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Bulls and bullying: the fight over animal rights and tradition - BBC News | 2017-01-21 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Animal rights activists caught in social media cross-fire regarding banned bull-taming tradition. | BBC Trending | Tamil actress Trisha Krishnan deleted her Twitter account as a result of a row over bull-taming
A ban on the ancient practice of bull-taming has spurred thousands to protest in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. While the demonstrations have been mostly peaceful, the argument over the festival has turned ugly online.
This week around 4,000 protesters camped out on a beach in the state's capital, Chennai (Madras) - with hundreds more gathering in other parts of the state.
The crowd, who are mostly students, are against India's ban on Jallikattu, a 2,000 year old bull-taming tradition, which takes place as part of an annual harvest festival.
Bull-taming involves men chasing and removing prizes tied to the bull's horns. Animal rights activists argue it's abusive and results in mistreatment of the animals, but protesters contend the practice central to Tamil identity and that the bulls are rarely harmed or killed.
The men participating in Jallikattu attempt to grab prizes attached to the bull's horns
Jallikattu was banned by India's supreme court in 2014, a ruling that was upheld in 2016. The lawsuit that led to the ban was filed by animal rights groups including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). And as protests against the ban have spread, PETA activists and supporters have found themselves targeted on social media.
"I have been threatened with rape I'm called all sorts of names which I can't repeat," says Poorva Joshipura, CEO of PETA India.
"The general public are being incited and influenced through lies and online bullying and fake news which has unfortunately become so common in our world today," Joshipura tells BBC Trending radio.
She takes particular issue with memes containing false personal information which have been shared online.
"One is a picture of me wearing my vegan boots (footwear made without leather or any animal ingredients), boots that I really like a lot. The meme falsely says that the boots are made of leather," Joshipura says. "I have been campaigning against the leather industry for years."
Hear more on this story on the BBC World Service.
The Indian film actress Trisha Krishnan has also been caught up in the debate. In 2010, Krishnan worked on a PETA campaign. Reports on social media suggested that she had tweeted, and then deleted, her support of a Jallikattu ban.
One of the social media posts spreading about the actress was a fake obituary claiming she had died of HIV.
The faked obituary poster of Trisha Krishnan lists cause of death as "HIV affected" - insinuating that the actress is sexually promiscuous. It also calls her father a "poramboku" (wastrel) and her mother a "peethasirukki" (boastful woman).
In response, Krishnan first denied that she supported the ban and later deactivated her Twitter account, releasing a statement saying: "I'm a proud Tamilian by birth and I believe and respect the Tamil culture and tradition and I will never go against the sentiments of my own people who have been instrumental in my growth and stature."
Krishnan declined a request by BBC Trending for an interview. Her spokesperson told us that "PETA and Trisha are separate", stressing that the actress had only collaborated with the group on one campaign.
Bull tamers must hold on to the animal's hump for about 15-20 metres or three jumps of the bull to win a prize
Krishnan wasn't the only high profile person targeted on social media. The actor Vishal also received online backlash for being a supporter of PETA, and subsequently deactivated his Twitter profile.
False allegations that the PETA India CEO Poorva Joshipura wears leather boots have been circulating online
The pictures and rumours have been spread by groups such as Chennai Memes, a politically active viral marketing agency which made up the leather boots rumour about Poorva Joshipura.
Gautam Govindaram, one of the founders of Chennai Memes, defended the group's decision in creating the meme, telling BBC Trending: "I'm sure she has at least one product that is made of leather. She can't say that she has never used any product in her lifetime that has not been made of leather. I can be 100% sure I mean if she's born and she's one year old or two years old she must have come across with something made of leather."
Operating primarily on Facebook, Chennai Memes create around 20 memes a day, often referencing local and national political and social issues.
The group were cited by local media as being key to galvanising and mobilising the youth-led protests over the Jallikattu ban - creating shareable posters and spreading information on dates and timings of events through their Facebook page, which has more than 600,000 fans.
Govindaram added that the group was not behind the memes targeting the actress Trisha Krishnan.
"It's not exactly only us, it's the entire people here in the state of Tamil Nadu who are making a stand," he says. "Why should an organisation from another country come here, tell us about our traditions and why do they have the government of India in the palm of their hand?"
A number of villages in Tamil Nadu are reported to have defied the Jallikattu ban and held bull-taming events this week. And other prominent South Indian film stars, like Rajinikant and Kamal Haasan, have expressed their support of the sport.
Next story: The Instagram star who cuts Michelle Obama's hair
Johnny Wright has several celebrity clients but perhaps none is as famous as the former First Lady. READ MORE
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-38656721 | news_blogs-trending-38656721 |
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Brexit: Berlin business leaders unimpressed with UK's message - BBC News | 2017-01-21 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | An appeal over a post-Brexit trade deal was met with sniggers in Berlin, Damien McGuinness writes. | Business | Two British officials failed to win favour from German business leaders in Berlin
The distinguished audience members were too polite to heckle. But the eye rolling, frowns and audible tutting made it quite clear how the Brexiteers' message was going down with German business leaders.
Owen Paterson, a former minister and Conservative MP, and John Longworth, co-chair of Leave Means Leave, came to Berlin on Saturday with a clear mission - to persuade German business leaders to lobby Chancellor Angela Merkel to give Britain a good trade deal.
They should have been on safe territory.
The two men are confident, witty speakers with impressive business and free-trade credentials.
Mr Longworth is a former head of the British Chamber of Commerce. Mr Paterson's years spent trading in Germany meant he could open his address with a few remarks in German - which drew an appreciative round of applause - and a well-judged joke about multilingual trade.
But it turned out they had entered the lion's den.
The laughter from the audience quickly turned to sniggers as they heard the UK described as "a beacon of open, free trade around the world".
Westminster's decision to leave the world's largest free trade area does not look like that to Germany.
When Europe was blamed for spending cuts and a lack of British health care provision, there were audible mutters of irritation from the audience.
The occasional light-hearted attempts at EU-bashing - usually guaranteed to get a cheap laugh with some British audiences - was met with stony silence.
Brexiteers argue German manufacturers will want to still sell to UK customers
In another setting - at another time - this gathering of the elite of Germany's powerful business community would have lapped up the British wit.
Every ironic quip would ordinarily have had them rolling in the aisles. But British charm does not travel well these days.
Rattled by the economic havoc Brexit could unleash, Germans are not in the mood for gags.
Britain used to be seen by continentals as quirky and occasionally awkward - but reliably pragmatic on the economy.
However, since the Brexit vote, Europeans suspect endearing eccentricity has morphed into unpredictable irrationality. The UK has become the tipsy, tweedy uncle, who after too much Christmas sherry has tipped over into drunkenly abusive bore.
When the audience was asked how many of them welcomed Brexit, only one hand went up - and it turned out that belonged to a businessman who wanted more EU reform and was fed up with Britain slowing things down.
Brexiteer rhetoric over the past year has often focused on the size of Britain's market and how keen German manufacturers are to sell to British customers.
Many leave campaigners remain convinced that German business leaders will force Mrs Merkel to grant the UK a special free trade deal in order not to lose British trade.
But that's not what's happening.
Angela Merkel has said Britain will not be able to cherry-pick the best bits of the single market
Instead German firms are remarkably united in their support of the chancellor in her rejection of British "cherry-picking" - even if it means losing business in the short-term.
When you talk to German bosses they say their top priority is in fact the integrity of the single market, rather than hanging on to British customers.
That's because their supply chains span across the EU.
A German car might be designed in Germany, manufactured in Britain, with components made in various parts of eastern Europe, to be sold in France. This only works if there are no cross-border tariffs, paperwork or red tape.
German companies - more often family-owned and with deeper connections to their regional heartlands - tend to look at the wider picture, sometimes thinking more long-term.
They supported Mrs Merkel on sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, even though that meant a blow to trade. The financial hit was deemed less bad for business than worsening unrest in nearby Ukraine.
The same calculations are being made over Brexit.
Theresa May's speech on Brexit last week made front page news in Germany
This doesn't mean German business is thinking politically, and not economically. But rather, it indicates a wider attitude towards how business can thrive long-term.
German business leaders tell you that the British market may be important. But it is only one market, compared to 27 markets in the rest of the EU.
Leave campaigners also still underestimate the political and historical significance of the EU for Germany, where it is seen as the guarantor of peace after centuries of warfare.
It is tempting to see the clashes between Westminster and the EU27 as one big decades-long misunderstanding of what the EU is.
An idealistic peace-project versus a pragmatic free-trade zone. This makes it even more ironic that London may reject the free-trade area it spent so much time creating.
Germany was shocked and saddened by the UK's vote to leave the EU. But the decision was quickly accepted in Berlin.
"The Brits never really wanted to be members of the European Union anyway," is something you often hear these days.
Many Germans now want to just work out a solution that does the least amount of harm to the European economy. Hence the irritation in Germany when British politicians keep rehashing the pre-referendum debate.
"It was frustrating to hear the same old arguments from the referendum campaign," one business leader told me when I asked him what he had thought about Saturday's discussion.
Germany has moved on, he said. Maybe Britain should too.
The Brexiteers might not have persuaded their audience in Berlin. But if they return to London with a better idea of the mood in Germany's business community, then the trip may well have been worthwhile. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38707997 | news_business-38707997 |
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Was Buzzfeed right on Donald Trump dossier? - BBC News | 2017-01-13 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Buzzfeed's decision to publish the Donald Trump dossier raises many questions about modern journalism. | Entertainment & Arts | Donald Trump has criticised the decision to publish the dossier
Was Buzzfeed right to publish the Trump dossier?
That comes down to editorial judgement, which is to news what eggs are to an omelette - the essential ingredient.
That said, I opened this post with a question which I will not answer - partly because I work for the BBC and it is not my place to pass judgement on other news organisations' editorial calls and partly because those editorial calls are subjective.
But as BBC media editor, and as a former editor of The Independent who had to make thousands of these calls, often against tight deadlines and under great pressure from the subjects of our stories, I want to explore some of the considerations that we editors have to make.
Hopefully that will illuminate the hugely controversial decision made this week by Buzzfeed.
Editorial judgement is ultimately a moral activity. It is an exercise in selection - which stories, facts, claims, pictures, words, ideas to publish, and which to leave out - that relies on several smaller judgements.
These include: the importance you attach to veracity; your own political persuasion; a sense of your audience's interest and - outside the BBC and unfortunately more common now the news business model is under such strain - a consideration of the commercial implications of publishing particular things.
The rectitude of all moral activity or actions - editorial judgement included - can be analysed along three criteria:
Let's look at Buzzfeed's decision to publish the dossier in terms of intentions and consequences.
Some people will argue that - whether you agree with it or not - there is a coherent case for putting information in the public domain even if you are not 100% certain it is true.
Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief, has spoken eloquently about how, in our digital era, publishers are no longer gatekeepers of information who demand to be trusted, arguing that Buzzfeed is simply a distributor.
His second argument is that because this publication was being circulated widely among government officials, it had tremendous news value and therefore it was in the public interest to put it in the public domain with plenty of caveats so readers could make up their own minds.
I know from personal experience that, if you are a digital publisher whose content is free, you mainly make money from advertising, which is related to traffic and which you are under immense pressure to generate.
This ultimately commercial imperative can - and does - influence the editorial judgement of many publishers.
But let us be charitable to Buzzfeed and say that commercial considerations did not influence this editorial decision.
Buzzfeed has a young audience and often publishes journalism associated with the political Left, unlike Trump whose most stable constituency is older voters on the Right.
It is reasonable to conclude that one reason Buzzfeed published this dossier about Mr Trump is that it calculated it could harm someone it does not like.
So Buzzfeed, having put traffic considerations aside, and being antithetical to some of the things Mr Trump stands for, calculated that the document, which had potentially huge implications for the incoming president, deserved to be seen in its entirety by readers who want access to information.
That covers the intentions, but what of the consequences?
Huge traffic for this article must have been one consequence. Another is that Buzzfeed, as a powerful international brand, is now clearly associated with a willingness to publish information it knows could be false.
Another consequence is of course that the information contained in the dossier, some of it untrue, much of it not corroborated, is now in the public domain we call cyberspace. Perhaps citizens across the globe are digesting it to better understand the incoming president.
Finally, life has been made harder for other news organisations, such as CNN, who Trump targeted in his remarkable press conference.
They have now been conflated with Buzzfeed under Trump's pernicious umbrella term "fake news".
Buzzfeed could reasonably say it is not its job to secure access to Mr Trump for CNN - and in any case the president-elect was not exactly friendly with the mainstream media before the dossier's publication.
It will be for editors and citizens everywhere to decide, in balancing Buzzfeed's intentions with the (largely foreseeable) consequences, whether it made a correct editorial judgement.
That in turn depends on your moral position - your commitment to truth and so on.
What really interests me is that Mr Smith is saying that the digital revolution has redefined journalism, creating publishers who are prepared to put lots of information into the public domain without verifying it.
Julian Assange's Wikileaks has put huge amounts of information into the public domain
There is a difference, however, between Wikileaks, who do that sort of thing, and what most journalists understand their role to be: corroborating information before making selections as to what should be published.
In a sense, Mr Smith's position is an argument against journalism, in that being gatekeepers who curate and edit the world is precisely what many hacks believe their role to be.
Just as traditional media included many different types of publisher - tabloids v broadsheets, for example - so new, digital media include those who exhaustively check their facts and proceed with caution and those who are prepared to publish unverified allegations because they think the public should know.
The BBC is in the former camp, as my colleague Paul Wood argued in his excellent blog.
We work very hard to verify claims before publishing them: so much so that there are always big stories we know about that we cannot use, because we haven't got sufficiently solid sourcing. Our political editor Laura Kuenssberg has talked about this - and I can certainly relate to it.
Together with Mr Trump, this controversy helps to illuminate how fast the media is changing - and how it affects all our lives. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38600531 | news_entertainment-arts-38600531 |
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Does Catholic praise for Mary Magdalene show progress towards women priests? - BBC News | 2017-01-13 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Does increasing honour paid to Mary Magdalene in the Catholic Church show progress towards women priests? | UK | The emotional scene in John's Gospel in which Jesus calls to the grieving Mary Magdalene by name and she tries to touch him has inspired many artists. This is Titian's interpretation.
The gospels depict Mary Magdalene as one of Jesus' closest companions. Her emotional encounter with the risen Jesus and her supposed sinful past have fascinated Christians for centuries.
The latest of many films about her is released shortly. Its heroine, played by Rooney Mara, is billed as a young woman who joins "a radical new social movement" and "must confront the reality of Jesus' destiny and her own place within it".
There was amusement when cast members were pictured in ancient garb smoking on set.
Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church has enhanced the saint's status. Last year her Saint's Day (22 July) was promoted to a Feast, equal to those of most of the male Disciples.
Explaining the decision, Archbishop Arthur Roche pointed out that she had long been known as "apostle to the apostles, as she announces to the apostles what they in turn will announce to all the world."
A bizarre tradition in depictions of Mary Magdalene shows her naked, but clothed with her long red hair. Terracotta by Andrea Della Robbia of about 1590
This refers to John 20:17, in which Jesus sends her to the disciples to tell them he would ascend to God - "apostolos" in Greek means "one who is sent".
The Vatican press office said that 22 July would be "a feast, like that of the other apostles." A special prayer for use at Mass on that day says Jesus honoured her with the task of an apostle (apostolatus officio),
This has coincided with what some believe are signs of a change in Rome's attitude on the possibility of women priests.
The announcement on Mary Magdalene, and the setting up of a commission to discuss the ordination of women as deacons - not priests, but able to preside at weddings, christenings and funerals is an indication to some of change.
Tina Beattie, Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton, says: "I accept that it has to be slow, it has to be sensitively done... But my own feeling is that something is happening".
What was said about the feast day was encouraging, says Pippa Bonner of the campaign group Catholic Women's Ordination. "As soon as we spotted that we shared that news around - I think that's a very, very positive step."
Pope Francis met Sweden's female archbishop, Antje Jackelen. But on his journey home he said Catholic policy forbidding women priests had not changed.
In 1994 Pope John Paul II declared "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." Jesus had "called only men as his Apostles", The constant practice of the Church, he stressed, "has imitated Christ in choosing only men."
In November, while returning from a visit to Sweden where he worshipped with the country's female Lutheran archbishop, Antje Jackelen, Pope Francis was asked if his Church still ruled out women priests.
"Saint Pope John Paul II had the last clear word on this and it stands," he said.
Asked again if the ban was permanent, he responded: "If we read carefully the declaration by St. John Paul II, it is going in that direction."
Prof Beattie comments: "Whenever he's asked to give a reason he always references John Paul II... I'm not aware of him saying that under his own Papal authority."
Paloma Baeza played Mary Magdalene in The Passion, shown on BBC1 in 2008.
The idea that statements about Mary Magdalene and her "apostleship" contradict the rulings of John Paul II is discounted by many Catholic commentators.
"Many Catholics from the Anglican tradition will rejoice at her commemoration being raised to the dignity of a Feast, while thinking that the idea that this has any relevance to the closed question of women's ordination is entirely fanciful," says Fr Simon Chinery, spokesman for the Ordinariate set up by Pope Benedict as a home within the Catholic Church for Anglicans opposed to women bishops.
The idea of Mary Magdalene as a great sinner led to celebration of her as a great penitent, as in this haggard sculpture by Donatello (about 1455).
Austen Ivereigh, co-founder of the group Catholic Voices, says: "Declaring her day a Feast reflects a growing awareness that the role of women in the early Church was an important one, and needs to be recovered.
"But opening church leadership to women's unique gifts does not equate to opening the priesthood to women - at least that argument is not being made in any significant way in the Church at the moment,"
Arguments against women's ordination in the Church of England were ultimately unsuccessful.
But of course the Catholic Church is very different. In the CofE the argument over women's ordination went on for decades. But it was possible to say where it had got to by referring to the state of discussions in the General Synod. It could not have been stopped for good by a ruling like that of Pope John Paul.
Of all the hundreds of churches named after Mary Magdalene, the grandest is perhaps La Madeleine in Paris. Marochetti's statue on the high altar shows angels lifting her to heaven..
A change in doctrine can come as news to Catholics. And it can happen suddenly.
That was the case with Mary Magdalene herself. In the late 6th Century AD Pope Gregory I declared that she was also the woman in Luke 7:37 who "lived a sinful life", who washed Jesus's feet and dried them with her hair.
This fuelled the tradition that Mary Magdalene was not only a sinner (which Christianity says we all are) but a particularly colourful one, and inspired dozens of artistic portrayals of her ranging from ravaged penitent to borderline erotic.
But the revised Roman Calendar of 1969 simply declared that 22 July was indeed the day of Mary Magdalene, but she was not the woman in Luke 7:37. And that, after nearly 1,400 years. was that.
Is she, as the Anglican Rev Giles Fraser claims some see her, "the standard bearer for women's developing role in the Catholic church, and even... for women's ordination"?
The Church can hardly show it is moved by the late unofficial gospels - one of which talks of Jesus repeatedly kissing Mary Magdalene,; the recent crop of stories claiming she was actually married to Jesus; or the Rooney Mara film. And Pope Gregory's claims about her sinful life may be discredited. But all these things contribute to her prestige. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38528682 | news_uk-38528682 |
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Bernie Ecclestone: Why F1's titanic leader was loved and loathed - BBC Sport | 2017-01-25 | None | Bye, bye, Bernie. F1's revolutionary, roguish leader has finally vacated the throne he created - so how will he be remembered? | null | Bernie Ecclestone stands a little under 5ft 3in tall but for 40 years has wielded a giant influence in Formula 1 with canniness, wit and not a little menace.
At times, Ecclestone has had close to absolute power. So the end of his reign following the takeover of the sport by US giant Liberty Media represents a seismic change.
Ecclestone, now 86, is a tactician of remarkable skill, and a deal-maker extraordinaire who used chutzpah and brinksmanship to turn F1 into one of the world's biggest sports, form relationships with world leaders such as Russian president Vladimir Putin and make himself and many of F1's participants multi-millionaires.
In a remarkable four decades, Ecclestone revolutionised the sport:
• None He bought the Brabham team and won two world titles, including a historic first with a turbo engine in 1983.
• None Turned F1 into the biggest annual sporting event in the world, outstripped only by the Olympics and the World Cup.
• None Controversially took the commercial rights away from the teams and made himself a billionaire.
• None Fought off a criminal prosecution for blackmail that arose from a complicated series of sales of those rights.
• None Carved a notorious reputation for making controversial statements, including saying Adolf Hitler was "able to get things done" and likening women to "domestic appliances".
But what made him mind-bendingly - some would say obscenely - rich is what brought him down in the end.
Selling on the commercial rights to F1 is the source of Ecclestone's vast wealth. But it was never about the money, per se - it was about the deal. And now the deal has done him in.
Restructuring the finances of the sport in the first years of this decade, Ecclestone also reorganised its decision-making process.
He did it to increase his power, but the structure he set up inadvertently neutered him and gave the big teams - particularly Mercedes and Ferrari - power to block him. This has led to log-jam.
The latest company to buy the sport - USA's Liberty Media - has looked at this, at a skewed prize-money structure, at a policy that is threatening to price out much-loved historic races in favour of characterless new ones in countries with questionable regimes, at a refusal to engage with digital media, and several other issues, and decided to ease him out.
Ecclestone is held in genuinely high regard within F1 for everything he has achieved but, outside a handful of acolytes, few will be genuinely sorry to see him go.
There has been a feeling for some years that he is a man out of time, that the sport needed to move on. In truth, this has contributed to the stalemate in F1 - people were simply waiting him out.
Many believe his departure will be good for the sport. However, it will certainly make F1 less colourful, and it is hard to imagine seeing the like of him again.
Where did he come from?
Ecclestone's involvement in F1 started in the late 1950s. After a brief driving career in lower categories, he emerged as a manager for the British F1 driver Stuart Lewis-Evans but then disappeared from racing when Lewis-Evans was killed in a fiery crash at the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix.
He appeared again in the late 1960s, again as a manager, this time to the Austrian Jochen Rindt. He was already very rich.
What had the fortune come from? "Property," Ecclestone says. All manner of rumours have abounded, including that he was involved in organising the Great Train Robbery, when £2.6m was stolen from a Royal Mail train in Buckinghamshire in 1963.
"Nah," Ecclestone once said. "There wasn't enough money on that train. I could have done something better than that."
Rindt became F1's first and so far only posthumous world champion after he was killed at the 1970 Italian Grand Prix. But this time Ecclestone did not retreat.
Within a couple of years, he bought Brabham from its founder, the three-time world champion Sir Jack Brabham, and began establishing his power base.
How did he become omnipotent?
Back then, circuit deals and television rights were operated on a somewhat haphazard, piecemeal basis. Ecclestone offered to look after them on the teams' behalf and wasted little time in building his influence.
He persuaded television companies to buy F1 as a package, rather than pay for individual races. That guaranteed vastly increased exposure, and the sport's popularity grew increasingly quickly.
The vast growth of F1 from what it was then to what it is today arguably started in earnest after the 1976 season, when a championship battle between the playboy Englishman James Hunt and the ascetic Austrian Niki Lauda caught the public's imagination.
By the 1980s, F1 was becoming a global sport, more and more races were being shown live, and a generation of charismatic stars enhanced its appeal - Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet and, most of all, Ayrton Senna.
Ironically, Senna's death in 1994 only increased its reach and shortly after that the sport started on the route that has led to Ecclestone's departure.
The beginning of the end
Controversially, in the mid-1990s, Ecclestone struck a deal with his long-time friend and ally Max Mosley, who was then the president of governing body the FIA. It saw his own company become the rights holder of F1, taking over from the teams' collective body that Ecclestone previously ran.
This led to a furious row with some of the teams - particularly McLaren, Williams and Tyrrell - who claimed what Ecclestone was doing was illegal and that he was effectively robbing them.
But the complainants were eventually bought off. Ecclestone then set about monetising his new asset.
In 2000, Mosley granted Ecclestone the commercial rights to F1 until the end of 2110 for a one-off fee of $360m. Even then, many were shocked by the relatively paltry amount of money that changed hands to secure such a lucrative and lengthy deal.
This led to a dizzying series of sales as the rights transferred through various institutions. A German cable TV company bought them, and then collapsed, which led to its creditors - banks - taking its assets. In 2006, the German bank BayernLB sold its 47.2% stake in F1 to an investment company called CVC Capital Partners.
CVC ran the sport for 10 years, employing Ecclestone as chief executive and empowering him to carry on as before, before selling to Liberty last September, in the deal completed on Monday.
But the sale from BayernLB to CVC is what ultimately led to the court cases on bribery charges that Ecclestone fought and survived a couple of years ago - and which he ended by paying the German courts $100m to end the case, without a presumption of guilt or innocence.
It did not escape notice that a man charged with bribery had paid - perfectly legally under German law - to end a criminal trial.
What is he like?
Despite his diminutive stature, Ecclestone is a forbidding character. Stories abound in F1 of real and threatened menace.
A conversation with him is akin to juggling sand - he ducks and dodges and avoids questions with obfuscation, distraction and quick wit, a dizzying mix of truths, half-truths and fallacies.
He is approachable but apart, engaging but unknowable. After a verbal sparring match, he will sometimes reach up and chillingly pat you on the cheek, not unlike a mafia don in the movies.
For years, the more unsavoury aspects of Ecclestone's stewardship were glossed over or laughed off - largely because he was making those he was working for so much money.
But in recent years, the tone in F1 has changed as more and more people began to feel he was past his sell-by date.
He was a reluctant embracer of the internet age, and rejected entreaties to try to use it to extend F1's reach.
His argument was that he saw no way to make money out of it; others argued that his modus operandi of pursuing only the deal, the bottom line, and disregarding its potential longer-term effects was doing more harm than good.
His simple model - sell television rights and races to the highest bidder no matter who it was; squeeze the highest price possible out of continuing partners - created an annual global revenue in the region of $1.5bn (£1.2bn).
Yet he became increasingly haphazard and intransigent in his decision-making, coming up with unpopular ideas such as a double-points finale in 2014 or the fiasco over the change to the qualifying format at the start of 2016 - to try to spice up the sport.
He was responding to declining audiences, but seemed to ignore the fact they were dropping largely because of his switch away from free-to-air towards pay television in key markets, and the questionable effect on the racing of gimmicks such as the DRS overtaking aid and tyres on which drivers could not push flat out.
The declining audiences have led to a crisis of confidence within the sport, the response to which is a new set of rules for 2017 that mean faster, more dramatic-looking cars. But already there are concerns that these may not have the desired effect.
But while the problems are real, the fact remains that F1 has just changed hands in a deal that values it at $8bn (£6.4bn).
And that is almost entirely down to Ecclestone and what he has built with his remarkable personality, vision and drive.
Controversial he certainly was; past his best he may have been. But for all his faults, Bernie Ecclestone is a unique and titanic figure who turned what was essentially a niche activity into a glittering global enterprise that to many represents an intoxicating mix of glamour, danger and raw, unmatched drama.
Gone from power he may be, but he will never be forgotten. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/38721123 | rt_formula1_38721123 |
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Brexit white paper: Climbdown or goodwill gesture - BBC News | 2017-01-25 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Giving MPs a white paper is a clear concession by Theresa May but one that is unlikely to affect her Brexit timetable or damage her authority. | UK Politics | It was only yesterday that the Brexit Secretary, David Davis, told MPs it just might all be a bit tricky to have a White Paper, a formal document outlining the government's plans for Brexit, and stick to the timetable they want to pursue.
Rebel Remainers though were "delighted", that, stealing Jeremy Corbyn's thunder, a planted question from a loyal Tory MP at PMQs today produced in fact a promise from the Prime Minister that, after all, there will be a White Paper.
It is a climbdown, no question, a last-minute change of heart.
Late last night Brexiteers were being assured there would be no bending, no delay to the government's plans and no giving in to the Remainers.
Even early this morning, government sources were privately suggesting that they were quite happy to have the white paper option up their sleeve, but there were no immediate plans to make that promise.
Then voila, at 1205 GMT, the pledge of a white paper suddenly emerged. As one senior Tory joked, "welcome to the vacillation of the next two years".
It may be being described as a "massive, unplanned" concession but it doesn't seriously hurt the government.
First off, it shows goodwill to the rebel Tory Remainers, many of whom feel their Eurosceptic rivals have had the upper hand of late. Schmoozing matters round these parts.
It takes one of the potential arguments that could have gathered pace off the table, before the Article 50 bill is even published. And, rightly or wrongly, no one expects a white paper will contain anything new that the prime minister has not yet already said.
It's largely a victory for the Remainers about process, rather than substance.
For her critics this is evidence of weakness, that's she has been pushed into changing her mind.
But it doesn't need to change the government's timetable, and today's embarrassment of a climbdown might be worth the goodwill that Number 10 will get in return. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38747976 | news_uk-politics-38747976 |
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Bulls and bullying: the fight over animal rights and tradition - BBC News | 2017-01-22 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Animal rights activists caught in social media cross-fire regarding banned bull-taming tradition. | BBC Trending | Tamil actress Trisha Krishnan deleted her Twitter account as a result of a row over bull-taming
A ban on the ancient practice of bull-taming has spurred thousands to protest in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. While the demonstrations have been mostly peaceful, the argument over the festival has turned ugly online.
