say that the military commissions are not legitimate. The court, they claim, favours the prosecution.
Mohammed, suntanned and wearing glasses, rifled through legal papers in the courtroom during a hearing last month. He had an e-reader, and he seemed comfortable in the courtroom - and with his fate.
He is a "death volunteer", a capital defendant who wants to become a martyr, at least that is what he claimed in 2008. He has not entered a formal plea - though he has talked at length about his role as an al-Qaeda mastermind. The court treats the situation as if he has pleaded not guilty.
Al-Qaeda commanders aim to broadcast a message, whether through violence or other means. One of their most important weapons is propaganda.
As a PR director for al-Qaeda, Mohammed attempts to shape his own image and that of al-Qaeda. He dyed his beard reddish-orange with berry juice, and he wore a tunic and a military-style camouflage jacket.
Wearing "camo" sends a message - he is a soldier.
He grew up in a religious family in a suburb of Kuwait City. He is a citizen of Pakistan, though, and his relatives come from Baluchistan.
At age 11 or 12 he started watching Muslim Brotherhood programmes on television. Later he went to youth camps in the desert - and became interested in jihad.
His family sent him to the US to study. After earning an engineering degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1986, he fixed hydraulic drills on the front lines in Afghanistan, according to a December 2006 US defence department report.
At the time he was helping the US-backed mujahedeen. He says he later became "an enemy of the US", according to the defence department.
"By his own account", wrote the authors of the 9/11 Commission Report, he hated the US not because of anything he saw during the years he lived in the US - but because of US policies towards Israel.
By this time the Muslim Brotherhood brand of jihad was too tame for him. He wanted violence, according to government documents. He chose targets for the 2001 attacks based on their capacity to "awaken people politically".
He had originally planned for the hijacking of 10 commercial jets, according to the authors of the 9/11 Commission Report. He wanted to land one of the jets himself.
"After killing all adult male passengers on board and alerting the media", he would then "deliver a speech excoriating US support for Israel, the Philippines, and repressive governments in the Arab world."
"This is theatre, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star - the super-terrorist," wrote the authors.
Several months after the attacks, the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl arranged to interview a militant, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a former London School of Economics student, in Karachi. It was a ruse - Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded.
Mohammed says that he held the knife, "with my blessed right hand". He made this comment in court, testimony of how he had decapitated Pearl.
Mohammed spoke to another journalist about the 9/11 attack. "The attacks were designed to cause as many deaths as possible and to be a big slap for America on American soil," Mohammed told the journalist at a hideout in Pakistan.
Mohammed spoke proudly of his leadership role in the attacks, and an account of the conversation was published in the Sunday Times in September 2002.
Seven months later, Mohammed was seized in Rawalpindi and then taken to Poland. A group of men, wearing black masks "like Planet-X people", waited for him at an airport, he says, according to a leaked copy of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report.
He was taken to a cell, "about 3m x 4m with wooden walls", in a CIA black site. During the interrogations, he worked as a propagandist, offering some insight into al-Qaeda, and a lot of misinformation.
"I later told the interrogators that their methods were stupid and counterproductive," he said, according to the ICRC report. "I'm sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time and led to several false red-alerts being placed in the US."
He had lied, exaggerating the threat that al-Qaeda posed to Americans. On other occasions he has been a stickler for accuracy. He is something of a control freak - and tries to ensure that messages are transmitted properly.
In military hearings, he corrected the spelling of his name.
Through his lawyer, he chided Hamlin for a sloppy drawing. "I was like, 'Oh, no, he's right,'" she says. She fixed his nose, working in pastel.
Mohammed also mentioned at one of the hearings that the journalist who had interviewed him for the Sunday Times had got things wrong.
"You know the media," he said.
He does not refute previous statements about his role in the 2001 attacks, though. Indeed, he has reinforced them.
"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," he said in a March 2007 hearing. He described himself and other al-Qaeda members as "jackals fighting in the night".
Still, he says he feels remorse. "I don't like to kill people," he said. "I feel very sorry there had been kids killed in 9/11."
In the mornings during the August hearings he was escorted to the courthouse from his holding cell, "a little, one-person supermax", says a military official. Barbed wire stretched like a giant Slinky along the top of a fence. Green sand bags were scattered around, along with Joint Task Force barricades marked "restricted area".
Mohammed walked past an army officer with handcuffs tucked in his waistband. Soldiers with Internal Security badges hovered near the door.
Mohammed took off his glasses and put them on the table. He had a prayer blanket folded over the back of his chair, and a box decorated with an American flag is on the floor.
He is "well-travelled", says one of his lawyers. According to government accounts, he has spent time in Qatar, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and other countries.
The authors of The 9/11 Commission Report described him as "highly educated and equally comfortable in a government office or a terrorist safehouse".
During the hearings he expressed sympathy to his lawyers because they have to spend time away from their families. "He's a very gracious individual," says one lawyer.
Dillard and the others who lost family members in the 2001 attacks sit behind sound-proof glass. They listen to an audio feed that is delayed by 40 seconds so officials can block statements that are classified. This includes information about the interrogations.
For a year or so after the 2001 attacks, US officials acted as though Mohammed and other suspects had super-human intelligence and strength, as if only individuals who were larger than life could carry out the attacks.
Before detainees arrived at Guantanamo, for example, Richard Myers, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff "warned that any lapses in security might allow the detainees, endowed with satanic determination, to 'gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down,'" wrote Karen Greenberg in her book The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days.
This mythology can still be seen in the courtroom. Steel chains, each comprised of 12 links, were fastened to the floor near the detainees' chairs. Each of the chains was arranged in a straight line, and they were installed so that they could be used to restrain unruly detainees. The chains were heavy and thick, sturdy enough for a "super-villain", as one military official tells me.
In the courtroom Mohammed waved over a legal assistant, a woman with blonde hair tucked under a headscarf. He sliced his hand through the air. He had surprisingly thin wrists, and his "blessed right hand" was pale.
It is hard to imagine that he once cut off Pearl's head. Later I mentioned this to one of Mohammed's lawyers. He was sitting at a picnic table outside the courthouse, near a metal sign that said: "No classified discussion area".
"It's inconceivable that this person could do that," said the lawyer, nodding. "That sets up a number of scenarios for us to investigate."
The lawyer and his colleagues are exploring possibilities for their clients' defence.
Sitting at the picnic table, the defence lawyer made a case for Mohammed's innocence - he confessed to crimes he did not commit while "under the tender mercies of the CIA".
I pointed out that he has spoken freely about his role in the crimes - frequently, and with journalists and others who do not work for the CIA. I mention the beheading.
"You keep going back to that," said the lawyer, looking impatient. He said that Mohammed is not being charged with Pearl's murder.
Then he changes tactics. He says that if Mohammad had carried out these crimes, he would have had a reason.
Mohammed is a principled man, the lawyer explained. Someone like him might commit crimes if he believed they were in the service of a greater good. Moreover these acts would carry a personal cost.
"You're sacrificing your life, your family and any future happiness for what you perceive as the good of the defence of your community," said the lawyer.
Even if Mohammed did plan the terrorist attacks and murder Pearl, the lawyer said, these acts do not make him special. "You may have had the opportunity of being in a press conference with George W Bush. He's responsible for about 5,000 deaths."
Many people would like to close the chapter on al-Qaeda and the global war against terrorism. Yet not everyone is ready to move on - or has that luxury.
Dillard said that she wants both the defence and the prosecution to "be very, very careful to maintain the integrity of the trial - so that there's no space for an appeal".
On the last day of the hearing, Dillard walked to a makeshift media-operations centre in an aeroplane hangar. In front of a microphone, she talked about her husband - and about Mohammed and the other accused men.
"I don't want them to ever see the sunshine," she said. "I don't want them to have fresh wind hit their face." She walked back to the side of the room and stood with others who have lost family members.
The next pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo starts on Monday.
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An Indian Muslim died of his injuries after a group of men transporting cattle were attacked by members of a suspected cow protection vigilante group. BBC Hindi's Nitin Srivastava travelled to the victim's village in the northern Indian state of Haryana.
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Villagers jostle to get a glimpse of the injured young boy who has just returned from the hospital.
Azmat, who only uses one name, is lying on a cot inside a small courtyard. He has a fractured rib, multiple clots in the left eye and several lacerations on his arms and stomach. But by all accounts, he is lucky to be alive.
Azmat, along with four others, was attacked by suspected cow protection vigilantes as they were transporting cattle they had purchased from Jaipur in the northern state of Rajasthan back to their dairy farm in neighbouring Haryana.
"Despite having legal documents we were pulled out on the streets, beaten by sticks and the crowd was shouting for us to be burned alive. If the police had not come and rescued us, all of us would have been dead," he told BBC Hindi.
The cow is considered sacred by India's Hindu majority, and killing cows is illegal in many states. Last month, the state of Gujarat passed a law making the slaughter of cows punishable with life imprisonment.
In 2015 a Muslim man was beaten to death in Uttar Pradesh after reports that he had beef in his fridge. Since then, there have been regular reports of cow protection vigilante groups attacking people transporting cattle across the country.
In this case, the men say that the cows they had bought were not for slaughter, and were for dairy purposes instead.
All five men were rushed to a nearby hospital, but one man, Pehlu Khan, did not survive. He succumbed to his injuries three days later in hospital.
At his home, we met his family who had just returned from his funeral.
"As buffalos on sale in Jaipur were beyond our budget my father advised us to buy five cows and four calves. Ramadan is near and he thought this would enhance milk production as it is our only source of income. Who knew he had made the biggest mistake of his life," a sobbing Irshad Khan, Pehlu Khan's 20-year old son, said.
He was also helping transport the animals when the attack took place.
"Who will return our father to us? I couldn't meet him after the attack and could only see his dead body. My mother and grandmother haven't eaten for the last four days. Who will compensate for their loss?" he asked angrily.
Police have arrested three men on the basis of a mobile phone recording of the incident that has gone viral on Indian social media.
"No one will be spared and we are in process of identifying the attackers," Ramesh Chand, a senior police official, told BBC Hindi.
However, they have also registered a case against the survivors of the attack for "illegally transporting cows".
"We had all the documents and there was nothing to hide. Police can verify the sale from the government facility," said Irshad Khan.
Vigilante groups who portray themselves as protectors of cows have been active in several states. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year criticised the vigilantes, saying such people made him "angry". But this has not stopped attacks against cattle traders.
Meanwhile almost 80 miles (128km) from the village, where the men were attacked, not many were willing to speak about what happened.
Some said they were "unaware" of the incident, while others said they wanted "the police to investigate".
But amid considerable tension in the area after the deadly attack, some fear more incidents cannot be ruled out.
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With the African Union (AU) having been a fierce critic of outgoing International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, it will be hoping for a better relationship with his successor, Fatou Bensouda - the first African to hold a top post at the ICC.
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By Farouk ChothiaBBC Africa
The AU lobbied intensely for the 50-year-old Gambian, endorsing her candidature in June after repeatedly accusing Mr Moreno-Ocampo - an Argentinian whose nine-year term expires next year - of selective justice by only investigating atrocities in Africa.
"Frankly speaking, we are not against the ICC. What we are against is Ocampo's justice," AU commission chairman Jean Ping said earlier this year.
"What have we done to justify being an example to the world? Are there no worst countries, like Myanmar [Burma]?"
The appointment of Mrs Bensouda, who has been Mr Moreno-Ocampo's deputy throughout his tenure, was unanimously approved at a meeting of the legislative body of the ICC, the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), in New York on Monday.
Mrs Bensouda, a former senior legal adviser at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is trying key figures responsible for the 1994 genocide in the Central African state, got the job ahead of three other short-listed candidates.
They were Andrew Cayley, the British co-prosecutor at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia; Tanzania's chief justice Mohamed Chande Othman; and Canadian war crimes specialist Robert Petit.
"The AU has been adamant that an African candidate would be selected, and they got their wish," writes UK-based law blogger Mark Kersten on the Justice in Conflict blog.
He says the AU's hand was strengthened by the fact that African countries form the largest bloc in the ASP. Yet the ICC's various organs - including the presidency and registry - were headed by people from other continents.
"Bensouda clearly satisfied all of the political and merit-based criteria to become the ICC's chief prosecutor," Mr Kersten says.
'Great intellect'
Born into a polygamous family - her father had two wives - Mrs Bensouda is married to a Gambian-Moroccan businessman. They have three children - one of whom is adopted.
"I come from a big family, let's say it that way," she said in an interview earlier this month with the AFP news agency.
She told the BBC's Newshour programme that her African background would give her an additional insight into life on the continent, which would help her perform her new job.
However, she said she had been "proud" to have worked with Mr Moreno-Ocampo and so may not bring a radically different approach.
Mrs Bensouda was once a politician, with Gambian President Yahya Jammeh - who took power in a coup in 1994 and is accused of harassing the opposition and the press - appointing her as justice minister in 1998.
But the two fell out and Mr Jammeh sacked her about two years later.
"She was relieved of her duties while she was abroad," Gambian opposition leader Ousainou Darboe told the BBC.
"She is a fantastic person, and showed genuine concern about human rights issues [in The Gambia]."
Mrs Bensouda's appointment as chief prosecutor has been welcomed in the legal profession and among non-governmental organisations.
"She always struck us a very thoughtful person of great intellect," says Human Rights Watch senior counsel Liz Evenson.
A senior lecturer at the Melbourne Law School in Australia, Kevin Jon Heller, says Mr Cayley would have been an "excellent" chief prosecutor, but Mrs Bensouda was also "very qualified" for the job.
"She offers the best of both worlds - an ICC insider who offers institutional continuity, which will be critical in the coming years, but has a strong, independent voice that has not been tainted by Moreno-Ocampo's incompetent tenure," he writes on the Opinio Juris blog.
"Having spoken to numerous individuals involved in the ICC, from OTP [Office of The Prosecutor] staff to legal officers in chambers to defence attorneys, it is clear that Bensouda was the primary reason that the OTP didn't fall completely apart over the past eight years."
"I have also had the good fortune to spend time with Bensouda over the past couple of years. She is, to put it mildly, an incredibly impressive woman: smart, articulate, thoughtful (a welcome change from Moreno-Ocampo) and compassionate."
South Africa-based legal expert Shadrack Ghutto believes that Mrs Bensouda will keep a lower profile than Mr Moreno-Ocampo.
"He had a media-attracting personality and a propensity to make pronouncements before going through judicial processes," Mr Ghutto told the BBC.
"The chief prosecutor must not overshadow the court. I think it will now come to the fore."
The ICC has so far investigated conflicts in seven countries - all in Africa: Sudan; Libya; Ivory Coast; Kenya; Uganda; the Democratic Republic of Congo; and the Central African Republic.
Several of the cases are in court, with a verdict in the first trial - that of eastern DR Congo militia leader Thomas Lubanga - expected early next year.
'No shrinking violet'
"For many observers, it [the case] has been going on for too long, but a lot of things needed to be worked out," says Ms Evenson of Human Rights Watch.
"The two other trials [including that of former DR Congo vice-president and rebel leader Jean Pierre-Bemba] are going much more quickly."
Despite AU accusations of "selective justice", Mrs Bensouda is unapologetic about the ICC's focus on African conflicts.
"We say that the ICC is targeting Africans, but all of the victims in our cases in Africa are African victims," she said earlier this year.
"They are not from another continent. And they're the ones who are suffering these crimes."
Mr Heller says that while Mrs Bensouda will avoid "needlessly alienating" governments, he expects her to vigorously pursue justice.
"From what I know about her, she'll do what she believes is right - no matter how many feathers get ruffled. So if states think they are getting a shrinking violet, they're bound for serious disappointment," he says.
Mr Ghutto says for the sake of the ICC's credibility, Mrs Bensouda must address concerns that only Africans are being targeted by investigating conflicts in other parts of the world.
"The court has to be seen to be international in the way it operates," he says.
"Cases must be brought without fear, favour or prejudice."
The ICC says it is conducting preliminary investigations into eight other countries, including Afghanistan, Colombia and Korea.
Ms Evenson says part of the problem is that many powerful states, including the US and China, have refused to recognise the ICC, meaning that they cannot be investigated unless the UN Security Council - which is a "highly politicised" body - agrees.
"There has to be pressure to get more countries to join the ICC," she says.
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On 27 January, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, the man who called the United States "the Great Satan" - sent a secret message to Washington.
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By Kambiz FattahiBBC Persian Service
From his home in exile outside Paris, the defiant leader of the Iranian revolution effectively offered the Carter administration a deal: Iranian military leaders listen to you, he said, but the Iranian people follow my orders.
If President Jimmy Carter could use his influence on the military to clear the way for his takeover, Khomeini suggested, he would calm the nation. Stability could be restored, America's interests and citizens in Iran would be protected.
At the time, the Iranian scene was chaotic. Protesters clashed with troops, shops were closed, public services suspended. Meanwhile, labour strikes had all but halted the flow of oil, jeopardising a vital Western interest.
Persuaded by Carter, Iran's autocratic ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, known as the Shah, had finally departed on a "vacation" abroad, leaving behind an unpopular prime minister and a military in disarray - a force of 400,000 men with heavy dependence on American arms and advice.
Khomeini feared the nervous military: its royalist top brass hated him. Even more worrying, they were having daily meetings with a US Air Force General by the name of Robert E Huyser, whom President Carter had sent on a mysterious mission to Tehran.
The ayatollah was determined to return to Iran after 15 years in exile and make the Shah's "vacation" permanent. So he made a personal appeal.
In a first-person message, Khomeini told the White House not to panic at the prospect of losing a strategic ally of 37 years and assured them that he, too, would be a friend.
"You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans," said Khomeini, pledging his Islamic Republic will be "a humanitarian one, which will benefit the cause of peace and tranquillity for all mankind".
Khomeini's message is part of a trove of newly declassified US government documents - diplomatic cables, policy memos, meeting records - that tell the largely unknown story of America's secret engagement with Khomeini, an enigmatic cleric who would soon inspire Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism worldwide.
This story is a detailed account of how Khomeini brokered his return to Iran using a tone of deference and amenability towards the US that has never before been revealed.
The ayatollah's message was, in fact, the culmination of two weeks of direct talks between his de facto chief of staff and a representative of the US government in France - a quiet process that helped pave the way for Khomeini's safe return to Iran and rapid rise to power - and decades of high-stakes tension between Iran and America.
In the official Iranian narrative of the revolution, Khomeini bravely defied the United States and defeated "the Great Satan" in its desperate efforts to keep the Shah in power.
But the documents reveal that Khomeini was far more engaged with the US than either government has ever admitted. Far from defying America, the ayatollah courted the Carter administration, sending quiet signals that he wanted a dialogue and then portraying a potential Islamic Republic as amenable to US interests.
To this day, former Carter administration officials maintain that Washington - despite being sharply divided over the course of action - stood firm behind the Shah and his government.
But the documents show more nuanced US behaviour behind the scenes. Only two days after the Shah departed Tehran, the US told a Khomeini envoy that they were - in principle - open to the idea of changing the Iranian constitution, effectively abolishing the monarchy. And they gave the ayatollah a key piece of information - Iranian military leaders were flexible about their political future.
What transpired four decades ago between America and Khomeini is not just diplomatic history. The US desire to make deals with what it considers pragmatic elements within the Islamic Republic continues to this day. So does the staunchly anti-American legacy that Khomeini left for Iran.
Message to Kennedy
It wasn't the first time Khomeini had reached out to Washington.
In 1963, the ayatollah was just emerging as a vocal critic of the Shah. In June, he gave a blistering speech, furious that the Shah, pressed hard by the Kennedy administration, had launched a "White Revolution" - a major land reform programme and granted women the vote.
Khomeini was arrested. Immediately, three days of violent protests broke out, which the military put down swiftly.
A recently declassified CIA document reveals that, in November 1963, Khomeini sent a rare message of support to the Kennedy administration while being held under house arrest in Tehran.
It was a few days after a military firing squad executed two alleged organisers of the protests and ahead of a landmark visit by the Soviet head of state to Iran, which played into US fears of Iran tilting towards a friendlier relationship with the USSR.
Khomeini wanted the Shah's chief benefactor to understand that he had no quarrel with America.
"Khomeini explained he was not opposed to American interests in Iran," according to a 1980 CIA analysis titled Islam in Iran, partially released to the public in 2008.
To the contrary, an American presence was necessary to counter the Soviet and British influence, Khomeini told the US.
The embassy cable containing the full text of Khomeini's message remains classified.
It's not clear if President Kennedy ever saw the message. Two weeks later, he would be assassinated in Texas.
A year later, Khomeini was expelled from Iran. He had launched a new attack on the Shah, this time over extending judicial immunity to US military personnel in Iran.
"The American president should know that he is the most hated person among our nation," Khomeini declared, shortly before going into exile.
Fifteen years later, Khomeini would end up in Paris. He was now the leader of a movement on the verge of ridding Iran of its monarchy. So close to victory, the ayatollah still needed America.
Key players
Iran
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - Shia Muslim religious leader, living in exile in Paris in early 1979
Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti - Khomeini's second-in-command in Iran, a Shia cleric seen by the US as a pragmatist
Ebrahim Yazdi - Iranian-American physician living in Houston, Texas, who became a spokesman and advisor to Khomeini
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi - the last king of Iran, formerly backed by the US government
Shapour Bakhtiar - the Shah's last prime minister
Carter administration
William Sullivan - the US ambassador to Iran
Cyrus Vance - US Secretary of State
Warren Zimmermann - a political counsellor with the US embassy in France, used as a messenger for the US to Khomeini
Robert E Huyser - an US Air Force general sent by Carter on a secretive mission to Tehran in January 1979
By January 1979, Khomeini had the momentum, but he also deeply feared a last-minute American intervention - a repetition of the 1953 coup, when the CIA had helped put the Shah back in power.
The situation became explosive after the Shah's new prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, deployed troops and tanks to close the airport, disrupting Khomeini's planned return in late January.
It seemed Iran was on the brink of a civil war: the elite Imperial Guard divisions were ready to fight to the death for their king; the die-hard followers of the Imam were ready for armed struggle and martyrdom.
The White House feared an Iranian civil war that would have major implications for US strategic interests. At stake were the lives of thousands of US military advisors; the security of sophisticated American weapons systems in Iran, such as F-14 jets; a vital flow of oil; and the future of the most important institution of power in Iran, the military.
It was less alarmed by the rise of Khomeini, and the downfall of the Shah.
But President Carter had previously rejected a proposal to cut a deal between Khomeini and the military.
On 9 November 1978, in a now-famous cable, "Thinking the Unthinkable," the US ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, warned that the Shah was doomed. He argued that Washington should get the Shah and his top generals out of Iran, and then make a deal between junior commanders and Khomeini.
Sullivan's bold proposal caught President Carter off-guard, and caused their relationship to go sour.
But by early January, the reluctant president concluded that the Shah's departure was necessary to calm the opposition.
Amid reports of an impending military coup, the president summoned his top advisors on 3 January. After a brief discussion, they decided to subtly encourage the Shah to leave, ostensibly for a vacation in California.
"A genuinely non-aligned Iran need not be viewed as a US setback," the president said, according to minutes of the meeting.
That day, Carter dispatched General Robert E Huyser, Deputy Commander of US Forces in Europe, to Tehran to tell the Shah's generals to sit tight and "not jump into a coup" against Prime Minister Bakhtiar.
But Bakhtiar had no real support among the opposition, who called him the Shah's agent.
Sullivan praised Bakhtiar's courage to his face, but behind his back, told Washington that the man was "quixotic", playing for high stakes, and would not take "guidance" from the US.
The state department saw his government as "not viable". The White House strongly backed him in public, but in private, explored ousting him in a coup.
"The best that can result, in my view, is a military coup against Bakhtiar and then a deal struck between the military and Khomeini that finally pushes the Shah out of power," wrote Deputy National Security Advisor David Aaron to his boss Zbigniew Brzezinski on 9 January 1979.
"Conceivably this deal could be struck without the military acting against Bakhtiar first," he added.
Two days later, President Carter finally told the depressed and cancer-stricken Shah to "leave promptly".
By then, a broad consensus had emerged within the US national security bureaucracy that they could do business with the ayatollah and his inner circle after all.
Khomeini had sent his own signals to Washington.
"There should be no fear about oil. It is not true that we wouldn't sell to the US," Khomeini told an American visitor in France on 5 January, urging him to convey his message to Washington. The visitor did, sharing the notes of the conversation with the US embassy.
In a key meeting at the White House Situation Room on 11 January, the CIA predicted that Khomeini would sit back and let his moderate, Western-educated followers and his second-in-command, Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, run the government.
Beheshti was considered by US officials to be a rare bird: a pragmatic, English-speaking cleric with a university education, experience of living in the West, and close ties to Khomeini. In short, he was someone with whom the Americans could reason.
"We would do a disservice to Khomeini to consider him simply as a symbol of segregated education and an opponent to women's rights," said the then-head of the State Department Intelligence Bureau, Philip Stoddard.
President Carter was relieved that General Huyser had now arrived in Tehran. Huyser was good at following orders, and had the confidence of the Iranian military leaders.
Once there, Huyser was tasked with taking the temperature of the military's top brass and convincing them to "swallow their prestige" and go to a meeting with Beheshti. The US believed such a meeting would lead to a military "accommodation" with Khomeini.
To help break the stalemate, President Carter swallowed his own prestige. On the evening of 14 January, US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance sent a cable to US embassies in Paris and Tehran: "We have decided that it is desirable to establish a direct American channel to Khomeini's entourage."
Secret meetings
Around noon on 15 January, political counsellor Warren Zimmermann of the US embassy in France arrived at a quiet inn at the small town of Neauphle-le-Château, outside Paris, where Khomeini lived. Zimmermann had borrowed his boss's private Peugeot, which didn't have diplomatic plates, to avoid being tracked.
"I go in and there was this large dining room empty except for this one guy sitting at a table, and that was Yazdi," recalled Zimmermann years later in his oral history.
This was Khomeini's de facto chief of staff, Ebrahim Yazdi, an Iranian-American physician.
A resident of Houston, Texas, Yazdi had already established ties with US officials in Washington through a former CIA operative who had turned into a liberal, anti-Shah scholar, Richard Cottam.
Establishing a direct link with Khomeini was a highly sensitive matter; if revealed, it would be interpreted as a shift in US policy, a clear signal to the entire world that Washington was dumping its old friend, the Shah.
Timeline
1953: Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (the Shah) is restored to power after a US and British-backed coup overthrows the prime minister of Iran
1963: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rises to prominence for denouncing the Shah
1964: Khomeini is arrested and expelled from Iran. He spends the next 15 years in Turkey and Iraq preaching against the Shah
15 January1979: Khomeini enters into a two-week dialogue from exile in France with the Carter administration
16 January 1979: The Shah flees Iran as the country inches towards civil war
1 February 1979: Khomeini returns to Tehran, where millions line the streets to welcome him as the leader of the Iranian revolution
Earlier in the day, Secretary Vance informed the French government that Washington urgently needed to be in direct contact with Khomeini's group. The reason: to obtain Khomeini's support for secret talks in Tehran between Beheshti, and the Shah's military and intelligence chiefs.
Beheshti had met Sullivan, but out of security concerns, refused to meet with the Iranian generals. So, Washington finally appealed to Khomeini to tell his deputy to show some flexibility "in working out a site for the meeting", wrote Vance.
A second meeting was quickly scheduled, and Zimmermann was told to pass along that the military had seriously discussed a coup plan upon the Shah's departure, but General Huyser talked them out of it. The army would "remain calm during that period, provided troops are not provoked," a cable from the US embassy in Tehran said.