This week around 4,000 protesters camped out on a beach in the state's capital, Chennai (Madras) - with hundreds more gathering in other parts of the state.
The crowd, who are mostly students, are against India's ban on Jallikattu, a 2,000 year old bull-taming tradition, which takes place as part of an annual harvest festival.
Bull-taming involves men chasing and removing prizes tied to the bull's horns. Animal rights activists argue it's abusive and results in mistreatment of the animals, but protesters contend the practice central to Tamil identity and that the bulls are rarely harmed or killed.
The men participating in Jallikattu attempt to grab prizes attached to the bull's horns
Jallikattu was banned by India's supreme court in 2014, a ruling that was upheld in 2016. The lawsuit that led to the ban was filed by animal rights groups including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). And as protests against the ban have spread, PETA activists and supporters have found themselves targeted on social media.
"I have been threatened with rape I'm called all sorts of names which I can't repeat," says Poorva Joshipura, CEO of PETA India.
"The general public are being incited and influenced through lies and online bullying and fake news which has unfortunately become so common in our world today," Joshipura tells BBC Trending radio.
She takes particular issue with memes containing false personal information which have been shared online.
"One is a picture of me wearing my vegan boots (footwear made without leather or any animal ingredients), boots that I really like a lot. The meme falsely says that the boots are made of leather," Joshipura says. "I have been campaigning against the leather industry for years."
Hear more on this story on the BBC World Service.
The Indian film actress Trisha Krishnan has also been caught up in the debate. In 2010, Krishnan worked on a PETA campaign. Reports on social media suggested that she had tweeted, and then deleted, her support of a Jallikattu ban.
One of the social media posts spreading about the actress was a fake obituary claiming she had died of HIV.
The faked obituary poster of Trisha Krishnan lists cause of death as "HIV affected" - insinuating that the actress is sexually promiscuous. It also calls her father a "poramboku" (wastrel) and her mother a "peethasirukki" (boastful woman).
In response, Krishnan first denied that she supported the ban and later deactivated her Twitter account, releasing a statement saying: "I'm a proud Tamilian by birth and I believe and respect the Tamil culture and tradition and I will never go against the sentiments of my own people who have been instrumental in my growth and stature."
Krishnan declined a request by BBC Trending for an interview. Her spokesperson told us that "PETA and Trisha are separate", stressing that the actress had only collaborated with the group on one campaign.
Bull tamers must hold on to the animal's hump for about 15-20 metres or three jumps of the bull to win a prize
Krishnan wasn't the only high profile person targeted on social media. The actor Vishal also received online backlash for being a supporter of PETA, and subsequently deactivated his Twitter profile.
False allegations that the PETA India CEO Poorva Joshipura wears leather boots have been circulating online
The pictures and rumours have been spread by groups such as Chennai Memes, a politically active viral marketing agency which made up the leather boots rumour about Poorva Joshipura.
Gautam Govindaram, one of the founders of Chennai Memes, defended the group's decision in creating the meme, telling BBC Trending: "I'm sure she has at least one product that is made of leather. She can't say that she has never used any product in her lifetime that has not been made of leather. I can be 100% sure I mean if she's born and she's one year old or two years old she must have come across with something made of leather."
Operating primarily on Facebook, Chennai Memes create around 20 memes a day, often referencing local and national political and social issues.
The group were cited by local media as being key to galvanising and mobilising the youth-led protests over the Jallikattu ban - creating shareable posters and spreading information on dates and timings of events through their Facebook page, which has more than 600,000 fans.
Govindaram added that the group was not behind the memes targeting the actress Trisha Krishnan.
"It's not exactly only us, it's the entire people here in the state of Tamil Nadu who are making a stand," he says. "Why should an organisation from another country come here, tell us about our traditions and why do they have the government of India in the palm of their hand?"
A number of villages in Tamil Nadu are reported to have defied the Jallikattu ban and held bull-taming events this week. And other prominent South Indian film stars, like Rajinikant and Kamal Haasan, have expressed their support of the sport.
Next story: The Instagram star who cuts Michelle Obama's hair
Johnny Wright has several celebrity clients but perhaps none is as famous as the former First Lady. READ MORE
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-38656721 | news_blogs-trending-38656721 |
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Brexit: Berlin business leaders unimpressed with UK's message - BBC News | 2017-01-22 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | An appeal over a post-Brexit trade deal was met with sniggers in Berlin, Damien McGuinness writes. | Business | Two British officials failed to win favour from German business leaders in Berlin
The distinguished audience members were too polite to heckle. But the eye rolling, frowns and audible tutting made it quite clear how the Brexiteers' message was going down with German business leaders.
Owen Paterson, a former minister and Conservative MP, and John Longworth, co-chair of Leave Means Leave, came to Berlin on Saturday with a clear mission - to persuade German business leaders to lobby Chancellor Angela Merkel to give Britain a good trade deal.
They should have been on safe territory.
The two men are confident, witty speakers with impressive business and free-trade credentials.
Mr Longworth is a former head of the British Chamber of Commerce. Mr Paterson's years spent trading in Germany meant he could open his address with a few remarks in German - which drew an appreciative round of applause - and a well-judged joke about multilingual trade.
But it turned out they had entered the lion's den.
The laughter from the audience quickly turned to sniggers as they heard the UK described as "a beacon of open, free trade around the world".
Westminster's decision to leave the world's largest free trade area does not look like that to Germany.
When Europe was blamed for spending cuts and a lack of British health care provision, there were audible mutters of irritation from the audience.
The occasional light-hearted attempts at EU-bashing - usually guaranteed to get a cheap laugh with some British audiences - was met with stony silence.
Brexiteers argue German manufacturers will want to still sell to UK customers
In another setting - at another time - this gathering of the elite of Germany's powerful business community would have lapped up the British wit.
Every ironic quip would ordinarily have had them rolling in the aisles. But British charm does not travel well these days.
Rattled by the economic havoc Brexit could unleash, Germans are not in the mood for gags.
Britain used to be seen by continentals as quirky and occasionally awkward - but reliably pragmatic on the economy.
However, since the Brexit vote, Europeans suspect endearing eccentricity has morphed into unpredictable irrationality. The UK has become the tipsy, tweedy uncle, who after too much Christmas sherry has tipped over into drunkenly abusive bore.
When the audience was asked how many of them welcomed Brexit, only one hand went up - and it turned out that belonged to a businessman who wanted more EU reform and was fed up with Britain slowing things down.
Brexiteer rhetoric over the past year has often focused on the size of Britain's market and how keen German manufacturers are to sell to British customers.
Many leave campaigners remain convinced that German business leaders will force Mrs Merkel to grant the UK a special free trade deal in order not to lose British trade.
But that's not what's happening.
Angela Merkel has said Britain will not be able to cherry-pick the best bits of the single market
Instead German firms are remarkably united in their support of the chancellor in her rejection of British "cherry-picking" - even if it means losing business in the short-term.
When you talk to German bosses they say their top priority is in fact the integrity of the single market, rather than hanging on to British customers.
That's because their supply chains span across the EU.
A German car might be designed in Germany, manufactured in Britain, with components made in various parts of eastern Europe, to be sold in France. This only works if there are no cross-border tariffs, paperwork or red tape.
German companies - more often family-owned and with deeper connections to their regional heartlands - tend to look at the wider picture, sometimes thinking more long-term.
They supported Mrs Merkel on sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, even though that meant a blow to trade. The financial hit was deemed less bad for business than worsening unrest in nearby Ukraine.
The same calculations are being made over Brexit.
Theresa May's speech on Brexit last week made front page news in Germany
This doesn't mean German business is thinking politically, and not economically. But rather, it indicates a wider attitude towards how business can thrive long-term.
German business leaders tell you that the British market may be important. But it is only one market, compared to 27 markets in the rest of the EU.
Leave campaigners also still underestimate the political and historical significance of the EU for Germany, where it is seen as the guarantor of peace after centuries of warfare.
It is tempting to see the clashes between Westminster and the EU27 as one big decades-long misunderstanding of what the EU is.
An idealistic peace-project versus a pragmatic free-trade zone. This makes it even more ironic that London may reject the free-trade area it spent so much time creating.
Germany was shocked and saddened by the UK's vote to leave the EU. But the decision was quickly accepted in Berlin.
"The Brits never really wanted to be members of the European Union anyway," is something you often hear these days.
Many Germans now want to just work out a solution that does the least amount of harm to the European economy. Hence the irritation in Germany when British politicians keep rehashing the pre-referendum debate.
"It was frustrating to hear the same old arguments from the referendum campaign," one business leader told me when I asked him what he had thought about Saturday's discussion.
Germany has moved on, he said. Maybe Britain should too.
The Brexiteers might not have persuaded their audience in Berlin. But if they return to London with a better idea of the mood in Germany's business community, then the trip may well have been worthwhile. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38707997 | news_business-38707997 |
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Is it OK to watch porn in public? - BBC News | 2017-01-14 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | How would you feel if the person sitting next to you on the bus was watching porn - and what would you do about it? | Magazine | It's no secret that lots of people watch pornography on the internet. It's usually something done behind closed doors - but how would you feel about someone watching porn in public? The BBC's Siobhann Tighe describes a troubling experience on a London bus.
It had been a long day at work. I got on the bus at 7.30 in the evening and it was cold and drizzly. All the passengers were wrapped up in thick coats, hoods and hats.
Inside, the bus was softly lit and I was expecting to zone out on my way back home: just let the day go and switch off.
I sat on the lower deck beside a complete stranger and didn't give it a second thought. I was just relieved to get a seat. As we meandered through the London traffic, my gaze was drawn to my neighbour's phone. I wasn't being nosy but in the dim light of the bus, the brightness of his mobile caught my attention even though he was slanting it slightly away from me.
Although I didn't mean to or want to, I found myself looking over towards his mobile a few times and then it suddenly occurred to me what was going on. The man beside me was watching porn.
Once I realised, although I genuinely didn't mean to, my eyes kept on being pulled back to it. I couldn't quite believe it. First he was watching animated porn, with the two naked characters in lurid colours repeating their movements over and over again. Then he started watching a film, which seemed to begin in a petrol station with a large woman in a low-cut yellow top and blonde hair peering into the driver's window.
I didn't hear any sound, apart from a brief few seconds when my fellow passenger pulled the headphone jack out of his mobile, and then reinserted it.
The man didn't seem to notice my glances towards his phone, maybe because his hood was hampering his peripheral vision. He seemed oblivious to me and others around him, who admittedly wouldn't have been able to see what I saw.
We eventually arrived at his bus stop and because he had the window seat and I had the aisle, he made a motion that he needed to get out, and he muttered a "thank you" as he squeezed past me. I watched him get off and walk down the street.
I felt uncomfortable and annoyed, but I didn't do anything about it. I didn't say anything to him and neither did he pick up on any of my glances or quizzical looks. His eyes didn't meet mine so I couldn't even communicate my feelings non-verbally and it didn't occur to me to tell the driver. Even if I wanted to, it would have been difficult to get to the front of the bus because it was packed.
But when I got off, questions flooded into my mind about what I had just experienced. What if a child saw that? Are there any laws about looking at porn in public spaces? If there are laws, how easy are they to enforce? Why did this passenger feel public transport was an appropriate place to watch porn, and should I be worried from a safety point of view?
As a journalist, I also looked at it from his point of view, even though he made me feel uncomfortable. I asked myself: is he within his rights to look at porn on his private device wherever he is? Do civil liberties in our society grant him that freedom?
But in my heart, I was offended.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. From disgust to it's ok, Woman's Hour took to the streets to find out what you think of it.
When I mentioned it to friends, everyone seemed to have a story of their own, or an opinion.
"It happened to me when I was with my son having a coffee at a Swiss airport," one said. "Two Italian guys were sitting next to me. I said something because I felt safe and I sensed there'd be support if an argument ensued." It worked, and they politely switched the laptop off.
It certainly got everyone talking, but like me, no-one was sure where the law stood.
According to Prof Clare McGlynn from Durham University who specialises in the law around porn, there's little to stop someone viewing pornographic material in public - on public transport, in a library, in a park or a cafe, for example.
"It's like reading a book," she says. "They are viewing lawful material which is freely available, and restricting people's access to it presents other challenges."
In Prof McGlynn's view, the law would only prevent it if the porn viewer is harassing someone or causing a disturbance.
So, what do you do? Prof McGlynn describes it as a dilemma.
"It's like someone shouting at you, calling to you to 'Cheer up, love!'" says Prof McGlynn. "Do you confront it, or do you put your head down and walk along?"
But when I contacted Transport for London, they appeared to take the case very seriously.
"If someone has made you feel uncomfortable, for example by viewing pornographic material, please tell the police or a member of our staff," I was told.
A member of staff said passengers should report incidents like to this to the bus driver, who would tell the control centre, and the information would then be passed to the police for them to investigate.
In Prof McGlynn's view, there is not much the police could do. On the other hand, James Turner QC contacted the BBC to say that there is a law - the Indecent Displays (Control) Act - which might form the basis for a prosecution.
Five years ago, in the US, the executive director of a group called Morality in the Media had an experience similar to mine on an aeroplane. As a result, the group - now called the National Center On Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) - campaigned to get the major US airlines to stop passengers watching porn.
"All of them except for one agreed to improve their policies to prohibit passengers from viewing this material during flights and agreed to better train their flight attendants on what to do," Haley Halverson of NCOSE told me.
Buses don't have flight attendants, though. Nor do trains. And even if police wanted to investigate incidents of porn-watching on public transport, passengers can get off whenever they like.
How would officers catch them and question them then?
Siobhann Tighe and Prof Clare McGlynn spoke to Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour, on BBC Radio 4. Listen to the discussion here.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38611265 | news_magazine-38611265 |
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Could a national maximum wage work? - BBC News | 2017-01-10 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Jeremy Corbyn’s call on Radio 4’s Today programme for a high earnings cap is not a unique position. Franklin D Roosevelt called for something similar. | Business | In 1942, Franklin D Roosevelt - not known as a Socialist radical, though he had his moments - proposed that anyone earning over $25,000 should be taxed at 100%.
Effectively, the President of the United States was calling for a high pay cap of, in today's money, just under $400,000 or £330,000.
Interviewed this morning on the Today programme, Jeremy Corbyn rekindled the debate on high pay, saying that a "cap" should be considered for the highest earners.
With legislation if necessary.
Franklin D Roosevelt - not known as a socialist radical
Given that a direct limit (making it "illegal" for example for anyone to earn over, say, £200,000) would be almost impossible to enforce in a global economy where income takes many forms - salary, investments, returns on assets - very high marginal rates of tax could be one way to control very high levels of pay.
Another could be by imposing limits on the pay ratio between higher and lower earners in a company - possibly a more politically palatable option.
The High Pay Centre, for example, supports considering this approach.
Their research reveals the ratio has increased substantially.
"The average pay of a FTSE 100 chief executive has rocketed from around £1m a year in the late 1990s - about 60 times the average UK worker - to closer to £5m today, more than 170 times," the organisation said in 2014.
Firms have been under fire over high rates of executive pay
In its submission to the review of corporate governance by the House of Commons business select committee in October, the centre said executive pay was "out of control".
It is only relatively recently that high marginal rates of tax have been dropped as a way of limiting "out of control" pay.
Although America's Congress couldn't quite stomach the wartime 100% super tax (the actor Ann Sheridan commented "I regret that I have only one salary to give to my country") by 1945 the marginal rate on incomes over $200,000 was 94%.
Post-war, very high rates of income tax on high earners were the norm and income inequality was far lower.
By the 1970s in the UK, the marginal rate on higher incomes was 84%, a figure that rose to 98% with the introduction of a surcharge on investment income.
Denis Healey, then the Labour chancellor, famously said he wanted to "squeeze the rich until the pips squeak" - a quote he subsequently denied.
The mood changed with economic stagnation, industrial strife and the arrival of mainstream monetarism and its political leaders - Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Strikers gather round a brazier at a picket line in London in 1979
They built an economic and political philosophy based on a belief that it wasn't the state's job to spend, in Thatcher's famous phrase, "other people's money" - it was better to allow people to retain the money they earned and spend it as they saw fit, even if it was an awful lot.
Lower levels of income tax were the result and economic growth strengthened for a period.
Income inequality also grew, maybe a price worth paying for the economic riches which, it was argued, were flowing around the country.
For many, especially since the financial crisis, the pendulum has swung back, away from lower taxes towards a more punitive approach to high incomes.
Mr Corbyn was speaking about a belief that some individuals at the top of the income scale now have far too much money to spend compared with the "just about managing" classes.
Theresa May has also made it clear that "fat cat pay" is on her radar.
The economics of high pay and whether it should be limited are based on a judgement between two competing interests.
The first is summed up by the Laffer Curve, popularised by the US economist Arthur Laffer, which argues that if income taxes are too high (or pay limits in any guise too strong) they reduce the incentive to work, which ultimately affects growth, national wealth and government income.
At its most basic, under the "Laffer rules" a 0% income tax rate would collect no revenue.
And a 100% income tax rate would also collect no revenue, as no one would bother working.
Ronald Reagan slashed the top rates of US income tax
It has been used from Reagan onwards as the economic underpinning for an argument that lower taxes support growth.
In the 1980s, US government revenues increased as taxes were cut, although that was as much to do with general strong levels of growth as it was to do with the tax cuts themselves.
The second, contrary, economic pressure, as countless studies from the World Bank and others have shown, is that countries with high levels of income inequality have lower levels of growth.
Tackling that inequality, by whatever method, incentivises people to work more effectively.
The problem is that lifting lower wages by increasing, for example, productivity levels, could be a more effective way of reducing the gap between low and high pay, although it would take many years of concerted effort to be successful.
Since the 1970s, the notion of a government inspired "incomes policy" has been - in the popularity stakes - right up there with multi-millionaire bankers at a meeting of Momentum, the organisation that supports Mr Corbyn's Labour leadership.
But, ever since the introduction of the minimum wage in the 1990s, the government has made it clear that the amount people are paid is not simply a matter for private businesses and the free market.
Mr Corbyn has said he wants to consider a national maximum wage.
Many might nod in agreement.
How to do it, though, and whether it is economically helpful for growth, is a very different matter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38570434 | news_business-38570434 |
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Veganuary: Is following a vegan diet for a month worth it? - BBC News | 2017-01-04 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A record number of people have signed up for Veganuary - swerving meat and dairy for January - but does it do any good? | UK | The Veganuary campaign, encouraging people to try a vegan diet for the month most commonly associated with resolution and change, is under way, with a record 50,000 people signed up.
But can forgoing meat, fish, dairy, eggs and honey for 31 days do any good?
The adverts are on display, supporters on board and partner restaurants are promoting their meat and dairy-free dishes.
Campaign organisers say following a vegan diet, even for such a short spell, can bring benefits.
It promotes the animal rights argument - that sentient animals should not be eaten or used in food production. And environmental grounds - warning about the pollution caused by raising animals and as a by-product of agriculture.
But it also says a balanced vegan diet can provide the nutrition people need in concord with health benefits - catchy at a time of year when people look to make up for festive excesses.
Veganuary spokeswoman Clea Grady told the BBC she feels "brilliant - better than I ever have" as a result of trying, and staying with, a vegan diet.
The charity says the change can lessen obesity, cut blood pressure, and lower the levels of type 2 diabetes.
"More than 75 per cent of people who have tried going vegan for a month report an improvement in their health.
"They said they slept better and they lost an average of 6lbs as a result of their changed diet," the Veganuary website says.
There is a lot to be said for "strict dietary changes" says Lucy Jones, consultant dietician and spokeswoman for the BDA, the Association of UK Dieticians.
"If people follow a restricted diet, they think about what they're eating - you can no longer pop into the office and eat a biscuit or a cake."
They tend to "plan their meals in advance, prepare and cook from scratch".
"It is certainly possible to have an awful diet. But, as a vegan, you tend to have more plant proteins, beans and pulses and more fruit and vegetables," she says.
"We have to be cautious about what you can achieve. But having a month where you are eating more fruit, vegetables and nuts can't be a bad thing."
Proponents say it's a time for change
Veganuary can lead to changed eating habits throughout the year.
Will all those greens and pulses have an impact on pounds and pressures?
"The impact on blood sugars is fairly immediate, cholesterol takes a few weeks and blood pressure takes longer, and comes with the weight loss," says Lucy.
All burgers, and all dinners, are not created equal
There's a bias in play after years of being told meat, eggs and animal fats are bad for us, she says.
"There is a world of difference between hamburgers and hot dogs, fried eggs and pasteurised milk, versus grass-fed organic meat, pastured poultry, poached organic eggs and raw, or at least organic, dairy," she says, touching on the continuing debate about the benefit of organic foods.
"Vegan is a plant-based diet with high vegetables but also large amounts of cereal grains (both refined and unrefined) and legumes, both of which are low in bio-available nutrients and high in anti-nutrients such as phytate.
"On the other hand wholefood animal produce such as organic meats, fish and shellfish and eggs are among the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat," she explains.
Vegans can run low on minerals and vitamins like B12, iron, zinc, D and calcium - in fact the Veganuary website points towards supplementing B12 to ensure it's covered.
And, whereas some studies show vegans and vegetarians living longer, she says, they often include people who pursue other healthy lifestyle traits, like exercise and not drinking alcohol, comparing them with the junk food-lovers.
In January, both experts observe that anyone going from Christmas excess to a vegan diet plus exercise will feel different.
But Kahler warns they can become nutrient-deficient down the line.
"People use the words 'balance' and 'in moderation' as a cover to incorporate whatever they want in their diet. Moderation isn't the key to health," she says.
"Setting boundaries is the key along with an understanding that there are certain 'foods' - like fizzy drinks and doughnuts - that we consume which simply should not be labelled with the word 'food'".
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38506418 | news_uk-38506418 |
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Ivan Rogers resignation: Dear Sir, I quit! The resignation quiz - BBC News | 2017-01-04 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | How much do you know about famous resignations? | Magazine | Sir Ivan Rogers has quit his job as British ambassador to the EU, issuing a resignation statement that urged his team to "continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking". But he's not the first person to make headlines with a biting departure.
Test your knowledge about some of history's more celebrated resignation statements.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38510071 | news_magazine-38510071 |
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Obituary: Tam Dalyell - BBC News | 2017-01-26 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Veteran Labour MP who first articulated the West Lothian Question. | UK Politics | Tam Dalyell was a political contradiction, an aristocratic Old Etonian who became a socialist politician.
It was he who articulated what became known as the West Lothian Question, which festered at the heart of Scotland's relationship with Westminster.
A former Conservative activist, he became a thorn in the side of the Thatcher government.
But he won admiration from across the political spectrum as an honourable and principled member of parliament.
Thomas Dalyell Loch was born in Edinburgh on 9 August 1932.
His father Gordon Loch, a civil servant, adopted his wife Nora's maiden name in 1938.
It was through his mother that Dalyell later inherited the Dalyell baronetcy, although he never used the title.
The Suez crisis made him an opponent of British military intervention
He went to Eton before doing his National Service as a trooper with the Royal Scots Greys, having failed his officer training.
After he was demobbed, he went to Cambridge where he was chairman of the University Conservative Association.
It was while working as a teacher that he experienced a political conversion, brought about by the Suez Crisis in 1956.
The debacle, in which Britain, together with Israel and France, unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of the Suez Canal, made a deep impression on him
Not only did he join the Labour Party, but the aborted invasion made him a committed opponent of future British military involvement overseas.
In 1962, he won the seat of West Lothian in a by-election, fighting off a strong challenge from a future SNP leader, William Wolfe.
Less than two years after he entered parliament, Dalyell was appointed parliamentary private secretary to Dick Crossman, then Minister for Local Government.
Dalyell (r) arrived at Westminster in 1962 as the newly elected member for West Lothian
The position of PPS was seen as the first step to a ministerial career, but Dalyell's independent stance on issues irritated the party establishment.
That irritation turned to anger in 1967 when he was heavily censured for leaking minutes of a select committee meeting about the Porton Down biological and chemical warfare establishment to the Observer newspaper.
Dalyell claimed he thought the minutes were in the public domain but he did not escape a public dressing-down by the Speaker.
In a parliamentary debate on devolution in 1977, Dalyell first proposed what would become known as the West Lothian Question.
A vocal opponent of Scottish devolution, Dalyell contrasted the town of Blackburn in his own constituency, and Blackburn in Lancashire.
"For how long," he asked, "will English constituencies and English Honourable Members tolerate at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important and often decisive effect on English politics?"
It was Enoch Powell who coined the term West Lothian Question, in his response to Dalyell's speech.
He fought to uncover the truth about the Lockerbie bombing
When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 she found Dalyell a persistent critic of her policies.
He supported the Troops Out movement in Northern Ireland and attacked the prime minister's proposed boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
But it was the Falklands War that raised his public profile. He described the conflict as "like two bald men fighting over a comb," quoting the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges.
He strongly condemned the decision to sink the Argentine cruiser, General Belgrano, insisting the vessel had been steering away from the conflict when torpedoed by a British submarine.
His political opponents called him Daft Tam, ignoring the methodical and painstaking preparation he put into sourcing the facts to back up his arguments.
He was no slave to parliamentary protocol and was suspended from the House on numerous occasions, twice for calling Mrs Thatcher "a liar" over the Falklands campaign.
"She is a bounder, a liar, a deceiver, a cheat, a crook and a disgrace to the House of Commons," was one notable contribution during a 1987 debate.
However, some felt that his intemperate language did nothing to win him support.
Former Conservative MP and later political commentator, Matthew Parris said that "this element of personal vendetta seriously weakens his case".
Dalyell was persistent in trying to uncover the truth about the Lockerbie bombing and consistently said he did not believe Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi was responsible for the outrage.
He was, predictably, bitterly opposed to the Gulf War, "Kuwait is the 19th bloody state of Iraq," and went to Baghdad in 1994 to negotiate with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz.
The election of a Labour government under Tony Blair in 1997 failed to deter Dalyell from speaking his mind.
In 1999, he decided that he would no longer vote at Westminster on purely English issues, defying a number of three-line whips.
He was one of 25 MPs who opposed military action in Kosovo. "I am one of a dwindling number of MPs who have actually worn the Queen's uniform," he said.
He continued to live in the ancestral home
"Perhaps we are a bit less relaxed about unleashing war than those who have never been in a military situation."
He had little time for the New Labour project, describing Tony Blair as the worst of the eight prime ministers who had held power while he was a parliamentarian.
In 2001, he became Father of the House, the longest continuous serving MP, using his position to attack the US led invasion of Iraq.
"These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world," he said. "I am appalled that a British Labour prime minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing."
Dalyell stood down from the House of Commons in 2005, after serving 43 years as an MP, first for West Lothian, then, from 1983, the redrawn constituency of Linlithgow.
Behind Tam Dalyell's somewhat shambling and eccentric demeanour was a keen analytical brain and a passion for meticulous research.
Unrepentant about his dogged approach, he claimed that "you must not be afraid to be thought a bore".
He was that rare thing among politicians, a man who stuck to his principles, regardless of how unpopular it made him. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29367988 | news_uk-politics-29367988 |
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Donald Trump and Theresa May - Do opposites attract? - BBC News | 2017-01-26 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The prime minister has joked that 'opposites attract', but how will she get on with Donald Trump? | UK Politics | As she made her way across the Atlantic, Theresa May joked with the press pack on her flight that "sometimes opposites attract".
A wisecracking way of trying to cover the question about how she and Donald Trump can work together - the reality TV star billionaire and the self-described hard working vicar's daughter.
Voters will decide for themselves how funny they find it.
But Number 10 has already invested a lot in the early days of this relationship.
Perhaps, that is in part due to the early embarrassment of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage's adventures in Manhattan. However, it is also certainly due to her conviction that whoever the US president is, a British leader needs to, and should, cultivate their friendship.
Downing Street sources say they have had more contact with the Trump team since its victory than any other country has - and the conversations between the two leaders have focused on how to develop their personal relationship and the bond between the two countries.
But even before the two politicians meet tomorrow in the Oval Office, Mrs May is trying to put forward serious arguments about Britain and America's relationship as the world changes at warp speed around the two countries - making a major foreign policy speech at a gathering of the Republican Party in Philadelphia just hours after she touches down.
It is plain to see that while she is deadly serious about creating an extremely close relationship with the new president, she will continue to disagree with him on some issues.
When repeatedly questioned about his view that torture works, the prime minister told us: "We condemn torture, I have been very clear, I'm not going to change my position whether I'm talking to you or talking to the president."
And crucially, she said guidance stating that UK security services cannot share intelligence if it is obtained through torture will not change, telling me: "Our guidance is very clear about the position that the UK takes, and our position has not changed."
Despite President Trump's very public doubts about Nato, she says he has already assured her on the phone that he is committed to the alliance.
A public restatement of that in the next 24 hours would no doubt be a political boon for her.
While the prime minister is plainly uncomfortable with some of Mr Trump's positions, she also wants to emphasise some of the areas where they do agree - the "shared values" of looking out for "ordinary working class families".
In her speech to senators and congressmen tonight she will also emphasise how, in her view, Conservative values are Republican values.
The Republicans - the Tories' sister political party - are now in charge at all levels on Capitol Hill, as well as inside the White House. For the GOP and Mrs May's Conservative Party, patriotism, flag and family are not values to shy away from.
And despite the squeamishness, even in Tory ranks, about her eagerness to be seen alongside the president, the prime minister is unapologetic about her friendly stance.
When asked about appearing to be too close to the controversial new president, she said: "Donald Trump was elected president of the United States of America.
"The UK and the US have shared challenges, shared interests, that we can work together to deal with. We have a special relationship, it's long standing, it's existed through many different prime ministers and presidents."
A more different prime minister and president are hard to conceive. What they make of each other, and the relationship between our two countries, will affect us all. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38760718 | news_uk-politics-38760718 |
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Brexit white paper: Climbdown or goodwill gesture - BBC News | 2017-01-26 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Giving MPs a white paper is a clear concession by Theresa May but one that is unlikely to affect her Brexit timetable or damage her authority. | UK Politics | It was only yesterday that the Brexit Secretary, David Davis, told MPs it just might all be a bit tricky to have a White Paper, a formal document outlining the government's plans for Brexit, and stick to the timetable they want to pursue.
Rebel Remainers though were "delighted", that, stealing Jeremy Corbyn's thunder, a planted question from a loyal Tory MP at PMQs today produced in fact a promise from the Prime Minister that, after all, there will be a White Paper.
It is a climbdown, no question, a last-minute change of heart.
Late last night Brexiteers were being assured there would be no bending, no delay to the government's plans and no giving in to the Remainers.
Even early this morning, government sources were privately suggesting that they were quite happy to have the white paper option up their sleeve, but there were no immediate plans to make that promise.
Then voila, at 1205 GMT, the pledge of a white paper suddenly emerged. As one senior Tory joked, "welcome to the vacillation of the next two years".
It may be being described as a "massive, unplanned" concession but it doesn't seriously hurt the government.
First off, it shows goodwill to the rebel Tory Remainers, many of whom feel their Eurosceptic rivals have had the upper hand of late. Schmoozing matters round these parts.
It takes one of the potential arguments that could have gathered pace off the table, before the Article 50 bill is even published. And, rightly or wrongly, no one expects a white paper will contain anything new that the prime minister has not yet already said.
It's largely a victory for the Remainers about process, rather than substance.
For her critics this is evidence of weakness, that's she has been pushed into changing her mind.
But it doesn't need to change the government's timetable, and today's embarrassment of a climbdown might be worth the goodwill that Number 10 will get in return. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38747976 | news_uk-politics-38747976 |
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Theresa May's Brexit speech: What does it mean for free trade? - BBC News | 2017-01-18 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | BBC Economics Correspondent Andrew Walker answers your questions on Theresa May's Brexit speech. | UK | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May confirmed that the final deal would be put to the vote in Parliament
Following Theresa May's widely anticipated speech on Brexit on Tuesday, you sent us your questions.
The impact on free trade was the most asked about subject. Below, BBC Economics Correspondent Andrew Walker looks at two of the most popular questions you asked:
The only thing on the list above that the Prime Minister has said she wants to opt out of is the free movement of people - or rather the free movement of people to work and settle in the UK.
She is very keen on the free movement of goods and services. She said in the speech that she wants: "the freest possible trade in goods and services between Britain and the EU's member states."
She does not want to opt out of that.
The freest possible means what we have today. For example: no tariffs on goods travelling in either direction, mutual recognition of each other's technical standards, the freedom to offer services across borders and more.
In short, it means the provisions of the single market that apply to goods and services. It would be theoretically possible to go further still, especially in services. The European Commission says there are still barriers and it wants to tackle them.
But for now, the single market as it is represents the freest we can get.
But Mrs May seems to accept that we can't have that without also accepting freedom of movement for workers. And that is one of her red lines.
So once that has gone, the freest possible movement for goods and services will presumably mean something less than the single market, something less than we have today.
How much less will be a matter for negotiation. In fact, the answer to many questions about what will "X" be like when we leave will depend on the outcome of the negotiations. We can speculate but we can't know for sure.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some of the headlines from Theresa May's vision for future UK-EU relations
The UK does have some cards which will encourage the EU to lean towards what the Prime Minister wants. Some European businesses have the UK as an important export market - German car makers for example.
During the referendum campaign many Leave supporters were keen to point out that the rest of the EU exports more to the UK than the UK exports to them. That, they argued, means they need the UK more than we need them.
The counter-argument is that EU exports to the UK as a share of national income are a lot smaller than trade in the opposite direction. That suggests UK/EU trade matters more to us than to them.
Another reason that the remaining EU might want to be cooperative in trade negotiations is that many continental businesses would want to continue to be able to use the City of London as a financial centre. On the other hand some other cities, including Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin, might fancy a bigger slice of that pie.
So there are some economic reasons for the EU to share Mrs May's desire for free movement of goods and services.
But there is an important political issue that pulls them in the opposite direction. They don't want life in the UK to look too rosy at a time when there are rising Eurosceptic movements in many countries beyond the UK. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38658697 | news_uk-38658697 |
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Is free trade good or bad? - BBC News | 2017-01-18 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Free trade has been a dominant part of the post-WW2 global economy, but it is now being challenged. | Business | Trade makes the world go round, but how free can it remain?
Free trade is something of a sacred cow in the economics profession.
Moving towards it, rather slowly, has also been one of the dominant features of the post-World War Two global economy.
Now there are new challenges to that development.
The UK is leaving the European Union and the single market - though in her speech this week, British Prime Minister Theresa May promised to push for the "freest possible trade" with European countries and to sign new deals with others around the world.
Most obviously Donald Trump has raised the possibility of quitting various trade agreements, notably Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. Even the World Trade Organization (WTO) has proposed new barriers to imports.
In Europe, trade negotiations with the United States and Canada have run into difficulty, reflecting public concerns about the impact on jobs, the environment and consumer protection.
The WTO's Doha Round of global trade liberalisation talks has run aground.
The World Trade Organization is based in Geneva and came into being in 1995
The case for trade without government imposed barriers has a long history in economics.
Adam Smith, the 18th Century Scottish economist who many see as the founding father of the subject, was in favour of it. But it was a later British writer, David Ricardo in the 19th Century, who set out the idea known as comparative advantage that underpins much of the argument for freer trade.
It is not about countries being able to produce more cheaply or efficiently than others. You can have a comparative advantage in making something even if you are less efficient than your trade partner.
When a country shifts resources to produce more of one good there is what economists call an "opportunity cost" in terms of how much less of something else you can make. You have a comparative advantage in making a product if the cost in that sense is less than it is in another country.
Economic arguments over free trade date back to the 19th Century
If two countries trade on this basis, concentrating on goods where they have a comparative advantage they can both end up better off.
Another reason that economists tend to look askance at trade restrictions comes from an analysis of the impact if governments do put up barriers - in particular tariffs or taxes - on imports.
There are gains of course. The firms and workers who are protected can sell more of their goods in the home market. But consumers lose out by paying a higher price - and consumers in this case can mean businesses, if they buy the protected goods as components or raw materials.
The textbook analysis says that those losses add up to more than the total gains. So you get the textbook conclusion that it's best to avoid protection.
Many lower-skilled workers in developed economies feel they have lost out in the drive to globalisation
And this conclusion is regardless of what other countries do. The 19th Century French economist Frederic Bastiat set it out it like this:
"It makes no more sense to be protectionist because other countries have tariffs than it would to block up our harbours because other countries have rocky coasts."
The implication is that unilateral trade liberalisation makes perfect sense.
A more recent theory of what drives international trade looks at what are called economies of scale - where the more a firm produces of some good, the lower cost of each unit.
The associated specialisation can make it beneficial for economies that are otherwise very similar to trade with one another. This area is known as new trade theory and the Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman was an important figure in developing it.
The basic idea that it's good to have freer trade has underpinned decades of international co-operation on trade policy since World War Two.
Free trade has been a cornerstone of the post-war world
The period since 1945 has been characterised by a gradual lowering of trade barriers. It happened in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which began life in 1948 as a forum for governments to negotiate lower tariffs.
Its membership was initially small, but by the time it was replaced by the World Trade Organization in 1995, most countries had signed up.
The motivation was to end or reduce the protectionism or barriers to trade that went up in the 1930s. It is not generally thought that those barriers caused the Great Depression, but many do think they aggravated and prolonged it.
The process of post-war trade liberalisation was driven largely by a desire for reciprocal concessions - better access to others' markets in return for opening your own.
But what is the case against free (or at least freer) trade?
First and foremost is the argument that it creates losers as well as winners.
What Ricardo's theory suggested was that all countries engaging in trade could be better off. But his idea could not address the question of whether trade could create losers as well as winners within countries.
Economic theory says if governments adopt protectionism, total losses will outweigh total gains
Work by two Swedish Nobel Prize winners, Eli Hecksher and Bertil Ohlin, subsequently built on by the American Paul Samuelson developed the basic idea of comparative advantage in a way that showed that trade could lead to some groups losing out.
Putting it very briefly, if a country has a relatively abundant supply of, for example, low-skilled labour, those workers will gain while their low-skilled counterparts in countries where it is less abundant will lose.
There has been a debate about whether this approach fits the facts, but some do see it as a useful explanation of how American industrial workers (for example) have been adversely affected by the rise of competition from countries such as China.
A group of economists including David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked at the impact on areas where local industry was exposed to what they call the China shock.
"Adjustment in local labour markets is remarkably slow, with wages and labour-force participation rates remaining depressed and unemployment rates remaining elevated for at least a full decade after the China trade shock commences.
At this week's World Economic Forum, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned against isolationist moves that could spark a trade war
Still if you accept that overall countries gain, then the winners could in principle fully compensate the losers and still be better off.
Such programmes do exist. Countries that have unemployment benefits provide assistance to people who have lost their jobs. Some of those people will have been affected by competition from abroad.
The United States has a programme that is specially targeted for people who lose their jobs as a result of imports, called Trade Adjustment Assistance.
But is it enough? Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank in Washington writes: "The winners have never tried to fully compensate the losers, so let's stop claiming that trade benefits us all."
Which arguments will Donald Trump be listening to in the White House?
In any case, it is not clear that compensation would do the trick. As Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor noted, they may lose their jobs and also "the dignity of work".
He is keen on maintaining open markets for trade, but recognises the need to do something about what you might call the side effects.
To return to recent political developments - Donald Trump clearly did get support from many of those people in areas of the US where industry has declined.
We don't yet know how he will address those issues when he takes his place in the White House.
Perhaps his threats to introduce new tariffs are just that - threats. But the post-war trend towards more liberalised international trade looks more uncertain than it has for many years. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38209407 | news_business-38209407 |
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Theresa May's Brexit 'deal or no deal' - BBC News | 2017-01-18 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Theresa May's long-awaited speech on her strategy for Brexit leads Wednesday's front pages. | The Papers | Theresa May set out her Brexit strategy in a speech in London
Theresa May's Brexit speech is pretty much the only story in town, at least as far as the front pages are concerned.
It is the tough rhetoric which captures the headlines.
The Times headline sums up her message to the EU as "Give us a fair deal or you'll be crushed".
At the opposite end of the market, the Daily Star renders it as "May: I will crush EU".
For the Daily Mail, the parallels with Margaret Thatcher are hard to resist. It says the speech showed the "steel of the new Iron Lady".
Among the papers that opposed Brexit, the Guardian found the speech a "doubly depressing event" - a reality check for those who want to keep the UK in the single market while being riddled with its own streak of "global fantasy".
But the Guardian acknowledges that as a political manoeuvre it was a huge success for Mrs May and has strengthened her authority.
The Financial Times praises the prime minister's "bold vision" but warns that the road ahead will be perilous.
The Daily Mirror says Brexit will be a rollercoaster ride and only the reckless would pretend that it will be easy to reach a good deal with other nations.
The Sun's front page is mocked up as a Biblical tablet of stone with the single word headline "Brexodus".
The paper says Mrs May could call a snap election if Parliament votes to reject the deal she negotiates.
The Daily Telegraph praises the "steel behind" Mrs May's words and declares the speech "a defining moment in British politics".
Matt's cartoon has a worker bricking up the Channel Tunnel and remarking: "Mrs May's Brexit is a little harder than we'd been led to expect".
In other stories, the recently-retired head of the Serpentine Gallery in London, Dame Julia Peyton-Jones, features widely after becoming a mother at the age of 64.
The Daily Mail says that instead of putting her feet up after a high-flying career, the woman known as the "Queen Of Arts" will now be busy raising her daughter, Pia.
Dame Julia has not revealed further details, and the papers cannot say whether she had the child naturally or through a surrogate mother, IVF or adoption.
The Times reports that Manchester United, the world's richest football club according to Forbes magazine, has defended the launch of three new replica kits each season by claiming that their fans want "newness".
The paper thinks that argument flies in the face of concern expressed by parents at the high cost of funding their children's support for top teams.
Each new United kit costs £88 pounds for a child's version. Manchester City, Spurs and Arsenal also bring out three new strips per season.
Finally, the Daily Telegraph reports that intelligence agency GCHQ is launching a recruitment drive targeting teenage girls who know their way around social media.
A nationwide competition will launch next month designed to attract thousands of potential female spies with the skills to protect the nation against cyber attacks.
The Telegraph says the security services want to tackle their image as "male, pale and stale" by recruiting more "Jane Bonds" to their ranks. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-38659108 | news_blogs-the-papers-38659108 |
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All aboard the China-to-London freight train - BBC News | 2017-01-18 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Yiwu-to-Barking express is the newest way to send your freight from China to Europe. | Business | It's not on a boat, it's not on a plane, it's on a train. The newest way to send your freight from China to Europe involves spending 15 days on a train that doesn't have a buffet car in sight.
On 3 January in Yiwu in eastern China, a bright orange locomotive pulling 44 containers laden with suitcases, clothes and an assortment of household goods set off on a 7,500-mile (12,000km) journey to western Europe.
Ten containers were taken off at the German cargo hub of Duisburg. The rest made up the first cargo train from China to arrive in London at Barking's Eurohub freight terminal.
London is the 15th European city to find its way on to the ever-expanding map of destinations for China's rail cargo. Last year, 1,702 freight trains made the voyage to Europe, more than double the 2015 figure.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Yiwu Timex Industrial Investments, which is running this service with China's state-run railways, says prices are half that of air cargo and cut two weeks off the journey time by sea.
The UK's biggest supermarket, Tesco, doesn't have any goods on this particular train but does use rail to carry toys, electrical goods, homeware and clothing from China to European rail hubs such as Bratislava in Slovakia and Krasnaje in Belarus.
Alistair Lindsay, Tesco's head of global logistics, says the supermarket prefers shipping its goods because this is the most environmentally friendly way, as well as offering the best value for money, but that "where we need to move products quicker we have that option to do it by rail".
This decision would normally be driven by customer demand for particular products, he says.
It demonstrates how market demand and the realities of globalisation are increasingly allowing China's President Xi Jinping to realise his ambitious plan to revive the ancient Silk Road.
For centuries the fabled trade route from the ancient capital of Xian provided a link to the bustling markets of European cities such as Istanbul and Venice.
In the 21st Century China has become the world's biggest exporter, with the export of goods totalling $2.28 trillion (£1.85tn) in 2015.
The Silk Road provided a link to the markets of European cities like Istanbul and Venice
This rail expansion is part of President Xi's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) trade policy. For Beijing it offers another way to sustain its economic growth.
Kazakhstan is one of the countries on the route and it was there that Mr Xi first outlined his vision in a speech in 2013 saying, "This will be a great undertaking benefiting the people of all countries along the route."
Extolling the virtues of globalisation was a theme he repeated again at Davos this week.
For some, this is as much political as economic, offering Beijing the chance to project soft power as well as demonstrating it has the influence to thread disparate nations from Russia to Spain together.
China is also pushing its version of a "maritime silk road for example", by building a $1.4bn port city in Sri Lanka
"[OBOR] is set to become Xi Jinping's grand legacy," says Dr Sam Beatson, of King's College London.
"Regardless of the returns on offer... the policies will continue to be pushed as a means of seeking to fulfil Xi's dream under his leadership."
One of the other legacies President Xi is trying to tackle is China's pollution problem. While rail cargo is not as green as sea transport it emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) than air travel.
Freight transport accounts for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions
This is the "first argument when trying to get our customers to re-evaluate their options", says Johan Ignell, rail freight manager at Swedish cargo firm Greencarrier.
It calculates that a 40ft (12m) container with 20 tonnes of cargo would account for just 4% of the CO2 emissions it would take to move it by air (though emissions would be more than halved again if it were moved by sea).
Freight transport accounts for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but it is "fraught with difficulty" to compare emissions from different transport modes, says Prof Alan McKinnon of Germany's Kuehne Logistics University.
Prof McKinnon, one of the authors of a 2014 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says "load factor, energy efficiency and power sources all make a difference and can be hard to ascertain".
China is now the world's biggest exporter
He adds: "While shifting air cargo to rail will certainly cut emissions, container shipping will continue to command a significant carbon advantage over transcontinental rail, particularly now that most vessels are slow steaming to save fuel."
There is also a business case for this emerging trade route to grow. Not least among European companies looking to export to China.
At the moment there are no plans to run a return train service from London but that could change quickly. China is already the European Union's second biggest export market - though there is an EU trade deficit in goods of about $190bn.
For UK companies facing up to the reality of Brexit, China is an attractive proposition and the train carries new opportunities.
Brand Avenue is a company that already exports British-made goods including cosmetics and jewellery to China, and chief executive Jody Jacobs says he's exploring moving to rail.
"We deal a lot in goods which weigh a lot in comparison to their volume [which is] where airfreight becomes expensive, such as cosmetics and baby food.
"So for us a service which is quicker than sea and cheaper than air is a great middle ground."
For UK companies facing up to the reality of Brexit, China is an attractive proposition
For established cargo companies rail also offers the potential for growth. Shipping lines have seen profits fall because of overcapacity attributed to the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
The world's biggest shipping company, Maersk, told the BBC it is investigating "possible opportunities" in long-distance rail, though it sees them as supplementary to sea and air routes.
China is planning another 20 European routes for rail freight, and with the world's demand for consumer goods continuing to grow, all the ingredients seem to be there for rail to help the global economy steam ahead in 2017 and beyond. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38654176 | news_business-38654176 |
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Mexico and Mr Trump: What will happen to trade ties? - BBC News | 2017-01-05 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Caroline Bayley reports on the impact the Nafta trade deal has had in Mexico, and what its potential demise under US President-elect Trump would mean for the country. | Business | Donald Trump is not popular in Mexico
Mexico is being blamed by President-elect Donald Trump for taking jobs from the US.
He's been putting pressure on US companies not to move jobs south, and this week Ford announced it was investing in its factory in Michigan rather than building a new plant in Mexico.
During his election campaign, Mr Trump threatened to rip up Nafta, the free trade agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico, which has been in place for 23 years.
But what impact has Nafta had in Mexico, and what would its potential demise mean for the country?
In a leafy square in Mexico City on a warm December evening a group of excited children are hitting a brightly coloured pinata stuffed with sweets. A fellow passer-by explains to me that pinatas are a Mexican tradition, particularly at Christmas and birthdays.
However, Mexicans also like pinatas "in the shape of everything we want to hit", he says. "The latest trend is Donald Trump pinatas," he adds.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A look back at some of the things Donald Trump has said about Mexicans
Mr Trump is not popular in Mexico. He was incredibly rude about Mexicans during his election campaign, and at a time when the world seems to be turning away from free trade he threatened to end the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between the US, Mexico and Canada.
The important thing about Nafta is that companies importing and exporting between the three countries pay no tariffs. Mr Trump believes it's been bad for the US as cheaper Mexican labour has meant some US manufacturers have moved production across the border, resulting in job losses at home.
Nafta was implemented in 1994 and over the past 23 years Mexico has grown as a manufacturing hub. Today the United States and Mexico trade over $500bn (£400bn) in goods and services a year, equal to about $1.5bn a day. Mexico is the US's second-biggest export market, and the US is Mexico's largest.
Thierry Legros says without Nafta his farming business would be under threat
Red Sun Farms, a large vegetable-growing firm in central Mexico, depends on the free trade agreement. Its managing director, Thierry Legros, shows me into a vast greenhouse, 200m long, with row upon row of tomato plants. The company also grows peppers and exports 90% of its crop to the US and Canada.
So what would it mean if Mr Trump repealed the Nafta agreement completely with its tariff-free trading? "We might need to close the whole company," Thierry tells me. "It would be around 3,000 direct jobs, so with all the indirect that's quite a lot, probably double that."
Outside Thierry's office three flags flutter in the wind - one for each Nafta country.
The three Nafta flags at Red Sun Farms reflect the company's integration within the free trade area
Red Sun Farms even owns a farm in the US and sends Mexican workers over there. However, there's a stark wage differential, with pay significantly higher in the US.
"Right now with the exchange rate that's huge," Thierry explains, "it's about one to eight, one to 10."
These Red Sun Farms workers in Mexico earn far less than their counterparts in the US
As well as enabling Mexico to export freely, Nafta also opened the door to US imports, giving Mexican consumers much greater choice.
"It was an achievement, it was against history," says economic consultant Luis de la Calle, who was one of the negotiators of the free trade agreement.
"Most Mexicans thought that it was impossible or not convenient to have a strategic association with the US, and many people in the US never thought that Mexico could be their partner."
You can listen to In Business: Mexico and Mr Trump on BBC Radio 4 at 20:30 GMT on Thursday, 5 January and at 21:30 GMT on Sunday, 8 January.
Increased demand, as a result of free trade, forced Mexican manufacturers to improve quality.
Luis de la Calle says that before Nafta Mexico had three producers of TV sets, and the quality was "awful". But today, Mexico is "the largest manufacturer of TV sets in the world". They are exported and are "high quality, completely different from the protected market we had before".
The instantly recognisable VW Beetles are manufactured in Puebla, Mexico
Mexico is now a centre of manufacturing for overseas companies, such as the motor industry. General Motors and Ford both have factories in Mexico as well as the US.
But Donald Trump has put public pressure on US companies not to move production, and has threatened to impose import duties on cars coming in from Mexico. It's a sensitive subject and the American carmakers refused to be interviewed.
Donald Trump had this message for the car industry earlier this week
However, in the city of Puebla, a two-hour drive from the capital, the German car manufacturer Volkswagen is the biggest employer with 14,000 staff. It's the only place in the world where VW produces its famous Beetle, and as you enter the site you're greeted by a display of Beetles suspended in the air like a piece of installation art. The Golf and Jetta models are also produced here.
Thomas Karig from VW Mexico was tight-lipped about whether the firm had come under any pressure about jobs
Like the US carmakers, Volkswagen's Mexican production is integrated with its US plant. "We use a lot of parts coming from the US for assembly here in Mexico in Puebla, and our colleagues in Chattanooga in Tennessee - they use a lot of parts coming from Mexico," explains Thomas Karig from Volkswagen Mexico.
This integration is possible because there are no tariffs to pay each time components are sent from one Nafta country to another. But when I ask whether Volkswagen has come under pressure from Mr Trump about keeping jobs in the US, the atmosphere cools and there is a curt "no comment".
The Nafta agreement has not benefited everyone in Mexico though. Some small farmers were unable to compete with US agricultural imports and big Mexican rivals.
According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, from 1991 to 2007 some 4.9 million family farmers were displaced. Some found work with big exporting agricultural companies, but there was still a net loss of 1.9 million jobs.
Three of Aurelio's children are illegal migrants in the US
An hour's drive from Puebla I meet Aurelio, whose family has farmed a tiny patch of land since 1925. Deep in the dry countryside he raises a few cows.
Job opportunities are scarce and three of his five children have migrated illegally to the US where they have found work painting cars. But Donald Trump has said he wants to deport illegal immigrants. Aurelio takes out his mobile phone and calls one of his sons in the US. Is his son worried about this, I ask.
His son says that if there is a chance of being deported they will have to look elsewhere, but adds: "Mexico is a tough choice because of lack of opportunities, violence, high taxes and the economic situation, so it wouldn't be easy."
President Obama has deported at least 2.4 million illegal immigrants so this isn't a new policy. And according to the Pew Research Center, by 2014 more Mexican immigrants returned to Mexico than migrated to the US.
Luis de la Calle says both the US and Mexico benefit from Nafta
Mr de la Calle acknowledges that the free trade agreement has split the country. He says there are two types of regions in Mexico.
"[There are] parts of the south of Mexico that are disconnected from international trade, that are lagging behind, where Nafta had little impact. Rates of growth are low, there is little investment, and you don't see large manufacturing operations."
In contrast to this, he says: "There are 16 or 17 other states that grow very fast, you see a lot of dynamism." These he describes as "Nafta states" with exporting businesses.
However, he dismisses Mr Trump's criticism of Mexico. "He says [Nafta's] been great for Mexico, actually his whole argument is that Mexico is doing so well. It's flattering."
He also claims that the US is benefiting from its close manufacturing links with Mexico.
However, when I ask who would come off worst if Nafta were repealed, the US or Mexico, he answers, "Mexico because we are smaller, but the US would lose quite a bit as well."
Donald Trump wasn't the first US presidential candidate to criticise Nafta. Hillary Clinton and even Barack Obama did so on their campaign trails.
But abandoning it completely? The US may find it has too much to lose and perhaps Mr Trump has realised that too.
In Business: Mexico and Mr Trump is on BBC Radio 4 at 20:30 GMT on Thursday, 5 January and at 21:30 GMT on Sunday, 8 January. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38507482 | news_business-38507482 |
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Veganuary: Is following a vegan diet for a month worth it? - BBC News | 2017-01-05 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A record number of people have signed up for Veganuary - swerving meat and dairy for January - but does it do any good? | UK | The Veganuary campaign, encouraging people to try a vegan diet for the month most commonly associated with resolution and change, is under way, with a record 50,000 people signed up.
But can forgoing meat, fish, dairy, eggs and honey for 31 days do any good?
The adverts are on display, supporters on board and partner restaurants are promoting their meat and dairy-free dishes.
Campaign organisers say following a vegan diet, even for such a short spell, can bring benefits.
It promotes the animal rights argument - that sentient animals should not be eaten or used in food production. And environmental grounds - warning about the pollution caused by raising animals and as a by-product of agriculture.
But it also says a balanced vegan diet can provide the nutrition people need in concord with health benefits - catchy at a time of year when people look to make up for festive excesses.
Veganuary spokeswoman Clea Grady told the BBC she feels "brilliant - better than I ever have" as a result of trying, and staying with, a vegan diet.
The charity says the change can lessen obesity, cut blood pressure, and lower the levels of type 2 diabetes.
"More than 75 per cent of people who have tried going vegan for a month report an improvement in their health.
"They said they slept better and they lost an average of 6lbs as a result of their changed diet," the Veganuary website says.
There is a lot to be said for "strict dietary changes" says Lucy Jones, consultant dietician and spokeswoman for the BDA, the Association of UK Dieticians.
"If people follow a restricted diet, they think about what they're eating - you can no longer pop into the office and eat a biscuit or a cake."
They tend to "plan their meals in advance, prepare and cook from scratch".
"It is certainly possible to have an awful diet. But, as a vegan, you tend to have more plant proteins, beans and pulses and more fruit and vegetables," she says.
"We have to be cautious about what you can achieve. But having a month where you are eating more fruit, vegetables and nuts can't be a bad thing."
Proponents say it's a time for change
Veganuary can lead to changed eating habits throughout the year.
Will all those greens and pulses have an impact on pounds and pressures?
"The impact on blood sugars is fairly immediate, cholesterol takes a few weeks and blood pressure takes longer, and comes with the weight loss," says Lucy.
All burgers, and all dinners, are not created equal
There's a bias in play after years of being told meat, eggs and animal fats are bad for us, she says.
"There is a world of difference between hamburgers and hot dogs, fried eggs and pasteurised milk, versus grass-fed organic meat, pastured poultry, poached organic eggs and raw, or at least organic, dairy," she says, touching on the continuing debate about the benefit of organic foods.
"Vegan is a plant-based diet with high vegetables but also large amounts of cereal grains (both refined and unrefined) and legumes, both of which are low in bio-available nutrients and high in anti-nutrients such as phytate.
"On the other hand wholefood animal produce such as organic meats, fish and shellfish and eggs are among the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat," she explains.
Vegans can run low on minerals and vitamins like B12, iron, zinc, D and calcium - in fact the Veganuary website points towards supplementing B12 to ensure it's covered.