On 17 January, President Carter wrote in his diary that he was pushing hard to keep Khomeini out of Iran. But the next day, his administration told Khomeini that it had no problem with his "orderly" homecoming.
The Carter administration began secret talks with Khomeini with the primary objective of making an elusive deal between the ayatollah and the military. It's also possible that they wanted to slow down Khomeini's momentum or read his intentions. But they ended up achieving none of those goals.
Khomeini wanted a decisive victory, not a deal. But a tactical engagement with Washington suited him well. Khomeini, in fact, had a set of key questions to determine Carter's commitment to the Shah's regime and the orientation of the Iranian military.
The ayatollah didn't have to try very hard. America would easily reveal its hand.
'Protect the constitution'?
By the third time Zimmermann and Yazdi met, they had good news for each other. It was the morning of 18 January 1979. The venue: the same quiet inn near Khomeini's compound outside Paris.
Khomeini had authorized Beheshti to meet with the generals, Yazdi confirmed. And Zimmermann had an important clarification for the ayatollah.
During their second meeting, Washington had warned Khomeini that his "sudden return" would lead to a disaster, as the Iranian military might react "to protect the constitution" which stated in no uncertain terms that the constitutional monarchy was "unchangeable for eternity".
But what did "to protect the constitution" mean? Did it mean preserving the institution of monarchy? Or saving the integrity of the military? Khomeini wanted a straight answer.
Put frankly, did the US think the Iranian military had given up on the Pahlavi regime and was "willing to work within the framework of a new democratic republic"?
It took two days for Washington to clarify. The answer, which was kept secret for 35 years, made clear to Khomeini that America was "flexible" about the Iranian political system.
Like most official statements, it began with generalities. The main point was put at the end.
"We do not say that the constitution cannot be changed, but we do believe that the established, orderly procedures for making changes should be followed.
"If the integrity of the army can be preserved, we believe there is every prospect the leadership will support whatever political form is selected for Iran in the future."
In other words, Washington, in principle, was open to the idea of abolishing the monarchy, and the Shah's military, whose top brass met daily with General Huyser, would be willing to accept such an outcome provided the process was gradual and controlled.
Khomeini's biggest fear was that the all-powerful America was on the verge of staging a last-minute coup to save the Shah. Instead, he had just received a clear signal that the US considered the Shah finished, and in fact was looking for a face-saving way to protect the military and avoid a communist takeover.
As usual, Khomeini's chief of staff "took copious notes" in Persian to be delivered to the ayatollah.
The American diplomat wanted to make sure that the Iranian envoy understood what exactly the message entailed.
"While Zimmermann did cite the points on the constitution in the paragraph, he called Yazdi's primary attention to the last two sentences of it, which hopefully conveyed to Yazdi a sense of US flexibility on the constitution," said the US ambassador in France to Washington in a separate cable.
The US had effectively told Khomeini that the military had lost its nerve. "These officers fear the unknown; they fear an uncharted future," Zimmermann told Yazdi during the same meeting.
To Washington's relief, the ayatollah pledged not to destroy the military. His emissary urged America not to pull its sophisticated weapons systems out of Iran.
Yazdi also clarified an Islamic Republic would make a distinction between Israel and its own Jewish residents - which had begun fleeing Iran in droves.
"You can tell the American Jews not to worry about the Jewish future in Iran," he said.
Khomeini and Carter both wished to avoid a violent clash between the military and the opposition. But their aims were fundamentally different.
Carter wanted to preserve the military - which Sullivan once described as an unpredictable "wounded animal" - in order to use it as powerful leverage in the future.
But Khomeini wanted to trap the beast and finish it. The military was a long-term threat to his regime. Its decapitation and destruction was a top priority.
Washington had answered Khomeini's questions about the future of the monarchy and the orientation of the military. Now, it was the ayatollah's turn. The Carter administration wanted to know about the future of US core interests in Iran: American investments, oil flow, political-military relations, and views on the Soviet Union.
Khomeini answered the questions in writing the next day - sent back with Yazdi.
It was an artfully-crafted portrait of an Islamic Republic, mirroring what Carter had sketched at a conference of world leaders on Guadeloupe Island earlier that month: an Iran free of Soviet domination, neutral, if not friendly to America, one that would not export revolution, or cut oil flow to the West.
"We will sell our oil to whoever purchases it at a just price," Khomeini wrote.
"The oil flow will continue after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, except for two countries: South Africa and Israel," he added.
To develop the country, Iran needed the assistance of others, "in particular the Americans", Khomeini wrote.
As for foreign investments, the US was likely to have a role. He implied that the Islamic Republic would be interested in buying tractors, not tanks, making it also clear that he had no "particular affinity" for the Russians.
"The Russian government is atheistic and anti-religion. We will definitely find it more difficult to have a deep understanding with the Russians," Yazdi added to Zimmermann as he delivered the answers.
"You are Christians and believe in God and they don't. We feel it easier to be closer to you than to Russians," Yazdi said.
Khomeini also vowed not to destabilise the region.
"Non-interference in other people's affairs", he wrote, would be the policy of the future government.
The Islamic Republic, unlike the Shah's regime, would not act as the policeman of the Gulf, but it would not get into the business of exporting the revolution either.
"We will not ask the people of Saudi, Kuwait, or Iraq to kick the foreigners out," Khomeini wrote.
The chaos in Iran had alarmed most of Iran's Arab neighbours, who feared that after the Shah's downfall armed Marxist groups would take over. A CIA assessment concluded Arab conservatives found it hard to believe Khomeini or a regime associated with his ideas could be a lasting government in Iran.
But the ayatollah would soon eliminate all the Marxist groups that had supported his struggle. Before liquidating the left, Khomeini and his radical followers would push out the moderates, including Yazdi, on the grounds that they were pro-American and not real revolutionaries.
On 24 January, key members of the secret Islamic Revolutionary Council, including a cleric by the name of Ayatollah Mousavi Ardebili - the future Chief Justice of the Islamic Republic who would play a major role in the executions of thousands of political opponents - met with the US ambassador, William Sullivan.
The cleric seemed reasonable. He was a more forceful type, reported Sullivan to Washington, but "no fanatic".
Three days later, Khomeini himself made a direct appeal to the White House.
"It is advisable that you recommend to the army not to follow Bakhtiar," wrote Khomeini in his "first first-person" message on 27 January.
Khomeini, in effect, had three requests: smooth the way for his return, press the constitutional government to resign, and force the military to capitulate.
The ayatollah also included a subtle warning that if the army cracked down, his followers would direct their violence against US citizens in Iran.
Still, he made sure to end on a positive note, emphasising the urgent need for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
Cabled from the US embassy in France after being delivered by Yazdi, the message reached the highest levels of the US government.
In a phone conversation on 27 January, Defence Secretary Harold Brown told General Huyser about Khomeini's secret message and his discussion with President Carter about it. Brown made it clear to Huyser that Khomeini's return was a "tactical" matter that had to be left to the Iranian authorities.
The administration was pleased that the ayatollah had agreed to direct methods of communication and wished to continue the talks, according to the newly declassified version of Washington's draft response to Khomeini.
The proposed response warned Khomeini against setting up his own government, stressing the crisis should be resolved through dialogue with the Iranian authorities.
The text was sent to the US embassy in Tehran for feedback, where it ended up on the shelf, never making it to Khomeini in France.
But it didn't matter. Soon, the ayatollah would be on his way back to Iran.
Option C
Washington had already tacitly agreed to a key part of Khomeini's requests by telling the military leaders to stay put. General Huyser had told the military that Khomeini's return alone did not itself constitute a sufficient cause for implementing "Option C", a direct reference to the coup option.
On 29 January, Prime Minister Bakhtiar, under enormous domestic pressure, opened the Iranian airspace to Khomeini. Bakhtiar had fallen back to his plan B: Khomeini "should be drowned in mullahs" in the religious city of Qom near Tehran.
"This might make him more reasonable or at least less involved in political affairs," he told the American ambassador, two weeks before being swept away by the Khomeini wave.
Two days before the ayatollah's arrival, the Shah's top commander had given specific assurances to Khomeini representatives that the military in principle was no longer opposed to political changes, including in "the cabinet".
"Even changes in the constitution would be acceptable if done in accordance with constitutional law," the US embassy was told by a reliable source in the Khomeini camp, according to a cable declassified in November 2013.
The American ambassador was pleased. "Sounds like military have come around to accepting Khomeini arrival and are prepared to cooperate with Islamic movement as long as constitutional norms be respected," reported Sullivan to Washington.
Khomeini arrived at Tehran airport on the morning of 1 February, mobbed by thousands of supporters. In a few days, he had appointed a rival prime minister.
By then, the military had no fundamental problems with a change in the form of government, so long as change was done "legally and gradually", a CIA report, only declassified in 2016, concluded on 5 February, 1979.
At this point, the army's cohesion had significantly eroded. Many junior officers and conscript soldiers were now with Khomeini.
Soon a mutiny occurred in the air force. The opposition armed itself, and led by radical Marxist groups, attacked army bases and police stations across the capital.
The military leadership had no stomach for an all-out civil war. Behind the back of Bakhtiar, they convened an emergency meeting and declared neutrality. In effect, they surrendered. The Shah's prime minister ran for his life.
The day Khomeini won his first revolution, President Carter wasn't in Washington. Over the weekend, he had hit the slopes around Camp David. In the morning of Sunday, 11 February, Mr Carter and his Secretary of State were at a church, temporarily out of reach.
In their absence, the President's National Security Advisor convened an emergency meeting at the White House Situation Room.
The once-powerful Iranian armed forces had disintegrated, but Brzezinski, who had been among the most pro-Shah voices in the Carter administration, was thinking of Option C, but he was told it wouldn't be possible, given the state of the military.
Soon, General Huyser was connected to the Situation Room via a secure phone line from Europe. The general would soon face a barrage of public accusations that he went to Tehran to help neutralise the Shah's military and pave the way for Khomeini's victory, a charge that he strongly rejected. Most of his reports back to Washington remain classified.
But on 11 February, Huyser's tone was slightly different, expressing no surprise that the military had taken themselves out of the equation.
"We have always urged the military to make deals," said Huyser, according to the record of the phone conversation.
"They must have gone to [Mehdi] Bazargan directly," he said, a moderate Islamist who had already been named Khomeini's PM.
But all the concessions made by the military weren't enough for Khomeini. On 15 February four senior military generals were summarily executed on the rooftop of a high school. It was just the beginning of a slew of executions.
Many have come to believe that that the Carter administration - plagued by intelligence failures and internal division - was by and large a passive observer to the rapid demise of the Shah.
But it's now clear that, in the final stages of the crisis, America had in effect hedged its bet by keeping a firm foot in both camps in the hopes of a soft landing after the fall of the Shah's regime.
But Carter's gambit proved to be a massive blunder. The real danger was overlooked, Khomeini's ambitions were underestimated, and his moves were misread.
Unlike Carter, Khomeini pursued a consistent strategy and played his hand masterfully. Guided by a clear vision of establishing an Islamic republic, the ayatollah engaged America with empty promises, understood its intentions, and marched toward victory.
Less than a year later, Khomeini - while holding the US Charge d'Affaires and dozens of other Americans during the Iranian hostage crisis - declared: "America can't do a damn thing."
He then celebrated the first anniversary of his victory with a major proclamation: Iran was going to fight American Imperialism worldwide.
"We will export our revolution to the entire world," he said, once again asserting: "This is an Islamic revolution."
A British assessment
British ambassador to Iran Anthony Parsons wrote on 20 January 1979, that he had no doubt that the masses of people in Iran wanted "Khomeini's prescription of an Islamic Republic".
The problem was, Parsons explained, the military was not psychologically ready for the Khomeini package.
"The generals agreed to the Shah's withdrawal and to support Bakhtiar on condition that the 1906 constitution including the monarchy was retained," said Parsons in a cable declassified in November 2013.
"If a transition to a Khomeini dominated republic takes place within days of their attempting the Bakhtiar package, military might well try to react."
The British Ambassador thought that the sooner Khomeini and the generals got together, and the military transferred their allegiance, the better the chances of saving the country.
Parsons' frank assessment was also shared with the Carter administration.
US documents show that the cable was in fact on Vice President Walter Mondale's desk on 27 January 1979 - the same day that Khomeini's first-person message reached the White House.
Production, editing and additional research by Taylor Kate Brown, Jessica Lussenhop, Bill McKenna and Mat Morrison
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It's early in the morning and with her juvenile looks and a rucksack with a flowery pattern dangling from one shoulder, 22-year-old Laura looks like just another student rushing to class on Bogota's mass transit system - the Transmilenio.
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By Arturo WallaceBBC Mundo, Bogota
But she is not. Laura is a Colombian policewoman and she is on a mission.
She is part of a special squad of undercover agents trying to clamp down on sexual harassment on Bogota's public bus network.
On patrol with her are seven other plainclothes police officers, most of them women.
They are keeping an eye out for gropers, men who will take advantage of the packed busses to touch women or rub against them indecently.
Elite squad
It is no small task: on average the Transmilenio bus system transports about two million passengers a day.
An in a survey conducted a couple of years ago, six out of every 10 women in Bogota said they had been sexually harassed at least once on the city's overcrowded buses.
While few ever press charges, the number of formal complaints has been steadily rising: from 81 in 2013 to more than 150 in the first eight months of 2014.
But Laura is confident the new initiative is working.
"We haven't been receiving as many reports of groping and other abuses as when we first started," she explains, as the anti-groping squad stops for a quick breakfast at the end of the line before heading back in the opposite direction.
The police officer in charge of the squad, Lt Lina Maria Rios, confirms there has been a slight decrease in the number of reported cases since the Transmileno Elite Group, as the squad is know, took up its work.
"It's too early to tell, but it seems the tide is turning," she says.
'No entrapment'
The squad has made 17 arrests, the majority in the first two weeks since it started its patrols.
"It could be that potential offenders are thinking about it twice, because they don't want to risk groping a girl who might be an undercover cop, although I cannot guarantee it," says Lt Rios.
The idea behind the squad is to act as a deterrent to potential gropers.
The women on the squad stress they are not acting as bait for potential offenders, something the local media suggested after the female officers attended the media launch wearing tight jeans.
"That would be entrapment, we'd be the ones committing a crime," explains Nestor, one of four men in the team.
Seven out of the 11 squad members are female, but they were selected for their experience in undercover work, intelligence gathering and dealing with vulnerable groups.
They say the reason for having a mainly female squad has to do more with the potential victims than the perpetrators.
"Other women won't feel uneasy if we are the ones who keep looking in their direction during a potentially embarrassing situation", explains Yuri, a specialist in intelligence-gathering trained to identify suspicious patterns of behaviour.
'Not alone'
"It's also about letting women know they're not alone, that the women in the police force have their backs," explains Lt Rios.
Another squad member also called Lina says she already worked undercover patrolling Transmilenio's buses for pickpockets before joining the team.
But she says working in the anti-groping squad is very different.
She explains that the offenders are rarely violent when captured, and stresses that they come from all walks of life, "young and old, rich and poor, strange and normal looking".
Lina says that because there is no clear profile for the offenders, they have been trained to look for suspicious behaviour rather than a certain look.
They are on the look out for men who stare at women's breasts or behinds, who lean too heavily against women, or keep their hands down when it would make more sense to hold on to the handrails.
They are ready to pounce when it is clear inappropriate contact has been made and it has not been accidental.
Change of attitude
But catching offenders red-handed is only part of the agents' job.
They are also deployed as a quick-response team for all complaints of sexual abuse on the Transmilenio network
The idea is that quick and decisive action will convince the victims that the authorities are taking the matter seriously and encourage them to press charges.
"Many victims don't report the abuses because they believe it's a waste of time. We want to change that," explains squad member Leydi.
Another agent recalls how she herself had her behind grabbed when she was getting out of a Transmilenio bus when she first came to Bogota.
"I managed to punch the guy in the chest before the doors closed, but it's a horrible sensation, you feel impotent," she recalls.
With surveys suggesting that a quarter of men in the city still believe that there is nothing wrong with grabbing, groping or fondling a fellow passenger, the squad has its work cut out.
But even though the officers know that under the current legislation most offenders are unlikely to spend time in jail, they hope their job will at least raise awareness.
"That's why we're doing this, to make sure these sort of things don't happen again," one of the female agents says.
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Russia woke up in shock on Saturday. The press, the social media, the politicians - all describe the killing of Boris Nemtsov, one of the leaders of the country's opposition, as something that was - until Friday night - completely unthinkable.
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By Artyom LissBBC Russian
He was gunned down a stone's throw away from the Kremlin, in an area which is always tightly policed, and where security cameras are everywhere you look. He was, it appears, tracked for hours as he travelled around central Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the killing a "provocation" and ordered Russian police chiefs to personally oversee the investigation.
And they were quick to come up with suitable theories.
The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, said that he believes the murder could have been "a provocation aimed at destabilising the country".
In a statement, he explained: "Mr Nemtsov may have been sacrificed by those who do not shun anything to reach their political gains." The investigative committee is also looking at a possible "Islamic extremism" connection, and at Mr Nemtsov's links in Ukraine.
Less high-profile police officers have been at work all night. They checked a number of white Ford saloons - Mr Nemtsov's killers reportedly drove one of those ubiquitous cars. And they trawled through Mr Nemtsov's flat in central Moscow, seizing documents and computer drives.
This work will probably take a very long time. From experience, few in Moscow believe that it will name those who ordered the killing. Russian police have a long history of catching people who pull triggers - but they are much less successful when it comes to identifying their masterminds.
In 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent investigative journalist, was killed in central Moscow. Shooters have been found and jailed; but who ordered the assassination remains a mystery.
So investigations of such high-profile cases have little credibility. Cynical and accustomed to the rule of corruption, many in Russia believe that police can be easily bought off by the rich and the powerful.
People who do end up in the dock are often seen by the public as small fry, too poor to buy freedom from prosecution.
Well-known Russian journalist Aider Muzhdabaev wrote on Facebook: "Footage from CCTV cameras which tracked Boris's killers could be put together into a feature-length film. But I'm certain that characters of this film will never be identified, found, or sentenced."
Ukraine links
The assassination of Mr Nemtsov is already polarising society. Opposition supporters blame the Kremlin. And pro-Kremlin experts and pro-government media are, mostly, in agreement with President Putin.
Sergei Markov, a high-profile pro-government political expert, wrote on Facebook: "One needs to say, honestly, that Boris Nemtsov was killed by people who want to see 'a revolution' in Russia and who organised the Maydan 'protests' in Kiev".
Critics of the Kremlin are expected to gather for a remembrance ceremony on Sunday. Very few of them blame the Kremlin directly.
Their consensus seems to be that it's too early to draw conclusions. But many think that the killing was - indirectly - linked to events in eastern Ukraine.
One theory is that Russian nationalists who fight there are becoming more and more powerful. As they return from Ukraine, battle-hardened and spurred on by propaganda in the state media, they seek to punish people whom they see as enemies of the new Russia.
Mr Nemtsov's political stance - liberal and pro-Western - did not fit into their view of the world.
It will be months before it becomes clear who was behind the murder. It may take years for their motives to emerge. But this killing is likely to become a turning point for Russia. Being a politician there is again mortally dangerous - like it was in the chaotic years which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Violent deaths of Putin opponents
April 2003 - Liberal politician Sergey Yushenkov assassinated near his Moscow home
July 2003 - Investigative journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin died after 16-day mysterious illness
July 2004 - Forbes magazine Russian editor Paul Klebnikov shot from moving car on Moscow street, died later in hospital
October 2006 - Investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya shot dead outside her Moscow apartment
November 2006 - Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died nearly three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium in London hotel
March 2013 -Boris Berezovsky, former Kremlin power broker turned Putin critic, found dead in his UK home
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A man has been charged with attempted murder following an alleged attack at a paintball centre in Lincolnshire.
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A 30-year-old man sustained head injuries at Ancaster Karting and Paintball, near Sleaford, on Saturday.
He remains in hospital in a serious but stable condition.
Nathan Joseph, 22, of no fixed address, has been charged with attempted murder and has been remanded to appear at Lincoln Crown Court on 7 March.
More on this and other local stories at Lincolnshire Live
Lincolnshire Police are appealing for anyone who visited the centre on Saturday 6 February to get in touch.
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Arabs everywhere identified with Mohamed Bouazizi.
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By Roger HardyMiddle East analyst, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
When the 26-year-old Tunisian graduate - despairing of getting a decent job and abused by the police - set fire to himself in a public square, his story resonated far beyond his provincial town.
When he later died of his injuries, he became both a symbol and a martyr.
Now the unrest sparked by his self-immolation has led to the downfall of one of the region's longest-serving autocrats.
Unable to quell the unrest, despite making a string of televised concessions to the protesters, the 74-year-old President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali simply vanished from the scene.
While the impact of the unrest on Tunisia is uncertain, its impact on the region is already apparent.
Arabs identified with the young Tunisian because his problems - unemployment, corruption, autocracy, the absence of human rights - are their problems.
Throughout the region there is a dignity deficit.
What is more, in an age of globalisation, regimes can no longer cut their citizens off from news.
The Arab media - even in countries where they are constrained - could sense their audiences' thirst for news about Bouazizi's death and the extraordinary drama it triggered.
They could not keep silent, as they might have done in the past.
'Message to the West'
But if the Tunisian protesters have sent a message of defiance to Arab rulers, they have sent a rather different message to the West.
For decades, Western governments depicted Tunisia as an oasis of calm and economic success - a place they could do business with.
They turned a blind eye to President Ben Ali's harsh suppression of dissent - and ignored the fact that, while the elite prospered, ordinary Tunisians suffered.
In Washington, President Barack Obama has been quick to denounce the excesses of the Tunisian police, and voice the hope that the country will move towards a more democratic future.
As the riots continued in Tunis, his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - at the end of a visit to the Gulf - delivered a blistering critique of corruption and political stagnation in the region.
The Obama administration - stung perhaps by criticism that it has been too timid on these issues - seems to have sensed that it has to speak out or lose credibility.
Several dangers lie ahead.
One is that Tunisia falls into chaos - a scenario that would convince Arab rulers to cling more tightly to power rather than sharing or relinquishing it.
Another is that the unrest may spread. It is already apparent - and for broadly similar reasons - in neighbouring Algeria.
In a string of Arab countries, succession issues loom as ageing autocrats confront the unmet aspirations of their youthful and rapidly growing populations.
Mohamed Bouazizi's life and death sum up the condition of the Arab world today.
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Sonning Bridge, which crosses the River Thames near Caversham, is to partially reopen after flooding forced its closure for nearly two weeks.
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Oxfordshire County Council said the commuter route, linking Berkshire and Oxfordshire, will not open fully because the road has been damaged.
The route is expected be open by Monday morning but traffic lights will be in place while the damage is repaired.
More than 1,000 people have signed a petition for a third bridge in Reading.
Support for the new crossing has been growing after the closure caused long delays at Henley and Reading.
Oxfordshire's transport councillor David Nimmo-Smith said council officers would be setting up temporary traffic lights and assessing the damage on the northern end of the bridge over the weekend.
The authority is also looking at ways to alleviate flooding in the area to prevent the bridge being closed again.
The bridge closed on 6 January.
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Five African nations are playing at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
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Over the years, there have been some exceptional African players who have competed on football's greatest stage.
Using our interactive tool, pick your all-time African World Cup dream team from our shortlist, put together by a panel of BBC Africa football experts. Share your team with friends and get stats about your players' World Cup history.
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A few hundred yards from the seashore, on top of a small mound of earth, Japanese flags flutter in the brisk, chill breeze. There is a giant fir tree that is twisted and mangled but still alive, an ancient standing stone and some wooden stakes inscribed with prayers.
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Damian GrammaticasChina correspondent
They are the ruins of a centuries-old temple that used to stand here, guarding the fishing port of Yuriage, in Natori on Japan's east coast. Yuriage was once home to 7,000 people. But all around it now there is emptiness.
On the ground are lines, like scars, the grid pattern where Yuriage's streets and homes stood. Everything has gone. Yuriage was washed away by the tsunami. A year on, all the rubble has been cleared and little remains except tufts of grass sprouting everywhere.
In the distance are the ruins of the few structures that withstood the waves. A couple of schools, an office block, a civic hall. One by one, the buildings are all being demolished.
A constant flow of cars and buses pulls up by the ruined temple. People climb the mound to the shrine in quiet groups and say silent prayers for Yuriage's victims.
Just below the temple is where Tatsuya Suzuki's home used to be. His two children, Hikari, seven, and her small brother Hibiki, three, sit on a rock, wrapped up against the cold.
Tatsuya has brought them back to see where their house stood. "This was your room," he says, pointing to a bare patch of ground, "And this is where your grandmother had her cafe," pointing to another empty patch.
"Even though one year has passed, nothing has really changed," Mr Suzuki explains. "Time has stopped for me. Time has passed for everyone and everything else, but not me. For others, the disaster may be becoming a thing of the past, but for us, it is still our reality today. I think we are all still grieving."
'Survivor's guilt'
Most of all, he feels a deep and shameful sense of guilt. Mr Suzuki, a printer, had gone to work the day of the tsunami, leaving his wife Izumi and the children at home.
When the tsunami alert sounded he tried to get back to Yuriage to fetch his family. But as the wave came in, Mr Suzuki was forced to turn back. Izumi, meanwhile, managed to get the children to safety. Seconds later, she was swept away by the waves.
"That day was the day of my children's graduation. I didn't take a day off because I was busy and went to work instead," says Mr Suzuki. "It's something I regret every day. If had taken the day off and been here with them, my wife could have been saved."
"Every time I think about it, I wish I could go back in time, go back to that day and save my wife," Mr Suzuki adds. "I wouldn't mind if everything else had been swept away, if only I could have saved my wife."
Having lost his house, Tatsuya is now living in his parents home about 20 minutes away from Yuriage. His children have started at new schools, but there is little space at his parents' place for all the family, his printing business is struggling, and he says he has had little help from the government.
"To be frank, the government has not done much for us. We got more from volunteer organisations like Red Cross than from the government," he says.
"When help is given, it only goes to those living in the temporary shelters. People like us who are staying with families or in rented places do not get much. I do wonder why we are discriminated against when we are all victims. It can be irritating."
A few hundred yards away from where his home stood, there is now an improvised cemetery, with lines of new tombstones in black and grey marble. We now know that 1,000 of Yuriage's people died. And along this coastline, where for hundreds of miles towns were devastated, the toll of dead is now well over 15,000, with another 3,200 still missing.
So it is not only Mr Suzuki's life that has stood still, those who have not been able to find any trace of their relatives since the disaster are also caught in a terrible, paralysing limbo.
Ongoing search
A couple of hours up the coast from Yuriage, on a little inlet, stood the pretty village of Okawa. Now, there is just a muddy plain here, and another little shrine. It has been set up in front of the gutted remains of Okawa's school.
The shrine has flowers, some toys, a baseball, candles and a bell that people come to ring. Of 100 children at the school, 70 were swept away to their deaths, four are still missing.
Right next to the school, by the seashore, are teams of policemen in blue uniforms with mechanical diggers and hand shovels. One year on, they are still working through the piles of mud left by the tsunami, still searching for bodies.
A woman is standing, watching patiently, eyes fixed on every shovel full of earth that is turned. Her daughter is one of the children still unaccounted for.