And, whereas some studies show vegans and vegetarians living longer, she says, they often include people who pursue other healthy lifestyle traits, like exercise and not drinking alcohol, comparing them with the junk food-lovers.
In January, both experts observe that anyone going from Christmas excess to a vegan diet plus exercise will feel different.
But Kahler warns they can become nutrient-deficient down the line.
"People use the words 'balance' and 'in moderation' as a cover to incorporate whatever they want in their diet. Moderation isn't the key to health," she says.
"Setting boundaries is the key along with an understanding that there are certain 'foods' - like fizzy drinks and doughnuts - that we consume which simply should not be labelled with the word 'food'".
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38506418 | news_uk-38506418 |
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Ivan Rogers resignation: Dear Sir, I quit! The resignation quiz - BBC News | 2017-01-05 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | How much do you know about famous resignations? | Magazine | Sir Ivan Rogers has quit his job as British ambassador to the EU, issuing a resignation statement that urged his team to "continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking". But he's not the first person to make headlines with a biting departure.
Test your knowledge about some of history's more celebrated resignation statements.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38510071 | news_magazine-38510071 |
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Obituary: Tam Dalyell - BBC News | 2017-01-27 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Veteran Labour MP who first articulated the West Lothian Question. | UK Politics | Tam Dalyell was a political contradiction, an aristocratic Old Etonian who became a socialist politician.
It was he who articulated what became known as the West Lothian Question, which festered at the heart of Scotland's relationship with Westminster.
A former Conservative activist, he became a thorn in the side of the Thatcher government.
But he won admiration from across the political spectrum as an honourable and principled member of parliament.
Thomas Dalyell Loch was born in Edinburgh on 9 August 1932.
His father Gordon Loch, a civil servant, adopted his wife Nora's maiden name in 1938.
It was through his mother that Dalyell later inherited the Dalyell baronetcy, although he never used the title.
The Suez crisis made him an opponent of British military intervention
He went to Eton before doing his National Service as a trooper with the Royal Scots Greys, having failed his officer training.
After he was demobbed, he went to Cambridge where he was chairman of the University Conservative Association.
It was while working as a teacher that he experienced a political conversion, brought about by the Suez Crisis in 1956.
The debacle, in which Britain, together with Israel and France, unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of the Suez Canal, made a deep impression on him
Not only did he join the Labour Party, but the aborted invasion made him a committed opponent of future British military involvement overseas.
In 1962, he won the seat of West Lothian in a by-election, fighting off a strong challenge from a future SNP leader, William Wolfe.
Less than two years after he entered parliament, Dalyell was appointed parliamentary private secretary to Dick Crossman, then Minister for Local Government.
Dalyell (r) arrived at Westminster in 1962 as the newly elected member for West Lothian
The position of PPS was seen as the first step to a ministerial career, but Dalyell's independent stance on issues irritated the party establishment.
That irritation turned to anger in 1967 when he was heavily censured for leaking minutes of a select committee meeting about the Porton Down biological and chemical warfare establishment to the Observer newspaper.
Dalyell claimed he thought the minutes were in the public domain but he did not escape a public dressing-down by the Speaker.
In a parliamentary debate on devolution in 1977, Dalyell first proposed what would become known as the West Lothian Question.
A vocal opponent of Scottish devolution, Dalyell contrasted the town of Blackburn in his own constituency, and Blackburn in Lancashire.
"For how long," he asked, "will English constituencies and English Honourable Members tolerate at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important and often decisive effect on English politics?"
It was Enoch Powell who coined the term West Lothian Question, in his response to Dalyell's speech.
He fought to uncover the truth about the Lockerbie bombing
When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 she found Dalyell a persistent critic of her policies.
He supported the Troops Out movement in Northern Ireland and attacked the prime minister's proposed boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
But it was the Falklands War that raised his public profile. He described the conflict as "like two bald men fighting over a comb," quoting the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges.
He strongly condemned the decision to sink the Argentine cruiser, General Belgrano, insisting the vessel had been steering away from the conflict when torpedoed by a British submarine.
His political opponents called him Daft Tam, ignoring the methodical and painstaking preparation he put into sourcing the facts to back up his arguments.
He was no slave to parliamentary protocol and was suspended from the House on numerous occasions, twice for calling Mrs Thatcher "a liar" over the Falklands campaign.
"She is a bounder, a liar, a deceiver, a cheat, a crook and a disgrace to the House of Commons," was one notable contribution during a 1987 debate.
However, some felt that his intemperate language did nothing to win him support.
Former Conservative MP and later political commentator, Matthew Parris said that "this element of personal vendetta seriously weakens his case".
Dalyell was persistent in trying to uncover the truth about the Lockerbie bombing and consistently said he did not believe Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi was responsible for the outrage.
He was, predictably, bitterly opposed to the Gulf War, "Kuwait is the 19th bloody state of Iraq," and went to Baghdad in 1994 to negotiate with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz.
The election of a Labour government under Tony Blair in 1997 failed to deter Dalyell from speaking his mind.
In 1999, he decided that he would no longer vote at Westminster on purely English issues, defying a number of three-line whips.
He was one of 25 MPs who opposed military action in Kosovo. "I am one of a dwindling number of MPs who have actually worn the Queen's uniform," he said.
He continued to live in the ancestral home
"Perhaps we are a bit less relaxed about unleashing war than those who have never been in a military situation."
He had little time for the New Labour project, describing Tony Blair as the worst of the eight prime ministers who had held power while he was a parliamentarian.
In 2001, he became Father of the House, the longest continuous serving MP, using his position to attack the US led invasion of Iraq.
"These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world," he said. "I am appalled that a British Labour prime minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing."
Dalyell stood down from the House of Commons in 2005, after serving 43 years as an MP, first for West Lothian, then, from 1983, the redrawn constituency of Linlithgow.
Behind Tam Dalyell's somewhat shambling and eccentric demeanour was a keen analytical brain and a passion for meticulous research.
Unrepentant about his dogged approach, he claimed that "you must not be afraid to be thought a bore".
He was that rare thing among politicians, a man who stuck to his principles, regardless of how unpopular it made him. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29367988 | news_uk-politics-29367988 |
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Donald Trump and Theresa May - Do opposites attract? - BBC News | 2017-01-27 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The prime minister has joked that 'opposites attract', but how will she get on with Donald Trump? | UK Politics | As she made her way across the Atlantic, Theresa May joked with the press pack on her flight that "sometimes opposites attract".
A wisecracking way of trying to cover the question about how she and Donald Trump can work together - the reality TV star billionaire and the self-described hard working vicar's daughter.
Voters will decide for themselves how funny they find it.
But Number 10 has already invested a lot in the early days of this relationship.
Perhaps, that is in part due to the early embarrassment of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage's adventures in Manhattan. However, it is also certainly due to her conviction that whoever the US president is, a British leader needs to, and should, cultivate their friendship.
Downing Street sources say they have had more contact with the Trump team since its victory than any other country has - and the conversations between the two leaders have focused on how to develop their personal relationship and the bond between the two countries.
But even before the two politicians meet tomorrow in the Oval Office, Mrs May is trying to put forward serious arguments about Britain and America's relationship as the world changes at warp speed around the two countries - making a major foreign policy speech at a gathering of the Republican Party in Philadelphia just hours after she touches down.
It is plain to see that while she is deadly serious about creating an extremely close relationship with the new president, she will continue to disagree with him on some issues.
When repeatedly questioned about his view that torture works, the prime minister told us: "We condemn torture, I have been very clear, I'm not going to change my position whether I'm talking to you or talking to the president."
And crucially, she said guidance stating that UK security services cannot share intelligence if it is obtained through torture will not change, telling me: "Our guidance is very clear about the position that the UK takes, and our position has not changed."
Despite President Trump's very public doubts about Nato, she says he has already assured her on the phone that he is committed to the alliance.
A public restatement of that in the next 24 hours would no doubt be a political boon for her.
While the prime minister is plainly uncomfortable with some of Mr Trump's positions, she also wants to emphasise some of the areas where they do agree - the "shared values" of looking out for "ordinary working class families".
In her speech to senators and congressmen tonight she will also emphasise how, in her view, Conservative values are Republican values.
The Republicans - the Tories' sister political party - are now in charge at all levels on Capitol Hill, as well as inside the White House. For the GOP and Mrs May's Conservative Party, patriotism, flag and family are not values to shy away from.
And despite the squeamishness, even in Tory ranks, about her eagerness to be seen alongside the president, the prime minister is unapologetic about her friendly stance.
When asked about appearing to be too close to the controversial new president, she said: "Donald Trump was elected president of the United States of America.
"The UK and the US have shared challenges, shared interests, that we can work together to deal with. We have a special relationship, it's long standing, it's existed through many different prime ministers and presidents."
A more different prime minister and president are hard to conceive. What they make of each other, and the relationship between our two countries, will affect us all. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38760718 | news_uk-politics-38760718 |
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India serial killings: Could 'house of horrors' accused be innocent? - BBC News | 2017-01-11 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A new documentary explores whether one of two men accused of serial murders is innocent. | India | The murders were discovered after children went missing from Nithari
Ten years ago, India was gripped by serial murders in Noida, a wealthy suburb of the capital Delhi, where at least 19 children and women were raped and killed.
Businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, in whose house the murders took place, and his manservant, Surinder Koli, were arrested for the crimes. Koli has since been convicted and sentenced to death in some of the cases, while the trial continues in the others. The businessman has been freed on bail.
An explosive new documentary, The Karma Killings, which globally released on Tuesday on Netflix and other digital platforms, now argues that Mr Pandher may not be guilty.
Businessman Moninder Singh Pandher has always denied the allegations against him
Koli admitted to horrific crimes but later retracted his confession, saying he had been coerced
Indian-American filmmaker Ram Devineni, who spent more than three years investigating the Nithari crimes, was visiting relatives in India in December 2006 as the murders played out on news TV channels.
"I was reading the stories in the papers and magazines and watching it on TV, thinking this is too unbelievable. Every day, new revelations were being reported and each one stranger than the next," he told the BBC on the phone from New York.
Many children had gone missing from the nearby slums of Nithari over the past two years and their parents alleged that police had ignored their complaints.
After the first corpses were discovered, it was reported that several children from the slums had been lured to their deaths by Koli, who had invited them into the house, offering them sweets and chocolates. Angry mobs then attacked the police and overran the crime scene.
Moninder Singh Pandher was known for his fondness for alcohol and call girls
In his confession, Koli admitted to killing a call girl for refusing to have sex with him
In the initial days after his arrest, Koli admitted to his interrogators that he had raped children as young as three, had sex with the corpses of his victims and once cooked and tried to eat human organs in the belief that cannibalism cured impotency; although during the trial he retracted his confession, saying he had been tortured and coerced into making his statement.
Mr Pandher denied all the charges against him from day one, but was vilified and portrayed as a monster by the press.
"With his beard and moustache, he looked like the perfect Bollywood villain. Then there were stories of his drinking, call girls coming to his house, his depression," says Devineni, adding that there was a sort of "an inverse racism" at play here. "Mr Pandher was a rich man, he was this privileged person and everyone wanted to bring him down."
After body parts and children's clothing were fished out of a sewer next to his house, the crime scene was dubbed India's "house of horrors".
The scene of the crimes in the Delhi suburb
But the parents of the victims believe that both Pandher and Koli are guilty
The two accused "looked" and fitted the "face of evil" and Devineni started off with the presumption that they were both guilty, but was persuaded by the evidence to change his mind.
Inspired by Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, he spent months in Nithari, visiting the crime scene and the courts, meeting the police, the lawyers, families of the victims and the accused, and the accused themselves, painstakingly recreating their stories and the crimes.
"I first met Koli and Pandher in October 2012 in the court in Ghaziabad where they were being tried and I was surprised by how easy the access was," Devineni says.
Clothes and body parts were fished out from a drain adjoining Moninder Singh Pandher's house
Filmmaker Ram Devineni says it took him weeks to persuade the mother of a victim to walk past the crime scene
The accused were brought to court every day and one day, the filmmaker walked up to Mr Pandher's lawyer and asked if he could talk to his client.
"While I was standing there talking to Pandher, Koli also joined in the conversation. We just stood there, talking about murders. It was surreal."
After that, he returned to the court daily, talking to the men accused of India's most horrific crimes in recent years, getting to know them and, in the process, getting close to them.
He describes his first encounter with Koli as "eerie and unsettling".
"He never denied committing any of the crimes, he always tried to put the blame on someone else. A doctor in their neighbourhood was involved in an organ scam so Koli suggested that he may have been behind the killings."
After his arrest, Moninder Singh Pandher spent seven years in jail
He has now been freed on bail
Koli was waiting to be executed and sought his help. "Our conversations were very laid back and casual. He talked a lot about his family, his wife and two children."
Devineni describes Koli as "really shrewd and cunning, one of the smartest people I've ever met".
"He's had little education, knows no English, but he does his own research. On his own, he has learnt India's complex legal system and how to stay on top of it."
His impression of Mr Pandher, on the other hand, was that of a "quiet and kind grandfather-type" of man. "He denied his involvement in the crimes and asked me to look at the evidence instead."
In his initial confessional statement, Koli did not say that Mr Pandher was a participant in the crimes, but in 2007, he changed his tack to implicate him. It is not known why he did that.
Devineni believes that Moninder Singh Pandher may be innocent
Many have questioned how Mr Pandher could not know what was going on in his own house.
Devineni says "Pandher had deep love and affection for Koli who covered for him in front of his wife when he saw call girls. Pandher trusted him and left the running of the house to him.
"I'm convinced that Koli committed all the murders on his own. Pandher is an innocent man."
The victims' families, however, are unlikely to find his argument convincing. Over the years, they have insisted that justice would only be done when Mr Pandher is hanged. And they are unlikely to change their minds.
"None of them really care about Koli," says Devineni. "Their whole focus is on Pandher. Koli is poor, like them. He's one of them. Pandher is rich and if he's let off, it's the big guy getting away with murder." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38529255 | news_world-asia-india-38529255 |
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Could a national maximum wage work? - BBC News | 2017-01-11 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Jeremy Corbyn’s call on Radio 4’s Today programme for a high earnings cap is not a unique position. Franklin D Roosevelt called for something similar. | Business | In 1942, Franklin D Roosevelt - not known as a Socialist radical, though he had his moments - proposed that anyone earning over $25,000 should be taxed at 100%.
Effectively, the President of the United States was calling for a high pay cap of, in today's money, just under $400,000 or £330,000.
Interviewed this morning on the Today programme, Jeremy Corbyn rekindled the debate on high pay, saying that a "cap" should be considered for the highest earners.
With legislation if necessary.
Franklin D Roosevelt - not known as a socialist radical
Given that a direct limit (making it "illegal" for example for anyone to earn over, say, £200,000) would be almost impossible to enforce in a global economy where income takes many forms - salary, investments, returns on assets - very high marginal rates of tax could be one way to control very high levels of pay.
Another could be by imposing limits on the pay ratio between higher and lower earners in a company - possibly a more politically palatable option.
The High Pay Centre, for example, supports considering this approach.
Their research reveals the ratio has increased substantially.
"The average pay of a FTSE 100 chief executive has rocketed from around £1m a year in the late 1990s - about 60 times the average UK worker - to closer to £5m today, more than 170 times," the organisation said in 2014.
Firms have been under fire over high rates of executive pay
In its submission to the review of corporate governance by the House of Commons business select committee in October, the centre said executive pay was "out of control".
It is only relatively recently that high marginal rates of tax have been dropped as a way of limiting "out of control" pay.
Although America's Congress couldn't quite stomach the wartime 100% super tax (the actor Ann Sheridan commented "I regret that I have only one salary to give to my country") by 1945 the marginal rate on incomes over $200,000 was 94%.
Post-war, very high rates of income tax on high earners were the norm and income inequality was far lower.
By the 1970s in the UK, the marginal rate on higher incomes was 84%, a figure that rose to 98% with the introduction of a surcharge on investment income.
Denis Healey, then the Labour chancellor, famously said he wanted to "squeeze the rich until the pips squeak" - a quote he subsequently denied.
The mood changed with economic stagnation, industrial strife and the arrival of mainstream monetarism and its political leaders - Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Strikers gather round a brazier at a picket line in London in 1979
They built an economic and political philosophy based on a belief that it wasn't the state's job to spend, in Thatcher's famous phrase, "other people's money" - it was better to allow people to retain the money they earned and spend it as they saw fit, even if it was an awful lot.
Lower levels of income tax were the result and economic growth strengthened for a period.
Income inequality also grew, maybe a price worth paying for the economic riches which, it was argued, were flowing around the country.
For many, especially since the financial crisis, the pendulum has swung back, away from lower taxes towards a more punitive approach to high incomes.
Mr Corbyn was speaking about a belief that some individuals at the top of the income scale now have far too much money to spend compared with the "just about managing" classes.
Theresa May has also made it clear that "fat cat pay" is on her radar.
The economics of high pay and whether it should be limited are based on a judgement between two competing interests.
The first is summed up by the Laffer Curve, popularised by the US economist Arthur Laffer, which argues that if income taxes are too high (or pay limits in any guise too strong) they reduce the incentive to work, which ultimately affects growth, national wealth and government income.
At its most basic, under the "Laffer rules" a 0% income tax rate would collect no revenue.
And a 100% income tax rate would also collect no revenue, as no one would bother working.
Ronald Reagan slashed the top rates of US income tax
It has been used from Reagan onwards as the economic underpinning for an argument that lower taxes support growth.
In the 1980s, US government revenues increased as taxes were cut, although that was as much to do with general strong levels of growth as it was to do with the tax cuts themselves.
The second, contrary, economic pressure, as countless studies from the World Bank and others have shown, is that countries with high levels of income inequality have lower levels of growth.
Tackling that inequality, by whatever method, incentivises people to work more effectively.
The problem is that lifting lower wages by increasing, for example, productivity levels, could be a more effective way of reducing the gap between low and high pay, although it would take many years of concerted effort to be successful.
Since the 1970s, the notion of a government inspired "incomes policy" has been - in the popularity stakes - right up there with multi-millionaire bankers at a meeting of Momentum, the organisation that supports Mr Corbyn's Labour leadership.
But, ever since the introduction of the minimum wage in the 1990s, the government has made it clear that the amount people are paid is not simply a matter for private businesses and the free market.
Mr Corbyn has said he wants to consider a national maximum wage.
Many might nod in agreement.
How to do it, though, and whether it is economically helpful for growth, is a very different matter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38570434 | news_business-38570434 |
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Newspaper headlines: Trump to 'make Brexit great' with trade deal - BBC News | 2017-01-15 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Donald Trump's first UK interview is one of many stories featured on Monday's front pages. | The Papers | President-elect Donald Trump is making the headlines on several of Monday's front pages.
His pledge to offer Britain a "quick" trade deal dominates the front page of the Times.
The president-elect tells the paper that Brexit will be a "great thing" and predicts that other countries will follow Britain's lead in leaving the EU, which he says has been "deeply damaged" by the migration crisis.
Mr Trump's interview is also the lead story for the Daily Telegraph which sees his remarks as a "boost" for Theresa May, ahead of her speech on Tuesday about the government's plans for Brexit.
The Guardian says Mr Trump has been warned that his "careless" use of Twitter could cause a security risk.
The outgoing director of the CIA, John Brennan, is quoted as saying the president-elect has a "tremendous responsibility" to protect the US and its interests.
The Daily Telegraph says Mr Brennan has cautioned Mr Trump against forging closer ties with Russia, arguing against the lifting of sanctions.
But the Daily Mail suggests the next US leader is planning a summit with Vladimir Putin "weeks" after becoming president, "as he seeks to improve relations with the Kremlin".
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to pocket £15m from the sale of an education website, according to the Daily Mirror.
The paper's headline describes the deal as a "payday sickener" as the NHS is "cut to the bone" while its editorial accuses Mr Hunt of being "born with a silver thermometer in his mouth" and calls on him to "study his conscience".
The Times agrees that the windfall is "politically embarrassing" following the government's disputes with junior doctors and GPs. The Daily Telegraph claims the deal will make Mr Hunt "the richest member of the cabinet".
Jeremy Hunt set to receive a £15m windfall is "politcally embarrassing" says the Times
Meanwhile the Daily Mail's lead story highlights what it calls "the scale of abuse of the crumbling NHS by health tourists".
It claims a hospital in Luton is attempting to recoup £350,000 from a Nigerian woman, who is said to have flown to Britain to give birth to twins.
The cancer specialist, Professor Meirion Thomas, tells the paper that similar, "staggering" debts should be investigated by NHS fraud officers, as "patients don't arrive at specialist hospitals with serious illnesses by chance".
The Sun says the half-brother of Prince Harry's American girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has apologised after he was arrested for alleged gun offences in the US. Thomas Markle Jr blamed the incident on a drunken argument, prompting the headline "Soz Sis! I was so sozzled".
The Daily Mail says other members of the family have insisted the arrest will not cause problems for Ms Markle's relationship with Prince Harry, but the Daily Express claims there is "some concern" in royal circles. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-38632547 | news_blogs-the-papers-38632547 |
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Is it OK to watch porn in public? - BBC News | 2017-01-15 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | How would you feel if the person sitting next to you on the bus was watching porn - and what would you do about it? | Magazine | It's no secret that lots of people watch pornography on the internet. It's usually something done behind closed doors - but how would you feel about someone watching porn in public? The BBC's Siobhann Tighe describes a troubling experience on a London bus.
It had been a long day at work. I got on the bus at 7.30 in the evening and it was cold and drizzly. All the passengers were wrapped up in thick coats, hoods and hats.
Inside, the bus was softly lit and I was expecting to zone out on my way back home: just let the day go and switch off.
I sat on the lower deck beside a complete stranger and didn't give it a second thought. I was just relieved to get a seat. As we meandered through the London traffic, my gaze was drawn to my neighbour's phone. I wasn't being nosy but in the dim light of the bus, the brightness of his mobile caught my attention even though he was slanting it slightly away from me.
Although I didn't mean to or want to, I found myself looking over towards his mobile a few times and then it suddenly occurred to me what was going on. The man beside me was watching porn.
Once I realised, although I genuinely didn't mean to, my eyes kept on being pulled back to it. I couldn't quite believe it. First he was watching animated porn, with the two naked characters in lurid colours repeating their movements over and over again. Then he started watching a film, which seemed to begin in a petrol station with a large woman in a low-cut yellow top and blonde hair peering into the driver's window.
I didn't hear any sound, apart from a brief few seconds when my fellow passenger pulled the headphone jack out of his mobile, and then reinserted it.
The man didn't seem to notice my glances towards his phone, maybe because his hood was hampering his peripheral vision. He seemed oblivious to me and others around him, who admittedly wouldn't have been able to see what I saw.
We eventually arrived at his bus stop and because he had the window seat and I had the aisle, he made a motion that he needed to get out, and he muttered a "thank you" as he squeezed past me. I watched him get off and walk down the street.
I felt uncomfortable and annoyed, but I didn't do anything about it. I didn't say anything to him and neither did he pick up on any of my glances or quizzical looks. His eyes didn't meet mine so I couldn't even communicate my feelings non-verbally and it didn't occur to me to tell the driver. Even if I wanted to, it would have been difficult to get to the front of the bus because it was packed.
But when I got off, questions flooded into my mind about what I had just experienced. What if a child saw that? Are there any laws about looking at porn in public spaces? If there are laws, how easy are they to enforce? Why did this passenger feel public transport was an appropriate place to watch porn, and should I be worried from a safety point of view?
As a journalist, I also looked at it from his point of view, even though he made me feel uncomfortable. I asked myself: is he within his rights to look at porn on his private device wherever he is? Do civil liberties in our society grant him that freedom?
But in my heart, I was offended.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. From disgust to it's ok, Woman's Hour took to the streets to find out what you think of it.
When I mentioned it to friends, everyone seemed to have a story of their own, or an opinion.
"It happened to me when I was with my son having a coffee at a Swiss airport," one said. "Two Italian guys were sitting next to me. I said something because I felt safe and I sensed there'd be support if an argument ensued." It worked, and they politely switched the laptop off.
It certainly got everyone talking, but like me, no-one was sure where the law stood.
According to Prof Clare McGlynn from Durham University who specialises in the law around porn, there's little to stop someone viewing pornographic material in public - on public transport, in a library, in a park or a cafe, for example.
"It's like reading a book," she says. "They are viewing lawful material which is freely available, and restricting people's access to it presents other challenges."
In Prof McGlynn's view, the law would only prevent it if the porn viewer is harassing someone or causing a disturbance.
So, what do you do? Prof McGlynn describes it as a dilemma.
"It's like someone shouting at you, calling to you to 'Cheer up, love!'" says Prof McGlynn. "Do you confront it, or do you put your head down and walk along?"
But when I contacted Transport for London, they appeared to take the case very seriously.
"If someone has made you feel uncomfortable, for example by viewing pornographic material, please tell the police or a member of our staff," I was told.
A member of staff said passengers should report incidents like to this to the bus driver, who would tell the control centre, and the information would then be passed to the police for them to investigate.
In Prof McGlynn's view, there is not much the police could do. On the other hand, James Turner QC contacted the BBC to say that there is a law - the Indecent Displays (Control) Act - which might form the basis for a prosecution.
Five years ago, in the US, the executive director of a group called Morality in the Media had an experience similar to mine on an aeroplane. As a result, the group - now called the National Center On Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) - campaigned to get the major US airlines to stop passengers watching porn.
"All of them except for one agreed to improve their policies to prohibit passengers from viewing this material during flights and agreed to better train their flight attendants on what to do," Haley Halverson of NCOSE told me.
Buses don't have flight attendants, though. Nor do trains. And even if police wanted to investigate incidents of porn-watching on public transport, passengers can get off whenever they like.
How would officers catch them and question them then?
Siobhann Tighe and Prof Clare McGlynn spoke to Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour, on BBC Radio 4. Listen to the discussion here.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38611265 | news_magazine-38611265 |
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Brexit: Berlin business leaders unimpressed with UK's message - BBC News | 2017-01-23 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | An appeal over a post-Brexit trade deal was met with sniggers in Berlin, Damien McGuinness writes. | Business | Two British officials failed to win favour from German business leaders in Berlin
The distinguished audience members were too polite to heckle. But the eye rolling, frowns and audible tutting made it quite clear how the Brexiteers' message was going down with German business leaders.
Owen Paterson, a former minister and Conservative MP, and John Longworth, co-chair of Leave Means Leave, came to Berlin on Saturday with a clear mission - to persuade German business leaders to lobby Chancellor Angela Merkel to give Britain a good trade deal.
They should have been on safe territory.
The two men are confident, witty speakers with impressive business and free-trade credentials.
Mr Longworth is a former head of the British Chamber of Commerce. Mr Paterson's years spent trading in Germany meant he could open his address with a few remarks in German - which drew an appreciative round of applause - and a well-judged joke about multilingual trade.
But it turned out they had entered the lion's den.
The laughter from the audience quickly turned to sniggers as they heard the UK described as "a beacon of open, free trade around the world".
Westminster's decision to leave the world's largest free trade area does not look like that to Germany.
When Europe was blamed for spending cuts and a lack of British health care provision, there were audible mutters of irritation from the audience.
The occasional light-hearted attempts at EU-bashing - usually guaranteed to get a cheap laugh with some British audiences - was met with stony silence.
Brexiteers argue German manufacturers will want to still sell to UK customers
In another setting - at another time - this gathering of the elite of Germany's powerful business community would have lapped up the British wit.
Every ironic quip would ordinarily have had them rolling in the aisles. But British charm does not travel well these days.
Rattled by the economic havoc Brexit could unleash, Germans are not in the mood for gags.
Britain used to be seen by continentals as quirky and occasionally awkward - but reliably pragmatic on the economy.
However, since the Brexit vote, Europeans suspect endearing eccentricity has morphed into unpredictable irrationality. The UK has become the tipsy, tweedy uncle, who after too much Christmas sherry has tipped over into drunkenly abusive bore.
When the audience was asked how many of them welcomed Brexit, only one hand went up - and it turned out that belonged to a businessman who wanted more EU reform and was fed up with Britain slowing things down.
Brexiteer rhetoric over the past year has often focused on the size of Britain's market and how keen German manufacturers are to sell to British customers.
Many leave campaigners remain convinced that German business leaders will force Mrs Merkel to grant the UK a special free trade deal in order not to lose British trade.
But that's not what's happening.
Angela Merkel has said Britain will not be able to cherry-pick the best bits of the single market
Instead German firms are remarkably united in their support of the chancellor in her rejection of British "cherry-picking" - even if it means losing business in the short-term.
When you talk to German bosses they say their top priority is in fact the integrity of the single market, rather than hanging on to British customers.
That's because their supply chains span across the EU.
A German car might be designed in Germany, manufactured in Britain, with components made in various parts of eastern Europe, to be sold in France. This only works if there are no cross-border tariffs, paperwork or red tape.
German companies - more often family-owned and with deeper connections to their regional heartlands - tend to look at the wider picture, sometimes thinking more long-term.