Yasukichi Takeyama is watching too, a rake in hand. In his 50s, he is still searching for his mother, Towako, who was with the school children when the wave hit. Every time a digger scoops up some mud, he sifts through it. But all the teams turn up are a few old shoes, some blankets, and a child's toy car.
"Nothing moves on," says Mr Takeyama. "I want to find my mother. But there has been no sign of her. I have been following police search teams like this all year. I wanted to find at least a piece of her bones before a year had passed, but I have no idea what happened and I cannot find any trace of her."
Now he worries that the whole community of Okawa, deprived of its children, will die too. "No children mean no future generation," he says.
"Unless they reconstruct this area quickly, no one will come back. They have to make it habitable again so that people will return. Otherwise, they will just go and move away."
In Yuriage, they are planning to rebuild. They are talking of raising the level of the ground by three metres and reconstructing their town in the same place by the sea.
Coming home
Mr Suzuki gazes out at the empty space where his home was. "Even though there is nothing here, I feel at home, right here," he says. "We have lost everything in the tsunami, but this is where I was born and grew up. So one day, I would like to return."
"But my children don't want to come back. So I don't think it will be possible until they are grown up, married maybe. Then, when I end up on my own, I could return and live here again."
His children, Hikari and Hibiki, smile and laugh as they play. "They are laughing like this every day, but I think they have a sense of sadness, loneliness deep down," says Mr Suzuki.
"They don't say 'Mama, mama' too much now, but sometimes they cry out suddenly in their sleep. On birthdays, anniversaries, the things we used to do as a family, that's when we all miss their mother.
"From time to time, I see sadness in their faces. When I see that, I struggle to know what to say to them, my heart aches."
"My wife was very good at bringing up the kids. I am no good at it. Both my kids were inseparable from their mother before the disaster. The kids have gotten used to me a bit, but there are a lot of things only a mother can do for her children."
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An underwater robot has recovered more than 250 radioactive particles from the seabed off Dounreay since it began operations two months ago.
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The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was built at a cost of more than £800,000 to find and retrieve the hot spots.
The tiny particles were flushed into the sea during reprocessing at the Caithness experimental nuclear power plant as long ago as the 1960s.
Up to 700 fragments could be retrieved from the seabed.
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"I believe that we will win!" has become the anthem of the World Cup for USA fans, as their team survived the so-called Group of Death and marched into the last 16 against the odds. But is their relentless positivity antithetical to the culture of football fandom?
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By Kate DaileyBBC News, Washington
It was a sight familiar to any true football fan. As the minutes ticked by in the USA-Germany World Cup match, supporters in Washington DC who had come to watch the game in Dupont Circle became quiet.
Then they groaned as Germany repeatedly gained possession. And they gasped with horror when they went one goal down.
But asked how they felt about the team's chances and the answer stayed the same, no matter what was happening on the pitch - we will win.
In contrast to the positivity of American fans, the English fans were this time commonly downbeat about their chances - expectations were moderate this time around. And, sure enough, the England team failed to exceed them, getting knocked out of the tournament in record time.
But even in more successful times, few England fans would ever go into a match against Germany expecting, without any doubt, to win.
Even the US cheer is, well, cheerful.
The chant "I believe that we will win!" - started in 2003 by US Navy American football fans, according to the Washington Post - has become the overarching message of the World Cup in the US. It is heard in bars, used in commercials and hash-tagged on Twitter. It has an optimistic ring that's uncommon among football's true believers.
"I like the older European teams, and they would never chant that," says Michael Agovino, author of The Soccer Diaries: An American's 30-Year Pursuit of the International Game. "'I hope that we will play to a draw' - that's what England or Italy might chant."
But hoping for a tie just isn't in the American character.
And the little bit of promise shown by the US team is enough to trigger a full-on US love-fest.
"The fact that we went 40 years without qualifying for the World Cup has made us the underdog - despite the fact that this is our seventh consecutive World Cup," says Dan Courtemanche, executive vice president of communications for Major League Soccer.
"That underdog mentality breeds optimism - it's part of the American ethos that we believe we can accomplish almost anything no matter what the odds are."
And after all, how often does the US get to be the underdog on the world stage?
It's a particularly American contradiction. They love their come-from-behind heroes - like Rocky or the Boston Red Sox, who went 86 years without winning the World Series. But when they do get the chance to compete on the world stage, like at the Olympics, they often dominate the competition, which is another reason to feel good about their chances.
"For most of America, we're optimistic people and we're not comfortable watching sports believing we can't win," says Corey Bennet, a soccer writer for Fusion.
"Until they are enlightened by experience, they are going to be optimistic."
View of longtime USA fan - Jim Wright
As a country, we might believe we can win because we don't know any better. Or we might believe we can win because we actually have a fantastic team and a remarkable coach.
The thing is, ALL Americans identify with strong character and resolve and a bunch of guys that can overcome the odds. That kind of commitment resonates and moves people to look at a non-American sport in a more open minded way.
They see this team personifying truly American characteristics - indomitable spirit, a unified front and a willingness to work harder than anyone else in the tournament has led to such amazing support.
In other words - Americans are too ignorant to know any better. Most US fans don't quite understand the game, or the long history. That makes it easy to hope for the best even when the odds are stacked against you.
"The more you know as a fan, and the more you've been let down, you expect the worst," says Agovino. "A lot of these fans that you're seeing in these public viewing spots, I love their enthusiasm but they haven't been through the hard times yet."
There was one tough moment - when Portugal equalised deep into injury time to rob USA of one of the most famous wins in their history. But many fans may not have realised how close they were to the edge.
Yet, despite Belgium being favourites in this week's game, Agovino believes (to borrow a phrase) that they will win.
"I always thought Belgium was overrated, frankly, so now the US can prove me right," he says. "I'll say we pull it out somehow."
Some sophisticated American fans have even found a way to feel good about the prospect of losing.
Were the US team to lose to Argentina in the quarterfinals, says George Quraishi, founder and editor in chief of the soccer magazine Howler, "I would be pretty psyched."
If the American attitude towards soccer can bewilder, if not outright offend, the English fans, maybe the problem isn't that Americans are being too American in their approach to football. Maybe the Brits are being too British.
US enthusiasm v European realism - Franz Strasser, BBC News
After living in California, Jurgen Klinsmann took over as coach for Germany in 2004. When journalists asked about his goal, he said that of course it was to win the World Cup in 2006.
As a German, I recognised the US attitude in that statement. German coaches never say they are aiming for such a high goal. It's always about making the semi-finals and then "anything can happen".
But now that Klinsmann is the US coach, he went all German. A few months ago, he declared that this US team can't win the World Cup. Realistic, yes, but un-American. His remarks show his split personality - and the different approaches to the game.
"I'm not sure that brutality and disappointment is the default mode of being a soccer fan around the world," says Quraishi. "I think it makes a lot of people happy."
He cites a trip to Greece.
"Soccer was the one thing people were hanging on to, to forget that their country was in a giant toilet," he says, though perhaps the mood is more sombre in Athens today, as the Greek team head home.
The question now is whether Americans will stay optimistic about soccer.
"We are a country that likes progressive growth, achievement and progress we can feel. The real test for America is patience - we are not going to win the World Cup next week and we probably won't win it for a few more decades," says Bennett.
That cold dose of reality, though, is unlikely to turn American fans into glass-half-empty English.
Instead, they might just go back to ignoring the beautiful game - at least for another four years.
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There was never going to be a risk-free, stress-free moment for the Fed, the US central bank, to increase the interest rate it controls, after almost seven years of the Fed Funds rate being at a historic low of more-or-less zero.
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Robert PestonEconomics editor
But just possibly the mooted date of September for the last showing of that US blockbuster, "Free Money to Ward off Depression", would be the least apposite timing possible - for the rest of the world (apart perhaps for Britain, as it happens), and for emerging markets in particular.
And please don't yawn and say that emerging markets are of no interest or relevance to you: they represent half of the global economy; they have for years contributed four fifths of the world's growth, and been the motor of prosperity everywhere; our financial system is intimately connected to theirs.
So why does the US official interest rate matter so much?
Well, it is the world's most important interest rate, the global benchmark, which conditions just about all other interest rates - because the US remains the world's biggest economy, and the dollar remains the world's most important currency.
To put it another way, when the US cuts interest rates, for the world as a whole money becomes cheaper. And when it raises them, well you know what happens.
Connected economies
Just one illustration of the emerging market thigh bone being connected to America's knee bone has been given by the Bank of England, which recently pointed out that businesses in developing countries have "issued a large volume of US dollar-denominated debt" - so expectations of US rate rises, which have contributed to a sharp strengthening in the dollar, may "pose a threat to the ability of these businesses to meet their obligations".
Or to put it another way, a rise in US interest rates that reflects the robustness of US companies could sink a good few companies elsewhere in the world.
But the Fed's primary responsibility is not what happens in emerging markets: it is to curb inflationary expectations and sustain growth in the US. And because the American economy is looking almost normal again - after that great financial crash of 2008 that is beginning, at last, to feel like history - the Fed wants to get on with raising rates.
Household and corporate indebtedness has been cut. Growth has returned. Unemployment is more-or-less back to normal levels.
To be clear, the Fed doesn't want to raise them by more than a fraction. It recognises that confidence remains fragile. But it feels it needs to get rates up sooner rather than later - not least because (and here's a not very funny joke) if it can't get them up, it won't have much in the way of balm or medicine to apply the next time there's a crash (if rates are zero, cutting them is - well - challenging).
So it has been sending out signals that the momentous end of the era of nil rates could come next month - even though for most of the rest of the world this could be a highly inconvenient moment (to put it mildly).
And the point is that even a fractional rise in US rates would be uncomfortable when the huge economies of China, Japan and the eurozone have been weakening.
For example, the recovery in the eurozone has been desperately disappointing, in spite of all the free money being chucked at it by the European Central Bank via its belated conversion to quantitative easing.
As we saw on Friday, in the second quarter of this year, growth there actually slowed from 0.4% to 0.3% compared with the previous three months - and the annual rate of expansion is an anaemic 1.2%.
As a poignant measure of how bad it is, growth in Greece was actually faster than the eurozone average (though - of course - Greece is now thought to be contracting again, as a result of its banking crisis).
In the eurozone's second biggest economy, France, there was no growth at all; Italy slowed down again; Germany quarterly growth was only 0.4%.
So far so dismal (though strikingly the erstwhile basket cases of Ireland and Spain are going gangbusters).
Asia's fragility
As for Asia, conditions there feel just as fragile, perhaps more.
Today we had confirmation that the economy of Japan - still the world's third largest (unless you count the lacklustre eurozone as a single homogeneous economy) - contracted in the three months to the end of June, and at an annualised rate of 1.6%.
But as you know (you really do) more important is the slowdown of China and the weakening of its currency, the RMB.
Many economists believe China's official 7% growth rate is a serious overstatement of the underlying reality. And they felt their gloom was corroborated by last week's shocking devaluation of the RMB - which was an attempt by the Chinese authorities to stimulate exports, but which has the unfortunate consequence of exporting deflation to the rest of the world.
For the avoidance of doubt, what's happening in China is the big event. It is odd, in a way, that I need to make that explicit, given that no one surely disputes that the rise and rise of China since 1978 was the most important economic phenomenon of our age.
One manifestation of the pronounced deceleration in Chinese growth has been the persistent falls in commodity and energy prices - since it was China's appetite for raw materials and power which for decades drove up these prices.
So let's pull the threads together: the commodity and energy cycle has turned down; China is slowing; the dollar is rising on expectations of rising interest rates.
For much of Asia, Africa and South America, this combination is little short of disastrous. And it is not surprising that emerging market currencies - from Malaysia to Turkey, via Thailand and the Philippines - are falling sharply.
Cheap capital is fleeing these places for the higher yields (rates of return) anticipated in America. Demand for what they extract from the earth and beneath the sea is falling. The cost of servicing their dollar-denominated debts is rising.
What can be done?
Well the European Central Bank and the People's Bank of China will be contemplating measures to cheapen the cost of debt yet more in the eurozone and China respectively. There is a decent prospect of more monetary easing in both regions before the Federal Reserve makes its interest rate decision in the middle of September.
But there would be a risk to such evasive action, which is that it would exacerbate so-called global imbalances - by pinning recovery on exports generated by a sliding currency - and inflate these imbalances perhaps back to the dangerous levels that took us to the 2008 debacle.
The surpluses of producing economies, China and the eurozone/Germany would be magnified. The deficits of consuming economies, like ours and the US, would rise correspondingly.
If big unsustainable debts remains the counter-weight to a sustainable improvement in prosperity in rich consuming economies like Britain, then it is no blinkin' use to us if China and the eurozone slash their prices to encourage us to buy more of their stuff and live even further beyond our means.
So if the ECB and People's Bank slash the price of money, that would be yet another temporary solution - a drug that would generate a short-term high and (potentially) a painful hangover for all over us.
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Mothers-to-be can be served up an overwhelming amount of information and advice prior to giving birth. What many are not told about, however, is they could get a visit from a professional photographer while on the maternity ward recovering from delivery.
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By Gavin BevisBBC News
The service is offered at more than 150 UK hospitals by pregnancy firm Bounty, which, as well as selling the photos, distributes free samples and vouchers to new parents in packs given out at maternity appointments, baby sale events and through its apps.
The company, which was formed in 1959, said its research indicated the vast majority of new mothers expected and welcomed a hospital visit from its reps.
But some claimed the presence of Bounty staff was intrusive and have questioned whether a postnatal ward was an appropriate place for a money-making service.
'We've never displayed our Bounty pics'
Sarah Jackson White, 37, from Glossop in Derbyshire, was visited by a Bounty photographer at Tameside General Hospital in October.
She said she felt the company should not be allowed to canvass for business from new mothers in maternity wards.
"I felt pressurised into having a photoshoot, even though I said I already had one booked for the following week," she said.
"Of course when the lady showed us the preview clip, we felt overwhelmed and bought the whole package.
"Looking at the photos now, I wouldn't have bought them if I wasn't so emotional. I've never even displayed one."
'I was trying to breastfeed'
Rebecca Corcoran, 32, from Burgess Hill in West Sussex, said she was approached twice by a Bounty representative after giving birth at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath in June 2018.
"Bounty came to me on the second day I was there but I refused as my daughter was unwell," she said.
"The lady came back on the fourth day. I had the curtains shut and was trying to breastfeed my daughter who was still unwell.
"She opened the curtains and just said, 'I'm blah-blah from Bounty and we won't be here over the weekend so I have to take pictures now'.
"With everything going on, I just agreed. I never bought the pictures - I had my own done when at home.
"I felt uncomfortable and my privacy invaded and pretty stressed.
"I am pregnant now and I do not want Bounty to visit me when I'm in hospital because I won't be so quiet this time."
'Bounty visit was lovely'
But not all new mothers have found it a negative experience.
Demi-Louise Pashley, 25, from Tibshelf in Derbyshire, gave birth at King's Mill Hospital in Mansfield in March 2016 and October last year and said she was happy to be photographed by Bounty on both occasions.
"With my first child, although I was in need of a lot of care afterwards, it was lovely to have someone come and fuss over you and your baby," she said.
"Although I felt awful, I wanted my baby's photos taken for that amazing keepsake and memories of those first few moments.
"We bought a large pack but knew the expense would be worth it to have those pictures to treasure.
"It's all down to personal choice. If people believe strongly it's something they are being pressured into, then possibly there should some sort of opt-out form when women are completing their birth plans."
'Pictures are important'
Kelly Williams, 37, from Ripley in Derbyshire, was 16 when she and her first child were snapped by a Bounty photographer at the City Hospital in Derby, in March 1999.
She said: "I was approached by a midwife first who asked me if the Bounty photographer could pop on to the bay I was sharing with four other women.
"I was very tired so asked if she could pop back the following day, which she agreed.
"The photographer was very kind and approachable. I was never pressured into anything.
"She sat with me and to be honest it was nice to have someone to chat with, especially being a young mum.
"I think pictures are important and I hope Bounty continues to take time to go on to wards, to capture these moments for women.
"If you don't want them taken, just say no it's as simple as that."
Why do hospitals allow Bounty in?
NHS England said it had no national agreement "of any kind" with Bounty and any deal to allow the firm into postnatal wards would have been agreed with individual hospital trusts.
One of these is the University of Leicester NHS Trust, which revealed at a recent health scrutiny meeting that it earned £5,647 in the first six months of 2019 from allowing Bounty into its two hospitals.
Strategic director Mark Wightman said a fee was paid for every Bounty bag handed out and a percentage of the profits made from photography sales was also paid to the trust, with both contracts periodically reviewed.
Elaine Broughton, the trust's head of midwifery and nursing, said money made was used to replace equipment on the wards.
But Leicester city councillor and mother-of-two Melissa March said the trust's contract with Bounty made her feel "really uncomfortable".
Speaking at the meeting, she said: "If it were any other kind of post-surgery or recovery ward and photographers were coming in and taking photos of you and your child and the hospital was receiving remuneration for that, it does feel deeply intrusive.
"It's the most vulnerable you might ever feel, I couldn't get out of bed.
"Also, sometimes you've been awake for five days straight, you don't know what on earth to do with this tiny human you've just had and then someone comes in to take photographs."
In 2018, Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust introduced an opt-out card to allow mothers to request they were not approached by anyone from Bounty while on a maternity ward.
The trust said the scheme had proved to be "a great success" and was still in operation two years later.
And questions had been asked about the arrangement before. In 2013 parenting forum Mumsnet called for Bounty's sales reps to be banned from NHS maternity wards, criticising the firm's "harassment tactics".
What does Bounty say?
Bounty's website pointed out the photo opportunity was the only "sales" part of its representatives' roles, and said about half the new mums they saw opted to have the portraits taken.
The firm told the BBC great care was taken by its representatives when they were allowed on to postnatal wards.
A spokesperson said: "Bounty fully supports and acknowledges the need to respect the privacy and dignity of families on the maternity ward.
"We are committed to ensuring every mum we meet in hospital experiences an excellent bedside service from our staff.
"Research shows that the vast majority of new mothers enjoy, expect and welcome our services.
"Bounty has been meeting mums in hospitals for over 60 years, providing essential support and information to generations of new parents.
"We work closely with the NHS to ensure our services are offered on the basis of choice and that they comply with the standards required by our hospital partners."
Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
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A large fire has broken out at a wood recycling plant on Teesside.
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Cleveland Fire Service said thousands of tonnes of wood were on fire at the plant in Haverton Hill Road, Port Clarence, Stockton.
A spokeswoman said there were no reports of injuries, but it would take "some time" to put out the blaze.
Ten crews from Billingham and Middlesbrough were sent to tackle the fire which broke out at 11:20 GMT.
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Birmingham's new £189m library will open on 3 September, 2013.
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The new building, in Centenary Square, replaces the Birmingham Central Library in Chamberlain Square.
The public is being asked to nominate the first book to be placed on the new Library of Birmingham's shelves, in a competition being run on Twitter.
The present library was once described by Prince Charles as looking like "a place where books are incinerated, not kept".
The REP theatre will also reopen to the public in Centenary Square in September 2013.
'Tremendous achievement'
Councillor Mike Whitby, leader of Birmingham City Council, said the opening of the new "landmark" library would be a "tremendous achievement" for the city.
"We are enormously proud of everyone who is helping to deliver the project on time and under budget," he added.
Mr Whitby said: "It will be a key hub for the region and, with its many partners, will place Birmingham firmly on the world stage as a major cultural destination."
He said they were expecting three million people to visit the new library each year with millions more using online facilities to access the collections.
Retired teacher, Gillian Griffiths from Birmingham, said she really liked the look of the new library.
"I think probably to me it looks as if it's supposed to be piles of books and I think the metalwork on the side perhaps reflects the Jewellery Quarter," she said.
'Very original'
Twenty-two-year-old Monica Leon, who is from Spain and studying in Birmingham, thought the building was "very original".
Mark Walkem, 23, said he had seen the plans for the interior of the library and "with the atrium in the middle, that looks really nice".
"To be investing in intellectual resources is a good thing, particularly as students I think we appreciate that," he added.
The project has also included a refurbishment and extension to the REP theatre which will be linked to the library and will reopen in September 2013.
The theatre's executive director Stuart Rogers said they were producing work at other venues in the city whilst the theatre was closed.
He said: "That's all going fine and we like that but we're all hugely looking forward to getting back in the building, because there's nothing like having your own building and producing all the work in there."
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A Jersey cyclist who hit a stationary car last week has died.
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Paul Channing, 45, was cycling down Beaumont Hill towards town when the accident happened.
He was later flown to Southampton hospital brain injury unit for treatment but died on Sunday.
States of Jersey police say there appear to have been no other vehicles involved in the collision. They added that their thoughts were with Mr Channing's family.
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A cash machine has been stolen from a building society in Northamptonshire by thieves using an agricultural digger.
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The JCB was driven into the wall of the Nationwide on the High Street in Wollaston in the early hours of Sunday.
The thieves then removed the cash machine and put it in another vehicle before speeding off, police said. The digger was left at the scene.
It is not yet known how much money was stolen or how much damage was done to the building.
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This year's Scottish Open Chainsaw Carving Championships - also known as Carve Carr-Bridge - has attracted a record number of female competitors.
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Three women will challenge 21 men for the title. A woman last won the Claymore Trophy nine years ago.
Alice Buttress, an artist from the event's home of Carrbridge, Nanci Hemming from Wales and American Griffon Ramsey have entered Saturday's event.
Moffat-based Pete Bowsher will be defending the title.
Last year he won the event for the second year in a row with his cowboy carving I Told You To Draw.
Carve Carr-Bridge is now in its 13th year and draws a crowd of more than 3,000 people.
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Well, my predictions from last year inevitably adhered to the forecasters' tendency to be better on generalities than specifics.
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Amol RajanMedia editor@amolrajanon Twitter
Facebook didn't make a big move into live sports; no foreign investor swooped on Fleet Street. That said, the Cairncross Review didn't save a single newspaper, and Ofnet was indeed mooted.
I am familiar with the argument that reporters shouldn't pretend they know the future. That is obvious. But the exercise of predictions has value because it embodies analysis of current trends, prompts reflection, can inform strategy, and is fun.
So with all due humility, here we go for 2020.
1. Trends vs Events: a rebalancing
For many years I have tried and failed to shift the balance of news from sudden events to gradual, global trends. The advent of social media has wrenched news further in the direction of events.
But in 2020, I reckon the fightback will accelerate. If journalism is about conveying the world accurately, then global trends deserve much, much more attention. They are harder to find pictures for, and often less dramatic (hence the phrase, "if it bleeds, it leads"). Yet they have the immense virtue of truth.
The data shows we really are living through the most extraordinarily peaceful, prosperous, wealthy, healthy, safe period in human history. There is strong evidence to suggest life is getting better in many other ways too. But the news industry struggles to convey this, preferring bad news to good news and creating - especially with social media - a sense of being besieged by crises and disasters.
A rebalancing toward global trends would not only be a truer, more accurate reporting of the of world as it really is; it would also make news a more positive environment.
Editors will always favour recency. The clue is in the name: they want to put the new in news. But sometimes the new, while dramatic, isn't as significant - or accurate - as the gradual.
The sheer strength of the story about deep global trends and the improving state of the world has entered popular consciousness. See Fraser Nelson's excellent recent BBC Radio 4 documentary, which featured Steven Pinker, whose thought and recent work was on the agenda when I interviewed him on stage last year.
These thinkers' work, and that of organisations like Our World in Data and Gapfinder will, I hope, begin to change the story in 2020, rebalancing toward trends while events inevitably still dominate.
2. Half a world on Huawei
The next great technological revolution will probably be something that's been talked of for years: the Internet of Things. This basically just means loads of connected devices, all in effect talking to each other. So your mobile telling your car you didn't sleep much last night, and prompting it to ask if you're too tired to drive. And so on.
That requires machinery with sensory devices - and super-fast connectivity. The latter will come from 5G, itself a revolutionary technology, which provides very much faster browsing speeds.
But here's the thing: the cheapest (and probably best) 5G technology is made by Huawei, which, like all mega technology companies in China, is not wholly independent of government. So some people think using Huawei is like letting Xi Jinping and his mates into your bedroom. Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia are all sophisticated 5G builders - but behind Huawei.
I've written before about the splinternet, the splitting of the internet into various domains or kingdoms. As we enter an era in which the Sinosphere and Anglosphere quarrel, Huawei will be deployed as a technological arm of the former, operating super-fast browsing that powers economic growth in countries that fall within China's orbit.
3. Eco-browsing takes off
Do you know how much energy is used by the data centres that power the internet? By the end of this decade, it could be 10% of global electricity usage, and cause five times the CO2 emissions of air travel. The more electricity they use, as more people come online and spend more time browsing, the more energy is required to cool them.
In the coming year, I expect you'll hear more and more about the case for limiting your web browsing. Not because it will save your addicted brain and addled eyes - but because it will supposedly save the planet.
4. Amazon's break-up will be mooted
The phrase Big Tech, which I and others have bandied about a lot in recent years, is becoming less useful as the Chinese giants rise and the Californian ones move into different sectors.
Depending on who becomes US president, talk of breaking up Amazon could grow fast (especially if it's Elizabeth Warren). A superb recent series in The New York Times detailed just how extraordinary is the company's ambition, reach - and effect on smaller players.
You can imagine countless fronts on which Amazon faces a backlash, from the impact on struggling high streets to the conditions of workers in their warehouses and the environmental impact of their riders driving small packages vast distances - all in the name of our convenience.
As the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos is an obvious target. Of course, it is very hard to know how you would break his company up; forcing them to sell Amazon Web Services, for instance, isn't wholly practical.
5. Streamageddon
Obviously it is marvellous for consumers that a few (sadly all American) companies are spending stupendous amounts on the best quality television and film ever made. But I'm here to tell you that it can't last.
Netflix is likely spending $15bn (£11.5bn) on content this year; others such as Disney and HBO will spend over $10bn (£7.6bn); and that relative entertainment also-ran called Apple will probably spend something like $6bn (£4.6bn). They're doing this to get you to sign up for their services.
Yet at some point, you will either have signed up already or decided you don't want to sign up to any more (so-called subscription fatigue). And then the prices of these services will rise as shareholders demand profits as much as breakneck revenue growth, and you might decide to cancel your subscription.
When a market is overcrowded, you get consolidation. It sounds like a Black Swan event, and regulators may consider it anti-competitive, but just as the once unthinkable happened when Rupert Murdoch sold the majority of his company, so some of these streaming giants may eventually merge. If not this year, in the future.
6. A shortage of friends for the BBC
What 2020 holds for the BBC deserves a blog in itself. In short, all the pressures faced by the corporation will accentuate, while most traditional sources of support continue to shrink.
Legislation to make non-payment of the licence fee a civil rather than criminal offence is likely to be introduced, and will cost the BBC a couple of hundred million pounds over time. People under 35 will spend ever less time on BBC services, and more on YouTube in particular.
Changes to those eligible for free TV licences will prompt a noisy backlash. And all the while the BBC will find it has fewer friends in Westminster than for a long while. Talk of abolishing the "telly tax", as critics call the licence fee, will regularly go viral.
7. ITV will be bought
Every set of predictions needs a wild card. This is mine. I have no intelligence on current approaches, and actually ITV's decent share price performance under chief executive Carolyn McCall means it might be less likely to go this year than in previous years.
For ITV to be sold, a huge number of circumstances have to align. A deep-pocketed media investor, a willing board, a favourable exchange rate, an exceptionally strong business case based on marrying content and distribution: they all need to be in place.
Yet while building a digital business, and moving into the IP game through their studio arm, ITV remains above all an ad-funded linear broadcaster. It has a lot of great brands that another content provider might want to fold into their international, direct-to-consumer offer. Might this be the year to swoop?
8. Slaves to the Algorithm
I'm afraid this has to be in every year, because it's one of the biggest stories of our time. The willingness of humanity to forfeit decision-making to algorithms will, sadly, grow exponentially in 2020.
9. No foreign investor will swoop on Fleet Street
Having consistently, outlandishly and wrongly predicted in recent years that a foreign investor would come in for a British news brand, I'm now obviously going to predict it won't happen. (Which means it probably will - geddit?)
The obvious candidate is The Daily Telegraph. But there was always something very fishy about the story last year that the Barclay brothers had put it up for sale as part of a review of their business. Not that the story was wrong, just peculiar.
It seemed exactly the wrong the time to put it for sale, when profits had tumbled year after year - but were forecast to rise as digital subscriptions took off under CEO Nick Hugh.
Moreover, if the Barclays needed quick cash, selling the Ritz would make more sense. Putting the story of The Telegraph's availability out there seemed a way of sending a message to the bondholders of Shop Direct - also part of the Barclays' empire - or airing tensions within the family.
As night follows day, it was obvious that former media owner David Montgomery would tell interested journalists that he was keen on buying the title. If a foreign investor did come in, Axel Springer or Belgian group Mediahuis are more likely.
DMGT, the owners of the Daily Mail, have just bought the i newspaper and want to spend the coming months plugging it into their commercial and back-office operations. They can see a lot of efficiency savings in buying a title like The Telegraph, but independent competition regulators might not like it.
And anyway, Paul Zwillenberg, the DMGT CEO, is much more turned on by growing their digital businesses than buying newspapers.
My most confident prediction for 2020 is that at some point this year, a senior figure from DMGT and a consigliere of the Barclays will have lunch - probably at the Mayfair club 5 Hertford Street - to muse on what a friendly Conservative government led by a former Telegraph columnist would make of such a merger.
Best wishes for 2020 - and beyond - to all readers of this blog.
If you're interested in issues such as these, you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook; and subscribe to The Media Show podcast from Radio 4.
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The first days in office are challenging for any new government and this will certainly be a busy week for UK Prime Minister David Cameron - who, amongst other things, says he has already rolled up his sleeves to change the UK's relationship with Europe.
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Katya AdlerEurope editor@BBCkatyaadleron Twitter
The first "fight" with Brussels already loomed large on Monday in the British papers.
The front-page lead story in The Times reported that "Brussels forces Britain to accept Med migrants".
Migration is clearly a huge story, and a controversial one for the UK and Europe.
It has been for years, with an economic downturn and anti-immigrant political parties on the rise on the one hand, while at the same time television screens bring the horrors of a humanitarian crisis on our shores straight into our living rooms as we watch desperate people from the Middle East and Africa arriving, some dying, in their boatloads.
The European Commission, under new President Jean-Claude Juncker, says something decisive must be done.
He and his migration commissioner will on Wednesday unveil a migration strategy for the EU. Some parts are extremely controversial.
Included are two proposals strongly opposed by the UK, which says the migration crisis must be tackled by other means:
Now, the Cameron government wants to curb migration to the UK by EU citizens as part of his new deal with Brussels. So he certainly will not agree to increase the number of non-EU migrants to the UK.
And, as he has promised the UK to have "less Brussels" in daily life, he will oppose any migration quotas "imposed" by Brussels.
So actually this migration headline is less of a challenge and more of a gift for the new Cameron government.
It will be a chance to publicly bare its teeth at Brussels - the Home Office has put out a strongly worded statement about opposing Commission proposals to introduce non-voluntary migrant quotas - and to show some muscle-flexing to Eurosceptics, including in the Tory party itself, ahead of EU-UK renegotiations starting in earnest.
Nothing new
In fact, the Commission proposals are not new. They have been rejected in the past by UK Home Secretary Theresa May and quite a number of her European counterparts.
The Netherlands and Denmark will hear none of it.
France is nervous about the idea, with the anti-immigration National Front doing so well in the polls, and countries in Eastern and Central Europe, which house very few asylum seekers, do not want to start opening their doors now.
Estonia and Slovakia have already said "no" outright. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban described the migration quota plan as "mad" in a radio interview.
The migration strategy will be debated at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels next month and you can expect a heated argument.
It is not just the European Commission pushing the quota proposal.
Mediterranean migrants: in numbers
In 2014:
In 2015 (1 Jan- 27 April):
source: UNHCR
Powerful Germany backs the plan - loudly - as the country that receives the lion share of asylum application in Europe- 200,000 last year alone. Berlin fears that number could double in 2015.
The Mediterranean frontline states of Greece, Italy and Malta are also in favour of refugee-sharing, for obvious reasons.
When it comes to home affairs issues like asylum, the UK has a so-called opt-in clause, which allows it to decide whether or not to adopt EU legislation.
So, whatever is eventually agreed on migration at EU level, it is hard to see how quotas could be forced on the UK.
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A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a fatal stabbing in north London.
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Paramedics and Met Police officers were called to a property in Macleod Road in Enfield, at about 17:00 GMT on Friday.
They found a man aged in his 30s with stab injuries and although he received first aid at the property, he was later pronounced dead.
A man was arrested at the scene and remains in police custody. Inquiries continue into what happened.
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Another person has died with coronavirus at an Isle of Man care home where serious safety concerns were raised.
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Eighteen residents from Abbotswood Nursing Home, which has had it's licence suspended, have now died.
There have been 16 deaths at the home itself, while a further two died after being transferred to Noble's Hospital.
The total number of people on the island to have died as a result of the pandemic now stands at 21.
Of 309 people to have tested positive for the virus, 252 are "presumed recovered" after self-isolating for the required period of time.
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In Japan, more and more children are refusing to go to school, a phenomenon called "futoko". As the numbers keep rising, people are asking if it's a reflection of the school system, rather than a problem with the pupils themselves.
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By Alessia CerantolaBBC World Service
Ten-year-old Yuta Ito waited until the annual Golden Week holiday last spring to tell his parents how he was feeling - on a family day out he confessed that he no longer wanted to go to school.
For months he had been attending his primary school with great reluctance, often refusing to go at all. He was being bullied and kept fighting with his classmates.
His parents then had three choices: get Yuta to attend school counselling in the hope things would improve, home-school him, or send him to a free school. They chose the last option.
Now Yuta spends his school days doing whatever he wants - and he's much happier.
Yuta is one of Japan's many futoko, defined by Japan's education ministry as children who don't go to school for more than 30 days, for reasons unrelated to health or finances.
The term has been variously translated as absenteeism, truancy, school phobia or school refusal.
Attitudes to futoko have changed over the decades. Until 1992 school refusal - then called tokokyohi, meaning resistance - was considered a type of mental illness. But in 1997 the terminology changed to the more neutral futoko, meaning non-attendance.
On 17 October, the government announced that absenteeism among elementary and junior high school students had hit a record high, with 164,528 children absent for 30 days or more during 2018, up from 144,031 in 2017.
The free school movement started in Japan in the 1980s, in response to the growing number of futoko. They're alternative schools that operate on principles of freedom and individuality.
They're an accepted alternative to compulsory education, along with home-schooling, but won't give children a recognised qualification.
The number of students attending free or alternative schools instead of regular schools has shot up over the years, from 7,424 in 1992 to 20,346 in 2017.
Dropping out of school can have long-term consequences, and there is a high risk that young people can withdraw from society entirely and shut themselves away in their rooms - a phenomenon known as hikikomori.
More worrying still is the number of pupils who take their own lives. In 2018, the number of school suicides was the highest in 30 years, with 332 cases.
In 2016 the rising number of student suicides led the Japanese government to pass a suicide prevention act with special recommendations for schools.
So why are so many children avoiding school in Japan?
Family circumstances, personal issues with friends, and bullying are among the main causes, according to a survey by the ministry of education.
In general, the dropouts reported that they didn't get along with other students, or sometimes with the teachers.
That was also the case for Tomoe Morihashi.
"I didn't feel comfortable with many people," says the 12-year-old. "School life was painful."
Tomoe suffered from selective mutism, which affected her whenever she was out in public.
"I couldn't speak outside my home or away from my family," she says.
And she found it hard to obey the rigid set of rules that govern Japanese schools.
"Tights must not be coloured, hair must not be dyed, the colour of hair elastics is fixed, and they must not be worn on the wrist," she says.
Many schools in Japan control every aspect of their pupils' appearance, forcing pupils to dye their brown hair black, or not allowing pupils to wear tights or coats, even in cold weather. In some cases they even decide on the colour of pupils' underwear.
Strict school rules were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s in response to violence and bullying. They relaxed in the 1990s but have become more severe recently.
These regulations are known as "black school rules", reflecting a popular term used to describe companies that exploit their workers.
Now Tomoe, like Yuta, attends Tamagawa Free School in Tokyo where students don't need to wear a uniform and are free to choose their own activities, according to a plan agreed between the school, parents and pupils. They are encouraged to follow their individual skills and interests.
There are rooms with computers for Japanese and maths classes and a library with books and mangas (Japanese comic books).
The atmosphere is very informal, like a big family. Students meet in common spaces to chat and play together.
"The purpose of this school is to develop people's social skills," says Takashi Yoshikawa, the head of the school.
Whether it's through exercising, playing games or studying, the important thing is to learn not to panic when they're in a large group.
The school recently moved to a larger space, and about 10 children attend every day.
Mr Yoshikawa opened his first free school in 2010, in a three-storey apartment in Tokyo's residential neighbourhood of Fuchu.
"I expected students over 15 years old, but actually those who came were only seven or eight years old," he says. "Most were silent with selective mutism, and at school they didn't do anything."
Mr Yoshikawa believes that communication problems are at the root of most students' school refusal.
His own journey into education was unusual. He quit his job as a "salary man" in a Japanese company in his early 40s, when he decided he wasn't interested in climbing the career ladder. His father was a doctor, and like him, he wanted to serve his community, so he became a social worker and foster father.
The experience opened his eyes to the problems children face. He realised how many students suffered because they were poor, or victims of domestic abuse, and how much this affected their performance at school.
Part of the challenge pupils face is the big class sizes, says Prof Ryo Uchida, an education expert at Nagoya University.
"In classrooms with about 40 students who have to spend a year together, many things can happen," he says.
Prof Uchida says comradeship is the key ingredient to surviving life in Japan because the population density is so high - if you don't get along and co-ordinate with others, you won't survive. This not only applies to schools, but also to public transport and other public spaces, all of which are overcrowded.
But for many students this need to conform is a problem. They don't feel comfortable in overcrowded classrooms where they have to do everything together with their classmates in a small space.
"Feeling uncomfortable in such a situation is normal," says Prof Uchida.
What's more, in Japan, children stay in the same class from year to year, so if problems occur, going to school can become painful.
"In that sense, the support provided for example by free schools is very meaningful," Prof Uchida says. "In free schools, they care less about the group and they tend to value the thoughts and feelings of each single student."
But although free schools are providing an alternative, the problems within the education system itself remain an issue. For Prof Uchida, not developing students' diversity is a violation of their human rights - and many agree.
Criticism of "black school rules" and the Japanese school environment is increasing nationwide. In a recent column the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper described them as a violation of human rights and an obstacle to student diversity.
In August, the campaign group "Black kosoku o nakuso! Project" [Let's get rid of black school rules!] submitted an online petition to the education ministry signed by more than 60,000 people, asking for an investigation into unreasonable school rules. Osaka Prefecture ordered all of its high schools to review their rules, with about 40% of schools making changes.
Prof Uchida says the education ministry now appears to accept absenteeism not as an anomaly, but a trend. He sees this as a tacit admission that futoko children are not the problem but that they are reacting to an education system that is failing to provide a welcoming environment.
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At least half a million young men in Japan are thought to have withdrawn from society, and refuse to leave their bedrooms. They're known as hikikomori.
Their families often don't know what to do, but one organisation is offering "sisters for hire" to help coax these young men out of their isolation.
Rent-a-sister: Coaxing Japan's hikikomori out of their rooms
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When it comes to gambling, everyone knows the casino always comes out on top - right? But in the 1990s a group of students proved the punter didn't have to be the loser. This is the story of the MIT Blackjack Team.
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By Janet BallBBC World Service
Bill Kaplan laughs, remembering his mother's reaction when he told her he was postponing his entrance to Harvard to make his fortune at gambling. "Oh my God, this is ridiculous! What am I going to tell my friends?" she said.
Kaplan had read a book about card counting and believed he could use a mathematical model to make good money from blackjack. It was certainly not his mother's dream for her straight-A student son.
But Kaplan's stepfather was more open to the idea and threw down a challenge. "Play me every night and prove you can win," he said.
"I crushed him for 2 weeks straight," recalls Kaplan. "He told my mother 'I can't believe this but he can really win at this game - just let him go.' So my mother wasn't wild about it but I went to Vegas and I spent a year there."
That was in 1977 - Kaplan took $1,000 (£600) and within nine months had turned it into about $35,000 (£20,000). He went on to graduate from Harvard and over the years kept playing blackjack around the world.
His life took a dramatic turn when the leader of a small group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who had dabbled with card counting overheard him discussing his Vegas exploits.
They asked him to train and manage what would later become known as the infamous MIT Blackjack Team.
In 1992, with the gambling industry booming and new mega-casinos springing up, Kaplan and his partners saw an opportunity for them to go mega as well.
Friends and partners who had previously seen 100% returns on smaller investments, stumped up a startling $1 million to fund a new company, Strategic Investments, which would train bright students to card count and gamble - and then unleash them on the unsuspecting casinos.
One of these students was Mike Aponte, then a 22-year-old who was unsure what he wanted to do with his life. After perfecting the technique in empty classrooms, he was shocked to be handed $40,000 (£24,000) in cash to gamble on behalf of the team.
He was even more shocked to lose $10,000 (£6,000) of it in his very first ten minutes at a blackjack table in Atlantic City.
"An executive casino host came over right away and greeted me and took me up to a penthouse suite. It had a jacuzzi, pool table - it was amazing. I was in awe of the room but I didn't enjoy it as much as I would normally have, because I was still upset about losing all that money."
It was a lesson in just how volatile blackjack could be - even with a scientifically proven system. But he continued to rely on the team's method that weekend and was, in the end, able to return to college with a net profit of about $25,000 (£15,000).
Casino hosts look after high rollers - clients who gamble big money - and reward them with perks of free food, drinks, tickets and rooms, whether or not they win. So the students, who spent the week going to class, eating in canteens and sharing dorm rooms, soon got used to being treated like VIPs.
But they also had to look the part - something that wasn't easy for many. For Aponte, it was like going undercover. "You just have to pass that initial test where they size you up and think, 'OK, is this someone we're going to make a lot of money from?'"
He says that while skill at maths wasn't a problem for anyone at MIT "what was important was being comfortable, being able to deal with the attention, because money just attracts attention."
As an Asian, Aponte says he had a big advantage. "We really played off that stereotype that Asians are big crazy gamblers. So my standard story was that I came from a rich family and I was the spoiled son."
If the students soon got used to enjoying the perks of casino life, they also grew very relaxed about carrying around a lot of money. Sometimes too relaxed.
One night some members of the team came straight from a gambling trip in Las Vegas to join in a practice session in a MIT classroom. One put a brown paper lunch bag under his chair.
At 06:00 the next morning Kaplan received a phone call. "You won't believe what I've done!" the student said. "You know I came back from Vegas and I had $125,000 (£74,000) in a paper bag? Well I left in the classroom. I totally forgot about it. I ran back and it's not there."
It turned out that a cleaner had put it in his locker. It took six months and investigations by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI before the team eventually got their money back.
Pressure was also growing as more players started being spotted by the casinos and were barred from playing. A private detective had been employed to find them and realised from the Boston addresses of many of those caught that this was a student team from MIT. He even obtained a yearbook including some of their photos.
Many worried about being caught, even though Aponte says it was usually quite painless. "You'd get a tap on the back and the security man would say, 'Mike, casino management has decided you're welcome to play any game except blackjack.'"
But he says sometimes security guards could get aggressive and outside of the US it was even more risky.
He remembers the experience of one new team member who had just passed the tests to act as a big player. "Looking back it was a mistake as he didn't have a good look for a big player. He wore glasses, he had a very meek personality, and he just looked really smart. He was really smart - he was a PHD student."
Having just got married, the man thought it would be good to take his new wife, who was also in the team, to the Bahamas and try his luck at the casinos there.
"He was up about $20,000 or $30,000 (£12,000 or £18,000) and the casino figured out he was card counting and they brought the police in.
"They threw them in jail and confiscated not only all the money they'd won but the team money they'd brought with them. That player and his wife - they never played for the team again."
How card counting works
In blackjack, or 21, high cards favour the gambler, low cards the casino. So a card counter keeps a running tally in their head, adding 1 for low cards and subtracting 1 for high cards. When their tally increases (meaning more high cards than low ones are left in the deck) they know it's time to start placing higher bets.
Card counters won't win every time - they often lose a lot of money - but statistically, and over time, the odds are in their favour.
It has to be done secretly because although it's not illegal, casinos don't like it and have the right to refuse to let someone play.
It was researched in the 1950s by a mathematics professor from MIT, Edward Thorp, using some of the earliest computers.
In 1962 he published a book about it called Beat the Dealer and forever changed how the gambling public viewed blackjack.
After being caught, many gave up. But some took drastic measures to stay on the team.
Kaplan remembers how one 21-year-old managed to keep playing as a spotter - someone who counts cards and then signals to their partner who places the big bets when the cards were favourable.
"He shaved his head, put on a wig, dressed like a woman and then he played for the longest time. He was a very good looking guy!"
In the end, the increasing pressure meant Strategic Investments was dissolved in December 1993 marking the end of Kaplan's blackjack career.
By then the team had grown to around 80 players and he says it was time to call it quits.
"As a player it's an amazing experience, but as a manager we might have 10, 20, 30 people playing in five different casino locales, some in Las Vegas, some in New Orleans, some in Canada, and we're keeping track of their play, we're trying to make sure no-one's stealing money."
The venture had had mixed success and the money earned wasn't as much as many had hoped, especially as it had to be split between so many players and investors.
Kaplan decided that for the amount he was making, he would be better off investing in property and business.
His wife was relieved people weren't calling at two in the morning saying "I just got kicked out of Caesars what do I do?"
"I was just running a business and it just seemed like so much of the business was more headaches than fun," he says.
After Strategic Investments folded, Aponte went on to form another team, as did other players. Those teams learned from their experiences with Strategic Investments and concentrated more on the personalities of the people they recruited. Mike says the amount of money they won rocketed.
Eventually, Aponte became too well known as a card counter to play but he still makes his living from the game. He became the World Series of Blackjack champion in 2004, he teaches people to play and advises the casinos.
Ironically, he has become friendly with some of the people who used to spend their days hunting for him. But he still looks back at his MIT team days with fondness.
"We pulled off something that very few people have. Everyone knows the golden rule that you can't beat the house over the long run but that's exactly what we were able to pull off."
Bill Kaplan and Mike Aponte spoke to Witness - which airs weekdays on BBC World Service radio.
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She has sparkle, style and star quality, as newspaper headline writers like to tell us. But Meghan Markle also has something else about her which wasn't always part of the princess-to-be package - but has become a key part of the modern role.
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By Marie JacksonBBC News
She comes into her new royal role already firmly established as a campaigning force.
Indeed, her and Prince Harry's shared passion for social change was, she says, what got him the second date.
Aged 11, she wrote a letter to the then US first lady, Hillary Clinton, lamenting a washing up liquid's TV ad strapline: "Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans".
Within a month, manufacturers Procter and Gamble had changed the word "women" to "people", she says.
"It was at that moment that I realised the magnitude of my actions.
"I had created my small level of impact by standing up for equality," she was to say some 20 years later, in an International Women's Day speech before the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.
At 15, she was volunteering in soup kitchens.
She's tackled the delicate issue of the stigma around menstrual health in an article for Time magazine and been global ambassador for World Vision Canada, which campaigns for better education, food and healthcare for children around the world.
It may not be unusual for actors to take up fashionable causes to boost their profile and appear kind and thoughtful.
But Meghan is the real deal, says Kate Robertson, co-founder of the charity One Young World.
She invited her to speak on a stage in Dublin after watching her in her hit TV series, Suits, and seeing her UN speech.
She said she thought Meghan would be a famous face that would interest their audience of young people from around the world, but couldn't be sure how good she'd be on a panel or speaking freely in a question-and- answer session.
But, when it came to the crunch, Meghan was "so eloquent, so erudite", she says.
"It wasn't your average actress stepping up and talking about gender equality. It was the real deal - very forthright, very confident and very un-celebrity," she adds.
As Meghan readies herself for royal life, she has said she wants a "clean slate" and so will no longer work as a UN women's advocate or for World Vision.
Instead, she plans to focus her attention on the UK and Commonwealth.
"This is the country that's going to be her home now and that means travelling around, getting to know the towns and cities and smaller communities," Harry's press secretary Jason Knauf said.
She will also become the fourth patron of the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.
The foundation is behind Harry's Invictus Games - the Paralympic-style competition for injured servicemen and women and veterans - and also the mental health charity Heads Together.
For her first public appointment on Friday, Meghan will join Harry on his previously-arranged visit to a Terrence Higgins Trust World Aids Day fair in Nottingham.
Later, they'll meet head teachers taking part in the Full Effect programme, another of the Royal Foundation projects which aims to stop youth violence in the city.
Over time, Meghan is expected to carve out her own charitable interests.
Her friend Elizabeth Nyamayaro, a senior adviser with UN Women, knows Meghan won't rush into anything.
"She will spend a few months, if not years, working behind the scenes - listening, learning, identifying what needs to change, and pinpoint what she wants to make a difference on," she said.
Allan Bryce, editor of Royal Life magazine, thinks the Palace probably already has a good idea what Meghan wants to do.
Once she's fully initiated into the Royal Family's inner circle, she'll also have advisers to help guide her choices, he says.
And Mr Bryce sees a day, possibly as early as next year, when the Queen will step down from her official duties.
This will mean Prince Charles and his sons, William and Harry, will have to shoulder more of that work, he says.
Of all the royals, Princess Anne has consistently shown the greatest dedication to her causes, performing more engagements each year than any other member of the family.
Those visits and engagements don't make the papers that often but she's the busiest, says Mr Bryce.
Both Diana, the Princess of Wales, and the Duchess of Cambridge married into the Royal Family at a younger age - Catherine was 29 and Diana was just 20.
At 36, Meghan is fully-formed, she's older, she's used to the public eye, says Mr Bryce. By contrast, in the early years, Diana was "like a fish out of water".
"She had nothing to do, her marriage was not what it should be and it was the Duke of Edinburgh who pointed her towards doing something," he said.
By the time of her death at 36, Diana had used royal visits around the world to show empathy to the ill and impoverished, and overturned the image of the royals as aloof.
In particular, she had challenged the public's perception of HIV and Aids by shaking patients' hands.
The Duchess of Cambridge has also taken time to build up her portfolio since her marriage to Prince William - and is demonstrably keen to support the arts and children's causes including a hospice, the Scouts and tackling cyberbullying.
"Kate has been the big royal story for a while but Meghan might elbow her off the stage," says Mr Bryce.
He believes Meghan will fast become the biggest royal ticket, drawing interest in the UK and in the US.
"She has not got the fragility of Diana so will never achieve the saintly reverence, but she will attract that level of interest. It's going to be massive.
"The public will realise that unlike Princess Diana who was learning as she went along, Meghan Markle will step up to the job and be off and running."
Elizabeth Nyamayaro agrees. With her grace, ability to listen and passion to make social change, "she'll be fine - she'll be great in fact".
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A shortage of CO2 gas is starting to bite. From pig processors to beer firms, the lack of carbon dioxide is hitting production. Booker, a wholesaler to bars and restaurants, is rationing sales. And soft drinks giant Coca-Cola says its UK bottling plant was interrupted by the shortage.
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By Russell HottenBusiness reporter
Trade journal Gas World, which first revealed there was a problem last week, said it was the "worst supply situation to hit the European carbon dioxide business in decades".
What is CO2 used for?
CO2 is widely used in the food processing and drinks industries. It puts the fizz into beer, cider and soft drinks, and is used in food packaging to extend the shelf life of salads, fresh meat and poultry.
The gas is also seen as the most humane way to stun pigs and chickens before slaughter.
Carbon dioxide is also needed to create dry ice, another product extensively used in the food industry to help keeps things chilled in transit.
The gas is also widely used outside the food and drinks sectors. CO2 is needed for certain medical procedures, and is used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices and by oil companies to improve the extraction of crude.
Why is there a shortage?
A lot of CO2 is, simply put, created as a by-product from ammonia production that is used in the fertiliser industry. Other sources are bio-ethanol plants.
However, a number of big mainland European fertiliser plants closed down for routine maintenance. And in the UK, only two of five plants that supply CO2 are operating at the moment.
Peak consumption for fertiliser is the winter, so chemical companies have traditionally scaled back production as summer approaches. Also, the current low price of ammonia means producers have little incentive to restart production quickly.
It's a case of bad timing that several plants wound down operations together, just as demand for food and drink was being ramped up by the good weather and football's World Cup.
Who has been affected?
The impact has been felt from the big drinks companies to the small bottling firms. Heineken said its John Smith's Extra Smooth and Amstel were hit, while Coca-Cola production was interrupted until fresh CO2 supplies arrived.
Tesco-owned Booker, a big supplier to restaurants and bars, has started rationing customers to ten cases of beer. And Ei Group, Britain's biggest pub operator, said some beer brands were in short supply or not available.
Scotland's biggest abattoir - which handles 6,000 pigs a week - has temporarily closed, with animals being sent to England for slaughter. But that is only a temporary solution, as these abattoirs, too, are also low on carbon dioxide.
Small UK bottling firms have also been hit. In the West Midlands, Holden's, which has 80 customers, shut down last Friday until further notice. "I'm left with people sitting around doing nothing," said operations director Mark Hammond.
Also in the West Midlands, a firm called The Beer and Gas Man, which provides CO2 to 750-plus pubs which use the gas to force drink through pipes and taps, has run out of supply.
Will we run out of beer and meat?
We seem to be a long way from this, although food and drink trade groups say much depends on how long the CO2 shortage continues.
The British Poultry Association say its members are "living day-to-day" in order to conserve dwindling CO2 supplies.
Morrisons supermarket has suspended online deliveries of some frozen foods due to a lack of dry ice (created from CO2). Ocado has done the same.
The Scottish Pigs Producers' co-operative is not ruling out meat shortages and higher prices, but does not want to be alarmist. And British Meat Processors Association chief executive, Nick Allen, said the situation was getting "pretty tight".
What is the government doing?
There seems to be very little activity at the moment.
The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) says it "is aware that there are reports of a CO2 shortage", and is in contact with the industry and gas suppliers "to understand the implications of the situation".
That prompted one food trade body to tell the BBC: "They (Defra) will certainly have to wake up soon if this shortage continues for much longer".
However, there is very little the government can do to force CO2 suppliers to ramp up production. The situation is, said a government spokeswoman, "still industry-led".
Is there an end in sight?
There have been suggestions in the industry that supplies could start returning to normal in early July. Trade journal Gasworld reported that the shortage is likely to continue for the next week at least.
However, trade groups for both the food and the drinks sectors have criticised CO2 suppliers for a lack of communication, leaving them unable to plan for the future.