They supported Mrs Merkel on sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, even though that meant a blow to trade. The financial hit was deemed less bad for business than worsening unrest in nearby Ukraine.
The same calculations are being made over Brexit.
Theresa May's speech on Brexit last week made front page news in Germany
This doesn't mean German business is thinking politically, and not economically. But rather, it indicates a wider attitude towards how business can thrive long-term.
German business leaders tell you that the British market may be important. But it is only one market, compared to 27 markets in the rest of the EU.
Leave campaigners also still underestimate the political and historical significance of the EU for Germany, where it is seen as the guarantor of peace after centuries of warfare.
It is tempting to see the clashes between Westminster and the EU27 as one big decades-long misunderstanding of what the EU is.
An idealistic peace-project versus a pragmatic free-trade zone. This makes it even more ironic that London may reject the free-trade area it spent so much time creating.
Germany was shocked and saddened by the UK's vote to leave the EU. But the decision was quickly accepted in Berlin.
"The Brits never really wanted to be members of the European Union anyway," is something you often hear these days.
Many Germans now want to just work out a solution that does the least amount of harm to the European economy. Hence the irritation in Germany when British politicians keep rehashing the pre-referendum debate.
"It was frustrating to hear the same old arguments from the referendum campaign," one business leader told me when I asked him what he had thought about Saturday's discussion.
Germany has moved on, he said. Maybe Britain should too.
The Brexiteers might not have persuaded their audience in Berlin. But if they return to London with a better idea of the mood in Germany's business community, then the trip may well have been worthwhile. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38707997 | news_business-38707997 |
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100 things we didn't know last year - BBC News | 2017-01-01 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Each week we publish a list of 10 things we didn't know the week before. Here are 100 of our favourites from 2016. | Magazine | Interesting and unexpected facts from daily news stories are collected in the BBC's regular feature, 10 things we didn't know last week. Here is a selection of the best from 2016.
1. You could probably outrun a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
2. Ronald Reagan suggested that Margaret Thatcher read Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy in order to understand Soviet thinking.
3. German tourists can travel to more countries without a visa than any other nationality.
4. People played with a fifth suit of cards in the 1930s.
5. There are about three million shipwrecks lying on the ocean floor.
6. YouTube was originally meant to be an online dating site.
7. Parents are worse at telling if their child is lying than complete strangers.
8. London Underground journeys take more than four times longer for disabled people.
9. Air rage is more common on flights with a first-class cabin.
10. Boris Johnson knows how to sing Ode to Joy in German.
11. The spice turmeric may help stave off dementia
12. The world's most dangerous school run may be in south-western China, where children have to climb down an 800m cliff.
13. The oldest world title in sport is for real tennis and it dates back to 1740.
14. Male sparrows retaliate when females are unfaithful by providing less food.
16. Sadness causes more road accidents than tiredness.
17. The tattoo policy of the US Marine Corps is 32 pages long.
18. Exercising four hours after learning can help you remember information.
19. The speed Batman reaches while gliding through the air would probably kill him on landing.
22. Trevor Nunn has directed every one of Shakespeare's plays.
23. Prime Minister Theresa May owns more than 100 cookbooks - but none by Delia Smith.
24. The fertility drug Pergonal was developed using gallons of nuns' urine.
25. Even in the early 1970s, women in the UK frequently had to get a male relative's signature to get a loan.
26. Every winter, great white sharks swim for 30 to 40 days to congregate at a particular spot halfway between Mexico and Hawaii. No-one knows why.
27. Fewer than one in five listed statues in the UK are of women.
28. Every English elm is descended from a single tree imported by the Romans.
29. The "Arsenal" letters outside the football club's stadium are an anti-attack measure.
30. "Burn" is the most heavy metal word in the English language, and "particularly" is the least.
32. There are at least 42 different fares for rail travel between London Euston and Birmingham, ranging from £6 to £119.
34. One female Greenland shark is around 400 years of age, making the species the longest-living vertebrate known on Earth.
35. Only about half of perceived friendships are mutual.
36. Holding your coffee cup from above in a claw-like grip is the best way to prevent it from spilling.
37. A hot bath could be better than cycling at lowering the blood sugar levels of type-2 diabetics
38. Being the sole breadwinner is bad for men's health but good for women's.
40. A fifth of UK parents regret the names they gave their children.
41. New Yorkers would pay $56 a month to trim a minute off their commute.
42. Georgetown University in Washington sold 272 slaves in 1838 to help pay off the institution's debts.
43. Mayors in Pakistan can run cities from jail.
44. It would take 112,000 years to fly to the nearest Earth-like world travelling at 25,000mph.
46. In the Grand Canyon, the US postal service delivers mail by mule.
47. It's possible to be arrested for being drunk while riding a mobility scooter.
48. Intelligent people tend to be messier and swear more than others.
49. Protesters at a Republican party convention are banned from carrying tennis balls but are allowed to carry guns.
50. Bees spit water at each other in hot weather.
51. In some remote areas of Malawi, parents pay a man to have sex with their daughters at the age of 12 or 13.
53. At US airports, the usual limits on taking liquids through security do not apply if the liquid is holding live fish.
54. There is a scientific reason why some people have "uncombable" hair.
55. Some porn sites have a voiceover function for blind people that explains what's going on.
56. So many Ford Sierra Cosworths were stolen or written off that surviving models have become very valuable.
57. The son of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar works as an architect in Argentina.
58. There is a way to get people with strong views to consider alternative arguments (that doesn't involve shouting or violence).
59. Doctors estimate dying patients will live twice as long as they actually do.
60. How drunk you think you are depends on how drunk your friends are.
61. A pack of Smarties is more likely to be missing red than any other colour.
62. Dating app Tinder has 37 options for defining gender, beyond male or female.
63. Three British and three Dutch World War Two ships have vanished from the bottom of the Java Sea.
64. Someone has a job making wooden tanks for Islamic State.
65. You can get pregnant while already being pregnant.
66. Industrial spills may be more dangerous in cold weather.
67. London's benchmark interest rate, Libor, was invented by a Greek banker arranging a loan for Iran.
68. The most historically accurate recent Oscar contender is Selma and the least is The Imitation Game.
69. The new Bank of England £5 note is not suitable for vegetarians...
70. ...But you can use it to play vinyl records.
71. Fidel Castro's obituary cost the New York Times more man and woman hours over the years than any other article in the newspaper's history.
73. Under triathlon rules, competitors are allowed to help each other.
74. There are only 28 websites on the internet in North Korea.
75. A litre of cow urine is more valuable to an Indian farmer than a litre of milk.
76. More than 200 UK drivers are at least 100 years old.
77. Giraffes are four species, not one.
78. Most British tourists in the Spanish resort of Magaluf are on their first holiday without their families.
79. People spend 1.3 years of their life on average deciding what to watch on television.
80. Heading a football can reduce your memory for 24 hours.
82. The world's top institution for undergraduates, measured by Nobel prize winners per 10,000 students, is the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.
83. Your doctor's political preferences can influence the treatment they recommend.
84. Close-protection security consultants work on the principle that a client should never be more than eight seconds from rescue.
85. Teenage acne is not all bad news: Unblemished skin ages faster.
86. The mammal that kills the most members of its own species is not the human, the bear or the wolf, but the meerkat.
87. Putting an image of a flat screen TV on a box containing a bicycle reduces the chance of damage during delivery by up to 80%.
88. Riding a rollercoaster can help you pass kidney stones.
89. You can run over a golf ball with a steamroller and still not damage it.
90. About 1.7% of the UK population identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.
91. Replacing the artificial colouring in blue M&Ms would require twice the current global supply of the natural alternative.
93. Rainbows can also occur at night.
94. You can't return or rescind a Nobel prize.
95. Drivers in China who dazzle other road users with full-beam headlights are made to stare into the lights for a minute as punishment.
96. The UK's National Sperm Bank has taken on only seven men.
97. Chimpanzees are as good at recognising each other's bottoms as humans are at recognising faces.
98. Trees on city streets may worsen rather than reduce air pollution.
99. Women can improve their chances of winning board games against men by playing rock music in the background.
Seen a thing? Tell the Magazine on Twitter using the hashtag #thingididntknowlastweek
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38315407 | news_magazine-38315407 |
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Theresa May's Brexit speech: What does it mean for free trade? - BBC News | 2017-01-19 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | BBC Economics Correspondent Andrew Walker answers your questions on Theresa May's Brexit speech. | UK | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May confirmed that the final deal would be put to the vote in Parliament
Following Theresa May's widely anticipated speech on Brexit on Tuesday, you sent us your questions.
The impact on free trade was the most asked about subject. Below, BBC Economics Correspondent Andrew Walker looks at two of the most popular questions you asked:
The only thing on the list above that the Prime Minister has said she wants to opt out of is the free movement of people - or rather the free movement of people to work and settle in the UK.
She is very keen on the free movement of goods and services. She said in the speech that she wants: "the freest possible trade in goods and services between Britain and the EU's member states."
She does not want to opt out of that.
The freest possible means what we have today. For example: no tariffs on goods travelling in either direction, mutual recognition of each other's technical standards, the freedom to offer services across borders and more.
In short, it means the provisions of the single market that apply to goods and services. It would be theoretically possible to go further still, especially in services. The European Commission says there are still barriers and it wants to tackle them.
But for now, the single market as it is represents the freest we can get.
But Mrs May seems to accept that we can't have that without also accepting freedom of movement for workers. And that is one of her red lines.
So once that has gone, the freest possible movement for goods and services will presumably mean something less than the single market, something less than we have today.
How much less will be a matter for negotiation. In fact, the answer to many questions about what will "X" be like when we leave will depend on the outcome of the negotiations. We can speculate but we can't know for sure.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some of the headlines from Theresa May's vision for future UK-EU relations
The UK does have some cards which will encourage the EU to lean towards what the Prime Minister wants. Some European businesses have the UK as an important export market - German car makers for example.
During the referendum campaign many Leave supporters were keen to point out that the rest of the EU exports more to the UK than the UK exports to them. That, they argued, means they need the UK more than we need them.
The counter-argument is that EU exports to the UK as a share of national income are a lot smaller than trade in the opposite direction. That suggests UK/EU trade matters more to us than to them.
Another reason that the remaining EU might want to be cooperative in trade negotiations is that many continental businesses would want to continue to be able to use the City of London as a financial centre. On the other hand some other cities, including Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin, might fancy a bigger slice of that pie.
So there are some economic reasons for the EU to share Mrs May's desire for free movement of goods and services.
But there is an important political issue that pulls them in the opposite direction. They don't want life in the UK to look too rosy at a time when there are rising Eurosceptic movements in many countries beyond the UK. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38658697 | news_uk-38658697 |
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Is free trade good or bad? - BBC News | 2017-01-19 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Free trade has been a dominant part of the post-WW2 global economy, but it is now being challenged. | Business | Trade makes the world go round, but how free can it remain?
Free trade is something of a sacred cow in the economics profession.
Moving towards it, rather slowly, has also been one of the dominant features of the post-World War Two global economy.
Now there are new challenges to that development.
The UK is leaving the European Union and the single market - though in her speech this week, British Prime Minister Theresa May promised to push for the "freest possible trade" with European countries and to sign new deals with others around the world.
Most obviously Donald Trump has raised the possibility of quitting various trade agreements, notably Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. Even the World Trade Organization (WTO) has proposed new barriers to imports.
In Europe, trade negotiations with the United States and Canada have run into difficulty, reflecting public concerns about the impact on jobs, the environment and consumer protection.
The WTO's Doha Round of global trade liberalisation talks has run aground.
The World Trade Organization is based in Geneva and came into being in 1995
The case for trade without government imposed barriers has a long history in economics.
Adam Smith, the 18th Century Scottish economist who many see as the founding father of the subject, was in favour of it. But it was a later British writer, David Ricardo in the 19th Century, who set out the idea known as comparative advantage that underpins much of the argument for freer trade.
It is not about countries being able to produce more cheaply or efficiently than others. You can have a comparative advantage in making something even if you are less efficient than your trade partner.
When a country shifts resources to produce more of one good there is what economists call an "opportunity cost" in terms of how much less of something else you can make. You have a comparative advantage in making a product if the cost in that sense is less than it is in another country.
Economic arguments over free trade date back to the 19th Century
If two countries trade on this basis, concentrating on goods where they have a comparative advantage they can both end up better off.
Another reason that economists tend to look askance at trade restrictions comes from an analysis of the impact if governments do put up barriers - in particular tariffs or taxes - on imports.
There are gains of course. The firms and workers who are protected can sell more of their goods in the home market. But consumers lose out by paying a higher price - and consumers in this case can mean businesses, if they buy the protected goods as components or raw materials.
The textbook analysis says that those losses add up to more than the total gains. So you get the textbook conclusion that it's best to avoid protection.
Many lower-skilled workers in developed economies feel they have lost out in the drive to globalisation
And this conclusion is regardless of what other countries do. The 19th Century French economist Frederic Bastiat set it out it like this:
"It makes no more sense to be protectionist because other countries have tariffs than it would to block up our harbours because other countries have rocky coasts."
The implication is that unilateral trade liberalisation makes perfect sense.
A more recent theory of what drives international trade looks at what are called economies of scale - where the more a firm produces of some good, the lower cost of each unit.
The associated specialisation can make it beneficial for economies that are otherwise very similar to trade with one another. This area is known as new trade theory and the Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman was an important figure in developing it.
The basic idea that it's good to have freer trade has underpinned decades of international co-operation on trade policy since World War Two.
Free trade has been a cornerstone of the post-war world
The period since 1945 has been characterised by a gradual lowering of trade barriers. It happened in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which began life in 1948 as a forum for governments to negotiate lower tariffs.
Its membership was initially small, but by the time it was replaced by the World Trade Organization in 1995, most countries had signed up.
The motivation was to end or reduce the protectionism or barriers to trade that went up in the 1930s. It is not generally thought that those barriers caused the Great Depression, but many do think they aggravated and prolonged it.
The process of post-war trade liberalisation was driven largely by a desire for reciprocal concessions - better access to others' markets in return for opening your own.
But what is the case against free (or at least freer) trade?
First and foremost is the argument that it creates losers as well as winners.
What Ricardo's theory suggested was that all countries engaging in trade could be better off. But his idea could not address the question of whether trade could create losers as well as winners within countries.
Economic theory says if governments adopt protectionism, total losses will outweigh total gains
Work by two Swedish Nobel Prize winners, Eli Hecksher and Bertil Ohlin, subsequently built on by the American Paul Samuelson developed the basic idea of comparative advantage in a way that showed that trade could lead to some groups losing out.
Putting it very briefly, if a country has a relatively abundant supply of, for example, low-skilled labour, those workers will gain while their low-skilled counterparts in countries where it is less abundant will lose.
There has been a debate about whether this approach fits the facts, but some do see it as a useful explanation of how American industrial workers (for example) have been adversely affected by the rise of competition from countries such as China.
A group of economists including David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked at the impact on areas where local industry was exposed to what they call the China shock.
"Adjustment in local labour markets is remarkably slow, with wages and labour-force participation rates remaining depressed and unemployment rates remaining elevated for at least a full decade after the China trade shock commences.
At this week's World Economic Forum, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned against isolationist moves that could spark a trade war
Still if you accept that overall countries gain, then the winners could in principle fully compensate the losers and still be better off.
Such programmes do exist. Countries that have unemployment benefits provide assistance to people who have lost their jobs. Some of those people will have been affected by competition from abroad.
The United States has a programme that is specially targeted for people who lose their jobs as a result of imports, called Trade Adjustment Assistance.
But is it enough? Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank in Washington writes: "The winners have never tried to fully compensate the losers, so let's stop claiming that trade benefits us all."
Which arguments will Donald Trump be listening to in the White House?
In any case, it is not clear that compensation would do the trick. As Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor noted, they may lose their jobs and also "the dignity of work".
He is keen on maintaining open markets for trade, but recognises the need to do something about what you might call the side effects.
To return to recent political developments - Donald Trump clearly did get support from many of those people in areas of the US where industry has declined.
We don't yet know how he will address those issues when he takes his place in the White House.
Perhaps his threats to introduce new tariffs are just that - threats. But the post-war trend towards more liberalised international trade looks more uncertain than it has for many years. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38209407 | news_business-38209407 |
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Mexico and Mr Trump: What will happen to trade ties? - BBC News | 2017-01-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Caroline Bayley reports on the impact the Nafta trade deal has had in Mexico, and what its potential demise under US President-elect Trump would mean for the country. | Business | Donald Trump is not popular in Mexico
Mexico is being blamed by President-elect Donald Trump for taking jobs from the US.
He's been putting pressure on US companies not to move jobs south, and this week Ford announced it was investing in its factory in Michigan rather than building a new plant in Mexico.
During his election campaign, Mr Trump threatened to rip up Nafta, the free trade agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico, which has been in place for 23 years.
But what impact has Nafta had in Mexico, and what would its potential demise mean for the country?
In a leafy square in Mexico City on a warm December evening a group of excited children are hitting a brightly coloured pinata stuffed with sweets. A fellow passer-by explains to me that pinatas are a Mexican tradition, particularly at Christmas and birthdays.
However, Mexicans also like pinatas "in the shape of everything we want to hit", he says. "The latest trend is Donald Trump pinatas," he adds.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A look back at some of the things Donald Trump has said about Mexicans
Mr Trump is not popular in Mexico. He was incredibly rude about Mexicans during his election campaign, and at a time when the world seems to be turning away from free trade he threatened to end the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between the US, Mexico and Canada.
The important thing about Nafta is that companies importing and exporting between the three countries pay no tariffs. Mr Trump believes it's been bad for the US as cheaper Mexican labour has meant some US manufacturers have moved production across the border, resulting in job losses at home.
Nafta was implemented in 1994 and over the past 23 years Mexico has grown as a manufacturing hub. Today the United States and Mexico trade over $500bn (£400bn) in goods and services a year, equal to about $1.5bn a day. Mexico is the US's second-biggest export market, and the US is Mexico's largest.
Thierry Legros says without Nafta his farming business would be under threat
Red Sun Farms, a large vegetable-growing firm in central Mexico, depends on the free trade agreement. Its managing director, Thierry Legros, shows me into a vast greenhouse, 200m long, with row upon row of tomato plants. The company also grows peppers and exports 90% of its crop to the US and Canada.
So what would it mean if Mr Trump repealed the Nafta agreement completely with its tariff-free trading? "We might need to close the whole company," Thierry tells me. "It would be around 3,000 direct jobs, so with all the indirect that's quite a lot, probably double that."
Outside Thierry's office three flags flutter in the wind - one for each Nafta country.
The three Nafta flags at Red Sun Farms reflect the company's integration within the free trade area
Red Sun Farms even owns a farm in the US and sends Mexican workers over there. However, there's a stark wage differential, with pay significantly higher in the US.
"Right now with the exchange rate that's huge," Thierry explains, "it's about one to eight, one to 10."
These Red Sun Farms workers in Mexico earn far less than their counterparts in the US
As well as enabling Mexico to export freely, Nafta also opened the door to US imports, giving Mexican consumers much greater choice.
"It was an achievement, it was against history," says economic consultant Luis de la Calle, who was one of the negotiators of the free trade agreement.
"Most Mexicans thought that it was impossible or not convenient to have a strategic association with the US, and many people in the US never thought that Mexico could be their partner."
You can listen to In Business: Mexico and Mr Trump on BBC Radio 4 at 20:30 GMT on Thursday, 5 January and at 21:30 GMT on Sunday, 8 January.
Increased demand, as a result of free trade, forced Mexican manufacturers to improve quality.
Luis de la Calle says that before Nafta Mexico had three producers of TV sets, and the quality was "awful". But today, Mexico is "the largest manufacturer of TV sets in the world". They are exported and are "high quality, completely different from the protected market we had before".
The instantly recognisable VW Beetles are manufactured in Puebla, Mexico
Mexico is now a centre of manufacturing for overseas companies, such as the motor industry. General Motors and Ford both have factories in Mexico as well as the US.
But Donald Trump has put public pressure on US companies not to move production, and has threatened to impose import duties on cars coming in from Mexico. It's a sensitive subject and the American carmakers refused to be interviewed.
Donald Trump had this message for the car industry earlier this week
However, in the city of Puebla, a two-hour drive from the capital, the German car manufacturer Volkswagen is the biggest employer with 14,000 staff. It's the only place in the world where VW produces its famous Beetle, and as you enter the site you're greeted by a display of Beetles suspended in the air like a piece of installation art. The Golf and Jetta models are also produced here.
Thomas Karig from VW Mexico was tight-lipped about whether the firm had come under any pressure about jobs
Like the US carmakers, Volkswagen's Mexican production is integrated with its US plant. "We use a lot of parts coming from the US for assembly here in Mexico in Puebla, and our colleagues in Chattanooga in Tennessee - they use a lot of parts coming from Mexico," explains Thomas Karig from Volkswagen Mexico.
This integration is possible because there are no tariffs to pay each time components are sent from one Nafta country to another. But when I ask whether Volkswagen has come under pressure from Mr Trump about keeping jobs in the US, the atmosphere cools and there is a curt "no comment".
The Nafta agreement has not benefited everyone in Mexico though. Some small farmers were unable to compete with US agricultural imports and big Mexican rivals.
According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, from 1991 to 2007 some 4.9 million family farmers were displaced. Some found work with big exporting agricultural companies, but there was still a net loss of 1.9 million jobs.
Three of Aurelio's children are illegal migrants in the US
An hour's drive from Puebla I meet Aurelio, whose family has farmed a tiny patch of land since 1925. Deep in the dry countryside he raises a few cows.
Job opportunities are scarce and three of his five children have migrated illegally to the US where they have found work painting cars. But Donald Trump has said he wants to deport illegal immigrants. Aurelio takes out his mobile phone and calls one of his sons in the US. Is his son worried about this, I ask.
His son says that if there is a chance of being deported they will have to look elsewhere, but adds: "Mexico is a tough choice because of lack of opportunities, violence, high taxes and the economic situation, so it wouldn't be easy."
President Obama has deported at least 2.4 million illegal immigrants so this isn't a new policy. And according to the Pew Research Center, by 2014 more Mexican immigrants returned to Mexico than migrated to the US.
Luis de la Calle says both the US and Mexico benefit from Nafta
Mr de la Calle acknowledges that the free trade agreement has split the country. He says there are two types of regions in Mexico.
"[There are] parts of the south of Mexico that are disconnected from international trade, that are lagging behind, where Nafta had little impact. Rates of growth are low, there is little investment, and you don't see large manufacturing operations."
In contrast to this, he says: "There are 16 or 17 other states that grow very fast, you see a lot of dynamism." These he describes as "Nafta states" with exporting businesses.
However, he dismisses Mr Trump's criticism of Mexico. "He says [Nafta's] been great for Mexico, actually his whole argument is that Mexico is doing so well. It's flattering."
He also claims that the US is benefiting from its close manufacturing links with Mexico.
However, when I ask who would come off worst if Nafta were repealed, the US or Mexico, he answers, "Mexico because we are smaller, but the US would lose quite a bit as well."
Donald Trump wasn't the first US presidential candidate to criticise Nafta. Hillary Clinton and even Barack Obama did so on their campaign trails.
But abandoning it completely? The US may find it has too much to lose and perhaps Mr Trump has realised that too.
In Business: Mexico and Mr Trump is on BBC Radio 4 at 20:30 GMT on Thursday, 5 January and at 21:30 GMT on Sunday, 8 January. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38507482 | news_business-38507482 |
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Bernie Ecclestone: Why F1's titanic leader was loved and loathed - BBC Sport | 2017-01-24 | None | Bye, bye, Bernie. F1's revolutionary, roguish leader has finally vacated the throne he created - so how will he be remembered? | null | Bernie Ecclestone stands a little under 5ft 3in tall but for 40 years has wielded a giant influence in Formula 1 with canniness, wit and not a little menace.
At times, Ecclestone has had close to absolute power. So the end of his reign following the takeover of the sport by US giant Liberty Media represents a seismic change.
Ecclestone, now 86, is a tactician of remarkable skill, and a deal-maker extraordinaire who used chutzpah and brinksmanship to turn F1 into one of the world's biggest sports, form relationships with world leaders such as Russian president Vladimir Putin and make himself and many of F1's participants multi-millionaires.
In a remarkable four decades, Ecclestone revolutionised the sport:
• None He bought the Brabham team and won two world titles, including a historic first with a turbo engine in 1983.
• None Turned F1 into the biggest annual sporting event in the world, outstripped only by the Olympics and the World Cup.
• None Controversially took the commercial rights away from the teams and made himself a billionaire.
• None Fought off a criminal prosecution for blackmail that arose from a complicated series of sales of those rights.
• None Carved a notorious reputation for making controversial statements, including saying Adolf Hitler was "able to get things done" and likening women to "domestic appliances".
But what made him mind-bendingly - some would say obscenely - rich is what brought him down in the end.
Selling on the commercial rights to F1 is the source of Ecclestone's vast wealth. But it was never about the money, per se - it was about the deal. And now the deal has done him in.
Restructuring the finances of the sport in the first years of this decade, Ecclestone also reorganised its decision-making process.
He did it to increase his power, but the structure he set up inadvertently neutered him and gave the big teams - particularly Mercedes and Ferrari - power to block him. This has led to log-jam.
The latest company to buy the sport - USA's Liberty Media - has looked at this, at a skewed prize-money structure, at a policy that is threatening to price out much-loved historic races in favour of characterless new ones in countries with questionable regimes, at a refusal to engage with digital media, and several other issues, and decided to ease him out.
Ecclestone is held in genuinely high regard within F1 for everything he has achieved but, outside a handful of acolytes, few will be genuinely sorry to see him go.
There has been a feeling for some years that he is a man out of time, that the sport needed to move on. In truth, this has contributed to the stalemate in F1 - people were simply waiting him out.
Many believe his departure will be good for the sport. However, it will certainly make F1 less colourful, and it is hard to imagine seeing the like of him again.
Where did he come from?
Ecclestone's involvement in F1 started in the late 1950s. After a brief driving career in lower categories, he emerged as a manager for the British F1 driver Stuart Lewis-Evans but then disappeared from racing when Lewis-Evans was killed in a fiery crash at the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix.
He appeared again in the late 1960s, again as a manager, this time to the Austrian Jochen Rindt. He was already very rich.
What had the fortune come from? "Property," Ecclestone says. All manner of rumours have abounded, including that he was involved in organising the Great Train Robbery, when £2.6m was stolen from a Royal Mail train in Buckinghamshire in 1963.
"Nah," Ecclestone once said. "There wasn't enough money on that train. I could have done something better than that."
Rindt became F1's first and so far only posthumous world champion after he was killed at the 1970 Italian Grand Prix. But this time Ecclestone did not retreat.
Within a couple of years, he bought Brabham from its founder, the three-time world champion Sir Jack Brabham, and began establishing his power base.
How did he become omnipotent?
Back then, circuit deals and television rights were operated on a somewhat haphazard, piecemeal basis. Ecclestone offered to look after them on the teams' behalf and wasted little time in building his influence.
He persuaded television companies to buy F1 as a package, rather than pay for individual races. That guaranteed vastly increased exposure, and the sport's popularity grew increasingly quickly.
The vast growth of F1 from what it was then to what it is today arguably started in earnest after the 1976 season, when a championship battle between the playboy Englishman James Hunt and the ascetic Austrian Niki Lauda caught the public's imagination.
By the 1980s, F1 was becoming a global sport, more and more races were being shown live, and a generation of charismatic stars enhanced its appeal - Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet and, most of all, Ayrton Senna.
Ironically, Senna's death in 1994 only increased its reach and shortly after that the sport started on the route that has led to Ecclestone's departure.
The beginning of the end
Controversially, in the mid-1990s, Ecclestone struck a deal with his long-time friend and ally Max Mosley, who was then the president of governing body the FIA. It saw his own company become the rights holder of F1, taking over from the teams' collective body that Ecclestone previously ran.
This led to a furious row with some of the teams - particularly McLaren, Williams and Tyrrell - who claimed what Ecclestone was doing was illegal and that he was effectively robbing them.
But the complainants were eventually bought off. Ecclestone then set about monetising his new asset.
In 2000, Mosley granted Ecclestone the commercial rights to F1 until the end of 2110 for a one-off fee of $360m. Even then, many were shocked by the relatively paltry amount of money that changed hands to secure such a lucrative and lengthy deal.
This led to a dizzying series of sales as the rights transferred through various institutions. A German cable TV company bought them, and then collapsed, which led to its creditors - banks - taking its assets. In 2006, the German bank BayernLB sold its 47.2% stake in F1 to an investment company called CVC Capital Partners.
CVC ran the sport for 10 years, employing Ecclestone as chief executive and empowering him to carry on as before, before selling to Liberty last September, in the deal completed on Monday.
But the sale from BayernLB to CVC is what ultimately led to the court cases on bribery charges that Ecclestone fought and survived a couple of years ago - and which he ended by paying the German courts $100m to end the case, without a presumption of guilt or innocence.