It's also likely that some companies will be given priority as supplies return to normal. Meat producers have asked for priority treatment, given that the welfare of animals is involved.
And smaller companies fear they will be put at the back of the queue as CO2 companies satisfy the demands of their biggest customers first.
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The Grand Hotel, Cannes, 1976. On a hot summer night, a rich man and a poor man stand in a lift.
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By Owen AmosBBC News, Manchester
The rich man is Prince Abdullah bin Nasser: grandson of the founder of Saudi Arabia; son of the ex-governor of Riyadh; rich beyond imagination.
The poor man is Eamonn O'Keefe: footballer from Manchester; son of a print worker; owner of a terraced house in Oldham.
The men are coming back from the casino. Abdullah has lost - he always lost - but no matter. If you're a Saudi prince, a few thousand dollars is lunch money.
Eamonn doesn't gamble, but he has won. Two years earlier he was a reserve at Plymouth Argyle in the third tier of English football, trying to find coins for the electricity meter.
Now, he's flying with the jet set: first class planes, five-star hotels, on a grand tour of Europe with one of the world's richest families.
And then, in the lift, Abdullah turns to Eamonn.
"I've been meaning to tell you something," says Abdullah. He puts his hand on Eamonn's shoulder. "I am finding that I love you."
Eamonn can smell the prince's breath; cigarettes and Johnnie Walker whisky. Nervously, he replies. "You mean - like a brother?"
"No," says Abdullah. "Not like a brother."
And that, on a hot summer night in Cannes, is where the trouble began.
Eamonn, who's now 65, grew up in post-war Britain, in a three-bedroom, semi-detached council house in Blackley, north Manchester. He had three brothers, two sisters, and a dog. Gran lived with them too. Where did they all sleep?
"I'm still baffled," he says in a Manchester hotel, smiling at the memory.
His dad, an Irishman, ran the St Clare Catholic men's football team. His mum washed and ironed the kit; Eamonn fetched the balls, then waxed them with dubbin before the next match.
Eamonn's house was 30 yards from the park and he would play there, on the wet Manchester grass, until it got dark. He was a fine footballer: picked for Manchester Schools and Manchester United's youth team until, in a match against Altrincham, he broke his leg.
His dream - playing under the lights at Old Trafford - was over. Instead, he left school and worked as an errand runner for the Manchester Evening News.
When his leg was better, he signed for Stalybridge Celtic, a semi-professional club nearby. His first manager was George Smith, an ex-player who was building an international coaching career.
George - who had already worked in Iceland - left Stalybridge to manage Al-Hilal, one of the biggest clubs in Saudi Arabia. Soon afterwards, Eamonn left too, moving 300 miles south to sign as a professional for Plymouth.
But he was miserable there - his wages barely covered the rent - and he lasted less than a season. Then, after coming home, he received a letter.
The postmark was in Arabic.
The letter was from George Smith. He wanted Eamonn to fly to Saudi for a month's trial. If he impressed - and could handle the heat - he would become Al-Hilal's first European signing.
"It was November, I think it was snowing [in Manchester]," says Eamonn. "I thought - 'That's not a bad shout.'"
But it wasn't just the weather that appealed. Eamonn was married with two children: a spell in Saudi, he thought, would mean repaying the mortgage on his house sooner than he thought.
He went to London and flew to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, via Cairo and Jeddah. On arrival in Jeddah, he knew he was in a different world. A Saudi official took his Sunday Express, got a pair of scissors, and cut out the pictures of women, leaving only their heads.
It could have been worse, says Eamonn: the man next to him had the News of the World.
The culture shocks kept coming. In Riyadh, George waited for Eamonn on the runway, sitting on the bonnet of a huge Buick. At home, Eamonn drove a Morris Mini estate.
In Manchester, fish and chips were a treat. At the five-star hotel, Eamonn signed for free food and drink.
Eamonn - a 22-year-old from a council house - was in an alternative universe. It wasn't just the heat, or the palm trees or the shimmering desert that stretched to the horizon. It was the wealth.
The formation of Opec in 1960, and the oil crisis of 1973, meant the Saudi economy was booming. Between 1970 and 1980, the country's economy rocketed by more than 3,000%. It was wallowing in oil, and serious men had serious money. Eamonn was about to meet one of them.
Eamonn first saw Prince Abdullah bin Nasser at Al-Hilal's training ground in Riyadh.
Still on trial, he was playing a practice game when Abdullah, the club president, pulled up in a blue Buick. From the pitch, Eamonn saw a pair of eyes peering through the rolled-down window.
"George said: 'See the car over there? That's my laddo - the president. He says yes or no [to the contract]. So sharpen up!'"
Straight away, the ball came in from the right wing. Eamonn's eyes lit up. He leapt, blond locks bouncing in the desert air, and headed the ball towards goal.
"It bulleted into the top corner," he says, more than 40 years later. "And I mean bulleted."
Five minutes later, the ball came in from the left wing. Again, he leapt. Again, the ball hit the top corner. As they waited to re-start the game, George whispered in Eamonn's ear.
"Whatever you were thinking," he said, referring to Eamonn's wage demands, "add another nought on."
After the match, Eamonn, still in his sweat-drenched kit, went to meet the prince. Abdullah asked if the hotel was OK; Eamonn said it was. Abdullah asked if George was happy; George said he was.
"Then go to the hotel and write down your needs," said the prince.
Eamonn and George made a list: money, car, apartment, flights to England and private schooling for Eamonn's two children when they were old enough. At the next training session, the blue Buick pulled up. George gave Abdullah the list.
"Not a problem," the prince said.
At home, Eamonn earned £40 a week, plus £15 playing football. His new weekly wage was around £140 - equal to £1,100 today, according to Bank of England inflation data. There were no taxes, no bills and no worries.
With his contract agreed, Eamonn flew back to Manchester, packed his bags and returned to Riyadh with his family. At first they lived in a hotel, and - as before - paid for nothing.
"The bill was staggering, but it was never questioned," says Eamonn.
His wife took a well-paid job at the First National City Bank, and, as Al-Hilal trained only twice a week, Eamonn passed his time by the pool, looking after the children, talking football with George. They were blissful days in the desert. "I can still see the kids with the floats on," he says.
From the start, Abdullah liked Eamonn. He bought him a car - "a silver Pontiac Ventura, bonnet like a runway" - and often invited him over for tea. They watched football on a big screen (a luxury in 1976) or talked to Abdullah's brothers.
It was an unlikely set-up - a blond-haired boy from England welcomed into the Saudi royal court - but Eamonn enjoyed it. He was young and confident, and found the Saudis surprisingly down-to-earth and kind. In some ways, it was like Manchester - except here, his friends ran the country.
On the pitch, things also went well. Eamonn liked his team-mates, and the team reached the semi-final of the King's Cup (before losing on penalties to rivals Al-Nassr). Saudi Arabia wasn't perfect - Eamonn once drove into a square where a public flogging was taking place, with his children in the back seat - but life was good.
When the season ended, the O'Keefes returned to England for a holiday. Before they left, Abdullah asked for Eamonn's home phone number.
"I'm also planning a trip to England," said the prince. "We should meet up."
After three weeks in England, Abdullah phoned Eamonn's mother's house, where the O'Keefes were staying. Eamonn was out so his mother took the call.
"What's-he-called has been on the phone," she told her son. "That prince fella."
Eamonn called Abdullah back - reverse charges - at the Carlton Tower, a hotel near Harrods in London. Two days later he was on a train to Euston. A chauffeur met him at the station.
In the capital, Eamonn was again riding on a merry-go-round of Saudi money. He watched as the prince bought six Cecil Gee suits and wondered, in the Grosvenor Hotel, why a man with white gloves stood near the urinals. ("I honestly thought - he doesn't hold it for you, does he?").
When one of Abdullah's assistants needed new shoes, Eamonn was given £200 and sent to buy a pair. He gave back £150 and went to Marks & Spencer.
"Different world," says Eamonn.
Soon afterwards, the same assistant returned to Riyadh, so Abdullah asked Eamonn if he wanted to take his place on the tour. It was Paris next, followed by Cannes, Rome, Cairo and back to Saudi. Abdullah's wife wanted to buy furniture; the prince planned to roll the dice at Europe's casinos.
His wife and children were going to Wales with his mother-in-law, so Eamonn agreed. A week later, he was in a limousine to Heathrow, ready for his grand tour with "Prince What's-He-Called".
By now, the Saudi prince and the boy from Blackley were friends. Eamonn and Abdullah: the Unlikely Lads.
"We got on great, we were laughing all the time," says Eamonn. "I think he was bored with all these [other] fellas sucking up to him."
At Charles de Gaulle airport, the Saudi ambassador met the prince and his party. "Flags on the car, all that," says Eamonn.
While Abdullah held meetings, he gave Eamonn a case to look after. Eamonn got coffee and a bar of chocolate, waited in the VIP area, and was eventually taken to Paris alone, case in tow.
An hour later, the phone rang in his hotel room. It was Abdullah, asking for the case, so Eamonn went downstairs to the prince's suite. The prince flipped the locks and showed Eamonn what he'd been carrying: thousands upon thousands of French francs.
"A bit like you see on telly, when there's no room for anything else," says Eamonn. "I left it on the seat when I got coffee at the airport - can you imagine if I'd lost it?"
That night, Eamonn dined in a glass-bottomed boat on the Seine, before admiring the city from his hotel balcony. He fell asleep a happy man. But his sweet dreams didn't last.
Two days later, they flew to Cannes, where they went to the casino and rode in the same lift.
After Abdullah made his move, the lift suddenly felt smaller, says Eamonn.
The prince had made his feelings clear, so Eamonn did too. He wasn't gay. He wasn't interested in a relationship. He wanted to be a footballer, and nothing else.
"It was probably 15 seconds [until the lift doors opened]," says Eamonn. "But it felt like a month. There was this horrible coldness."
At that moment, the grand tour was over. The atmosphere had changed, and so had the itinerary. Instead of three nights in Rome, they had one; instead of stopping in Cairo, they went straight to Riyadh.
"It was like ice," remembers Eamonn.
Eamonn was embarrassed, but he wasn't worried. In the lift, Abdullah told him their relationship would return to "president and player", and Eamonn believed him.
"I was not thinking for a minute I was in any danger," he says. "I thought - I've got my contract, we'll get back to normal."
After getting back to Riyadh, that changed. Homosexuality was - and still is - illegal in Saudi Arabia, and the royal family were - and still are - omnipotent. Eamonn wasn't going to reveal Abdullah's secret - but what if Abdullah wanted to apply some pressure?
Eamonn felt worried. Claustrophobic. Paranoid, perhaps. He went to tell George what had happened, to seek reassurance. He didn't get it.
"They're not going to leave it at that, you idiot," said George.
George Smith is 84 now; still watching football and still bursting with stories from a long coaching career. Does he remember Eamonn? "Oh yes," he says on the phone from Rochdale. "I made him a pro."
George's tales bounce from Saudi to Iceland, via Oman and Bahrain. But Eamonn sticks out. He liked him, but even before their grand tour he was worried. Eamonn spent too much time with Abdullah, he thought - and Abdullah spent too much money on Eamonn.
"I thought they were too close, and the president [Abdullah] knew it," he says. "He knew I was worried about it."
When George heard about Cannes, he told Eamonn to leave Saudi for his own safety. "He was in danger," he says. "Anything could have happened."
Such as?
"God knows. An accident of some sort. He was interfering with royalty [Abdullah] - you can't do it."
Eamonn went cold. He knew a secret about one of the most powerful men in the country, and that - he thought - put him in danger. He spent the night on George's sofa, but passed most of it staring at the ceiling. He was 22 years old, far from home, and scared. His family were in England, and he couldn't let them return to Riyadh.
But there was a problem.
To leave the country, his boss had to sign his exit visa - and his boss was Prince Abdullah. To Eamonn, Saudi always felt gilded. Now, it felt like a gilded cage.
The next morning, Eamonn decided to lie.
He would tell Abdullah that his father was ill, and he needed to see him in England. He went to Abdullah's mansion, told his story and waited for a reaction. The prince listened but made no decision. Instead, he made him sweat. They would discuss it tomorrow, Abdullah said.
It was another long night. The five-star hotel in Paris, when he'd slept without a care in the world, seemed a long time ago.
The next day, Eamonn went to the football club to meet Abdullah. The prince closed the door and told his staff not to disturb them. Eamonn remembers the prince sitting at the head of a large table.
"Is this because of France?" the prince asked. "I don't believe you will return."
As Eamonn tried to persuade Abdullah, the prince reached for a pen and paper. Slowly, Eamonn says, he started writing in Arabic. It was a deal. Eamonn could go home, but only for a week.
All he had to do was sign.
Eamonn couldn't read Arabic. For all he knew, he was signing his life away. So he couldn't sign it.
But he couldn't rip it up, either. If he did, the prince would never let him go. He thought, quickly, and decided on what he now calls "the Bluff of the Year".
"You want me to sign this?" asked Eamonn. "I have to trust this contract in Arabic - but you don't trust me back? OK, not a problem."
Eamonn took the pen and went to sign. At the last second, Eamonn says, Abdullah snatched the paper, ripped it up, and threw it in the bin.
"I will arrange a flight for you," he said, reluctantly.
The next day, Eamonn went to the airport. He took only a week's clothes, so Abdullah didn't think he was leaving for good. Was he still scared?
"Absolutely," says Eamonn. "Because if he [Abdullah] says you're not getting on the plane, you're not getting on it. Even when the plane went up, I was worried."
After he landed in London, he punched the seat in front with joy. But his problems weren't over. To resume his career in England, he needed to register with the Football Association. To register with the Football Association, he needed clearance from Saudi Arabia.
After speaking to the FA, Eamonn received a fax from Riyadh. It demanded:
-9,000 Saudi riyals for breaking the contract (around £1,200 then, equal to £8,000 today)
-1,500 riyals for repairing the air conditioning at his apartment
-£300 (in sterling) to repay a loan from Abdullah
-Minus one month's salary still owed to Eamonn
Eamonn could accept points one and four. The others, he felt, were revenge by Abdullah. The air conditioning wasn't broken, he says, and he never borrowed a penny from the prince.
Eamonn spoke to the FA and, on 22 November 1976, received a telegram from London. "Please ring - reverse charges - urgent," it said. It was signed by the new head of Saudi football, Jimmy Hill.
In 1976, Jimmy Hill was one of the most famous men in English football. In 1961, as head of the players' union, he had abolished the maximum wage; by the 1970s, he was presenter of the BBC's primetime football show, Match of the Day.
The contract in Saudi was worth £25m. How much went to him and his son Duncan (also employed in Saudi) is unknown, but it was too much to be blown by a boy from Blackley.
As requested, Eamonn phoned Hill. Eamonn's dad - a trade unionist - said he was happy to tell Fifa, and the world, what happened in Cannes. Two weeks later, a meeting was arranged in Altrincham between a mutual friend of George and Eamonn's, a representative from Al-Hilal, and Eamonn.
"What do you think would have happened if you stayed?" asked the man from Al-Hilal, sarcastically.
"When it's your family, you can't gamble," Eamonn replied, deadly serious.
After a heated discussion, the men shook hands. A week later, the Saudis sent Eamonn's release, and he was free to play in England. The Saudi adventure was over. Finally, he was off the merry-go-round.
When he got back to England, Eamonn was broke.
He couldn't get his wages - they were in a Saudi account - so he had to sell his house in Oldham. He returned to work at the Manchester Evening News, and, eventually, started playing for semi-professional side Mossley.
After the sunshine and swimming pools of Saudi, the wind and rain of the Northern Premier League seemed like a step down. But Eamonn loved it.
In 1979, Mossley won the league and cup double and Eamonn moved to Everton, in the top tier of English football, for £25,000. He played 40 times in the First Division before moving to Wigan Athletic. He also played five times for the Irish Republic - including, in 1985, against England at Wembley.
The last time he had been there, in 1968, he was a wide-eyed fan watching Manchester United beat Benfica in the European Cup final. Now, people were paying to watch him. It is one of many reasons why he isn't bitter about Saudi, Abdullah or that hot summer night in Cannes.
"If it [the incident in the lift] hadn't happened, I would have stayed in Saudi," he says. "I might never have played for Everton, might never have played for Ireland."
Abdullah remained as president of Al-Hilal until 1981, and kept spending. After Eamonn, his next signing was Rivellino, the Brazilian World Cup winner. The club won the new Jimmy Hill-organised league in 1977 and 1979, and are now one of the biggest clubs in Asia.
Apart from his love of football, not much is known about the prince. The Saudi government's Center for International Communication and Al-Hilal Football Club both declined to comment on Eamonn's story, and there has been little written about the prince. He was, after all, one of hundreds.
Abdullah's grandfather - Ibn Saud, the founder of the country - had 45 sons. Of those, 36 had children of their own, one of whom was Abdullah.
As one Saudi expert told the BBC: "These guys lead very sheltered lives, in a society which has the opposite of an enquiring press."
The Saudi government wouldn't say whether Abdullah was alive, but the Al Hilal website suggests he is dead. A Middle East journalist told the BBC he passed away in 2007, another thought it might be 2006.
According to Arabic Wikipedia - the entry runs to less than 400 words - Abdullah had three wives and seven children. The last time Eamonn saw him was the "Bluff of the Year" in Riyadh.
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After managing Cork City in Ireland, Eamonn worked for the council in Cheshire. He moved to Portugal but is now retired near Manchester. He was treated for cancer in 2017 with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and is making a steady recovery.
"Touching wood and sending up a quick prayer, it's all looking good now," he says.
He still works on match days in the hospitality suites at Everton, sharing stories from his career. For years, he didn't talk about Saudi: he didn't want to relive the trauma, or open himself to homophobic taunts. After coming home, he even turned down a cheque from a tabloid reporter.
But now, more than 40 years on, he is happy to share all. More than anything, he wants his Saudi team-mates to know why he left.
"I loved my time in Saudi - how can you not love living like that?" he says. "I loved my team-mates, the facilities were great, the whole set-up was fantastic. We were happy there."
Eight years ago Eamonn wrote an autobiography. Its title perfectly captures his life, from the green grass of St Clare's Catholic club to his red-hot Saudi adventure.
I Only Wanted To Play Football.
Photographer: Jon Parker Lee
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As some of the most vulnerable people in Aleppo were moved from a former old-people's home near the city's front line on Wednesday, a Red Cross doctor involved in their evacuation sent the BBC this letter:
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Working as a doctor for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), I have seen many things in Syria during the past five years. But nothing like this.
We'd tried to reach the centre the previous day, but couldn't get the necessary security guarantees. The fighting had been too intense. Three people at the centre died during that time.
Now we'd got permission to go to the former old people's home, which had become a refuge for around 150 people, some disabled, some mentally ill and the rest just desperate people with nowhere else to go.
We, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the ICRC, were there to take them out of eastern Aleppo.
It was already going dark as we drove into the narrow streets of the Old City. I'd known the area before the war, a thriving, bustling place.
Now, it was a sea of rubble. I couldn't recognise streets, never mind buildings. A ghost town of smashed concrete. An end of the world place. Like a fury had swept through.
Gunfire rattled in the distance but here there was no noise, no people.
We had to walk the last bit that vehicles couldn't pass.
In the midst of the landscape, two crumbling buildings. One building for the men, one for the women.
We entered the yard. A group of patients sat huddled round an open fire. They had few clothes and were shivering. Many looked bemused. They were very near to each other, pushing their shoulders together, looking around, trying to reassure one another.
To one side, there were bodies, maybe around 10 of them.
I knew the man who ran the centre and we found him. We learnt that he'd lost his entire family three days earlier: among them, his wife, son and grandson. He'd brought his family here because he thought no-one would attack the centre.
Some of the bodies in the yard were members of his family.
As darkness closed in and temperatures dropped further, we had to move fast. We identified those who needed help most. As we worked, an old man died in front of us from the cold.
No medicines. No heating, No fuel to cook the food.
I checked a few nearby buildings to see if there were any other people. There weren't.
But there was another body. We could see it, but it was trapped under a collapsed building. We couldn't do anything about it.
The evacuation was not simple. Many, especially those with mental illness, didn't want to leave. They were confused, helpless. They didn't realise they were living in a war zone.
Some had been living there for four or five years. They knew nothing else. "We have no other relatives, we have nowhere else to go." Some said they'd prefer to stay.
And then some soldiers arrived. They brought six children with them. They'd been found among the rubble, lost, helpless. The oldest was a seven-year-old girl, the youngest a seven-month-old baby boy. They hadn't eaten for two days.
They'd all just become orphans, their parents killed by a bomb during the past few days. They had nothing, and no-one. What can you say? What can you do?
At the centre, 18 people wanted to stay behind. Because they had nowhere else to go.
I hope we can get back soon to bring them some help.
Another chapter in a god-awful war.
Those people paid the cost of this terrible war which they had nothing to do with and did not decide to be a part of. They were the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. And no side protected them.
This is not about who is right, or who is wrong. Who is winning, who is losing. This is about people: flesh and blood, human beings. Bleeding, dying, being made orphans, every day.
I feel so very sad, today. Please, there have to be some limits to this war.
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Victor Willis was the traffic cop in 1970s pop group Village People - and sang lead vocals and co-wrote their hits. After winning back the right to use their name from his former bandmates, he's making a fresh start.
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By Matt EverittBBC 6 Music News
Village People still have one of the most instantly recognisable images in pop.
Created in 1977 in New York by French producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo alongside Willis, their characters - the cop, the GI, the construction worker, the cowboy, the Native American and the biker - were the public face for colossal worldwide hits like Go West, In The Navy and YMCA.
They sold around 100 million albums and singles, but Willis quit at the peak of the band's fame in 1979.
That was shortly before their universally derided film Can't Stop the Music, which coincided with disco music falling out of fashion and the end of the band's hits.
In the years that followed, the remaining members continued to tour under the Village People name, frequently replacing members (in fact, more than 20 different people have played the roles) while affection for their songs enjoyed a renaissance.
YMCA became a regular sports stadium anthem and their image was absorbed into popular culture, being pastiched by everyone from U2 to Despicable Me.
Since leaving the group, Willis's personal struggles with substance abuse led him to rehab. Since then, he's been focused on reclaiming his legacy.
In recent years, he won a series of lengthy legal battles to own the copyright for the hits he co-wrote and sang, claiming millions in unpaid royalties and wresting the name Village People back from his one-time bandmates.
He's just finished touring the UK, headlining the 40 Years of Disco arena tour, and says now was the right time return to fronting the band.
"There was nothing I could do about it until this legal stuff was straightened out," he says.
"And this just happened to be at the 40-year anniversary of Village People. Everything seemed to fall into place where I could say, 'OK, it's time for me to take over the group again.'
"Not a reunion, but to reboot the group. To have to get new characters. Then I have to get a band like when Jacques and I first sat down and decided we're going to create this Village People thing.
"We have to have a band so that people can know that this is not a 'Milli Vanilli' thing. This is something that's live. This is real. And this what I came back to do."
'Straight, gay, whatever...'
The image of Village People reflected the gay culture that emerged from New York clubs in the mid-1970s, but Willis explains the songs he wrote were concerned with universal themes rather than specifically targeting an LGBT audience.
"My situation with Jacques was that we would write music and I would make my lyrics, which they call 'double entendre', which means that you can take it any way you want it. Gay people? If you liked it, fine! Straight people? If you liked it, fine! It doesn't matter.
"There were certain songs, which cannot be denied, that were generated toward that particular lifestyle, because that was Jacques' lifestyle. But that's not what Village People represents.
"Village People represents people, period. Any lifestyle. Male, female, straight, gay, whatever. So when I would write lyrics, instead of saying 'he' or 'she', I would say 'everybody'.
"I would just leave it open so that anybody could interpret it to fit the way they wanted it to fit them."
He explains that in YMCA, Village People's most famous hit, he was telling the "story" about his own experiences when he was young.
"It was about the urban lifestyle of when I grew up going to the Y and playing basketball and hanging out. That was my interpretation of it. I didn't know anything about the lifestyle of other people that go there.
"For me, YMCA was about, like the last line says, 'They can start you back on your way'. A person could go stay at the Ritz Carlton or the Hilton, or these expensive hotels. But if you don't have that kind of money, you might have to go to the Y."
It's been nearly 40 years since Willis took went on tour singing Village People songs, but he believes his long battle has been worth it.
"It's what they call perseverance," he says.
"I've been from the Bucket of Blood to the White House. I've been from the top to the bottom.
"And I had to hold on to my dream that I would one day be able to do - and continue to do - what it is that I love. And that is to make music and make people happy.
"I didn't know 40 years ago that people were going to still like YMCA when I wrote it. It was written just for sharing the enjoyment of the music.
"So it's mindblowing that it has lasted and that people still love it, but I didn't think that they wouldn't.
"The future holds trying, attempting and hoping to be able to bring more music to the world that will be enjoyable and will last as long as YMCA has."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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Over 15,000 foreign jihadists from 80 countries are believed to be fighting alongside militants in Syria, the US intelligence agency CIA says. Some countries try to stop the flow, others turn a blind eye, but all face the same problem: what to do when the jihadists return home?
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By Mirren GiddaBBC News
Analysts have drawn parallels between the current conflict and the Afghanistan war of the 1980s. Then, like now, thousands of foreigners flocked there to help the mujahideen (Islamic fighters) battle Soviet forces.
The decade-long conflict finally ended in 1989 with the Islamists victorious. But for many foreign fighters, the war was not over.
One name stands out amongst the jihadists who returned home to countries like Egypt and Algeria to carry out attacks there. Osama Bin Laden, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, was a Saudi Arabian citizen who fought with the mujahideen.
Few wish to see a similar figure emerge from Syria, but there is little consensus on how to prevent this.
Threats and beheadings
In September, Belgium, the country with the highest number of foreign fighters per capita, tried 46 of its citizens - some in absentia - for their involvement with Sharia4Belgium, a group that helped send jihadists to Syria. Only eight appeared at the trial, the others are still in Syria, dead or alive.
Belgium's response is not unusual. France, Australia, Norway and Britain - countries with high numbers of foreign fighters - have also arrested returning jihadists, many of whom joined the militant group Islamic State (IS).
UK police say they have made 218 arrests so far this year while around 40 British citizens are currently awaiting trial on terror charges.
Under existing terror legislation the UK can seize passports of suspected jihadists and detain returnees from Syria for up to 14 days without charge.
The UK government is due to publish a new Counter-Terrorism bill by the end of November which will include special exclusion orders. These measures, which could last for more than two years, will prevent suspected fighters entering the UK unless they agree to strict controls.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose government has introduced new anti-terror laws, made his position on foreign fighters clear. "If they come back, they will be taken into detention, because our community will be kept safe by this government," he said.
But deciding who to arrest is difficult. Travelling to Syria is not illegal and determining what foreign fighters did in the country - namely whether they were involved in acts of terror - requires detailed intelligence.
However, the desire to arrest is perhaps understandable. When IS first came to international attention, they claimed the West was not a target. Their goal, they said, was to establish a caliphate in the Middle East, away from Western influences.
Now the situation is different. Western-backed air strikes have angered the group, and they have beheaded British and American captives in what they say is revenge. Videos of the killings come with graphic threats to the West. Bravado perhaps, but a challenge nonetheless.
Careers advice
In the port city of Aarhus in Denmark, IS threats do not deter the authorities. Instead, returning jihadists are met with counselling and careers advice rather than jail.