It did not escape notice that a man charged with bribery had paid - perfectly legally under German law - to end a criminal trial.
What is he like?
Despite his diminutive stature, Ecclestone is a forbidding character. Stories abound in F1 of real and threatened menace.
A conversation with him is akin to juggling sand - he ducks and dodges and avoids questions with obfuscation, distraction and quick wit, a dizzying mix of truths, half-truths and fallacies.
He is approachable but apart, engaging but unknowable. After a verbal sparring match, he will sometimes reach up and chillingly pat you on the cheek, not unlike a mafia don in the movies.
For years, the more unsavoury aspects of Ecclestone's stewardship were glossed over or laughed off - largely because he was making those he was working for so much money.
But in recent years, the tone in F1 has changed as more and more people began to feel he was past his sell-by date.
He was a reluctant embracer of the internet age, and rejected entreaties to try to use it to extend F1's reach.
His argument was that he saw no way to make money out of it; others argued that his modus operandi of pursuing only the deal, the bottom line, and disregarding its potential longer-term effects was doing more harm than good.
His simple model - sell television rights and races to the highest bidder no matter who it was; squeeze the highest price possible out of continuing partners - created an annual global revenue in the region of $1.5bn (£1.2bn).
Yet he became increasingly haphazard and intransigent in his decision-making, coming up with unpopular ideas such as a double-points finale in 2014 or the fiasco over the change to the qualifying format at the start of 2016 - to try to spice up the sport.
He was responding to declining audiences, but seemed to ignore the fact they were dropping largely because of his switch away from free-to-air towards pay television in key markets, and the questionable effect on the racing of gimmicks such as the DRS overtaking aid and tyres on which drivers could not push flat out.
The declining audiences have led to a crisis of confidence within the sport, the response to which is a new set of rules for 2017 that mean faster, more dramatic-looking cars. But already there are concerns that these may not have the desired effect.
But while the problems are real, the fact remains that F1 has just changed hands in a deal that values it at $8bn (£6.4bn).
And that is almost entirely down to Ecclestone and what he has built with his remarkable personality, vision and drive.
Controversial he certainly was; past his best he may have been. But for all his faults, Bernie Ecclestone is a unique and titanic figure who turned what was essentially a niche activity into a glittering global enterprise that to many represents an intoxicating mix of glamour, danger and raw, unmatched drama.
Gone from power he may be, but he will never be forgotten. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/38721123 | rt_formula1_38721123 |
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Was Buzzfeed right on Donald Trump dossier? - BBC News | 2017-01-12 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Buzzfeed's decision to publish the Donald Trump dossier raises many questions about modern journalism. | Entertainment & Arts | Donald Trump has criticised the decision to publish the dossier
Was Buzzfeed right to publish the Trump dossier?
That comes down to editorial judgement, which is to news what eggs are to an omelette - the essential ingredient.
That said, I opened this post with a question which I will not answer - partly because I work for the BBC and it is not my place to pass judgement on other news organisations' editorial calls and partly because those editorial calls are subjective.
But as BBC media editor, and as a former editor of The Independent who had to make thousands of these calls, often against tight deadlines and under great pressure from the subjects of our stories, I want to explore some of the considerations that we editors have to make.
Hopefully that will illuminate the hugely controversial decision made this week by Buzzfeed.
Editorial judgement is ultimately a moral activity. It is an exercise in selection - which stories, facts, claims, pictures, words, ideas to publish, and which to leave out - that relies on several smaller judgements.
These include: the importance you attach to veracity; your own political persuasion; a sense of your audience's interest and - outside the BBC and unfortunately more common now the news business model is under such strain - a consideration of the commercial implications of publishing particular things.
The rectitude of all moral activity or actions - editorial judgement included - can be analysed along three criteria:
Let's look at Buzzfeed's decision to publish the dossier in terms of intentions and consequences.
Some people will argue that - whether you agree with it or not - there is a coherent case for putting information in the public domain even if you are not 100% certain it is true.
Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief, has spoken eloquently about how, in our digital era, publishers are no longer gatekeepers of information who demand to be trusted, arguing that Buzzfeed is simply a distributor.
His second argument is that because this publication was being circulated widely among government officials, it had tremendous news value and therefore it was in the public interest to put it in the public domain with plenty of caveats so readers could make up their own minds.
I know from personal experience that, if you are a digital publisher whose content is free, you mainly make money from advertising, which is related to traffic and which you are under immense pressure to generate.
This ultimately commercial imperative can - and does - influence the editorial judgement of many publishers.
But let us be charitable to Buzzfeed and say that commercial considerations did not influence this editorial decision.
Buzzfeed has a young audience and often publishes journalism associated with the political Left, unlike Trump whose most stable constituency is older voters on the Right.
It is reasonable to conclude that one reason Buzzfeed published this dossier about Mr Trump is that it calculated it could harm someone it does not like.
So Buzzfeed, having put traffic considerations aside, and being antithetical to some of the things Mr Trump stands for, calculated that the document, which had potentially huge implications for the incoming president, deserved to be seen in its entirety by readers who want access to information.
That covers the intentions, but what of the consequences?
Huge traffic for this article must have been one consequence. Another is that Buzzfeed, as a powerful international brand, is now clearly associated with a willingness to publish information it knows could be false.
Another consequence is of course that the information contained in the dossier, some of it untrue, much of it not corroborated, is now in the public domain we call cyberspace. Perhaps citizens across the globe are digesting it to better understand the incoming president.
Finally, life has been made harder for other news organisations, such as CNN, who Trump targeted in his remarkable press conference.
They have now been conflated with Buzzfeed under Trump's pernicious umbrella term "fake news".
Buzzfeed could reasonably say it is not its job to secure access to Mr Trump for CNN - and in any case the president-elect was not exactly friendly with the mainstream media before the dossier's publication.
It will be for editors and citizens everywhere to decide, in balancing Buzzfeed's intentions with the (largely foreseeable) consequences, whether it made a correct editorial judgement.
That in turn depends on your moral position - your commitment to truth and so on.
What really interests me is that Mr Smith is saying that the digital revolution has redefined journalism, creating publishers who are prepared to put lots of information into the public domain without verifying it.
Julian Assange's Wikileaks has put huge amounts of information into the public domain
There is a difference, however, between Wikileaks, who do that sort of thing, and what most journalists understand their role to be: corroborating information before making selections as to what should be published.
In a sense, Mr Smith's position is an argument against journalism, in that being gatekeepers who curate and edit the world is precisely what many hacks believe their role to be.
Just as traditional media included many different types of publisher - tabloids v broadsheets, for example - so new, digital media include those who exhaustively check their facts and proceed with caution and those who are prepared to publish unverified allegations because they think the public should know.
The BBC is in the former camp, as my colleague Paul Wood argued in his excellent blog.
We work very hard to verify claims before publishing them: so much so that there are always big stories we know about that we cannot use, because we haven't got sufficiently solid sourcing. Our political editor Laura Kuenssberg has talked about this - and I can certainly relate to it.
Together with Mr Trump, this controversy helps to illuminate how fast the media is changing - and how it affects all our lives. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38600531 | news_entertainment-arts-38600531 |
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Does Catholic praise for Mary Magdalene show progress towards women priests? - BBC News | 2017-01-12 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Does increasing honour paid to Mary Magdalene in the Catholic Church show progress towards women priests? | UK | The emotional scene in John's Gospel in which Jesus calls to the grieving Mary Magdalene by name and she tries to touch him has inspired many artists. This is Titian's interpretation.
The gospels depict Mary Magdalene as one of Jesus' closest companions. Her emotional encounter with the risen Jesus and her supposed sinful past have fascinated Christians for centuries.
The latest of many films about her is released shortly. Its heroine, played by Rooney Mara, is billed as a young woman who joins "a radical new social movement" and "must confront the reality of Jesus' destiny and her own place within it".
There was amusement when cast members were pictured in ancient garb smoking on set.
Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church has enhanced the saint's status. Last year her Saint's Day (22 July) was promoted to a Feast, equal to those of most of the male Disciples.
Explaining the decision, Archbishop Arthur Roche pointed out that she had long been known as "apostle to the apostles, as she announces to the apostles what they in turn will announce to all the world."
A bizarre tradition in depictions of Mary Magdalene shows her naked, but clothed with her long red hair. Terracotta by Andrea Della Robbia of about 1590
This refers to John 20:17, in which Jesus sends her to the disciples to tell them he would ascend to God - "apostolos" in Greek means "one who is sent".
The Vatican press office said that 22 July would be "a feast, like that of the other apostles." A special prayer for use at Mass on that day says Jesus honoured her with the task of an apostle (apostolatus officio),
This has coincided with what some believe are signs of a change in Rome's attitude on the possibility of women priests.
The announcement on Mary Magdalene, and the setting up of a commission to discuss the ordination of women as deacons - not priests, but able to preside at weddings, christenings and funerals is an indication to some of change.
Tina Beattie, Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton, says: "I accept that it has to be slow, it has to be sensitively done... But my own feeling is that something is happening".
What was said about the feast day was encouraging, says Pippa Bonner of the campaign group Catholic Women's Ordination. "As soon as we spotted that we shared that news around - I think that's a very, very positive step."
Pope Francis met Sweden's female archbishop, Antje Jackelen. But on his journey home he said Catholic policy forbidding women priests had not changed.
In 1994 Pope John Paul II declared "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." Jesus had "called only men as his Apostles", The constant practice of the Church, he stressed, "has imitated Christ in choosing only men."
In November, while returning from a visit to Sweden where he worshipped with the country's female Lutheran archbishop, Antje Jackelen, Pope Francis was asked if his Church still ruled out women priests.
"Saint Pope John Paul II had the last clear word on this and it stands," he said.
Asked again if the ban was permanent, he responded: "If we read carefully the declaration by St. John Paul II, it is going in that direction."
Prof Beattie comments: "Whenever he's asked to give a reason he always references John Paul II... I'm not aware of him saying that under his own Papal authority."
Paloma Baeza played Mary Magdalene in The Passion, shown on BBC1 in 2008.
The idea that statements about Mary Magdalene and her "apostleship" contradict the rulings of John Paul II is discounted by many Catholic commentators.
"Many Catholics from the Anglican tradition will rejoice at her commemoration being raised to the dignity of a Feast, while thinking that the idea that this has any relevance to the closed question of women's ordination is entirely fanciful," says Fr Simon Chinery, spokesman for the Ordinariate set up by Pope Benedict as a home within the Catholic Church for Anglicans opposed to women bishops.
The idea of Mary Magdalene as a great sinner led to celebration of her as a great penitent, as in this haggard sculpture by Donatello (about 1455).
Austen Ivereigh, co-founder of the group Catholic Voices, says: "Declaring her day a Feast reflects a growing awareness that the role of women in the early Church was an important one, and needs to be recovered.
"But opening church leadership to women's unique gifts does not equate to opening the priesthood to women - at least that argument is not being made in any significant way in the Church at the moment,"
Arguments against women's ordination in the Church of England were ultimately unsuccessful.
But of course the Catholic Church is very different. In the CofE the argument over women's ordination went on for decades. But it was possible to say where it had got to by referring to the state of discussions in the General Synod. It could not have been stopped for good by a ruling like that of Pope John Paul.
Of all the hundreds of churches named after Mary Magdalene, the grandest is perhaps La Madeleine in Paris. Marochetti's statue on the high altar shows angels lifting her to heaven..
A change in doctrine can come as news to Catholics. And it can happen suddenly.
That was the case with Mary Magdalene herself. In the late 6th Century AD Pope Gregory I declared that she was also the woman in Luke 7:37 who "lived a sinful life", who washed Jesus's feet and dried them with her hair.
This fuelled the tradition that Mary Magdalene was not only a sinner (which Christianity says we all are) but a particularly colourful one, and inspired dozens of artistic portrayals of her ranging from ravaged penitent to borderline erotic.
But the revised Roman Calendar of 1969 simply declared that 22 July was indeed the day of Mary Magdalene, but she was not the woman in Luke 7:37. And that, after nearly 1,400 years. was that.
Is she, as the Anglican Rev Giles Fraser claims some see her, "the standard bearer for women's developing role in the Catholic church, and even... for women's ordination"?
The Church can hardly show it is moved by the late unofficial gospels - one of which talks of Jesus repeatedly kissing Mary Magdalene,; the recent crop of stories claiming she was actually married to Jesus; or the Rooney Mara film. And Pope Gregory's claims about her sinful life may be discredited. But all these things contribute to her prestige. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38528682 | news_uk-38528682 |
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What does post-truth mean for a philosopher? - BBC News | 2017-01-12 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | How are philosophers meant to make sense of the post-truth world? AC Grayling says he fears the worst and blames social media. | Education & Family | AC Grayling says a post-truth world threatens the "fabric of democracy"
"Post-truth" has come to describe a type of campaigning that has turned the political world upside down.
Fuelled by emotive arguments rather than fact-checks, it was a phrase that tried to capture the gut-instinct, anti-establishment politics that swept Donald Trump and Brexit supporters to victory.
Oxford Dictionaries made it the word of the year, defining it as where "objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief".
But what does this new world mean for academics and scientists whose whole purpose is trying to establish objective facts?
AC Grayling, public thinker, master of the New College of the Humanities, and Remain campaigner, views the post-truth world with undisguised horror.
The philosopher, awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours, warns of the "corruption of intellectual integrity" and damage to "the whole fabric of democracy".
But where does he think the post-truth world has come from?
"The world changed after 2008," says Prof Grayling - politics since the financial crash has been shaped by a "toxic" growth in income inequality.
As well as the gap between rich and poor, he says a deep sense of grievance has grown among middle-income families, who have faced a long stagnation in earnings.
With a groundswell of economic resentment, he says, it is not difficult to "inflame" emotions over issues such as immigration and to cast doubt on mainstream politicians.
Another key ingredient in the post-truth culture, says Prof Grayling, has been the rise of social media.
It's not the soundbite any more, but the "i-bite", he says, where strong opinion can shout down evidence.
"The whole post-truth phenomenon is about, 'My opinion is worth more than the facts.' It's about how I feel about things.
"It's terribly narcissistic. It's been empowered by the fact that you can publish your opinion. You used to need a pot of paint and a balaclava to publish your opinion, if you couldn't get a publisher.
Prof Grayling says the idea of post-truth has its roots in the financial crash
"But all you need now is an iPhone. Everyone can publish their opinion - and if you disagree with me, it's an attack on me and not my ideas.
"The fact that you can muscle your way on to the front row and be noticed becomes a kind of celebrity."
"Fake news" on social media became part of the post-election debate in the US - and Prof Grayling warns of an online culture that can't distinguish between fact and fiction.
"Put the words 'did the' into Google and one of the first things you see is, 'Did the Holocaust happen?' and the links will take you to claims that it didn't," he says.
This process is "corrosive of our public conversation and our democracy" and he warns of a culture where a few claims on Twitter can have the same credibility as a library full of research.
Has the success of Donald Trump changed the rules of campaigning?
Appropriately for a philosopher, he identifies post-modernism and relativism as the intellectual roots "lurking in the background" of post-truth.
"Everything is relative. Stories are being made up all the time - there is no such thing as the truth. You can see how that has filtered its way indirectly into post-truth."
He says this has unintentionally "opened the door" to a type of politics untroubled by evidence.
But hasn't this always been part of the battle of ideas?
"Post-truth" was Oxford Dictionaries' word of the year for 2016
Prof Grayling tells the story of Adlai Stevenson, the unsuccessful liberal contender in the 1952 US presidential election, who was told: "Mr Stevenson, every thinking person in America is going to vote for you. And he said: 'Great, but I need a majority.'"
But the philosopher argues that there has been a significant shift beyond the boundaries of election spinning and into something fundamentally different.
He places his argument into a historical perspective, saying the international landscape is more like the volatile, intolerant era before World War Two.
"There are some really uncomfortable parallels with the 1930s," he says.
"These guys have realised you don't need facts, you just lie." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38557838 | news_education-38557838 |
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Is it OK to watch porn in public? - BBC News | 2017-01-16 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | How would you feel if the person sitting next to you on the bus was watching porn - and what would you do about it? | Magazine | It's no secret that lots of people watch pornography on the internet. It's usually something done behind closed doors - but how would you feel about someone watching porn in public? The BBC's Siobhann Tighe describes a troubling experience on a London bus.
It had been a long day at work. I got on the bus at 7.30 in the evening and it was cold and drizzly. All the passengers were wrapped up in thick coats, hoods and hats.
Inside, the bus was softly lit and I was expecting to zone out on my way back home: just let the day go and switch off.
I sat on the lower deck beside a complete stranger and didn't give it a second thought. I was just relieved to get a seat. As we meandered through the London traffic, my gaze was drawn to my neighbour's phone. I wasn't being nosy but in the dim light of the bus, the brightness of his mobile caught my attention even though he was slanting it slightly away from me.
Although I didn't mean to or want to, I found myself looking over towards his mobile a few times and then it suddenly occurred to me what was going on. The man beside me was watching porn.
Once I realised, although I genuinely didn't mean to, my eyes kept on being pulled back to it. I couldn't quite believe it. First he was watching animated porn, with the two naked characters in lurid colours repeating their movements over and over again. Then he started watching a film, which seemed to begin in a petrol station with a large woman in a low-cut yellow top and blonde hair peering into the driver's window.
I didn't hear any sound, apart from a brief few seconds when my fellow passenger pulled the headphone jack out of his mobile, and then reinserted it.
The man didn't seem to notice my glances towards his phone, maybe because his hood was hampering his peripheral vision. He seemed oblivious to me and others around him, who admittedly wouldn't have been able to see what I saw.
We eventually arrived at his bus stop and because he had the window seat and I had the aisle, he made a motion that he needed to get out, and he muttered a "thank you" as he squeezed past me. I watched him get off and walk down the street.
I felt uncomfortable and annoyed, but I didn't do anything about it. I didn't say anything to him and neither did he pick up on any of my glances or quizzical looks. His eyes didn't meet mine so I couldn't even communicate my feelings non-verbally and it didn't occur to me to tell the driver. Even if I wanted to, it would have been difficult to get to the front of the bus because it was packed.
But when I got off, questions flooded into my mind about what I had just experienced. What if a child saw that? Are there any laws about looking at porn in public spaces? If there are laws, how easy are they to enforce? Why did this passenger feel public transport was an appropriate place to watch porn, and should I be worried from a safety point of view?
As a journalist, I also looked at it from his point of view, even though he made me feel uncomfortable. I asked myself: is he within his rights to look at porn on his private device wherever he is? Do civil liberties in our society grant him that freedom?
But in my heart, I was offended.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. From disgust to it's ok, Woman's Hour took to the streets to find out what you think of it.
When I mentioned it to friends, everyone seemed to have a story of their own, or an opinion.
"It happened to me when I was with my son having a coffee at a Swiss airport," one said. "Two Italian guys were sitting next to me. I said something because I felt safe and I sensed there'd be support if an argument ensued." It worked, and they politely switched the laptop off.
It certainly got everyone talking, but like me, no-one was sure where the law stood.
According to Prof Clare McGlynn from Durham University who specialises in the law around porn, there's little to stop someone viewing pornographic material in public - on public transport, in a library, in a park or a cafe, for example.
"It's like reading a book," she says. "They are viewing lawful material which is freely available, and restricting people's access to it presents other challenges."
In Prof McGlynn's view, the law would only prevent it if the porn viewer is harassing someone or causing a disturbance.
So, what do you do? Prof McGlynn describes it as a dilemma.
"It's like someone shouting at you, calling to you to 'Cheer up, love!'" says Prof McGlynn. "Do you confront it, or do you put your head down and walk along?"
But when I contacted Transport for London, they appeared to take the case very seriously.
"If someone has made you feel uncomfortable, for example by viewing pornographic material, please tell the police or a member of our staff," I was told.
A member of staff said passengers should report incidents like to this to the bus driver, who would tell the control centre, and the information would then be passed to the police for them to investigate.
In Prof McGlynn's view, there is not much the police could do. On the other hand, James Turner QC contacted the BBC to say that there is a law - the Indecent Displays (Control) Act - which might form the basis for a prosecution.
Five years ago, in the US, the executive director of a group called Morality in the Media had an experience similar to mine on an aeroplane. As a result, the group - now called the National Center On Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) - campaigned to get the major US airlines to stop passengers watching porn.
"All of them except for one agreed to improve their policies to prohibit passengers from viewing this material during flights and agreed to better train their flight attendants on what to do," Haley Halverson of NCOSE told me.
Buses don't have flight attendants, though. Nor do trains. And even if police wanted to investigate incidents of porn-watching on public transport, passengers can get off whenever they like.
How would officers catch them and question them then?
Siobhann Tighe and Prof Clare McGlynn spoke to Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour, on BBC Radio 4. Listen to the discussion here.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38611265 | news_magazine-38611265 |
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Newspaper headlines: Trump to 'make Brexit great' with trade deal - BBC News | 2017-01-16 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Donald Trump's first UK interview is one of many stories featured on Monday's front pages. | The Papers | President-elect Donald Trump is making the headlines on several of Monday's front pages.
His pledge to offer Britain a "quick" trade deal dominates the front page of the Times.
The president-elect tells the paper that Brexit will be a "great thing" and predicts that other countries will follow Britain's lead in leaving the EU, which he says has been "deeply damaged" by the migration crisis.
Mr Trump's interview is also the lead story for the Daily Telegraph which sees his remarks as a "boost" for Theresa May, ahead of her speech on Tuesday about the government's plans for Brexit.
The Guardian says Mr Trump has been warned that his "careless" use of Twitter could cause a security risk.
The outgoing director of the CIA, John Brennan, is quoted as saying the president-elect has a "tremendous responsibility" to protect the US and its interests.
The Daily Telegraph says Mr Brennan has cautioned Mr Trump against forging closer ties with Russia, arguing against the lifting of sanctions.
But the Daily Mail suggests the next US leader is planning a summit with Vladimir Putin "weeks" after becoming president, "as he seeks to improve relations with the Kremlin".
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to pocket £15m from the sale of an education website, according to the Daily Mirror.
The paper's headline describes the deal as a "payday sickener" as the NHS is "cut to the bone" while its editorial accuses Mr Hunt of being "born with a silver thermometer in his mouth" and calls on him to "study his conscience".
The Times agrees that the windfall is "politically embarrassing" following the government's disputes with junior doctors and GPs. The Daily Telegraph claims the deal will make Mr Hunt "the richest member of the cabinet".
Jeremy Hunt set to receive a £15m windfall is "politcally embarrassing" says the Times
Meanwhile the Daily Mail's lead story highlights what it calls "the scale of abuse of the crumbling NHS by health tourists".
It claims a hospital in Luton is attempting to recoup £350,000 from a Nigerian woman, who is said to have flown to Britain to give birth to twins.
The cancer specialist, Professor Meirion Thomas, tells the paper that similar, "staggering" debts should be investigated by NHS fraud officers, as "patients don't arrive at specialist hospitals with serious illnesses by chance".
The Sun says the half-brother of Prince Harry's American girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has apologised after he was arrested for alleged gun offences in the US. Thomas Markle Jr blamed the incident on a drunken argument, prompting the headline "Soz Sis! I was so sozzled".
The Daily Mail says other members of the family have insisted the arrest will not cause problems for Ms Markle's relationship with Prince Harry, but the Daily Express claims there is "some concern" in royal circles. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-38632547 | news_blogs-the-papers-38632547 |
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Pakistan's bloody week: Who is really to blame? - BBC News | 2017-02-17 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Pakistani military points the finger at Afghanistan and India, but some believe the answer is more complex. | Asia | More than 100 people have been killed across Pakistan since Sunday in a series of deadly militant attacks
As Pakistan picks up the pieces from Thursday evening's devastating bomb attack at the 800-year-old shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, the country's managers are looking for scapegoats abroad.
And the military has openly taken charge of the proceedings, relegating pretentions of political propriety to the background.
Soon after the bombing, army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa vowed that "each drop of [the] nation's blood shall be avenged, and avenged immediately".
There would be "no more restraint for anyone", he said.
The object of his remark was clear an hour later when the military announced that Pakistan had closed its border with Afghanistan to all traffic, including pedestrians.
On Friday morning, Afghan embassy officials were summoned to the army's headquarters in Rawalpindi. They were handed a list of 76 "terrorists" said to be hiding in their country, with the demand that they be arrested and handed over to Pakistan, the military says.
The fiery reaction came after a series of deadly militant attacks in five days from Sunday killed more than 100 people across Pakistan, including civilians, the police and soldiers.
This is the worst spell of violence since 2014, when Pakistan launched an operation to eliminate militant sanctuaries in its north-western tribal region.
The numerous militant attacks this week have raised questions about the authorities' security strategy
Violence decreased considerably as a result, with Pakistani leaders claiming the militants had been defeated. But this week, that sense of security has been blown away.
The latest surge in attacks comes amid reports of the reunification of some powerful factions of the Pakistani Taliban. Some of them have links with the Afghanistan-Pakistan chapter of the so-called Islamic State, which itself emerged from a former faction of the Pakistani Taliban.
Most of these groups have hideouts in border areas of Afghanistan, where they relocated after Pakistan launched its anti-militant operations.
Pakistan now accuses Afghanistan of tolerating these sanctuaries. It also blames India for funding these groups.
Officials say India and Afghanistan want to hurt Pakistan economically and undermine China's plans to build a multi-billion dollar "economic corridor" through the country.
At least 80 people were killed in the Sufi shrine attack on Thursday in Sehwan, Sindh province
But many in Pakistan and elsewhere don't buy that argument. They believe that militancy in Pakistan is actually tied to the country's own covert wars that sustain the economy of its security establishment.
In Kashmir, for example, the BBC has seen militants living and operating out of camps located close to army deployments. Each camp is placed under the charge of an official from what locals describe as the "launching wing" of the intelligence service.
In Balochistan, which has been under de-facto military control for nearly a decade, state agencies have allegedly been promoting Islamist militants to counter an armed separatist insurgency by secular ethnic Baloch activists.
Last year the regional police compiled a report on militant sanctuaries across several parts of Balochistan, but an operation recommended by the police in those areas was never launched.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Amateur footage from inside the shrine shows people fleeing the scene
Likewise, the world knows about the safe havens which the Afghan Taliban continue to enjoy in the Quetta region and elsewhere in Balochistan province, as well as in some parts of the tribal region in the north-west, from where they continue to launch raids inside Afghanistan.
Many observers believe that the Pakistani military uses militant proxies to advance its wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and takes advantage of the domestic security situation to control political decision making.
This is important, they say, if the military is to sustain a vast business, industrial and real estate empire which they believe enjoys unfair competitive advantages, state patronage and tax holidays.
But with such a cocktail of militant networks in the border region, many find it hard to buy the Pakistani line that India and Afghanistan are to blame.
All militants on the ground - from disputed Kashmir to Quetta and Afghanistan - come from the same stock. They are the second-generation standard bearers of an armed Islamist movement that was formed on Pakistani soil during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s.
They may have regional affiliations or partisan loyalties, but all have been raised under the influence of Wahhabi Islam and its various ideological offshoots, imported here by Arab warriors who came to help liberate Afghanistan.
As such, they are capable of forming complex group-alliances and cross-border linkages with each other. And they are all united in considering Shia Muslims and Sunni adherents of native Sufi Islam as misguided and heretical.
This may also partly answer the riddle as to how these groups manage to survive and operate even though they do not command popular support in any part of Afghanistan or Pakistan. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39003673 | news_world-asia-39003673 |
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What will the BP board decide to pay Bob Dudley this year? - BBC News | 2017-02-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The group chief executive's pay award will shed light on the executive pay debate. | Business | If BP group chief executive Bob Dudley was paid £14m for delivering a $6.5bn (£5.3bn)* loss last year, what on earth will he get paid for delivering a profit in 2017?
The answer to this will shed a lot of light on the politically current and intense debate around executive pay.
A year ago, Mr Dudley became the unwilling poster boy for angry shareholders when, at the BP annual general meeting, 59% of shareholders voted against his £14m pay award.
He got the money anyway because the vote was not binding, so the board did not have to do what the owners of the company wanted.
Under rules introduced by the coalition government and championed by then Business Secretary Vince Cable, shareholders can only reject a pay packet or the formula by which it is calculated every three years. That measure gave them more control than they had previously enjoyed but it clearly did not work or go far enough.
Remember, the formula by which Mr Dudley's pay was calculated in 2016 was approved by 95% of shareholders in 2014. Two years later they did not like the answer that formula spat out.
In defence of Mr Dudley, it was not his fault that BP's Deepwater Horizon platform exploded in 2010 killing 11 people and pumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (that was on the watch of his predecessor Tony Hayward).
The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig led to an environmental disaster
It was not his fault that the price of oil in 2015 came crashing down from more than $100 (£81) a barrel to around $30 (£24) during that year. Given the hand he was dealt, goes the argument, he did a pretty good job.
Some of the arguments will be the same this year. It is not his fault that he had to put another $7bn (£5.7bn) in the Deepwater kitty, but it is also not to his credit that the oil price rebounded to its current price of $56 (£45).