The thinking behind the Aarhus model is simple. Many of those who left were young men, some with few prospects, who didn't feel welcome in Danish society. Interrogating and arresting them on their arrival could further radicalise them, but engaging them in dialogue might not.
Officials are also making their presence felt at Aarhus' Grimhojvej mosque. A suspected hotbed for jihadist recruitment - the US claims one of the imams has links to al-Qaeda, which the mosque denies - authorities hope by engaging mosque leaders in debate they can deter future jihadists.
What the experts say
Eventually, many fighters might long for the leniency Denmark offers. Hundreds arrive in Syria only to realise the persuasive recruitment videos do not match the brutal reality. But once in Syria, it is difficult to return.
Professor Peter Neumann of King's College London told the Times newspaper in September that he had been contacted by 30 British jihadists eager to leave Syria but fearing arrest on their return.
The family of British student Muhammed Mehdi Hassan who was killed in Kobane in October blamed his death on the government making it difficult for foreign fighters to return home.
Jihadists from Saudi Arabia, however, may not worry as much. Despite the country being notoriously harsh on criminals, the kingdom has had its own jihadi rehabilitation programme for several years now.
'Underwear bombing'
Set up to help repatriate former Guantanamo Bay inmates, the Care programme offers Islamist extremists counselling and education within an impressive compound in the country's capital Riyadh. Residents discuss the meaning of the Koran with clerics, receive counselling and are helped to find jobs, housing and even wives on their release.
Care claims a 90% success rate but an investigation by the BBC programme Newsnight found that two of its residents, once released, escaped to Yemen where they founded al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP). This group later planned the failed "underwear bombing" attack over Detroit in 2009.
Constant monitoring
If rehabilitation is too "soft", treating returning fighters like criminals can be equally problematic. There is a risk they will turn against their home country or try and travel back to the conflict.
The US has opted for the middle ground. In September, Washington confirmed it was monitoring American jihadists who had returned though no public arrests have been made.
Those that come back from Syria and Iraq do not fit one profile. For every jihadist with extremist views, there are many more who believe their fight is now over.
If used properly, surveillance allows security services to gather evidence against those planning acts of terror, whilst enabling them to reach out to those who don't pose such a threat.
But surveillance, as previous attacks have shown, is not foolproof. Constant monitoring of an individual requires a team of around 30 intelligence officers, and with hundreds of fighters now coming home, security services must make difficult choices about who to watch, and who to leave.
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Pregnant women face a lot of dos and don'ts when it comes to food and drink, as in other areas of life. Working out where to draw the line is not always easy - though having a good head for statistics can help.
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By Ruth AlexanderBBC News
"When I first found out I was pregnant, I really wanted to have a cup of coffee. It was first thing in the morning. And then I thought all of a sudden, 'Oh my gosh - am I even allowed to have one cup of coffee?'" recalls Emily Oster, an associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago.
She turned to the internet and found, not surprisingly, that there was no consensus. Then she found that even books disagreed... and her doctor didn't always agree with the books.
Some writers said pregnant women should avoid coffee completely. Others advised drinking no more than two cups. Yet others drew the limit at three.
"I've read books that said six. And so I felt like there must be an answer to this," says Oster.
"The answer isn't both zero and six. Surely there is an actual number in here, and I wanted to try to understand both why there's so much disagreement but also really what is the right decision."
Using her statistical training, Oster decided to review the medical literature herself.
It is fine to have two cups a day, she concluded. But she describes herself as "more of a two-to-four cups a day coffee lady" - and at this level, she says, the evidence appears to be mixed.
"Early on I felt terrible, and I was not really able to have any coffee which was very sad for me, but once I got into the second and third trimester and I was feeling better, I often had three cups a day and I felt comfortable with that.
"When you look at more - at six or eight cups of coffee - there is some more evidence that that might be risky."
Oster, now the proud mother of a healthy two-year-old girl, has gathered together her work in a book, Expecting Better. She hopes that where the evidence is mixed, readers can consider the facts and make their own decision, based on what they are personally comfortable with.
It is difficult to draw firm conclusions, she says, because most of the studies are not randomised - it wouldn't be fair to divide pregnant women under study into two random groups and ask one group to drink coffee and the other to drink none.
Consequently, Oster says, the people involved in the studies differ in many ways that could affect the course of their pregnancies, not just in their coffee-drinking habits.
"The big issue is that caffeine consumption correlates very strongly with how nauseous you are. A lot of pregnant women are very sick, especially early on - the women who are sicker tend to drink less coffee.
"But we know that being sick is a sign of a healthy pregnancy. And so when we see that women who drink less coffee also have more successful pregnancies we don't really know if that's just about coffee or whether it's really a confounding factor from this nausea."
But coffee was just one item on a long list of forbidden, or semi-forbidden, items that Oster wanted to investigate.
Alcohol for example.
Some health services, like the National Health Service in England, recommend that women avoid alcohol altogether in pregnancy, but Oster says she decided that on the available evidence, she felt comfortable having three glasses of wine - in total - in the first trimester, and then half a glass three or four times a week in the second and third trimester.
"One thing that comes out very quickly, which is very important to emphasise, is that heavy excessive drinking in pregnancy is very dangerous. That's something you see very clearly in the data.," Oster says.
"But when I looked at the evidence on having an occasional drink - a couple of drinks a week maybe in the first trimester, up to a drink a day in later trimesters - I found that the evidence suggests that is safe.
"We don't have large randomised trials, but we do have a lot of high-quality studies which show that the children of women who drink occasionally have very similar outcomes to the children of women who abstain."
This is not the view of the UK's National Health Service.
Dr Vivek Muthu, director for healthcare at the Economist Intelligence Unit and chief executive of the healthcare evidence consultancy, Bazian, says the evidence suggests that even a low alcohol intake can risk damaging the developing foetus.
"Therefore the best and simplest advice which the NHS gives out is not to drink at all," he says.
And while the risk of damage might be lower the less alcohol the pregnant mother drinks, that doesn't mean, Muthu says, that the magnitude of the damage will be lower.
"The consequences could be just as bad as with higher levels of intake, and could result in permanent and severe physical and mental disability," he says.
He adds: "There are additional difficulties around defining from the evidence what a 'low intake' would be in terms of units of alcohol, and how this might be interpreted by different people in practice."
But of course there are many other things pregnant women are told to avoid.
"One of the things I found overwhelming about the food list was that it was just so long," Oster says.
"There were so many things to not eat. I was carrying it around trying to sneak it out during lunch so people wouldn't know I was pregnant. What I came to think was, 'Look I need to understand why these foods are restricted, so I can at least have some sort of framework for understanding what's really going on.'"
Oster reviewed the last 15 years of data from the US Center for Disease Control on listeria outbreaks.
The evidence on unpasteurised milk and cheese was clearer than on other "banned" foods, Oster says.
"I found that about 20% of those outbreaks can be linked to unpasteurised cheese; about 10% to deli turkey. But there's one outbreak linked to ham; there's one outbreak linked to cantaloupe [melon]; one outbreak linked to celery; one to beansprouts - there are many things like this. And I came to think for a lot of these things there's kind of no way to predict.
"So I decided that on the occasion when I wanted ham, that was OK."
Much of the information pregnant women receive is over-simplified in Oster's view. Doctors just don't have time to explain things in detail, and help patients think through the decisions.
"And so I came to think that maybe it's time for women to understand these decisions - really think through the details carefully for themselves - and that that will ultimately improve the quality of medical care," she says.
"Then you can come into your doctor and say, 'Look, now I understand what's going on, let's talk about how this applies to my particular situation.'"
That, she says, is when "really productive conversations" can happen.
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While most of the country looks to Downing Street for guidance on the coronavirus crisis, there is one corner of England whose fortunes are also influenced by the decisions of the US government. How are the communities that rely so heavily on the US airbases coping with the pandemic?
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By Laurence Cawley & Orla MooreBBC News
There is no defined border for "Little America" - arriving there is mostly signalled by a preponderance of large, American cars and signs bearing the Stars and Stripes.
It is an area of north-west Suffolk largely reliant on the custom of those occupying the US military bases at its heart - RAF Lakenheath, Mildenhall and Feltwell.
Between them, the bases employ more than 12,000 US and UK nationals - and the United States Air Force claims their presence is worth a combined £700m ($910m) to the surrounding economy.
When the BBC visited in 2017, it found a community where the American dollar thrived. But in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, these businesses are as much affected by the dictates of the US military as those of the British government.
Before the crisis hit the UK, Terry and Sylvia James would see a steady flow of air service personnel perusing the automatic cars at their showroom, Mildenhall Car Sales.
The firm also usually carries out up to 40 MOTs a week and offers advice to its customers about driving on the "wrong" side of the road.
But the couple has temporarily shut up shop.
About 80% of their business came from the US air bases, which have suspended their usual service rotations under Stop Movement Orders made by the US Department of Defence banning movement or travel, except in exceptional circumstances.
"We have furloughed five staff," says Mr James. "The government's scheme to pay 80% of salaries has been fantastic, and I am going to pay them the other 20%.
"I could have kept the MOT centre open but there was no point because I could not have got the parts for repairs anyway."
A dramatic drop in custom was one aspect behind his closure; the other was that because of social distancing, showing customers prospective cars was not an option.
He believes the pandemic will fundamentally change the way people work in the future - the "personal touch" offered by businesses such as his might become a thing of that past as employees continue to work remotely.
As for when his own business will reopen, Mr James remains uncertain.
He says it will be dependent on what the government requires and when his suppliers are back up and running. He has a tentative target of 1 June, but that is not set in stone.
"We have to rely on what Boris says, but I'm trying to keep positive," he adds.
"Social distancing will make it very difficult. But we have the 'welcome back' banners and flags ready to put out once we get the OK."
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In the town of Mildenhall, which lies at the south-eastern side of the base, most shops are closed until further notice.
It is usually a bustling centre serving both those living in the town and the numerous outlying villages, but only its Co-Op supermarket, which houses its post office, regularly opens its doors.
Town centre manager Mark Knight says the bases are a crucial part of life in the area and the absence of US personnel on the town's streets had been noticed and felt.
"The base and the town are closely entwined," he explains. "For example, when we were having an issue with a bridge here the base sent out a team of engineers to help out. They come and help us out for our summer events."
"Everyone is feeling the pressure. People have been told to stay away, whether they're Americans or locals."
Also feeling the effect is Bill Flynn, the managing director of a removals firm in the town. In a normal year, his company Safepac handles about 2,000 US house shipments, helping service families move their belongings back and forth "across the pond".
Because base staff are currently unable to move, business has "disappeared" and he has had to furlough 30 people.
"Cash-flow has been a killer," he says. "What has happened is 50% of my business has gone and we are staring down a barrel."
The haulage side of his business is still functioning and his costs - as a result of the drop in the price of fuel - have decreased.
But Mr Flynn remains concerned about the general economic future.
"Even when the furlough scheme ends and people return to work, what will the consumer confidence level be?"
The Stop Movement Order came into effect at the bases on 25 March, four days after their first confirmed cases of coronavirus - one, an active duty airman at RAF Lakenheath, the other a dependent of a service member at RAF Mildenhall.
The US Department of Defense recently extended the order to 30 June.
A spokesman for the base says the restrictions were implemented to help stop the spread of coronavirus and base leaders were reminding airmen to follow both the UK government's guidelines and the US order.
"[We are] communicating to Liberty Airmen and families the importance of adhering to UK lockdown measures regarding physical distancing, limiting travel to/from work, and travelling for essential needs only."
Mr Knight says that planning for the end of lockdown, and the re-opening of the business bearing the brunt of their disappearing customers, is not an option at the moment.
They - as with much of the country - are looking to Sunday, when the prime minister will reveal whether any restrictions can be eased.
"We are holding our breath," says Mr Knight. "And keeping positive."
Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]
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My Money is a series looking at how people spend their money - and the sometimes tough decisions they have to make. Here Anna Jackson, 27, takes us through a week in the life of her family's farm in Bottesford near Scunthorpe, where she has returned after the coronavirus outbreak brought her freelance photography work to a halt.
Over to Anna....
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Like most people, corona has really turned my life upside down. I've gone from being a freelance sports photographer in London to being a farmer in Lincolnshire.
Rather than my life revolving around shoots, coffee meetings and cycling around the Big Smoke, I now wake up early for lamb feeding with Timmy our orphan lamb, learning about drilling and fixing fence posts with nosy cows trying to lick you.
Currently I am not furloughed as I was freelance, so money is in short supply to say the least. I'm still paying £815 a month for rent plus bills for a London flat that I'm not living in, plus £114 for my monthly subscriptions. I'm volunteering for my Mum (Sally) doing photography, social media and videography at The Pink Pig Farm shop and park in Scunthorpe, whilst also working full time on the farm with Dad.
Mum has furloughed 24 staff, so she only has my sister and me to help with her daily farm shop stall, where we sell everyday essentials. Our chickens haven't stopped laying.
Weekly shop. Now that I'm back living with my parents (it's taken some adjusting to) we do a weekly shop, this includes all the meals throughout the week. We try to only go to the supermarket once a week. As my parents are older I don't want to add potential risk when we don't need to.
One person is the designated shopper. My sister has been relegated as she buys too many naughty treats, my Dad has been kindly asked not to go because he deviates from the whole shopping list and I can't go anymore because I take too long. So Mum grudgingly does the weekly shop.
Total spend: £88 for the weekly shop. (£22 per person).
I've been one of the rare key workers who has been travelling around in the car ever since the virus was announced. When we first started driving to the agricultural suppliers the roads were empty apart from lorries. We, of course, had our government letter of authority to travel, just in case we got stopped.
Since then the roads have definitely got busier. We aren't quite sure where people are going but it's definitely increased. Travel per week costs around £70.
We travel to the abattoir once a month to deliver pigs or sheep, and to an outlying farm three times a week. Although I don't have to pay this as it's a business expense, it has made me realise how much it costs to be a farmer and how much of a risk you spend upfront before you get full payment from your harvested crops.
Total spend: £0
Lamb chaos. We noticed one of the lambs had a swollen red eye so we took a photo and sent it to the vets. The vets said it was best to get an ointment to treat it. This isn't an easy feat as you need to first catch the lamb and then administer the ointment daily. Lambs are a pain to catch, they are nimble and speedy.
However, first we needed to get the lotion from the vets, and vets are not cheap. This costs the business money but luckily not me. It's making me understand how much it costs to run a family business, it's not dissimilar to the money I was spending in London.
Total spend: £0
Come quarantine with me. Every day has been blending into one, so we've decided to have a special dinner once a week as a family. There's a fancy dress theme and going over the top is advised.
A different person hosts it each week and cooks food associated with said theme. This is a great way to be creative with food, share the cooking and it doesn't cost any extra dimes. We each get rated with a score, because there's four of us we pronounce the winner at the end of the fourth week. Dad is at a slight disadvantage as his cooking often comes with a health warning. As a family we've had to find creative ways to keep entertained that are low on cost:
Total spend: £0
A tricky sell. I sold one of my cameras and lenses today for extra cash to pay rent, as a photographer you need at least two cameras for events or shoots. Two reasons: if one goes wrong you have a back up, and secondly, during events you want a different lens on each camera to capture moments quickly.
This gave me an extra £450 which is great but doesn't even cover one month's rent. I've been doing some photo editing on the side with clients who need it/can afford it. This has helped immensely even though I only earn around £100 a month, every little helps.
Total spend: £0
My Money
More blogs from the BBC's My Money Series:
Internal debate. Sadly since corona I've had three second-hand (borrowed) phones die on me, as my phone broke just before corona. Not through any fault of my own, they all just bit the dust one after another.
A few thoughts came to my head: that I probably shouldn't buy a new phone when currently I'm only losing money, and in theory I won't receive money from the government as a self employed taxpayer until June. However, as I'm doing social media for my photography business (Anna Rachel Photography) and my Mum's farm park, I would struggle to do both without a phone (I've already been stealing my Mum's for a good week, she isn't too pleased).
So I decided to bite the bullet and buy one. My savings have covered it and my theory is that I will need a new phone at some point anyway. Still a very scary decision, which took weeks of back-and-forth and an internal debate.
Total spend: £400
Farming isn't cheap. Sunday is a slow day, we wake up, feed the lambs, Dad and I go on a bike ride spying on all the other farmers' fields and then run the stall from outside the cafe.
Sunday is really the only rest day for farmers. My Dad wears his smarter clothes, and we try and not farm unless there's an emergency, like this week.
We got a phone call from our next-door neighbours saying we had piglets on the road. We hopped in the car but after driving up and down the road we couldn't find any loose piglets. This left us stumped for ages trying to figure out how they had gotten out. Eventually we realised they were getting under a fence.
Often on farms you need to spend money on repairs. This week we've bought lamb ointment, bolts for the tractor, lamb powder and a new nozzle for the sprayer. Expenses I know I couldn't afford this right now, but I feel fortunate that my Dad can keep the farm going.
Total spend: £0
Pre-corona spend: *£261.21
*Since corona I've stopped paying for a workspace, unsubscribed from lots of subscriptions, and the Adobe software company has paused payment on memberships during corona.
Post-corona spend: £22
Including new phone (an irregular expense): £422
How does Anna feel about her week?
Whilst at the abattoir this week we got chatting to a 76-year-old farmer waiting in line (at a distance) and he mentioned how farmers are struggling so much during this crisis. Every farmer gets the single farm payment every year from the EU. This helps to covers costs as the supermarkets often don't pay farmers enough for their produce.
However these farm payments often don't leave room for savings, so lots of farmers don't have pensions, they will work their whole lives with an uncertain retirement. When I say "work" I'm talking about 12-hour shifts every day, on their feet, in the cold, it's hard labour (as I've discovered).
But they never complain and always greet you with a smile. This week I've realised I may be losing money and paying for things I can't afford but I feel very lucky to have learned so much about where our food comes from. Farmers are key workers that often get forgotten about.
They are constant key workers as without them we'd all have empty bellies. I guess I feel grateful for the farmers we have in the UK and lucky that I am involved in the process.
You may be eating some of the quinoa I've planted this time next year (if it rains)!
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Carlos Acosta, one of the world's leading ballet dancers, bids farewell to classical ballet next week at the Royal Albert Hall, at the age of 43.
He's spent much of his career in the UK and he has a message for the government - that it must do more for people from different backgrounds to access free training to find the British dancing talent of the future. This he believes will end elitism in the profession.
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By Nicola StanbridgeBBC Today programme
As Carlos Acosta effortlessly rehearses his classical ballet steps for the last time backstage at the Royal Opera House, he doesn't show the strain the recent birth of new twins must be adding to his hectic schedule.
But pain and hard work are his forte.
From humble beginnings in Cuba he has become one of the best and most famous dancers in the world. He arrived in the UK aged 18 as the youngest principle dancer at the English National Ballet.
He went on to become the first black principal at the Royal Ballet and the first black Romeo.
Starting out in the UK was overwhelming, he says.
"Coming straight from Cuba it was like another galaxy. But I was on a mission at the time I really wanted to learn all the best I could learn and be the best dancer I could be."
'New generation'
Acosta studied ballet at the Cuban National Ballet School and says ballet is not tinged with the same elitism in Cuba as it is in the UK.
"It was the interest of the government [in Cuba] to educate a country in the arts," he says. "They would go to the most desolate place in the countryside to audition dancers for the school for free.
"I think the role of the government and of free access - so poor people from different backgrounds receive training for free - means the more chances we have to launch careers of the greatest artists of the new generation.
"In this country the government, I think, should do more. There are schemes like Chance To Dance which does community work, but government involvement should be more and I think that would breach the gap of elitism."
There have been black ballet companies pushing forward the next generation in the UK and around the world - but Acosta is adamant this isn't the solution.
"Hire anybody that shows skill and talent and give people the chance to surprise us. They would never have thought I would end up one day playing Romeo in the Royal Ballet, so the same thing has to be done for others - give them the chance to see what Romeo lies inside of them."
The roles he has mastered in the classical ballets with their dramatic high leaps audiences demand came at considerable cost. Carlos Acosta has endured pain and surgery. "I've got tendonitis everywhere. It's not a secret we have to deal with pain all the time."
He said he takes painkillers, adding that "everybody has sort of painkillers they use".
Acosta added: "I try not to abuse it, it's not a habit. But when I am in crisis I need all the help I can get. But nobody is forcing us to dance. It's normal for us."
But this isn't the only reason he's saying goodbye to the classical repertoire at the Royal Albert Hall in October.
"It's not just that, I've done it all many times. What's another Swan Lake? An artist needs new challenges," he says.
"It's better to leave it when I can dance with dignity and give the people what they're after. There's so much I want to explore now while I still can and carry on doing my career as a contemporary dancer."
Carlos Acosta, The Classical Farewell, is at the Royal Albert Hall from 3-7 October
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I first went to Scotland as a teenager on a school trip on a sailing training course. Pembrokeshire to Glasgow by train was the longest rail journey I had ever undertaken. It took the best part of 18 hours - much of it overnight.
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By Jamie OwenBBC Wales Today presenter: Gauging opinion on Scottish independence and investigating whether independence is on the agenda in Wales
Thirty years on, I remember the sheer distance I had travelled from home on my own. Scotland was another country.
Thirty years on, I'm back in Scotland and the political landscape is being reshaped.
From Cardiff, it's a six-hour drive to Motherwell in North Lanarkshire. My home in Wales is only two hours from Westminster - London is a day trip away.
But Scotland is much further from the seat of UK government power. It's an obvious thing to say but Scotland's geographical distance from London also partly explains why Wales is so far from Scotland's independence vote. We're geographically closer to London and perhaps still politically closer to Westminster.
In six months, Scotland will vote on independence.
But I want to know why Scotland's nationalists are in government and powerful enough to offer the prospect of independence and yet in Wales, voters have largely ignored nationalism and independence doesn't appear to be on the radar.
I've come to Motherwell to the site of Ravenscraig steelworks to meet Colin Fox, leader of the Scottish Socialist Party.
His grandfathers and uncles worked here before British Steel mothballed the plant.
Like Welsh towns including Ebbw Vale, Motherwell's wealth and purpose almost disappeared overnight.
Colin tells me: "Scotland watched as British Steel pulled out. Without British Steel in Motherwell, Motherwell stopped looking to Britain and defined its future - not as British - but as Scottish."
He says, if Scotland votes yes in the referendum - the campaigners will owe a debt of gratitude to Margaret Thatcher and her government's industrial policy in the 1980s.
He says, Ravenscraig's closure explains the Conservative Party's virtual annihilation in these parts but what is significant is that increasing numbers of disaffected working class voters placed their trust not in Labour but in the Scottish National Party (SNP).
These days, the SNP is in government in Scotland, and recipients of support from those who might have once backed Labour. Despite a generation of the Scotland-educated Tony Blair and Gordon Brown dominating Labour at Westminster, Scotland's political compass is set by the SNP.
So why is Scotland voting on independence - and yet Wales not even mentioning the word?
Early in the morning, Glasgow University is my first stop of the day to find answers to Scotland's journey to a referendum.
Prof Duncan Ross, has granted me his first tutorial. Why does he think independence is on the agenda in Scotland but unspoken of in Wales?
He says Scotland was never conquered and to this day views itself as a sovereign country with its own long-standing legal and education system.
Its institutions' age gives the country a confidence and swagger of a dominant neighbour that Wales can only dream about. Scotland's experience of Westminster's political parties is viewed as highly centralised, distant and reluctant to devolve power.
Devolution delivered
Prof Ross says people who support the yes campaign say Scotland has the wealth to see it through - but there is something else in the mix too.
Devolution has been a success here. The SNP's stewardship of Scotland's health, education and inward investment has been successful.
Even some of the government's critics will tell you Alex Salmond's government has delivered on devolution.
In contrast, in Wales, a recent BBC poll on St David's Day suggested nearly a quarter of people want to abolish the assembly.
But don't run away with the thought that everyone in Scotland is about to vote yes.
On the other side of Motherwell, in Dryburgh Road, members of the Orange Order, are gathering for the weekly old folks' lunch.
Jim McNab is in charge. He's an Orangeman. I ask him if he thinks of himself as British or Scottish?
Jim is the first person to tell me that he will leave Scotland if his fellow countrymen vote yes.
There's no real equivalent to the Orange Order in Wales, no similar organisation that declares its undying affection to the Union of the United Kingdom.
In Scotland, the Orange Order's members are the standard bearers of keeping Britain together.
These men and women want to keep the Queen, the monarchy, Westminster's power over Scotland and see off republicanism, separatism, the SNP and independence.
The country is plastered in yes campaign posters, but he says the no campaign is keeping its powder dry.
Most of the people at the lunch are elderly but representative of a large chunk of Scottish society - those who think devolution has delivered - but want to stop any further constitutional change at the next opportunity.
Meanwhile in Motherwell town centre, it looks much the same as every other town in Britain.
There's the inevitable pedestrianisation, the string of familiar chain stores, businesses fighting to stay alive in the face of internet shopping and out of town retail.
But everywhere you walk there are reminders of the coal and steel industry that once dominated the landscape.
The pit-head winding gear sits at the side of a roundabout - the scene so familiar in regeneration towns like Ebbw Vale.
For all its similarities to Wales, our shared industrial past, memories of the coal and steel, there is something economically different about Scotland.
And that is oil - and whatever the arguments over its future and its value - it is a significant factor fuelling the argument over Scotland's viability as an independent country.
Jennifer Winter is 16 years old and joins a generation of young Scots who will be eligible to vote for the first time in this referendum.
She is taking part in BBC Scotland's Generation 2014 which follows 50 young people aged 16 or 17 who are eligible to vote in the referendum.
We sit round the kitchen table and flick through the encyclopaedia-like book that 16-year-olds have been given to help them decide how to vote. It looks un-thumbed.
Her father Brian says he's voting no. His mind is made up. No amount of campaigning or canvassing will sway him now. "Scotland can't afford to go it alone," he says.
His view is forget the dreams and the romanticism, this all comes down to money and Scotland can't afford it. And he certainly doesn't think that someone like his daughter, who has never worked and never paid tax, should have a say.
Jennifer hasn't decided how to vote. It'll be her decision and not her dad's she says. But she's been interested to watch the interventions of the businesses in Scotland who say they'll pull out if it's a yes.
Watch more on Jamie Owen's Postcard from Scotland on BBC Wales Today at 1830 GMT on Tuesday.
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Two teenagers have admitted stabbing a 17-year-old boy, on what was set to be the first day of their trial.
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The victim was taken to hospital after being found injured in Waltondale, Woodside, in Telford, in February.
Connor Shepherd, 18, of Willowfield, Telford and a 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, both admitted wounding with intent and carrying a bladed weapon.
The pair will be sentenced at a later date.
At the hearing on Monday, Judge Jonathan Gosling advised the pair they would be facing long custodial sentences.
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Officers from the States of Jersey Police are looking for a man who stamped on a seagull in St Helier.
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The police said the bird had died from its injuries.
The incident happened outside Burger Palace in Mulcaster Street at about 00:45 BST.
A spokesperson from the police force appealed for information from witnesses and urged "the female who was seen with the male at the time of the incident to come forward".
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Two people have been arrested following a serious assault which left a man in hospital.
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South Wales Police said it was called to High Street, Swansea, near to the disused Palace Theatre, at about 15:10 BST.
The injured man was taken by air ambulance to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
The force said a man and woman had been arrested in connection with the incident.
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A teenager has denied murdering a 14-year-old boy from Surrey, who was stabbed to death in Essex.