The chairman of BP's pay committee, Dame Ann Dowling, came in for a lot of stick for not using more discretion in adjusting the final pay award down last year and I understand that she has met with dozens of shareholder groups to avoid the same howls of protest this time around.
This April's vote on 2016 pay will also be non-binding but there will be a binding vote on the formula used to calculate pay packets for the next three years. It would take a particularly tin ear for BP to settle on a formula that finds it at such odds with its shareholders in the future.
Many executives are rewarded with a formula that takes a large account of relative performance. Doing badly - but less badly than the competition - means you did well. Even though the company lost money - you can often take home a hefty bonus.
The merits of this approach will be hotly debated this year as around half the companies in the FTSE 100 have binding votes on executive pay formulas. That will add real edge to a debate that has already been politically sharpened by Theresa May's warnings to corporate Britain over the rocketing disparity between bosses and workers' pay.
We are expecting new proposals on changing the manner, and in whose interests, UK companies are run when the government publishes its green paper on corporate governance in March.
I have presented the economic arguments as to why high performance-related pay is actually bad for companies and the economy here before. In short, it can prioritise cost cutting over investment which damages productivity and ultimately living standards. They are arguments that are gaining currency in Whitehall and it is not only shareholders who are disgruntled.
It may be only February, but this year's shareholder spring promises to be a belter.
*the headline loss of $6.5bn includes the compensation paid for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The number reported in our news story excludes one-off items to give a better sense of the underlying economics of the company. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38895706 | news_business-38895706 |
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Did Trump win because his name came first in key states? - BBC News | 2017-02-25 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A leading US political scientists thinks Donald Trump is president because his name came first on the ballot in some critical swing states. | Magazine | One of the world's leading political scientists believes Donald Trump most likely won the US presidential election for a very simple reason, writes Hannah Sander - his name came first on the ballot in some critical swing states.
Jon Krosnick has spent 30 years studying how voters choose one candidate rather than another, and says that "at least two" US presidents won their elections because their names were listed first on the ballot, in states where the margin of victory was narrow.
At first sight Krosnick's idea might seem to make little sense. Are voters really so easily swayed?
"Most of the people that voted Republican were always going to vote Republican and most of the people that voted Democrat were always going to vote Democrat," says James Tilley, professor of politics at the University of Oxford.
"There is a human tendency to lean towards the first name listed on the ballot," says Krosnick, a politics professor at Stanford University. "And that has caused increases on average of about three percentage points for candidates, across lots of races and states and years."
It has the biggest impact on those who know the least about the election they are voting in.
You are more likely to be affected, Krosnick says, "if you are feeling uninformed and yet feel obligated to cast a vote - or if you are feeling deeply conflicted, say between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump."
When an election is very close the effect can be decisive, Krosnick says - and in some US states, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the 2016 election was very close.
A ballot paper used in the 2016 presidential election in Wisconsin
"In the states where Trump won very narrowly, his name was also listed first on the ballot in most of those states," says Krosnick.
Some always list parties in the same order. Some allow the state's officials to make a new choice each time. Some put the party that lost in the last election at the top of the ballot. Some list alphabetically.
In 2002, a court overturned the result of the mayoral election in the Californian city of Compton, after hearing testimony about the name-order effect. The judge decided that in this instance, the decision to list one of the candidates first had been deliberate and unfair.
"Candidates whose last names begin with letters picked near the end of the lottery have it tough," Krosnick explained during the Compton court case. "They will never get the advantage that comes from being listed first on the ballot."
There are numerous cases where the primacy effect is thought to have influenced the result of an vote.
In January 2008, Hillary Clinton unexpectedly beat Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary - part of the long battle to decide which of them would become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate. Professor Michael Traugott from the University of Michigan believes that name order enabled Clinton to pick up extra votes. Her name was at the top of a long list. Obama's was near the end.
The primacy effect can also affect polling.
The exit poll from the 2004 US presidential election led pundits on the night to believe that Democratic Party candidate John Kerry would win, when in fact he went on to lose to incumbent president George W Bush. The poll had listed Democrat candidate Kerry before Republican candidate Bush.
What can be done to prevent the primacy effect? One option is to randomise the ballot papers. The states of California and Ohio have both adopted this system. An equal number of ballot papers is issued with a different candidate at the top of the list. This spreads the benefit of the name-order effect across the candidates.
In 1996, Bill Clinton received 4% more votes in the regions of California that listed him first in the ballot papers than in those where he featured lower down the list.
Research by Robert Darcy of Oklahoma State University shows that, given the choice, most election officials tend to list their own party's candidates first.
In one famous example of this, Florida's rules meant that Republican governor Jeb Bush's brother George W Bush was placed at the top of the list of candidates in his state, in the 2000 presidential election.
Bush went on to win Florida - which turned out to be a decisive state - by a very narrow margin.
George Bush was listed first in Florida in 2000 - the "butterfly ballot" used in Palm Beach (pictured) also led to arguments in court
"Because of the fact that different states in the US order candidate names differently and idiosyncratically, and almost none of the states do what Ohio and California do which is to rotate candidate name order across ballots to be fair, we have unfortunately had at least two recent election outcomes that are the result of bias in the name ordering," says Krosnick.
"If all of those states had rotated name order fairly, most likely George W Bush would not have been elected president in 2000, nor would Donald Trump have been elected president in 2016."
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39082465 | news_magazine-39082465 |
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Unilever stung into action by Kraft - BBC News | 2017-02-22 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Kraft Heinz's failed bid for Unilever has forced the Anglo-Dutch company to focus on the bottom line. | Business | Unilever is behind some of Britain's best-known brands
Think of Kraft Heinz's assault on Unilever as a slap in the face for management. It was short-lived, shocking, and will smart for a good while yet.
It's a slap that says "we think we can do a better job for your shareholders than you". That is not a message you want to get lodged in shareholders minds if you are Unilever's management and today the company acknowledged the sting.
"Unilever is conducting a comprehensive review of options available to accelerate delivery of value for the benefit of our shareholders. The events of the last week have highlighted the need to capture more quickly the value we see in Unilever."
That is the sound of a company cheek smarting.
It is very rare for corporate raiders like Warren Buffett (24% owner of Kraft Heinz) and Brazilian financier Jorge Lemann (owner of 3G) to back off so quickly. Once you dangle higher returns in front of pragmatic investors, they usually want to see what the next chat up line might be.
The Unilever management will take some pride in the fact they convinced some of their own major shareholders to back their rejection of the offer so flatly. The management argument, as told to me by senior management, went something like this.
Yes - Kraft has much higher profit margins than Unilever (23% compared to 15%) so looks like the better operator. But - Kraft habitually invests less in the future, therefore has lower organic (internally generated) growth and is saddled with more than average amounts of debt.
As a result it needs to acquire other companies to keep the growth going and pays for it by using yet more debt, which is financed in part with cash the target company has in the bank.
That model, argues Unilever, is not sustainable. Before long, we would be part of an underinvested, short-term profit-seeking, company-eating machine. As soon as Unilever had been digested, Kraft would be hungry again.
When the management of the company you want to buy REALLY don't want to sell to you, you can always go over their heads, cut them out of the negotiation and appeal directly to the shareholders.
But "going hostile" costs a lot more money and excites much more regulatory and political interest than a deal which the management recommends.
Many UK politicians welcomed the Kraft defeat as a victory for responsible long-term thinking by one of Europe's biggest companies and its shareholders who wisely eschewed the Jerry Maguire "show me the money" approach.
It's lucky for them they did. It will give the government a bit more time to figure out their own play book for how to deal with future bids - which are certainly coming thanks to the discount UK companies are selling at thanks to a near 20% depreciation in sterling post-referendum.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, I spoke to half a dozen US executives who were running the rule over potential UK targets - big and small.
Current rules only allow the government to intervene when takeovers could compromise financial stability, national security or media plurality.
Targets I heard discussed included food and drink, engineering and technology companies based or listed in the UK with foreign earnings potential. You can come up with a reasonably long list using those criteria.
Despite a few eye-catching deals like Japan's Softbank swoop on ARM Holdings and the upstart company Skyscanner being sold to a Chinese rival, there is no flood yet.
In fact, merger activity overall is still subdued as bidders are still wary of the prospects for UK companies with exposure to domestic and EU markets until greater clarity emerges on the future relationship between the two.
As Kraft Heinz retreats with its tail between its legs for now there is plenty of food for thought for both Unilever and government.
Unilever's CEO Paul Polman has been warned that if he doesn't focus more on the bottom line, someone else will.
The government may have to decide quickly whether foreign takeovers are a sign of confidence in the UK to be welcomed or opportunistic raiding parties to be resisted. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39056240 | news_business-39056240 |
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Russia looms large behind Flynn affair - BBC News | 2017-02-14 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Mike Flynn's resignation won't put to rest wider questions about the Trump administration's connection with Russia. | US & Canada | As with any resignation there are a thousand small, but nevertheless important questions. Most are of the who-knew-what-and-when variety. But with this astonishing fall from grace there is one big overarching question. I'll save that best bit for last.
The small questions concern whether Donald Trump knew about the calls Mike Flynn was making to the Russian ambassador, and what the substance of their conversations were.
What happened to the advice given by the acting attorney general to the White House counsel cautioning that Gen Flynn had not been entirely honest. Was the president aware of this? Were there different factions operating within the White House yesterday with different agendas on the embattled national security adviser's future?
Then we can go a sub-section of those questions which revolve around management at the White House. The seemingly dull-sounding process questions: What are the lines of communication? Who reports to whom?
Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer had very different public reactions to stories about Flynn on Monday
If that all sounds rather trivial, ask this - how was it possible that within a single hour yesterday afternoon Kellyanne Conway, counsel to the president, said Mr Flynn enjoyed the full support of Mr Trump, and then shortly afterwards, Communications Director Sean Spicer said the president was evaluating Mr Flynn's position?
Those just aren't reconcilable statements. Who was speaking on whose authority? This is not good communications strategy; this is what shambles looks like.
And let's deal with one bit of smoke that has been thrown up since the resignation. Kellyanne Conway was across the US networks this morning with a simple and tempting argument - what sealed Flynn's fate was his misleading of the vice president over the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
That resulted in Mike Pence going on TV in the middle of January and saying: "It was strictly coincidental that they had a conversation. They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia."
Of course, you can't lie/mislead/deceive/inadvertently misreport to (delete as appropriate) the vice president. But, if you draw yourself a little timeline of what happened then, what is striking is this - it is not the lie/misleading/deception/inadvertent misreporting that cost General Flynn his job, it is the lie/misleading/deception/inadvertent misreporting being made public by the Washington Post that cost him his job.
We now know the acting attorney general went to the White House weeks before to say voice intercepts of Gen Flynn's call proved that lifting of sanctions was discussed. But no action was taken then.
Only when it blew up did this become an issue. This conforms to the little discussed 11th Commandment that Moses handed down on his tablets of stone: Thou Shall Not Get Found Out.
But let us move on to the really big question. What does this say about President Trump's relationship with Russia? For a man who at the drop of a hat will freely spray insults on Twitter to anyone and anything, the one person he stubbornly refuses to say a bad word about is Vladimir Putin. Not ever.
White House staff in the Oval Office as Donald Trump speaks by phone to Vladimir Putin in late January
In one recent interview he seemed to suggest that America as a state had no greater moral authority than Russia. It was the doctrine of American Unexceptionalism, if you like.
Michael Flynn had sat with the Russian president not that long ago at a dinner honouring the pro-Moscow TV network Russia Today. Extraordinary that a former three star US general would be there. A dossier drawn up by a former MI6 officer - that was flatly denied - alleged all manner of Russian involvement in President Trump's businesses and presidential campaign.
Make no mistake, the Trump base love what they've heard about the migrant ban, the eviction of illegal immigrants, the jobs pledges and a lot more besides.
But what causes a lot of people to scratch their heads is why the love-in with Putin? What is driving this? Even if the most lurid things in the dossier were untrue, are there other things that are? Does Putin have some kind of leverage over the new American president?
The smaller questions, like they often do, will fade away with the next news cycle. These huge ones won't. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38974215 | news_world-us-canada-38974215 |
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FA reform: MPs pass 'no confidence' motion after House of Commons debate - BBC Sport | 2017-02-10 | None | A motion of "no confidence" in the Football Association is passed by MPs debating the organisation's ability to reform itself. | null | A motion of "no confidence" in the Football Association has been passed by MPs debating the organisation's ability to reform itself.
While the motion is largely symbolic, MPs have warned legislation will be brought in if changes are not made.
Sports Minister Tracey Crouch has said the FA could lose £30m-£40m of public funding if it does not modernise.
Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Select Committee chairman Damian Collins said: "No change is no option."
• None Timeline: Calls for changes at the FA
He added: "The FA, to use a football analogy, are not only in extra time, they are at the end of extra time, in 'Fergie time'. They are 1-0 down and if they don't pick up fairly quickly, reform will be delivered to them."
I would have thought with the state of the NHS, the lack of building, not enough cash for defence, that [MPs] would put energy into that not the organisation of football
FA chairman Greg Clarke has said he will quit if the organisation cannot win government support for its reform plans.
"I watched the debate and respect the opinions of the MPs," he said.
"As previously stated, we remain committed to reforming governance at the FA to the agreed timescale of the minister."
Collins suggested ministers should intervene to overhaul English football's governing body because "turkeys won't vote for Christmas" and it will not reform itself.
Crouch warned the FA that if it played "Russian roulette" with public money it will lose.
The minister also said the government would be prepared to consider legislation if the FA fails to present plans for required reforms before April. However she felt the debate - which was sparsely attended by MPs - was premature given her desire to see the FA's proposals.
How have we got here?
The committee has published two reports since 2010 recommending greater representation at the FA for fans and the grassroots game, as well as more diversity in positions of authority. It also wants to dilute the perceived dominance of the Premier League.
Collins has said the FA was given six months to meet the government guidance on best practice for sports governance but had failed to do so. That guidance called for things such as a move towards gender equality on boards, more independent oversight, more accountability and term limits for office bearers.
He was joined by fellow Tories and Labour MPs - keen to ensure the "national game" is run correctly - in bemoaning the current state of the FA.
The cross-party motion stated that MPs have no confidence in the FA's ability to comply fully with its duties as its existing governance structures make it "impossible for the organisation to reform itself".
It was approved unopposed at the end of a backbench business debate, which was attended by fewer than 30 MPs.
The FA is effectively run by its own parliament, the FA Council, which has 122 members - just eight are women and only four from ethnic minorities. More than 90 of the 122 members are aged over 60.
Shadow sports minister Rosena Allin-Khan said: "Not only is diversity not in the heart of the FA ,it isn't in its body, or even its soul."
Labour MP Keith Vaz, whose constituency of Leicester East is home to the Premier League champions Leicester City, added: "A quarter of all professional footballers are black, however only 17 of the 92 top clubs have an ethnic minority person in a senior coaching role."
However, Keith Compton - one of 25 FA life vice-presidents and a director of Derbyshire FA - questioned why the FA was being discussed in Parliament.
"It is pity that the MPs have got nothing better to do," he told BBC Radio 5 live.
"I would have thought with the state of the NHS, the lack of building, too many people living in boxes, not enough cash for defence, that some people would put energy into that not the organisation of football.
"Football is reforming all of the time."
Asked whether there should be more female and ethnic minority involvement in FA decisions, he said: "That's not really the responsibility of the council. If those people were interested enough, and we had enough people, we would have enough women and other people on the FA.
"I have heard people say supporters aren't represented but that is not true. They have one representative. People want the council to be reduced and now I am hearing it should be increased."
• None FA Council member: 'Old, grey-haired men still have a lot to offer'
Responding to the interview, former FA chairman David Bernstein said: "I think if you want an argument for change, you've just heard it."
And Yunus Lunat, the first Muslim to get a seat on the FA Council before leaving three years ago, said new recruits were needed.
"No-one is disputing the contribution the previous generation has made but there comes a time when you have got to recognise that you are not the most suitable people for the role," he said.
The debate may have been attended by fewer MPs than is needed for a full football match, but the fact a motion of no confidence in the FA was passed still gives it an embarrassing bloody nose, ramping up the pressure on the governing body.
The few MPs who spoke seemed to mostly agree with each other, demanding greater diversity on the council, independent directors and fan representation on the board, and raising concerns over the clout and money of the professional clubs, especially the Premier League.
But the people who really matter here are the government.
The sports minister said the debate was "premature" and reiterated that she may consider the nuclear option of legislation to force through reforms - but only if a threat to cut funding does not work. That however, remains some way off and the FA is confident it can comply with a new code of governance. If it fails, chairman Greg Clarke has vowed to step down and then it really will be in the last-chance saloon.
What do fans think?
Football Supporters' Federation chairman Malcolm Clarke: "We're very pleased to see so many MPs back our proposals for a minimum of five fan representatives on the FA Council, representation on the FA board, and increased diversity.
"Supporters are integral to the health of our national sport yet are still shockingly under-represented in the FA hierarchy - the FA Council has only one supporter representative, yet the Armed Forces and Oxbridge have five.
"It is also important to acknowledge that the FA Council has stood up to rampant commercialism within the game and protected fans' interests - such as when the FA Council stopped the 'Hull Tigers' name change."
What the MPs said - key quotes
Sports minister Tracey Crouch: "The FA's current model does not, in my opinion, and clearly that of other colleagues, stand up to scrutiny. Reform is therefore required."
Judith Cummins (Labour, Bradford South): "At best they're dragging their feet, at worst they're wilfully failing to act."
Andrew Bingham, CMS Select Committee member: "The issues of Sam Allardyce, who manages the (England) team for 67 days, one game, walks away with allegedly around £1m, it is destroying people's faith in football."
Nigel Huddleston (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire): "I have a great deal of respect for Greg Clarke but I sense his hands are tied and a sense of institutional inertia pervades the governance of football in this country." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38920489 | rt_football_38920489 |
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Germany warns the City over Brexit risk - BBC News | 2017-02-10 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A Bundesbank executive says London is likely to stop being the “gateway to Europe” and warns the UK against a post-Brexit “regulatory race to the bottom”. | Business | One of Germany's most senior banking regulators has warned London that it is likely to lose its role as "the gateway to Europe" for vital financial services.
Dr Andreas Dombret, executive board member for the German central bank, the Bundesbank, said that even if banking rules were "equivalent" between the UK and the rest of the European Union, that was "miles away from access to the single market".
Mr Dombret's comments were made at a private meeting of German businesses and banks organised by Boston Consulting Group in Frankfurt earlier this week.
They give a clear - and rare - insight into Germany's approach as Britain starts the process of leaving the European Union.
And that approach is hawkish.
"The current model of using London as a gateway to Europe is likely to end," Mr Dombret said at the closed-door event.
Mr Dombret made it clear that he did not support a "confrontational approach" to future relations between the UK's substantial financial services sector and the EU.
But he argued there was "intense uncertainty" about how the Brexit negotiations would progress and significant hurdles to overcome.
The Bundesbank executive, who is responsible for banking and financial supervision, said he was concerned that the trend towards internationally agreed standards was under pressure.
And that Britain might try to become the "Singapore of Europe" following Brexit, by cutting taxes and relaxing financial regulations to encourage banks and businesses to invest in the UK.
"Brexit fits into a certain trend we are seeing towards renationalisation," he said.
"I strongly believe that this negatively affects the well-being of us all.
"We should therefore invest all our efforts in containing these trends.
"This holds for the private sector as well as for supervisors and policymakers in the EU and the UK.
"Some voices are calling for deregulation after Brexit," he continued.
"One such example is the 'financial centre strategy' that is being discussed as a fallback option for the City of London.
"Parts of this recipe are low corporate taxes and loose financial regulation.
"We should not forget that strictly supervised and well-capitalised financial systems are the most successful ones in the long run.
"The EU will not engage in a regulatory race to the bottom."
At present, London operates as the financial services capital for the EU.
More than a third of all wholesale banking between larger businesses, governments and pension funds takes place in Britain.
Nearly 80% of all foreign exchange transactions in the EU are carried out in the UK.
The business is valued in trillions of pounds, with billions of pounds being traded every day to insure companies, for example, against interest rate changes, currency fluctuations and inflation risk.
If there were significant changes to the present free-trading relationship between Britain and the EU, that could have a major impact on the value of the financial services to the UK and on the one million people employed in the sector.
Mr Dombret said it would also have an impact on German businesses which use London as a source of funding.
Some banks are hoping that, with the government looking to fully leave the single market, an "equivalence regime" can be agreed where the UK and the EU recognise each other's regulatory standards.
That would allow cross-border transactions to continue with few regulatory hurdles.
But Mr Dombret said that equivalence had "major drawbacks" and was not an "ideal substitute".
"I am very sceptical about whether equivalence decisions offer a sound footing for banks' long-term location decisions," he said.
"Equivalence is miles away from single market access.
"Equivalence decisions are reversible, so banks would be forced to adjust to a new environment in the event that supervisory frameworks are no longer deemed equivalent.
"These lead to the overall conclusion that equivalence decisions are no ideal substitute for passporting [which allows banks in one EU country to operate in another as part of the single market]."
Whatever the arrangements, Mr Dombret said that a "transition period" would ease the pressure of change and reduce what he described as the "earnings risk".
"Let me say that I expect London to remain an important financial centre," Mr Dombret told the audience.
"Nevertheless, I also expect many UK-based market participants to move at least some business units to the EU in order to hedge against all possible outcomes of the negotiations."
One of the biggest EU-focused businesses in the UK is euro-denominated clearing - insurance products called derivatives, which allow companies to protect themselves from movements in currencies, interest rates and inflation.
Three-quarters of the multi-trillion-pounds-a-day market is executed in London and a recent report from the accountancy firm EY estimated that nearly 83,000 jobs could be lost in Britain over the next seven years if clearing has to move to an EU member state following Brexit.
Mr Dombret said it was difficult to see how euro-clearing could remain in London, as it depended on the "acceptance of the European Court of Justice" as the arbiter of the thousands of legal contracts signed between counter-parties, many of which last for years.
Britain has made it clear that it does not want to be bound by ECJ judgements once it has left the EU.
"I see strong arguments for having the bulk of the clearing business inside the euro area," Mr Dombret said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38925440 | news_business-38925440 |
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Leicester City: What has changed at the Premier League champions? - BBC Sport | 2017-02-10 | None | Eight months after leading Leicester to the title, Claudio Ranieri is battling to prevent his side being relegated. So what has changed? | null | Last updated on .From the section Leicester
Eight months after celebrating a Premier League title win that ranks among the greatest of all sporting achievements, Leicester find themselves firmly mired in a relegation battle.
Manager Claudio Ranieri this week received a vote of confidence, the club insisting he retains their "unwavering support".
But Leicester's fall has been a dramatic one, leaving them one point and two places above the bottom three.
So what has changed for the champions, and why are things going wrong for a manager who only two months ago was named coach of the year at the Best Fifa Football Awards?
In a BBC Sport poll, 62% of voters think that Leicester will not be relegated this season.
How bad have Leicester been?
It is 79 years since the top-flight title winners have dropped into the second tier 12 months after winning the league, but that is the prospect facing Leicester after the worst title defence ever seen.
The Foxes have yet to win away in the league all season and have started 2017 with a run of five league games without a goal. No other top-flight team has endured such a miserable run since Tottenham, 31 years ago.
It is a staggering contrast to their results in 2015-16, when they lost only three league matches throughout the campaign. In fact, at the start of this season, they had lost only three times in their previous 47 Premier League games.
And don't forget - they did not just win the league last season, they ended up walking it by 10 points.
But since August things have unravelled fast and they have lost 13 out of 24 matches, winning just five times.
What has happened to Jamie Vardy?
Would you be surprised to find out Jamie Vardy's conversion rate is actually better this season than it was during the title campaign?
Vardy scored 24 Premier League goals in 2015-16, form that saw him named Football Writers' Footballer of the Year and shortlisted for the Ballon d'Or and Fifa's own player of the year award.
This season he has only five league goals, three of which came in one game against Manchester City, and has scored in only one league game since 10 September - a run of 17 matches.
But he is actually more clinical this year.
The problem, it seems, is he is simply not getting the chances. This season, on average, he gets one opportunity every two matches, whereas last season it was more than one per game.
Vardy after 24 games of last season and this season
While the evidence points to the lack of a supply line (fewer shots, fewer chances), there has also been the suggestion Vardy is not making the runs that proved so successful last season.
Ian Stringer, who covers the Foxes for BBC Radio Leicester, said: "Jamie Vardy haring around is a sight to behold, but it seems rare this season.
"I think that's due to his chances being few and far between; he can't run in behind if he's not being slotted in."
The stats actually show that Vardy is working as hard as last season - covering exactly the same average distance per game - and he is even making more sprints than last year. The ball is simply not finding him when he does. And certainly not in dangerous areas.
And what about Riyad Mahrez?
Riyad Mahrez's attacking excellence in 2015-16 earned him the PFA Player of the Year award, as well as seeing him named BBC African Footballer of the Year.
That recognition came after a season in which he scored 17 goals and provided assists for a further 11.
This year, his return from 22 matches is three goals - all penalties - and two assists.
So what is he doing differently?
Last season, many of his goals and assists came from trickery and mazy dribbling. This season, he is simply not showing those same skills.
Mins per pass into final third
And, of course, there is the collapse of his previously lethal link-up play with Vardy, a combination that led to seven goals last season (ie one player directly assisting the other).
In October, the pair famously went on a run of eight game in which they passed to each other only twice.
That has improved since then - but to no great effect.
In the six Premier League games they have played together since the start of December, Mahrez has found Vardy 16 times (including five times against Manchester United on Sunday).
But it is not leading to goals and, remarkably, the pair have combined for just one goal in the past 12 months.
It always seemed likely Leicester would lose one, two or maybe all of their three star performers last season.
They kept hold of Vardy after he turned down the chance to move to Arsenal, but the Foxes were powerless to prevent N'Golo Kante leaving for Chelsea for around £30m, as he reportedly had a release clause in his contract.
For a team so reliant on playing on the counter-attack, Kante's ability to break up opposition attacks and protect the back four was a cornerstone of their success.
The Foxes have tried to fill that void, using Daniel Amartey and new signings Nampalys Mendy and Wilfred Ndidi in his central midfield position.
And while Kante has long been noted for his energetic style and ability to cover so much ground, his replacements have more or less matched - and in Mendy's case bettered - his workrate.
But it is Kante's ability to disrupt the opposition's play that they simply have not been able to replace.
As Watford striker Troy Deeney said earlier this season: "You can get through their midfield and get at their back four a little bit easier now.
"Whenever we broke on them last season, I always had the fear factor that Kante was coming back and I knew we didn't have much time before he got there.
"Even if I actually did have time, I always thought he might be there, so I would rush things a bit.
"I always felt Kante did the work of two players."
Perhaps the biggest impact of Kante's departure has been on Leicester's defensive solidity.
While last season they kept 15 clean sheets in their 38 games and became notorious for eking out 1-0 wins - they managed seven in total - this term they have been conceding far more regularly and have won 1-0 only once.
Number of times conceded two or more Number of times conceded three or more
Their backline is an ageing one - centre-backs Wes Morgan and Robert Huth are 33 and 32 respectively - and they are frequently finding themselves exposed.
And it does not help that the team appear to be working less hard as a unit.
"Leicester in recent years have been a team built on effort, going back to their League One days," said Stringer. "All that seems to have disappeared.
"While I'm not questioning the desire or effort, it's the physical exertion which seems less - understandable when you've lost a player like Kante who's dominating the tackles and distances-made charts."
And the stats back up the argument that their workrate has dipped.
They are collectively running an average of 2.1km less per game than they were last season.
The return of the Tinkerman
Leicester used fewer playerslast season - 23 - than any other Premier League team, with Ranieri making a total of 33 changes to his starting line-up over the course of 38 games, the fewest in the division.
This season, with things going wrong from the outset (an opening-day defeat against a Hull side in disarray), the Italian has reverted to being the 'Tinkerman', a nickname picked up while in charge at Chelsea.
There are, of course, mitigating factors. This season, the Foxes have played five more games in all competitions than at the same stage 12 months ago, with Ranieri having to consider the demands of Champions League football on his squad.
He also lost Amartey, Mahrez and Islam Slimani to Africa Cup of Nations duty, making changes inevitable.
But it is not just the players who have changed regularly - Ranieri has also started tinkering with his formation.
The 4-4-2 set-up that brought them so much success last season has been replaced in recent weeks, and Leicester have started with a different formation in each of their past four games.
That has widely been perceived as a failing of Ranieri's, confusing his players and sending mixed messages - the Italian himself conceding they were struggling to adapt after a 3-0 defeat at Southampton in January.
"Maybe my players didn't understand my idea very well," he reflected.
But perhaps Ranieri was actually too slow to identify his side's problems, and too reluctant to move away from 4-4-2.