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Breck Bednar, from Caterham, Surrey, was found with a neck wound at a flat in Grays, Essex, in February.
Lewis Daynes, 18, a computer engineer from Rosebery Road, Grays appeared at the Old Bailey where he entered a not guilty plea.
He was remanded in custody ahead of a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court in November.
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In the week since Donald Trump effectively secured the Republican presidential nomination, a great deal of ink and airtime have been devoted to explaining why he will have a difficult time winning the presidency in the autumn.
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Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter
The Republican Party is too badly divided. His rhetoric is too incendiary. Republican voters may be "idiots", but the general public is wiser. The US electoral map, which places a premium on winning key high-population "swing" states, is tilted against the Republican Party.
About that last point. On Tuesday a survey of three key swing states - Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania - revealed a virtual dead heat between the two likely standard-bearers.
Those states - which account for 67 electoral votes - all went for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Add them to the states Republican Mitt Romney carried in 2012, and it delivers 273 electoral votes - three more than the 270 necessary to win the presidency.
Throw in a national tracking poll released on Wednesday that has Donald Trump surging to within striking distance of Hillary Clinton, and it's a recipe for acute hyperventilation on the part of Democrats.
But… but… but… cooler-heads respond.
The Reuters/Ipsos national poll, which has Mrs Clinton ahead 41% to Mr Trump's 40% and 19% undecided, was conducted online.
That Quinnipiac swing-state poll oversampled white voters - a demographic group that is more inclined to Republicans. In addition, it doesn't represent that big a shift from the group's battleground-state poll from last autumn, which undermines the theory that Mr Trump's support is growing.
The news caused election guru Nate Silver to go on a Twitter tirade, asserting that it's way too early to start gaming out the state-by-state electoral map based on opinion polls.
"The election will go through a lot of twists and turns, and polls are noisy," he writes. "Don't sweat individual polls or short-term fluctuations."
Sweating polls is what US pundits and commentators do, however. And at the very least, signs that Mr Trump is within reach of Mrs Clinton should cast doubts on the early predictions that the Democrats will win in the autumn by historic, Goldwater-esque margins. Mr Trump has a pathway to the presidency.
He may not get there. It is not the most likely outcome. But it's real.
That linchpin of a Trump victory centres on the so-called Rust Belt - states like the aforementioned Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as Michigan and Wisconsin. Even if Florida, due to its rapidly growing Hispanic population, goes to Mrs Clinton, Mr Trump could still win if he sweeps those states.
It's a strategy that Mr Trump already appears to understand.
"We'll win places that a lot of people say you're not going to win, that as a Republican you can't win," Mr Trump said at an April rally in Indiana. "Michigan is a great example; nobody else will go to Michigan. We're going to be encamped in Michigan because I think I can win it."
The challenge for Mr Trump is that the mid-west, particularly, Wisconsin and Michigan, have served as a Democratic firewall that Republicans have been unable to penetrate since 1988.
"These states constantly intrigue Republican presidential strategists because the Democratic advantage in them depends largely on an act of political levitation: the ability to consistently win a slightly greater share of working-class white voters here than almost anywhere else," writes the Atlantic's Ronald Brownstein.
If Mr Trump is to find success, then, he likely will have to finally win over this stubborn portion of the mid-western electorate or, perhaps, energise what Sean Trende of RealClear Politics has called the "missing white voters".
Trende points to a national drop-off more than 3.5 million white voters from the elections of 2008 to 2012, when population growth should have resulted in an increase of 1.5 million.
These voters, he theorised, were largely working-class whites who had previously supported iconoclasts like Ross Perot, the 1992 anti-free-trade independent candidate.
It's the type of voter that Mr Trump, with his populist economic pitch, has been turning out in the Republican primaries.
In 2012 Mr Obama beat Mr Romney by roughly 5 million votes. If Mr Trump can bring those disaffected white voters back to the polls in 2016, it would cut into that margin. If Mrs Clinton is unable to produce the record-setting turnout among young and minority voters that Mr Obama achieved, the gap shrinks further still.
That's a lot of "if's", of course. Young and minority voters - particularly Hispanics - may yet turn out to the polls in high numbers, if only to cast ballots against Mr Trump. There are already indications of record-setting Hispanic voter registration in places like California.
There's also the risk that Mr Trump's reliance on populist rhetoric and controversial views on immigration could lead white-collar voters to favour Mrs Clinton. For every disaffected member of the working-class he brings in, he could lose a suburban mum or college-educated businessman.
Even giving Mr Trump the benefit of the doubt, and viewing the recent polls as a trend and not a blip, there are still more electoral scenarios that end up with Mrs Clinton in the White House come 2017.
For Mr Trump, the political stars have to re-align in his favour. For Mrs Clinton, a general-election status quo likely means victory.
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When a road accident occurs, bystanders will usually try to help the injured, or at least call for help. In India it's different. In a country with some of the world's most dangerous roads, victims are all too often left to fend for themselves.
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By Preeti JhaDelhi
Kanhaiya Lal desperately cries for help but motorists swerve straight past him. His young son and the splayed bodies of his wife and infant daughter lie next to the mangled motorbike on which they had all been travelling seconds earlier.
The widely broadcast CCTV footage of this scene - showing the suffering of a family of hit-and-run victims in northern India in 2013 and the apparent indifference of passers-by - troubled many Indians.
Some motorcyclists and police eventually came to the family's aid but it was too late for Lal's wife and daughter. Their deaths sparked a nationwide debate over the role of bystanders - the media hailed it as a "new low in public apathy" and worse, "the day humanity died".
But what safety campaigner Piyush Tewari saw wasn't a lack of compassion but an entire system stacked against helping road victims.
His work to change this began nearly 10 years ago, when his 17-year-old cousin was knocked down on the way home from school.
"A lot of people stopped but nobody came forward to help," Tewari says. "He bled to death on the side of the road."
Tewari set out to understand this behaviour, and found the same pattern repeated time and again across the country. Passers-by who could have helped were holding back and doing nothing.
"The foremost reason was intimidation by police," he says.
"Oftentimes if you assist someone the police will assume you're helping that person out of guilt."
The discovery spurred Tewari to set up SaveLIFE. In a 2013 survey, the foundation found that 74% of Indians were unlikely to help an accident victim, whether alone or with other bystanders.
Apart from the fear of being falsely implicated, people also worried about becoming trapped as a witness in a court case - legal proceedings can be notoriously protracted in India. And if they helped the victim get to hospital, they feared coming under pressure to stump up fees for medical treatment.
In a country with smoothly functioning emergency services, bystanders often need to do little more than call an ambulance, do their best to provide first aid and reassure victims that help is on the way.
But in India ambulances are in short supply, sometimes very slow to arrive and often poorly equipped. This makes it a country in need of Good Samaritans - and according to Tewari there are many Good Samaritans out there. They just choose carefully when to leap into action.
He contrasts the reluctance of passers-by to help victims of road accidents with their response to train crashes or bombs blasts.
In these cases, he says, "before the police or media arrives everybody's been moved to hospital".
The big difference with road accidents is that there are usually just one or two victims. "The chances of getting blamed are much higher," he says.
SaveLIFE filed a case with India's top court to introduce legal protection for Indian bystanders and a year ago there was a breakthrough when the Supreme Court issued a number of guidelines, including:
Just two months later, though, another hit-and-run incident caught on camera shocked the nation.
"See how they're just watching?" murmurs Anita Jindal as she scans the CCTV footage, once again, on her mobile phone in the cramped room-cum-corner shop she once shared with her son, Vinay.
A speeding car had hurled 20-year-old Vinay off his scooter in east Delhi, and the footage shows a crowd of onlookers surrounding him, and doing nothing.
It went viral on social media last July, triggering a new bout of soul-searching, and was even mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his monthly radio broadcast to the nation.
"If someone had helped he may have been here today," says Anita Jindal. "Everyone told me they were scared of the police."
For Piyush Tewari and SaveLIFE the struggle goes on.
In March the Supreme Court guidelines were declared compulsory. To ensure that they will be enforced, the foundation is now campaigning to get each of India's 29 federal states and seven union territories to enshrine them in a Good Samaritan law.
The scale of the problem
Source: SaveLIFE Foundation, 2014
Shrijith Ravindran, the chief executive of a restaurant chain, is one person for whom this legislation cannot be introduced soon enough.
In January he came across an elderly man bleeding by the roadside in the western Indian city of Pune. A gathering crowd of people was still deliberating what to do when Ravindran put the man in his car and drove him to hospital.
The closest hospital gave him a bunch of papers to fill in before turning him away.
The next one swamped him with more paperwork before tending to the patient.
In total, he says, he spent three hours filling in these forms.
"They ask, 'Are you a relative?' The moment you say 'No', they don't do anything," says Ravindran.
"They wait for somebody to give them assurance that they will pay the bill. Valuable time is lost."
The elderly man finally received treatment once the paperwork was completed, but it was too late. He died of his injuries.
Photos by Preeti Jha.
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How do you follow up a song that goes viral in the middle of a pandemic?
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By Mark SavageBBC music reporter
That was the dilemma facing US pop band Avenue Beat, who landed an unexpected hit last year when a half-finished, throwaway song exploded on TikTok.
Called F2020 (you don't need to guess what the F stands for), the laid-back pop anthem summed up perfectly the crushing mixture of anxiety, misery, loneliness and boredom that accompanied the last 12 months.
More than 50 million streams later, it was named song of the year by the New York Times, giving the band both a huge opportunity and a massive headache.
"Our team was putting a lot of pressure on us to figure out the follow-up," says singer-songwriter Sami Bearden. "And we were like, 'We don't even know what to write about! There's not exactly a lot going on right now.'"
"It was always in the back of our minds: if you don't write anything that works ever again, you're a legit one hit wonder," adds the band's lead singer, Savana Santos.
After months of scratching their heads, the band hit on an ingenious solution: Write their way out of writer's block by writing about writer's block.
"I've been sittin' here trying to write a pop song / Trying to follow up that viral hit that popped off," sings Savana on their new single, Woman. "I'm just trying to recreate what I did the first time / Is any topic even worthy of a first line?"
"It honestly came out in, like, 20 minutes," she laughs. "We got so excited about the fact we were talking about something meta. And then it just wrote itself."
The rest of the song is a smitten tribute to Savana's girlfriend, evolving into a celebration of femininity and female solidarity. Its shameless positivity is the yin to F2020's yang.
"Why be more negative?" asks Savana. "Why not lean into something a lot more sexy, beautiful and awesome?"
Talking to the band is a lot like listening to their lyrics. They're gossipy and funny but unafraid to tackle the heavy stuff - sexism, anxiety, mental health.
Their ease and lack of inhibition comes from being childhood friends, as three self-confessed "theatre nerds" from Quincy, Illinois.
"We're literally each other's only friends," laughs Sam Backoff, who completes the trio.
"All of our songs come out of that friendship. We just walk into a room, and we're like, 'What's everyone feeling today?' And some days you're feeling like a badass and other days you're feeling overwhelmed by the weight of the world. Then we just literally talk about it until it presents itself into a song."
"Which," notes Savana, "makes our job a whole lot easier".
As they prepared to unleash Woman on the world, the band jumped on the phone with the BBC to discuss their viral hit, dead cats and the dark side of the music industry.
What is the Avenue Beat origin story?
Sam: We all grew up in the same small town in Illinois. Savana and I have known each other since we were babies and, when we were 14, we started messing around with some YouTube covers, and Sami actually commented on one of them.
She was like, "Hey guys if you ever need a piano player, hit me up!" Later we found out that that was like totally a lie - she can't play piano and she was trying to fake her way into the band. But it worked!
What was the song?
Sami: Nicki Minaj's Starships.
Sam: We did not do it justice.
Savana: I remember in the middle of it, recording it, I was like, 'Oh no, there's a rap in here, and we cannot rap!'
Is it still on YouTube?
Savana: Oh no. No-one's ever gonna see that, ever.
What was the first song you wrote together?
Sami: Oh God. We called it the Pizza Box Song because we wrote the lyrics out on a pizza box and we we were trying to be quirky and different. It was nonsense.
I looked up all the songs you've published since then and there are almost 200 of them - mostly unreleased. Why so many?
Savana: Part of it was trying to learn how to write a song, because it takes so much to figure out the mechanics of it. And honestly, it comes from just writing every day, every day, every day. Even when you don't want to. Finishing bad songs is where learning how to write a good song comes from - for us, at least.
Some of the titles are incredible - Buy My Mom A House; I Should Really Drink Less; Unapologetic Needy Girlfriend...
Savana: Oh my God. You're bringing back memories!
Are they all autobiographical, or you do you like to write in character?
Savana: I think our theatre background influences the way we write now because theatre is so much about storytelling. But [the songs] are definitely better when they're based on real life experiences. That's what I've learned.
Your first EP has a country vibe - was that the direction you originally wanted to go in?
Sam: We learned how to write songs in Nashville and all the people that we were around wrote country music... so for a while [we] sounded more country. Then we kept the storytelling elements and then made it more pop-sounding because that also inspires us a lot.
Sami: We're happy to genre hop. We all come from such different musical backgrounds that we can't just pick one.
What sort of stage was your career at when you put out that first EP?
Sam: We were like gearing up to send a single to country radio and we did a lot of touring with... do you remember the yodel kid Mason Ramsey?
You toured with him?!
Sami: It was honestly the best summer of my life. Like, I thought it would be weird because what kind of audience, exactly, would Mason Ramsey draw? But it was just like a bunch of like rowdy college kids so it was perfect. And that kid is an absolute doll. He became our little brother and I miss him every day.
Then F2020 comes along and changes everything. Tell me about that lyric: "My cat died and a global pandemic took over my life".
Sami: It is what it is. My cat Gumbo died and, a few hours later, Savana had written the song.
And you put the song on TikTok before it was finished?
Savana: Yeah, I threw it together one afternoon and sent it in a group chat to Sam and Sami.
Sami: She was like, "This is cool, but I don't know what we can do with it?" And I was like, "You shut your mouth, we are putting this on TikTok right now." And so we got together and did that video - but we never thought our label would let us put it out because, I mean, we were doing country up 'til that point and this song had the F-word like 70,000 times.
When did you realise it was taking off?
Savana: The next morning! It had like five million views or something. The notifications wouldn't stop coming and I was like, "Oh my God!"
What's it like having a breakthrough hit in the middle of a pandemic?
Sam: It's good and it's weird. We had a lot of big moments happen - like, we heard it on the radio and a bunch of big celebrities posted about it...
Savana: ...Will Smith forever!
Sam: So, yeah, we had these fleeting moments where it felt amazing and, right after, I just went back to sitting on my couch and watching Netflix.
There was obviously a lot of pressure to follow it up - so when did you write Woman?
Sami: We wrote it in quarantine - so I think a few months ago? But I'm not great at guesstimating time right now because it's not real.
Sam: But ever since we wrote it we've been like itching to put that one out. It's so exciting.
What was the inspiration?
Sami: We were all sitting there, trying to work out what to write about when Savana's girlfriend walked in, and we were like, "I guess we could write about that." She was literally our muse. It was hilarious. It literally happened exactly how we said it in the song. I wish I was lying but I am not.
What does she think about having a song dedicated to her?
Savana: She loves it. I highly recommend to anyone who is dating someone to write a song about their girlfriend because they will love you.
Did you get extra good Christmas presents this year, then?
Savana: Honestly? Yes. We're in Hawaii together!
You posted another new song on Instagram this week, calling the music industry "dark and ugly". What sort of things have you encountered?
Sami: Oh man, the general sexism of it all. Being talked over a lot. And I think having yourself on display is a terrifying thing. There are some days when you feel like a little trash goblin and you want to be at home in sweatpants and no make-up. But you still have to like be out there and put your best self forward.
Savana: There are so many parts of the music industry that honestly suck. It can feel like they're taking away your creativity from you.
Is that why you started producing your own songs?
Savana: Exactly. Being fully dependent on yourself feels liberating. I can make a song 100% from start to finish - wherever I am, whenever I want. And I love that.
You must be quite self-confident?
Savana: No, which is the thing! In high school I literally did not speak. I don't think I talked to anyone. But when I found out I was good at music, it gave me the confidence to step up.
Sami: I've seen her in the studio with incredible, incredible songwriters and producers and speaking her mind and not even caring. It's one of my favourite things to see.
Savana: But I still honestly don't know how I do that on a daily basis, because I am a shy-ass person!
So, final question: Now that 2020 is over, do you still feel the same about it?
Savana: I hate it with a burning passion but I also love it with a burning passion because it gave us everything we have now. So, thank you and screw you 2020!
Woman is out now.
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Two people have been injured when a light aircraft they were travelling in crashed within a few miles of Gloucester city centre.
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The man and woman were both taken to hospital from where the plane came down in the Over area at about 16:00 GMT.
An ambulance spokeswoman said they had suffered multiple injuries but both were in a stable condition.
Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service said both casualties were outside of the plane before their crews arrived.
The man was taken by land ambulance to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital but the woman was flown by air ambulance to Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.
Less than two weeks ago another light aircraft crash landed in nearby Sandhurst after a possible mechanical fault.
The pilot of the Robin DR400 aircraft walked away unharmed.
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In our series of letters from African writers, journalist-turned-barrister Brian Hungwe writes that many Zimbabweans have been shocked to learn that ex-President Robert Mugabe's widow had been staying with his body at home ahead of his burial at his rural home later on Saturday.
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How do you eat, sleep and drink with a corpse in your house for weeks?
That question has been puzzling many Zimbabweans since it emerged that the body of former President Robert Mugabe - who died more than three weeks ago (on 6 September) at the age of 95 - is being kept inside his opulent Blue Roof mansion in the capital, Harare, amidst friction between the government and his family over whether he should be buried in a shrine at Heroes Acre or in his home region of Zvimba, north-west Harare.
With no official announcement of where his body was, some Zimbabweans thought it was being kept in a mortuary while others went as far as to speculate that Mugabe - as the heir to the chieftainship of Zvimba, his rural home - had already been buried in a cave in accordance with the rituals of his Gushungo clan, following his state funeral in Harare and the mourning and body-viewing in Zvimba.
But photos of Mugabe's casket at his mansion emerged on Monday (23 September) when South Africa's firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema came to pay his respects to Grace Mugabe, the former first lady whose ambitions to succeed him as president were thwarted when her husband was forced out of office in 2017 by the military.
"Mr Mugabe was sleeping easy... just resting peacefully. He is resting," Mrs Mugabe said, during Mr Malema's visit.
This was followed by the viewing of the body, and a sumptuous lunch of pie and vegetables across the room from the corpse.
Some Zimbabweans are now drawing comparisons with rituals in Indonesia's Tana Toraja region, where it takes a long time to bury the dead.
The corpse is kept in the house. The bereaved wash and clean it. They bring it food twice a day, as well as coffee and even cigarettes.
It is a way for the living to deal with grief. People believe the dead can hear them, and if they do not take care of the dead, the spirit - hovering above their heads - will haunt them.
Fear of the dead
Traditional beliefs among the Shona ethnic group - under which the Gushungo clan falls - also requires many rituals to be performed when death occurs.
These rituals reinforce a collective identity, and help families and communities to come to terms with the loss of a loved one.
Zimbabwean experts in this field also say that Shona funeral rituals tend to revolve around fear of the dead.
The spirit is regarded as being powerful, with human-like emotions. It can also haunt the living, if the corpse is not looked after.
Having ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, Mugabe was not just a towering figure - he was a political institution.
Next to his mother
Some Zimbabweans say the 95-year-old spirit may not yet be ready for his interment and this why his body was kept at his mansion for so long.
His family appears to be at ease with this. Some of them have said one of Mugabe's wishes was that his wife should never leave the corpse until he is buried.
It is unclear why he would make such a wish. Perhaps the family fears his body could be tampered with for ritual purposes.
According to the family, Mugabe had another wish - to be buried at his rural home, close to his late mother, Bona. They further accuse President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mugabe's long-time ally, of betraying his former comrade and being behind the military takeover.
Normally the wishes of the dead are respected, but when alive, Mugabe defied the wishes of some of his liberation war colleagues who asked not to be buried at Harare's Heroes Acre, the shrine for freedom fighters.
It seemed as though Mr Mnangagwa was going to do the same - he announced that a special grave would be built for his predecessor at Heroes Acre.
More about Robert Mugabe:
It was to have been a shrine to symbolise - as Mr Mnangagwa put it - his great works.
After behind-the-scenes talks, Mugabe's family agreed to the plan.
"The government and the chiefs went to the Heroes Acre, showed each other where President Mugabe is going to be buried, and that place would take about 30 days to complete," said Leo Mugabe, a nephew of the former president who has acted as a spokesman for the family.
'He didn't invent the country'
But the construction of the mausoleum at the national shrine provoked intense controversy.
History professor Gerry Mazarire told me that to elevate Mugabe above other heroes of the Independence War would create a false narrative - that he invented the country. It also belittles the contribution of others - and suggests that the government is being held to ransom by the ego of a dead man, he said.
Many Zimbabweans could not understand the decision - if you defy the wishes of the dead, you anger their spirit, and it is difficult to then appease it.
The family must have felt the pressure.
It seems that this point has now been taken on board - the government has announced that the former president will be buried in Zvimba in accordance with the "new position" of his family.
The question now is whether the man who tried to treat Zimbabwe's presidency as a hereditary post will be buried in a cave, like a traditional chief.
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South Korean leader Moon Jae-in is either a diplomatic genius or a communist set on destroying his country and US President Donald Trump is either a master of brinkmanship or a pawn in a more devious game - depending on who you speak to.
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By Laura BickerBBC News, Seoul
But it is the other actor in this saga, Kim Jong-un, the only one who has yet to make a direct statement, who may just be the most significant player in this most extraordinary of political gambles.
From the moment he extended an apparent olive branch to the South in his new year message to the cordial delegations to Pyeongchang for the Winter Olympics, it became clear that Kim Jong-un had mastered the most sophisticated crafts of propaganda.
Some will view his personal invitation to Mr Trump to hold talks with him - as well as the commitment to freeze further nuclear tests - as the real diplomatic masterstroke after a year that was unprecedented for the level of naked hostility the US and the North bared toward one another.
But the risk here belongs to both Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump. In a situation where neither can claim sole mastery of the narrative, without a clear exit strategy, and when there are so many definitions for both success and failure, a lot is at stake.
Whose charm offensive?
Mr Moon is viewed by his supporters as the negotiator-in-chief who has now skilfully managed to get Mr Kim to at least talk about getting rid of nuclear weapons.
He is the one who spotted the opportunity during the North Korean leader's speech in January - which offered a glimmer of hope that the reclusive state was willing to engage with the South - and grabbed it with both hands.
The dizzying level of diplomacy and a frenzy of visits between North and South has now delivered - it seems.
"People are calling this the North Korean charm offensive, I actually think this is a South Korean charm offensive. This is something President Moon Jae-in clearly wanted," John Delury from Yonsei University said to me even before the talks were announced.
Mr Moon knew his envoys would have to extract the word "denuclearisation" from Mr Kim when they visited Pyongyang. He also knew having two of his top level government ministers looking cosy with the North Korean leader would not go down well in Washington or Tokyo.
But it was worth the risk. The US would not have considered talking to the communist state without that meeting. His chosen delegates got what they needed.
The South Korean leader is also attempting the role of honest broker, handling Mr Trump and Mr Kim at the same time. He is choosing his words carefully and keeping his cards close to his chest while flattering those who respond to the spotlight.
In his New Year's address he said Mr Trump deserved "huge credit" for talks between the two Koreas, knowing it would please him. He is also using language that will reassure a concerned Republican administration. The language of the South Korean statement announcing the talks was also fulsome in its admiration for Trump's handling of the situation leading up to this moment.
Sanctions will stay in place, Mr Moon had said earlier, and Mr Trump has now confirmed that.
Manipulated by North Korea?
But everybody knows it wasn't always like that. Just six months ago Mr Trump was promising to rain down "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on North Korea if it dare threaten the US. Prof Haksoon Paik, lead researcher at the Sejong Institute, said that threat level felt "totally unprecedented".
"President Moon was very much concerned about nuclear threat of war. Kim Jong-un was in the same situation. We were hearing from the likes of the US Senator Lindsay Graham that lives will be lost over here. Donald Trump's unorthodox and unstable leadership had both Korean leaders worried about the potential of military options."
The US has always maintained that the permanent denuclearisation of North Korea is the endgame. Even with all the surprises up to this point, few believe Mr Kim would agree to that so if they don't achieve that what options does Trump have?
So is Moon Jae-in - and indeed Donald Trump - being manipulated by a North Korea which has fooled the world before?
"By dangling before the US once again 'denuclearization of the Korean peninsula' and 'moratorium on nuclear and missile tests', Kim seeks to weaken sanctions, pre-empt US military pre-emption, and condition the world into accepting North Korea as a legitimate nuclear state," says Prof Lee Sung-yoon from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
For Mr Trump this could be about one of the boldest and most historic moves a US leader has made in foreign relations.
If this gamble works out, Mr Trump could credit himself as the president who sorted out North Korea. His administration has had very few victories, despite promising his voters there would "so much winning."
He believes his "maximum pressure" strategy and his work to get China on side and help squeeze Pyongyang economically is working.
Reporters say he casually mentioned in the White House briefing room that he hoped they would give him credit for Kim Jong-un's offer. His voters certainly will.
But meeting Mr Kim risks treating the communist leader as an equal. It could be a PR disaster. The date set is also only a few months away - a short time frame to achieve diplomatic goals with a leader he mocked as "little rocket man" just a few months ago.
Prof Robert E Kelly at Busan University in South Korea tweeted: "Trump doesn't study or even read. He tends to fly wildly off script. And May means there's almost no time for all the staff prep necessary."
Pyongyang has been playing this game for decades. Mr Trump is new to it. He may see a big win on the horizon, but his Art of the Deal book will not be the guide he needs to deal with Kim Jong-un.
Politics is personal
For Mr Moon this is about history and it is also personal.
He played a part in previous attempts to negotiate with North Korea as chief of staff to President Roh Moo-hyun when he met Mr Kim's father, Kim Jong-il, in 2007. That was the last time the leaders of the two Koreas held a summit. A satellite launch by Pyongyang ended the talks.
By then around $4.5bn of aid had been sent North during the policy of engagement. Critics believe that money helped to accelerate the weapons programme.
Having failed once before, Mr Moon is trying to complete the work he started, says Duyeon Kim, a senior fellow at the Korean Peninsula Forum.
"He's basically following the same playbook as his two liberal predecessors. It's exactly the kind of thing he would want to pick up and continue."
As a son of refugees from the North, Mr Moon is also aware of the effects of conflict on the peninsula. His parents fled North Korea aboard a UN supply ship in 1950 at the start of the Korean War alongside thousands of other refugees.
He told reporters during his election campaign: "My father fled from the North, hating communism. I myself hate the communist North Korean system. That doesn't mean I should let the people in the North suffer under an oppressive regime."
President Moon has acknowledged there are obstacles ahead. He is managing expectations and so much can go wrong.
Duyeon Kim believes there is a high probability that at the end of this negotiating process, all parties will fail, and North Korea will decide it wants to keep its nuclear weapons. And yet...
"You just don't know. I don't think it's ever a lost cause, in spite of all the doubts and scepticism all parties should go in with clear eyes, but negotiate hard."
President Moon's approval ratings took a hit during the Winter Olympics after he integrated the women's hockey team with players from the North and met a general from Pyongyang who had been accused of masterminding deadly attacks on South Koreans, though they have since rebounded.
He may suffer politically if this fails but maybe for him, this is not about scoring political points. This is what he told Time magazine last year when he was presidential candidate: "My mother is the only one [of her family] who fled to the South. [She] is 90 years old. Her younger sister is still in the North alive. My mother's last wish is to see her again."
These talks are a huge gamble with a communist state which is hard to read.
But if, just if, he helps pull it off it may reduce the threat of nuclear war and he could win himself a Nobel peace prize.
If all fails, it is back to brinkmanship.
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Kidnapping generated $25m for Islamic State last year, according to one US intelligence estimate. It's also a powerful propaganda tool. The business relies on spies, informers, kidnappers, jailers and negotiators who arrange the deals when a captive is released. Syrian journalist Omar Al-Maqdud went to meet some of those who have been involved.
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Two years ago the American journalist Steven Sotloff came to visit me at my home in the US and told me he was planning a trip to Syria.
I tried to persuade him to change his mind but he wouldn't listen. Three days later, he emailed me from near Aleppo asking for help with contacts. Not long after that, he was kidnapped.
"There were three cars. I saw them from the distance - about 500m," said Yusuf Abubaker, Sotloff's fixer, who was travelling with him.
"As soon as [the occupants] saw us they left the cars and blocked our path… I wanted to take out my weapon and aim but there were about 10 to 15 people in front of us with weapons. They were holding Kalashnikovs."
Sotloff and Abubaker were separated. "I tried to shout for him but they kept telling me to shut up," said Abubaker, who was freed after 15 days because of his links with a powerful brigade in the anti-government Free Syrian Army (FSA).
But then a year ago, in September 2014, IS released a video of Sotloff being beheaded. It followed hot on the heels of the murder of another American journalist, James Foley, in similar circumstances.
In all, 181 journalists, citizen journalists and bloggers have been killed in Syria since 2011, according to the campaign group Reporters Without Borders. At least 29, including nine foreigners, are still either missing or being held hostage by IS or other armed extremist groups.
In the Turkish border town of Antakya, I met a Syrian man, a former IS agent who asked to be called Abu Huraira. He told me he used to track down media workers covering the conflict and would help to arrange for them to be kidnapped.
He would pretend to be a Syrian refugee and get fixers to introduce him to journalists. After a few meetings he would suggest a place to film near the border. "There are kids we're going to film and I'm going to introduce you to a few people who might help you in your work," he would promise.
He used to give kidnappers details of their plans. "I would have organised everything with them. I only needed to deliver that person… someone else will take care of him and I will have nothing more to do with this. Or he might kidnap me too and then release me after a while."
At the beginning of the conflict, Abu Huraira had been a member of the FSA. He then spent some time with a local group affiliated to al-Qaeda before moving on to work for IS. He agreed to meet me only because he had decided to leave IS for good.
The turning point came when he was asked to set up one of his friends.
"I couldn't lose my friend or face being responsible for it. I told him, 'You must leave this area, you must leave this country, because they have targeted you. They want you and there's no excuses with these people.'" I later contacted the friend in question who confirmed this was true.
Abu Huraira showed me pictures of hostages, messages, and recordings of conversations he'd had online with IS leaders in Raqqa province, illustrating how well planned kidnappings are.
He said there were plenty of people like him willing to feed information to kidnappers, for ideological reasons or for money.
I had also been to Antakya a year earlier and Abu Huraira told me he had been watching me on that visit. He almost sold me out for a couple of thousand dollars - he knew where I had been staying, who I was travelling with and details of a trip my companions and I had planned across the border. He said he had passed all this information to his IS colleagues who made plans to pick us up. Fortunately, we had cancelled the trip at the last minute.
IS has an entire department dedicated to carrying out kidnappings called the "Intelligence Apparatus", according to Abu Huraira. It targets foreign journalists the minute they set foot in cities near Syria's border. One US intelligence report estimated that in 2014, IS made $25m from ransom payments.
Sometimes though, IS kidnaps people not for money, but to punish them.
In January last year, masked men broke into the office of Syrian journalist Milad Al Shihaby in Aleppo, apparently in revenge for his reporting on IS atrocities. "They stole all the electronic equipment in the office - cameras, laptops - and they put me in a car boot and they took me to their base in the children's hospital," he told me.
He was held alone in a cell for 13 days in a former hospital in Aleppo. About 200 other Syrians were also imprisoned there.
"I was blindfolded for 10 days. I would pray blindfolded, I would eat blindfolded. After those 10 days, for three days I was blindfolded and handcuffed. Even while I was praying, I was handcuffed."
He was then moved to a larger room with other prisoners, where his blindfold and handcuffs were removed. Some of his jailers had Iraqi accents, he said, and he could hear them torturing other captives.
"They would hang [a man] from his hands and let his legs hang down, and he would be hanging for two to three hours… sometimes they would have so many prisoners that they wouldn't have enough rope so they would hang them using the handcuffs."
Al Shihaby said some of his cellmates were executed because they didn't convert to Islam.
But when FSA fighters overcame IS positions around the detention centre, the militants fled. Al Shihaby and the other prisoners escaped. He had been held captive for 16 days.
Forty-eight hours after he took me back to the deserted prison, we heard that IS had returned to the area.
Al Shihaby is not the only person to get away - some foreign journalists have also been released.
In June 2013, French journalists Edouard Elias and Didier Francois were kidnapped from a car in Syria. Their driver would only speak to me anonymously, using the name Al'aa.
"There was a moment when our eyes met," he told me in January last year, describing the kidnapping. "The way he [Francois] looked at me had a very strong impact on me. I'm still affected by it to this day, as if his eyes were saying: 'Are you just going to leave us?'"
Al'aa said the kidnappers told him to "drive off and don't look back". He sought help from the FSA but the man who dealt with him was suspicious. "I said to him, 'If I was working with them, I wouldn't have come directly to you… do something before we lose more time.' They put me in a prison cell."
The French journalists were released after 10 months.
I later heard that Al'aa was driving Japanese journalists when they were kidnapped in two separate incidents. When I tried to contact Al'aa again to ask him what had happened, his phone was no longer in service. He seems to have disappeared.
Austin Tice
The first registered kidnappings of foreign journalists in Syria happened in 2012. One of them involved Austin Tice from Texas, who was abducted near the Syrian capital, Damascus, in August 2012, a few days after his 31st birthday.
According to a website set up by his family, "Five weeks later, a 43-second video emerged unlike any other to emerge from a hostage case in Syria. It showed Austin being held by a group of unidentified armed men. No message accompanied the video, only the title, 'Austin Tice is Alive'. "
It's not known where he is and no group has taken responsibility for his disappearance.
So why are some hostages released? France said no ransom was paid for Elias and Francois but there are cases where payments have been made.
In my search for the middlemen who carry out negotiations, I was told about a businessman who split his time between Paris and Istanbul, where he owns a bakery.
When I finally met him, it turned out to be someone I had known from the start of the revolution, Moutez Shaklab.
He said he had acted as a go-between for kidnappers and victims' families, using a network of contacts across Syria to track people down.
"You call the kidnappers, you ask them if they have this person. They say, 'Yes.'
"You ask them for proof, they say, 'What proof do you want?' I'm told to ask, for example, 'What's the name of his deceased older brother? And the date and location of his death?' So we asked the question, and received the answers, which confirms that the guy is alive."
Shaklab said he helped negotiate the release of Belgian writer Pierre Piccinin da Prata and Italian journalist Domenico Quirico.
"Their families' representative paid $4m which I witnessed," he said. The money was loaded into a van and taken to a building where the kidnappers counted it and packed it into suitcases.
In this case the abductors were former FSA rebels who have since joined Islamist factions. But Shaklab's two attempts to negotiate with IS were less successful.
While he was searching for one kidnap victim he met a Saudi member of IS. The encounter lasted about 30 minutes. The man was aggressive and threatening, accusing Shaklab of being a blasphemer. The level of hostility shocked Shaklab and he left, scared.
In cases like this, IS kidnaps people not for money, but for propaganda, to demonstrate its power.
And what shocked me most, was not just the videos of journalists being murdered, but how ordinary Syrians have been corrupted and sucked into this shady world - how friends have been turned into spies.
Omar Al-Maqdud's TV documentary The Islamic State Kidnap Machine was made for BBC Arabic.
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A teenager has died after being stabbed near a Tube station in north London.
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The Metropolitan Police were called at 15:50 GMT to Northwick Park, Harrow, following reports of an attack.
They found an injured youth, believed to be aged 17. He was given first aid but was later pronounced dead at the scene.
No arrests have been made. A crime scene is in place and inquiries into the circumstances are ongoing, a police spokesman said.
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My Money is a series looking at how people spend their money - and the sometimes tough decisions they have to make. Here, Leena Yousefi from Vancouver in Canada, takes us through a week in her life, as the world goes through the coronavirus pandemic.
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Leena is 37. She is a lawyer and the CEO of YLaw Group, a law firm located in British Columbia. Leena has been chosen as one of the Top 25 Lawyers in Canada, and one of Vancouver's Top 40 under 40.
Her recent LinkedIn post went viral with more than 43,000 'likes' when she wrote: "One day I will tell you about all the sleepless nights and all the mornings I woke up and kissed you as I went to Court, so you know if I can do it, you can too."
She lives with her husband and seven-month-old daughter and describes herself as "a true working mom."
Leena's week: Coronavirus, working from home, and trying to stay sane and grateful
Over to Leena...
I wake up to a tiny face with a huge smile from ear to ear. That is my daughter and she is completely clueless about what is happening in the world. She seems genuinely content just to lay on the bed next to me and touch my face with her tiny hands.
Another COVID-19 morning, or is it anymore? We are out of quarantine and my favourite coffee shop has reopened and is grateful for my morning runs to grab my latte. Half of us are still working from home, and the other half come in and out of the office in our casual gear. I am doing the same. Today, I will be working from my kitchen.
Instead of jumping in the shower and doing my hair, I grab the baby and put on music. "Stand by Me" plays and I dance with her all around the kitchen and living room. She is so excited. This has become our morning routine, and I am grateful for the experience.
I play with her as much as I can and when she naps, I get to work. My husband is also at home so we try to split the responsibilities half and half. So far neither one of us is as productive, but still it's not so bad. We are a lot more positive and happy being around one another, as difficult as it can be sometimes having no space or alone time. I find that when I leave home is when the reality of this situation really hits me.
I have been forced to cook most meals now that we can only do pick up or take out. I make a delicious Thai curry as my husband puts baby to sleep.
Total spend: 5 Canadian dollars (£2.84, $3.60)
I wake up after another sleepless night with the baby. She always greets me with a huge smile and makes me forget how hard of a time she gives me every night!
In order to get the company going and keep us connected, we have Zoom virtual meetings twice a week. My favourite is the second time which is our 'happy hour' at 16:00 on Fridays. Tuesdays are mostly about getting a sense of just how much we have been hit by COVID and ways of thinking about how to keep the business afloat.
We talk, laugh, and come up with ideas together for an hour. Hey, this is not so bad. I feel like we are all learning how to cope and live with the virus instead of being in our original state of panic and fear.
We need groceries, and more importantly, I need wine. So I put on my "outside" clothes and go down the grocery store. I notice people lining up and keeping a two-metre distance from one another based on green tapes on the ground that guide them where to stand. It feels like an apocalypse still.
It's sad to see how sombre and stressed most people look. The energy is just not that happy no matter how much we try to spin it. We are concerned and uncertain; trying to find ways to cope. There is so much loss; loss of work, relationships, security, human connection, the outside world, etc.
The security guard finally lets me in and I buy my groceries. The entire time I am thinking of whether I have touched something that may carry the virus.
Tonight, we have wine and I make flatbread while the baby jumps with joy in her jolly jumper.
Total spend: 150 Canadian dollars (£85, $108) mostly spent on wine
Best thing about COVID-19 for me so far? Learning to exercise every day from the comfort of my home with some hot Youtube fitness girl which my husband seems to thoroughly enjoy watching nowadays!
I have rearranged our living room so I have open space to do yoga or morning exercises which means big savings (from gym and personal trainer) and a happy Leena, and even a happier husband.
Given that everyone I know has gained a few pounds since COVID started, this is my saving grace. I exercise every morning no matter what. I put the baby on the ground with her toys, and as she plays I work out. She looks at me confused as to what is going on but quickly gets back to her toys.
Today I have to get in the car and drive down to the office to pick up some important documents. I am noticing more people on the street, more smiles, more normalcy and that gives me hope.
I stop by the gas station and my jaw drops at the cost of gas. I don't think I have seen these numbers in at least 20 years.
I work from a half empty office for a few hours and feel better because that has forced me to blow-dry my hair after so long, put on some nice clothes and get a much-needed break from home as my husband takes care of our daughter.
I drive straight home because well, do I have a choice? At least there is love at home and with love on my side, I can get through today too.
Total spend: $50 [£28.42]
My Money
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I wake up with messy hair that so badly needs a haircut, a face that is begging for a facial and pyjamas that have now ripped and no replacements because no, I like to try my darn clothes before paying for them and hate online shopping and returns.
In the middle of feeling ungroomed and ugly, I am pleasantly interrupted by my daughter's smiley face reminding me of what truly matters in this life. I get up, make coffee and dance with her and feel better.
Times like these remind me that we really don't need much outside of food and shelter as long as our partners or family can put up with our 'new look'. My family's spending has been reduced to levels I have not experienced since I was a student. I must say it feels good in some ways. Like we are all cleansing ourselves of what we don't need and focusing on what matters.
Tonight, as I get ready to cook, I hear the birds singing over cars which is a miracle. Perhaps it is time for birds, animals and nature to have their go on this earth and enjoy it to themselves; even for a short period of time before we figure out how to dominate it again.
Total spend: 0
It's Friday but it doesn't feel like the weekend. In fact, I didn't even notice it was Friday as days are just blurring into one another as we go about our lives doing the same things we were doing yesterday, and have not had any darn happy hour in over one-and-a-half months!
I have another virtual meeting with staff and lawyers telling me their work has slowed down. Who has money to throw at a lawyer when they are trying to survive? I tell my employees it is time for us to give back and help without expecting anything in return. We all come up with the plan to give free legal advice to whoever is confused during Coronavirus times.
I go out on the balcony and clear it out. I put down my yoga mat and start meditating. I then spend 30 minutes doing yoga by the sunset. I almost forgot to look up at the sky and see its beauty in the middle of a pandemic we have not experienced in almost a century. We have had some beautiful sunny days lately but no one seems to talk about that or even notice the sun. The birds are singing again, and I feel content; even if only for a few minutes.
The thing about Coronavirus time is that happiness and sadness come in waves. There are a lot of good lessons learned that we will carry for the rest of our lives. But we also can't help but to feel sad sometimes. That is because we just don't know when it is going to end and what is going to happen.
The main difference between happiness and sadness to me is hope. I try to remember to remain hopeful, because guess what, it is going to get better. I just don't know when.
Total spend: 0
I wake up in a panic thinking about all the plants at the office which we all have forgotten about in the chaos of trying to figure out life. I run down to the car and down to the office to grab them. Our two beautiful and fragile bonsai trees are dying because just like us, plants need love. And in the case of bonsais, a lot of love.
I put the plants in a box and bring them home. Hubby and I immediately start bringing them back to life. We put them in fresh air, under the sun and give them lots of water and loving touches.
I proceed to grab my phone and get on a video call with my sister and best friends. Just four girls with a few glasses of wine on an App we didn't know about until this virus thing happened. You can talk, play games and drink as you pass the time in isolation on a Saturday night.
I miss our date nights. On Saturdays if I was going out, I would spend anywhere from 50 to 300 dollars. Tonight though, I am spending 0.
Total spend: 0
Sunday. Let's clean and sterilise everything day. I put the baby on her stroller and walk her around the apartment as I obsessively clean everything and feel better that maybe now there are less germs around.
Using my mobile phone constantly has also become a bad habit during these days. It has become addictive to read news as we are all looking for answers, and specially what the government will do to help us pay for our personal and business expenses. I decide to put the phone away today.
I am so tired of cooking. Tonight we are going to order take out and I am sure the struggling restaurant appreciates the support. Ah, so nice to just sit and eat instead of cooking once again.
Total spend: 50 Canadian dollars (£28, $50)
Total spent this week: 255 Canadian dollars (£145, $184)
How does Leena feel about her week?
That is a loaded question. I guess like everyone else: This thing feels like an out-of-body experience; it is uncertain, unknown, exhilarating, and challenging.
This week has been a rollercoaster of emotions. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Just like everyone else, I am trying to keep my head above the water and continue to just accept the situation and not question the lessons we are to learn from it. Yet, I have never lost so many things in such short amount of time. Things that I took for granted almost all my life and now are taken away from me, and I am choosing what to take back. But I am grateful for the experience, for still being healthy, for being connected to the whole world as we go through this; the rich and the poor and without any discrimination. Maybe after all of this, we realise we are all insignificant, fragile, equal, and loved.
My friends, this too, shall pass.
We're looking for more people to share what they spend their money on. If you're interested, please email [email protected] or get in touch via our My Money (World) Facebook group, or if you live in the UK, please join our My Money (UK) Facebook group and we'll aim to contact you.
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A quarter of a century ago, amid another political leadership crisis in Australia, the man who would be the next prime minister told a room full of reporters: "Leadership is not about being popular. It's about being right and about being strong."
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By Saffron HowdenSydney, Australia
Paul Keating went on to unseat long-standing Labor leader Bob Hawke and take the nation's top political post.
"It's about doing what you think the nation requires," he said shortly before Christmas in 1990 at Canberra's National Press Club.
In echoes of the past, current Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been forced to defend his leadership over the last fortnight. Even senior Liberals like former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett have warned his reign is now terminal.
"In the end government is not a popularity contest, it's a competence contest," Mr Abbott said as he faced plunging opinion polls and a staggering loss for his Liberals in Queensland elections.
So, after Mr Abbott was forced to face down a challenge to his leadership in his party room on Monday, what has changed in the intervening 25 years?
Everything and very little, say the experts.
The advent of the 24-hour news cycle, the rise and rise of social media commentary, and the fragmentation of ideology have all contributed to a political landscape unknown to Australian governments of the past.
According to Dr Ian Tregenza from Sydney's Macquarie University, the era of three-hour speeches and lengthy public discourse about policy has passed.
"It's rather different now, only in the sense that the media environment is quite different and the sheer pace of politics now and the oppositional dynamic that has developed," he says.
"Our attention span as an electorate is much less than it was."
While broken promises have always been a feature of politics, there were times when ideological stability was more the norm, such as during the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s when the Cold War united voters and politicians.
Since then, there has been a "fragmentation of ideology", Dr Tregenza says.
"If you look at any politician, they're all over the place ideologically," he says.
On social media, "everyone's encouraged to think they have an opinion worth listening to", he says.
"We all operate within this new globalised world and both sides are responding to that," he adds.
But he says Australia is currently experiencing a "period of volatility".
Much has also stayed the same, says Dr Stewart Jackson, a lecturer at the University of Sydney.
"It's not as though this is so unusual that there has been leadership speculation," he says.
In the 1980s, the Liberal leadership ding-donged between Andrew Peacock, John Hewson and John Howard.
John Gorton also succumbed to a challenge in the early 1970s. "It's, in fact, a feature of the Westminster system that we have this," Dr Jackson says.
If Australia had a presidential system, such contests would not exist.
Dr Jackson says the two-party system has been dented by the increasing influence of minor parties - from the Democrats and Greens through to the Palmer United Party - but it is not dead.
If Labor and the Coalition cannot rejuvenate their primary vote, there would simply be more hung parliaments in future, he says.
While the current leadership crisis unfolds in the nation's capital and commentators scramble to unpick the political rout in Queensland ahead of a March poll in Australia's most populated state, New South Wales, the fundamentals remain the same.
"People are still mostly happy with Australian democracy," Dr Jackson says.
"Most people are comfortable with the form of politics that we have."
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I've been thinking a lot about ANAL today. That is the Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians who are currently squatting in a whopping five-story house in Eaton Square, an upmarket part of London near Buckingham Palace.
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Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter
According to the Guardian, the "1,329 square metre property has polished parquet floors, tasteful uplighting and a grand spiral staircase" and is owned by a wealthy Russian man (media shorthand: an oligarch) called Andrey Goncharenko.
He is not in residence, but apparently has representatives seeking a possession order at a hearing scheduled for tomorrow so he can (presumably) get on with adding the gym etc. for which he has sought planning permission.
Meanwhile, Anal argue that London is full of unoccupied buildings such as 102 Eaton Square, and that's daft when there's a palpable need for housing in the city. So, they have put into place their own plans by turning Mr Goncharenko's house into a homeless shelter with a projector for movie nights.
I'm not going to get embroiled in the rights or wrongs on either side of this coming together of world views, but I will admit I'm interested in Anal. Its members are doing something I feel I've rather missed out on.
I have never lived in a squat, although I have lived in places that thought they were squats, like a flat in Swiss Cottage, which was so rank that when a friend from New York came to stay he actually chose to sleep in his rental car.
Nevertheless, I paid to live there, entered through the front door, and stored my belongings, consisting of a record collection that slowly warped in the damp. But it was legit, and therefore not cutting edge 1980s cool.
Back then, hipsters didn't live in smart apartments in Hoxton or gentrified high rises in Stoke Newington. They lived in squats. Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Jeremy Deller - they all lived in squats. It's what you did if you were an artist, which I wasn't.
But maybe Anal are: although to my knowledge they are not proclaiming to be - but that doesn't matter anymore. When the architectural and design collective Assemble were shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2015, it marked an important moment in the history of art.
Not one of the members of the ensemble of 20-something architect-activists considered him or herself to be an artist; without asking or knowing, they were anointed to be such by the art world.
No matter that Assemble members were handier with a slide-rule than a paintbrush, they won the Turner Prize anyway. And it was for a project that wasn't wildly dissimilar in conception to Anal's Eaton Square squat.
They were working with local residents in the Toxteth area of Liverpool on a direct-action project to regenerate the run-down Granby Four Streets area, with "the intention of bringing empty homes back into use".
There's a long history in art of political protest in the form of direct action. Dadaists, Surrealists and Situationists all sought to break down the barriers between art and life through protest, action and undermining the establishment.
Property was often their conduit, as it has been more recently for street artists and performance artists such as Petr Pavlensky, who, when he's not nailing his scrotum to Red Square or sewing his lips together, makes his political point via interventions - including setting light to the front door of the FSB building in Moscow.
Is there a huge difference between any of them and Anal? I don't think so. Will they be shortlisted for the 2017 Turner Prize in Hull? I doubt it. But it's not impossible.
And if they were I assume they'd set up a squat as their entry (Assemble created an Arts & Crafts shop for its exhibit), which would be in the richly refurbished Ferens Art Gallery: An intervention I suspect its eponymous founder, the campaigning Thomas Ferens, would wholeheartedly support.
Follow Will on Twitter @WillGompertzBBC, us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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A man accused of murdering his former partner and two-year-old child in Essex had once tried to run the woman over in his car, a court has heard.
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Christine Chambers, 38, and toddler Shania were shot dead in Braintree on 6 June 2011. David Oakes, 50, of Steeple, near Maldon, denies their murders.
Donna Garrod told Chelmsford Crown Court she had seen him chase Miss Chambers in his car.
She said he would get violent if her friend did anything wrong.
The jury has heard Mr Oakes, of Canney Road, was found semi-conscious after apparently shooting himself.
The prosecution has said he was fuelled by jealousy and he and Miss Chambers had been due to go to court in a custody battle over Shania hours later.
The trial continues.
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Ahead of the publication of advice to the Scottish and UK governments on when to aim for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, BBC Scotland's environment correspondent Kevin Keane has been finding out what it's like to live a low-carbon lifestyle.
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By Kevin KeaneBBC Scotland's environment correspondent
Meet the Martins, living a low-carbon lifestyle in Aberdeen.
Mum Rachel and dad Ben head the family, then there's their two children Elizabeth, 9 and Daniel, 12.
They live on a plant-based diet meaning they don't contribute to animal emissions.
The kids still eat meat occasionally if they're out in a restaurant, but not at home.
Dinner is yellow split peas with home-grown Swiss chard, which smells delicious.
"Some people think that when you follow a plant-based diet you have to cut foods out, but actually there are 20,000 edible species of plant in the world," Rachel said.
"Rather than viewing it as restricting your diet, I look at all the other foods I can include."
Agriculture is one of the sectors which contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, so a plant-based diet is easier on the environment than one including meat.
The UK and Scottish governments have asked for advice from the Committee on Climate Change on when they could and should become "net-zero."
That's the point at which the greenhouse gases we emit and absorb, through things like tree planting, are balanced.
One of the other big polluters is transport - but the Martins have ditched the car, although they do occasionally hire one.
Rachel gave up her last job, which involved international travel, to instead work from home in IT support.
Lecturer Ben takes his bike to work at Aberdeen University.
He said: "When we moved here we were in no hurry to get a car and we decided that we'd see how we got on without one.
"We've managed quite well with that as a family so we have no regrets.
"It's quite liberating, I think, not having to worry about parking or anything like that."
What does net-zero mean?
The terms carbon neutral and net-zero are often used interchangeably but there are differences.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most abundant greenhouse gas but there are others which the Scottish government counts and they are not all carbon-based.
Therefore, some climate change campaigners prefer the term net-zero as it includes not just CO2 and methane but also nitrous oxide, which is emitted during agricultural and industrial activities as well as from fossil fuels.
Simply being carbon neutral would not stop global warming because these other gases are also harmful to the atmosphere.
Perhaps an even better term would be "climate neutral".
The Martins grow a lot of vegetables at home or on their allotment.
Rachel buys most of her outfits from charity shops and rejects "fast fashion".
Elizabeth and Daniel mostly wear new clothes and Ben rarely buys any.
They don't live in a commune of like-minded people but rather in a double-upper apartment in the affluent Ferryhill area of the city.
'Not evangelical'
Rachel said: "I think people think we're a bit weird, truth be told. I think I'm probably the nutty Australian."
"Yeah, with the kids in the cargo bike," adds Ben.
They are not evangelical with friends about low-carbon living but would like to see more people adopting similar principles.
Rachel said: "I'd love it if everybody could do this but I also know that it's not an option for some people.
"We're quite lucky, we live very centrally. We can walk to the centre of town, we can walk to the train station."
An online calculator revealed that the Martin family's carbon footprint is approximately 74% lower than the national average.
But the switch from low-carbon to net-zero is not an easy one.
Societal changes
"It's practically impossible at the moment to live a zero-carbon lifestyle," explains Dr Rachel Howell, a lecturer in sustainable development at the University of Edinburgh.
"We'd need societal level-changes for that to be possible rather than just individual choices.
"It is possible for most individuals and households to reduce their carbon footprint and some people can find that they are living quite a low-carbon lifestyle."
Societal changes would mostly come about as a result of policy changes at government level.
Perhaps Thursday's advice from the Committee on Climate Change will be the catalyst for that change.
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A film about a closeted gay man living in Los Angeles's Hasidic Jewish community has won an LGBT+ film award in Cardiff.
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Black Hat, directed by Sarah Smith, was awarded the 2019 Iris Prize for the best international LGBT+ short film award at a ceremony at the Tramshed.
She became the fourth woman to win the award and has been given a £30,000 prize to make another film in the UK.
The Best British Film was awarded to My Brother is a Mermaid by Alfie Dale.
The film depicts a story about a transgender teenager living in a dilapidated seaside community, and also won the Iris Prize youth award and the audience award.
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