While many teams adapt their formation depending on the opposition (Tottenham and Manchester City are just two of the sides to have played three at the back against Chelsea's system this season), Ranieri had avoided doing that.
In fact, of the 18 Premier League teams to have used more than one formation in 2016-17 (Arsenal and Liverpool have not altered theirs), Leicester were the last to change.
Which teams were the slowest to try a new formation this season?
Ranieri is making up for lost time though. Since his first instance of tinkering - a 1-0 win against West Ham on 31 December - he has yet to choose the same formation in back-to-back fixtures.
So after their dismal start to 2017, will Leicester be able to reproduce the kind of end to the season that saved them in 2014-15, when they recovered from being bottom and seven points adrift with nine games to play?
They are not in quite such serious trouble yet this time around, and Stringer expects them to do enough to stay in the Premier League.
"I think this will be a watershed for them," he says. "Many of the current crop have experience of escaping relegation, and experience of doing it with this team. They'll survive." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38879315 | rt_football_38879315 |
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Trump's America: Are things as bad as he says? - BBC News | 2017-02-10 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Trump decries urban violence, terrorism and police shootings. Is his image of 'American carnage' fair? | US & Canada | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'This American carnage stops right here,' Donald Trump said at his inauguration
During his presidential campaign, and since taking office, Donald Trump has repeatedly warned of the dangers facing the United States.
"I have learned a lot in the past two weeks," he told a meeting of police officers in Washington DC on Wednesday.
"Terrorism is a far greater threat than the people of our country understand. I'm going to take care of it."
His comments came as the legal battle continued over his travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority nations. Not putting the ban in place would mean the US "can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled", he said on Twitter.
On Wednesday, he also lamented inner-city violence, as well as the killing of police officers.
It is a vision of an America full of danger, with multiple threats on many fronts, encapsulated by the new president's inaugural address referencing "American carnage". But is it correct?
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In July 2016, the BBC's More or Less programme investigated the unreliable numbers around police shootings in the USA.
"The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty last year increased by 56% from the year before," President Trump said on Wednesday. And the statistic is accurate, unlike some others he has quoted in the past.
The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty did indeed jump 56%, from 41 in 2015 to 64 last year - that's according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
It is a stark statistic. Starker still is the fact that 21 of those officers were killed in ambush-style shootings, a 163% increase on the previous year.
However, it would be incorrect to read from this that a wave of police shootings has swept the country. Eight of those killings were in two assaults in 10 days in July 2016, in Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and occurred in the context of protests against police killings of African-Americans.
"Last year in Dallas, police officers were targeted for execution - think of this, whoever heard of this?" President Trump told the meeting of police officers.
But the targeting of police officers is not in itself a new phenomenon - it is only that 2016 had higher numbers than before. And statistics show that officers are still more likely to be shot dead responding to a domestic disturbance than any other incident.
In fact, if you look at the bigger picture, police deaths on duty have been dropping for some time.
The worst year for police deaths was 1930, when 307 died. More recently, there was a peak of 241 in 2001, largely due to the 11 September attacks.
But between 2011 and 2013, there was an almost 40% drop in police fatalities - from 177 to 109. The numbers have crept up again in the years since - up 10% in 2016 to 135 - but there is an overall pattern of decline, with the numbers now down to the levels of the 1950s.
Having said that, the likelihood of a police officer being shot dead is far higher than that of a member of the public being killed by the police.
Read more: How many police die every year?
"Right now, many communities in America are facing a public safety crisis," President Trump told police in Washington on Wednesday. "Murders in 2015 experienced their largest single-year increase in nearly half a century.
His statement is factually correct (though he has often, wrongly, said that the murder rate was the highest it has been in nearly half a century, and even attacked the press on Tuesday for not reporting this falsehood.)
There was a 10.8% jump in nationwide murder rates from 2014 to 2015, and that represents the biggest year-to-year increase since 1970-71, according to the fact-checking website Politifact.
But it is again important to look at the longer-term trend.
The number of reported murders and rapes across the country did indeed increase from 2014 to 2015, as did robberies.
But all are still below the levels they were at 10 years ago - and are respectively 13%, 6% and 34% lower than 20 years ago (even though the population of the US has increased by 55 million in that time).
The picture is more mixed in large cities, however.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In September 2016, Donald Trump said some US inner cities were more dangerous than Afghanistan - the BBC's More or Less programme investigated his claim.
Last month, The Economist magazine, having obtained an early look at the 2016 FBI data for violence in 50 US cities, showed that there were four broad trends in play.
Murder rates are stable in 13 of the 50 cities, including Los Angeles and New York, which saw 11 days without a murder in 2015.
In 15 other cities, including Houston and Las Vegas, murder rates are low but increasing. In another nine, including Philadelphia and Detroit, they are high but stable. And in 13, including Indianapolis and Chicago, they are high and rising. (You can read The Economist's analysis here).
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Life and death on the lost streets of Chicago
In Chicago, murders rose sharply last year, with more than 760 last year compared with 473 the year before. Up to then, there had been a steady fall in the number of murders since a peak of the early 70s.
Mr Trump has repeatedly used the city as an example. "In Chicago, more than 4,000 people were shot last year alone and the rate so far this year has been even higher. What is going on in Chicago?" he said on Wednesday.
Last month, he even threatened to send federal agents into the city if the violence did not subside.
But again, worrying though recent increases in violence in some cities may be, it is critical to look at how those increases fit in to a longer-term trend.
Ames Grawert, of the Brennan Center for Justice, co-authored a report into crime rates in US cities, and spoke to the BBC's More or Less programme. "If you look at crime rates in American cities in the past 30 years, even with the recent uptick in murders in some cities, we are very far below where we used to be with murder rates in big cities like New York and Los Angeles."
Read more (from 2015): Why have cities' murder rates increased?
President Trump, when he announced the travel restrictions last month, said it was to "keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the US". The restrictions, now in legal limbo, affected citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen - the measures also blocked Syrian refugees from arriving in the US.
So how big a problem is terrorism in the US? First of all, Mr Trump, like other presidents before him, measures the danger of terrorism to the US according to what could happen, rather than what has happened. His comment "I have learned a lot in the past two weeks" indicated he had specific information on the threat to the US.
And secondly, it all depends on what your definition of what terrorism is (more on that later on).
Read more: Trump says terror attacks 'under-reported': Is that true?
One study, by the libertarian Cato Institute, details 3,432 murders committed on US soil between 1975 and late 2015 that it says can be classified as terrorist attacks. Of those, 88% were committed by foreign-born terrorists who entered the country (the 2,977 deaths in the 11 September attacks make up a large chunk of these fatalities).
But does this mean Americans should be worried about being caught up in a terror attack caused by a foreign-born national? Take a look at the numbers the Cato Institute came up with to provide context:
The report's author, Alex Nowrasteh, concluded the number of Americans killed in a terror attack by someone from one of the seven countries on Mr Trump's list, between 1975 and 2015, was zero.
(He does point out that six Iranians, six Sudanese, two Somalis, two Iraqis, and one Yemeni were convicted of attempting or carrying out terrorist attacks on US soil in that time).
Only three deaths were attributed to refugees in the 40 years spanned by the report - and those were caused by three Cuban terrorists in the 1970s.
For some perspective, here are some other causes of death in the US in 2015 alone:
Far more dangerous than terrorism to Americans are painkillers.
The leading cause of accidental death in the United States is now overdoses from painkillers - opioid medicines kill 60 people a day, or 22,000 a year, according to the National Safety Council.
But it is impossible to discuss the threat from terrorism without looking at how the US defines terrorism itself - and therein lies the problem. Even the FBI says there is "no single, universally accepted, definition of terrorism". The State Department defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".
In that case, there is an argument that shootings should be defined as terrorism: those such as the racially-motivated killing of nine black worshippers in South Carolina by a self-avowed white supremacist, the murder of 26 people including children in Newtown, Connecticut, and the murder of 12 people in a Colorado cinema.
If the number of people killed in shootings in the US were considered terrorism - at least 15,055 people were shot dead last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive - then the likelihood of an American being killed in an act of terrorism would increase substantially. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38911708 | news_world-us-canada-38911708 |
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Trump travel ban: What did we learn from the ruling? - BBC News | 2017-02-10 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Anthony Zurcher explains three things we learned (and two we didn't) from the court ruling. | US & Canada | Demonstrators spell out "No Muslim Ban" at a protest in Boston
Federal circuit courts usually toil in anonymity. They are a legal rest stop for landmark cases on the way to the Supreme Court.
But this week it was different. All eyes were on three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who, for a brief moment, had the fate of Donald Trump's immigration order in their hands.
They were considering whether to sustain a temporary injunction preventing implementation of Mr Trump's sweeping travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim nations.
On Thursday night they gave their ruling. Mr Trump's order stayed on ice.
Here are three things we learned from the ruling - and two questions that remain unanswered.
1. The immigration ban is going nowhere fast
The Ninth Circuit was the Trump administration's best chance to get the president's immigration order up and running again quickly.
The three judges could have re-instated the order and closed the borders as early as Thursday night.
Instead, the order remains in limbo and it's likely to take time to resolve. The Supreme Court could hear an appeal, but the chances of more than four justices agreeing to reverse the Ninth Circuit ruling seem slim.
Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer or Elena Kagan going to side with Mr Trump? Not likely.
If this goes back down to the district court in Seattle, where it began, the gears of justice will grind even more slowly. A trial on the merits - which is slated to happen next, pending Supreme Court action - is a slow process. Briefs need to be filed. Evidence has to be submitted. Oral arguments will be scheduled. These things can take months or even years.
That's a painful lesson Barack Obama learned in 2015, when a district court judge blocked implementation of some of his immigration reforms and the Supreme Court didn't hear the case for more than a year.
2. The case will be no slam-dunk for Trump
This may seem obvious now, but on Thursday the president was fairly certain that his case was open-and-shut when he read what he viewed as the governing immigration statute to a gathering of law enforcement officers.
"You can be a lawyer, or you don't have to be a lawyer; if you were a good student in high school or a bad student in high school, you can understand this," he said. "And it's really incredible to me that we have a court case that's going on so long."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bob Ferguson: Travel ban was adopted with "little thought, little planning, little oversight"
Some conservatives, as well, wrote that the governing laws were clear that the president has broad powers when dealing with immigration issues.
"For all except the most partisan, it is likely impossible to read the Washington state lawsuit... and not come away with the conclusion that the Trump order is on sound legal and constitutional ground."
In the end, however, the three justices - two appointed by Democrats and one nominated by Republican George W Bush - saw things differently. While they acknowledged the president's authority on immigration matters, they said the statute Mr Trump cited was not the final word on the matter.
"Although our jurisprudence has long counselled deference to the political branches on matters of immigration and national security, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held that courts lack the authority to review executive action in those arenas for compliance with the Constitution," the judges wrote.
In other words, federal immigration law may have been on Mr Trump's side, but the Constitution wasn't.
At the heart of the Ninth Circuit's decision to uphold the injunction against Mr Trump's order was that it violated the constitutional due process rights of all persons in the US, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. And time and time again the judges pointed to how the order was initially implemented as reason for keeping it on hold.
They wrote that permanent residents and lawful visa holders were not given "constitutionally sufficient notice and an opportunity to respond". While they noted that the Trump administration had since interpreted the order as allowing all permanent residents into the US, they were unconvinced that this new interpretation would be uniformly followed or safe from reversal.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
They said that the travel ban caused considerable harm, including the separation of families, stranding of US residents abroad and prevention of students and employees from travelling to American universities.
A more measured, orchestrated rollout of the immigration order may have avoided these complications, weakening the case against it.
Mr Trump said on Wednesday that speed was necessary in implementing the ban because otherwise a "whole pile of bad people, perhaps with very evil intentions" would enter the country before border restrictions tightened.
Here, however, haste may have killed his legal case.
Shortly after the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion, Nevada Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto released a statement saying that the court "reaffirms that President Trump's hateful and divisive executive order amounts to religious discrimination against Muslims".
While the decision was certainly a blow for the Trump administration, the judges were notably restrained in discussing the religious issue.
"The states' claims raise serious allegations and present significant constitutional questions," the judges wrote. Then they said they wouldn't consider the question further, since they had already decided the case on due process grounds.
They did offer one clue as to how they might eventually rule, however. The Trump administration had insisted that the order must be judged on its own, without taking into consideration past remarks made by Mr Trump and his supporters touting a "Muslim ban". The judges disagreed.
"It is well established that evidence of purpose beyond the face of the challenged law may be considered in evaluating Establishment and Equal Protection Clause claims."
In other words, when it comes time to consider whether the order amounted to a de facto Muslim ban, everything is on the table - Trump tweets, Rudy Giuliani diatribes and all.
Now that the Ninth Circuit has rendered its decision, the ball is firmly in the Trump administration's court. They could appeal to the US Supreme Court, where the eight justices - four liberal, four conservative - can consider as much, or as little, of the ruling as they see fit.
Mr Trump certainly seemed to hint that this was the next step, tweeting: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!" shortly after the ruling.
The administration could also decide to let the circuit court's decision stand and fight out the case in a full trial back in the Seattle district court. This would buy the president time to get his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, confirmed by the Republican-held Senate. Then, when the case eventually made its way to the high court, his chances of victory could be markedly improved.
Whatever happens, it's clear that this case will be a political football. The fight will be personal, and it will be ugly. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38927778 | news_world-us-canada-38927778 |
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Why did Turkey hold a referendum? - BBC News | 2017-02-10 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The BBC's Mark Lowen explains why a draft new constitution for Turkey had such fierce opposition. | Europe | The changes give sweeping new to powers Mr Erdogan
A new draft constitution that significantly increases the powers of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been approved by voters in a referendum. Here, the BBC's Turkey correspondent, Mark Lowen, explains why this was such a bitterly-contested process.
In one brawl, a government MP alleged an opponent bit into his leg. In another, a plant pot was hurled across parliament. A microphone was stolen and used as a weapon. An independent MP handcuffed herself to a lectern, sparking another scuffle. The parliamentary debate on changing Turkey's constitution wasn't a mild affair.
On the surface, it might seem a proposal that would enjoy cross-party consensus: modernising Turkey's constitution that was drawn up at the behest of the once-omnipotent military after the coup of 1980.
But instead it's arguably the most controversial political change in a generation, giving sweeping powers to the country's powerful but divisive President Erdogan.
The plan turns Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential republic. Among the numerous changes:
The government - and, principally, President Erdogan - argue that the reforms streamline decision-making and avoid the unwieldy parliamentary coalitions that have hamstrung Turkey in the past.
Since the president is no longer chosen by parliament but now elected directly by the people, goes the argument, he or she should not have to contend with another elected leader (the prime minister) to enact laws.
The current system, they say, is holding back Turkey's progress. They even argue that the change could somehow end the extremist attacks that have killed more than 500 people in the past 18 months.
Hundreds of people have been killed in attacks in Turkey in the past 18 months
A presidential system is all very well in a country with proper checks and balances like the United States, retort critics, where an independent judiciary has shown itself willing to stand up to Donald Trump and a rigorous free press calls him out on contentious policies.
But in Turkey, where judicial independence has plummeted and which now ranks 151 of 180 countries in the press freedom index of the watchdog Reporters Without Borders, an all-powerful president would spell the death knell of democracy, they say.
Mr Erdogan's opponents already decry his slide to authoritarianism, presiding over the world's biggest jailer of journalists and a country where some 140,000 people have been arrested, dismissed or suspended since the failed coup last year.
Granting him virtually unfettered powers, said the main opposition CHP, would "entrench dictatorship".
Since the failed coup 140,000 people have been arrested, dismissed or suspended from their jobs
Ahmet Kasim Han, a political scientist from Kadir Has University, said before the vote: "It doesn't look as bad as the opposition paints it and it's definitely not as benevolent as the government depicts it.
"The real weakness is that in its hurry to pass the reform, the government hasn't really explained the 2,000 laws that would change. So it doesn't look bright, especially with this government's track record."
How did the referendum come to happen? The governing AK Party had to rely on parliamentary votes from the far-right MHP to lead the country to a referendum.
Opposition to the reform was led by the centre-left CHP and the pro-Kurdish HDP parties, the latter of which had been portrayed by the government as linked to terrorism. Several of its MPs and the party leaders are now in prison.
Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far right MHP, now supports the proposed constitutional changes
AKP and MHP voters who opposed the reform might have felt pressured into voting in favour, so as not to be tarnished as supporting "terrorists", especially since the referendum took place under the state of emergency imposed after the attempted coup.
"Holding the vote under this state of emergency makes it susceptible to allegations that people don't feel free to say no," says Dr Kasim Han. "It casts a shadow over the outcome."
With the detail of the constitutional reform impenetrable to many, the referendum became focused around Mr Erdogan himself: a president who elicits utmost reverence from one side of the country and intense hatred from the other.
The result will now determine the political fate of this deeply troubled but hugely important country. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38883556 | news_world-europe-38883556 |
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Did Trump win because his name came first in key states? - BBC News | 2017-02-26 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A leading US political scientists thinks Donald Trump is president because his name came first on the ballot in some critical swing states. | Magazine | One of the world's leading political scientists believes Donald Trump most likely won the US presidential election for a very simple reason, writes Hannah Sander - his name came first on the ballot in some critical swing states.
Jon Krosnick has spent 30 years studying how voters choose one candidate rather than another, and says that "at least two" US presidents won their elections because their names were listed first on the ballot, in states where the margin of victory was narrow.
At first sight Krosnick's idea might seem to make little sense. Are voters really so easily swayed?
"Most of the people that voted Republican were always going to vote Republican and most of the people that voted Democrat were always going to vote Democrat," says James Tilley, professor of politics at the University of Oxford.
"There is a human tendency to lean towards the first name listed on the ballot," says Krosnick, a politics professor at Stanford University. "And that has caused increases on average of about three percentage points for candidates, across lots of races and states and years."
It has the biggest impact on those who know the least about the election they are voting in.
You are more likely to be affected, Krosnick says, "if you are feeling uninformed and yet feel obligated to cast a vote - or if you are feeling deeply conflicted, say between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump."
When an election is very close the effect can be decisive, Krosnick says - and in some US states, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the 2016 election was very close.
A ballot paper used in the 2016 presidential election in Wisconsin
"In the states where Trump won very narrowly, his name was also listed first on the ballot in most of those states," says Krosnick.
Some always list parties in the same order. Some allow the state's officials to make a new choice each time. Some put the party that lost in the last election at the top of the ballot. Some list alphabetically.
In 2002, a court overturned the result of the mayoral election in the Californian city of Compton, after hearing testimony about the name-order effect. The judge decided that in this instance, the decision to list one of the candidates first had been deliberate and unfair.
"Candidates whose last names begin with letters picked near the end of the lottery have it tough," Krosnick explained during the Compton court case. "They will never get the advantage that comes from being listed first on the ballot."
There are numerous cases where the primacy effect is thought to have influenced the result of an vote.
In January 2008, Hillary Clinton unexpectedly beat Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary - part of the long battle to decide which of them would become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate. Professor Michael Traugott from the University of Michigan believes that name order enabled Clinton to pick up extra votes. Her name was at the top of a long list. Obama's was near the end.
The primacy effect can also affect polling.
The exit poll from the 2004 US presidential election led pundits on the night to believe that Democratic Party candidate John Kerry would win, when in fact he went on to lose to incumbent president George W Bush. The poll had listed Democrat candidate Kerry before Republican candidate Bush.
What can be done to prevent the primacy effect? One option is to randomise the ballot papers. The states of California and Ohio have both adopted this system. An equal number of ballot papers is issued with a different candidate at the top of the list. This spreads the benefit of the name-order effect across the candidates.
In 1996, Bill Clinton received 4% more votes in the regions of California that listed him first in the ballot papers than in those where he featured lower down the list.
Research by Robert Darcy of Oklahoma State University shows that, given the choice, most election officials tend to list their own party's candidates first.
In one famous example of this, Florida's rules meant that Republican governor Jeb Bush's brother George W Bush was placed at the top of the list of candidates in his state, in the 2000 presidential election.
Bush went on to win Florida - which turned out to be a decisive state - by a very narrow margin.
George Bush was listed first in Florida in 2000 - the "butterfly ballot" used in Palm Beach (pictured) also led to arguments in court
"Because of the fact that different states in the US order candidate names differently and idiosyncratically, and almost none of the states do what Ohio and California do which is to rotate candidate name order across ballots to be fair, we have unfortunately had at least two recent election outcomes that are the result of bias in the name ordering," says Krosnick.
"If all of those states had rotated name order fairly, most likely George W Bush would not have been elected president in 2000, nor would Donald Trump have been elected president in 2016."
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39082465 | news_magazine-39082465 |
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Newspaper headlines: House sales 'slump', Tony Blair Brexit speech and NHS staff 'crisis' - BBC News | 2017-02-18 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A slowdown in home sales, fears over recruitment of GPs and nurses, and Tony Blair's Brexit speech attract headlines. | The Papers | Tony Blair's rallying cry to people who want to defy Brexit goes down like a lead balloon in many of Saturday's papers.
According to the Daily Express, "yesterday's man has no place in modern Britain".
The paper cites a poll which, it says, demonstrates that more than two-thirds of voters now want the government to press ahead with implementing Brexit.
The Daily Mail brands the former prime minister "messianic". The paper's leader column accuses Mr Blair of hypocrisy, having "twice promised a referendum on the EU and reneged both times".
Mr Blair, says the Guardian, is facing a backlash from Labour MPs for "fuelling the party's divisions over Brexit" with his speech.
But in the same paper, John McTernan, who was Mr Blair's political secretary for part of his period in office, says his former boss is offering a "principled and optimistic argument for a better future for Britain".
However, commentator Rafael Behr tells the paper that while Mr Blair has a reasonable argument, he cannot be the "trusted messenger" who he says is needed to deliver it.
And most of the papers continue to be exercised by the government's forthcoming shake-up of business rates.
The Sun has spoken to the owner of the pie shop opposite Arsenal's stadium in north London.
While his rates are doubling, the paper reports, those of the football club are getting a 2.3% cut.
"This isn't fair," says the owner. "Go tax someone else."
In the Daily Mirror, Lord Sugar writes that the rate revaluation will put a lot of small traders out of business.
He wants the government to scrap business rates for traders with a turnover below a figure yet to be defined, and "whack the deficit on the giant retailers that dominate the major high streets".
The Daily Telegraph says it has spoken to three former trade secretaries - Lord Tebbit, Sir Vince Cable and Dame Margaret Beckett - who have all voiced concerns about the changes.
Under the headline "shopkeeper who spoke for Britain", the Daily Mail carries a letter written by a wine merchant in the Welsh borders to the chief secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, which warns the plans risk turning "the whole of Britain into a retail wasteland".
The lead story in the Times warns of a slump in the housing market, with homeowners in some areas reportedly waiting an average of 10 months to sell their properties.
"Inflated asking prices and economic uncertainty cause the housing market to stall," it reports.
Parts of southern England, where prices have risen rapidly, and the north-east, where the economy is slow, are worst affected. The paper says that "real pain" will be felt if the slowdown in the number of sales translates into tumbling prices.
The Sun features the imminent sale of what it says is one of the cheapest homes in the country.
The two-bedroom mid-terrace at Trimdon, in County Durham, is going for auction with a guide price of £10,000, though it needs some work.
The paper says a similar property in London would cost 64 times as much.
Elsewhere, the front page story in the i says there is a looming staff crisis in the NHS in England. An investigation by the paper suggests government plans to recruit more GPs are struggling to keep pace with retirement, while figures show nurse recruitment levels have fallen.
Donald Trump continues to be a rich source of copy.
The Financial Times says it is clear that, however "finely tuned" Mr Trump's administration may be, it is "leaking prodigiously".
The paper believes it will be hard for the president to "plug the leaks" of the sort that cost the job of his short-lived national security adviser, Mike Flynn.
However, the FT argues that Mr Trump made himself "fair game" on the campaign trail, by celebrating the publication of thousands of Hillary Clinton's hacked emails.
Finally, the Daily Mail has details of a study that suggests parents should let children play with their food.
Researchers at De Montfort University in Leicester found that youngsters who were allowed to touch, handle and even squash their fruit and veg were more inclined to snack on them later.
The scientists think touch and feel - rather than taste - may be the catalyst to healthier eating. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-39011206 | news_blogs-the-papers-39011206 |
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Who is trolling the Pope? - BBC News | 2017-02-18 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Posters and spoof news stories criticising the Pope have been springing up across Rome. What's going on? | Magazine | Earlier this month posters criticising the Pope sprang up across Rome, and a spoof news story mocking the pontiff was sent to the city's cardinals. Christopher Lamb asks what it's all about.
I was shocked when I saw them.
I was sitting just a few rows behind a nun on a tram, when it stopped alongside some posters of a stern-looking Pope Francis. Underneath his glum, almost menacing face, was a list of complaints: he'd removed priests, ignored the concerns of cardinals and "decapitated" an ancient Catholic group, the Knights of Malta.
This is the opposite of what I have come to expect in Rome. The tram was winding through a part of the city where you're normally greeted by images of a smiling Pope, with arms outstretched or making a thumbs up.
Here in Italy the papacy is the closest thing there is to a monarchy, so perhaps it is no surprise that the city authorities ordered the offending text to be pasted over, leaving just the grim-faced image of Francis and a sign reading: "Illegal bill posting".
At roughly the same time the posters were plastered around the city's walls, cardinals in Rome were opening their email inboxes to find a "fake" front page of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. It had the traditional Latin motto which sits on the paper's masthead beneath a papal coat of arms, and a list of questions sent to the Pope by a group of conservative cardinals, with the answer, in each case, "Sic et non!" - "Yes and no!"
This is the Pope being trolled on his home turf - and what's more, in Latin.
While Francis enjoys huge popularity among many ordinary Catholics he's facing resistance to his shake-up of the Vatican and he's infuriating believers from the Church's more traditional wing. The main source of tension has been - yes - sex. Francis wants to give communion to divorcees who have married again; his opponents say this undermines the Church's teaching on marriage, because second unions are adulterous. The questions shown on the spoof front page were all on this subject.
At the forefront of the opposition to Pope Francis is an American Cardinal, Raymond Burke, a stickler for the rules who once told John Kerry, when he was a presidential candidate, that he could not receive communion because of his previous support for abortion.
Cardinal Burke has dedicated much of his life to studying the church's laws, and he wants to ensure they are enforced. He believes this Pope is tinkering dangerously with Christianity's 2,000-year-old tradition and has even threatened to issue an "act of correction" against Francis. This would be a very bold, highly unusual move - it hasn't happened for centuries.
The cardinal lives in a large flat just off the grand thoroughfare built by Mussolini that leads into St Peter's Square from the River Tiber. It is here that he runs his operation for promoting what he calls "doctrinal clarity".
Custom and ceremony are held in high regard. When I visited to interview him I was shown past a cardinal's red hat sitting enclosed in a glass case, as if it was a holy relic, and then into a drawing room with high-backed chairs, where we waited in anticipation for the grand entrance. Sitting alongside me was his press adviser, who greeted the cardinal by kneeling and kissing the gold ring on the ring finger of his hand, the traditional sign of respect given to a prince of the church.
By contrast, when I have met Pope Francis - as a member of the Vatican press corps - we shake hands, and I can't help noticing that he looks slightly uncomfortable when people go down on one knee before him.
The word in Rome is that the posters were the work of a right-wing group that dislikes the Pope's appeals for Europe to be more welcoming of immigrants. Once again, Cardinal Burke appears to be on the other side of the argument - he recently met the leader of the anti-immigration Northern League - but there is no evidence that he lies behind the posters, or the spoof news story. There are many conservative Catholics who are uncomfortable with some of Pope Francis's changes.
The Pope's decision to live in a Vatican guest house, carry his own brief case and be driven around in a Ford Focus has burst the balloon of papal pomp. Some regard this freewheeling approach as "un-papal", and resent his description of those on the traditional wing of the church as "rigid".
So far the Pope has shrugged off the criticisms.
"I'm not on tranquillisers," he joked recently. His way of dealing with the stress, he explained, is to jot down problems and place the notes under a figure of a sleeping St Joseph. St Joseph, the carpenter, is the figure Catholics turn to when facing practical difficulties. "Now he is sleeping on a mattress of letters!" Francis added.
The trouble is that the Pope's job is to be the rock of church unity. Alarm bells start ringing when a papacy becomes divisive. While Francis has been hugely successful in reaching out to lost sheep, he runs the risk of alienating those already in the fold.
The Pope has admitted that "cracks" are appearing between bishops and priests - rifts that if left untreated could develop into bigger problems. There may well be more papal trolling ahead.
Christopher Lamb is Vatican correspondent for The Tablet
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38995877 | news_magazine-38995877 |
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Pakistan's bloody week: Who is really to blame? - BBC News | 2017-02-18 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Pakistani military points the finger at Afghanistan and India, but some believe the answer is more complex. | Asia | More than 100 people have been killed across Pakistan since Sunday in a series of deadly militant attacks
As Pakistan picks up the pieces from Thursday evening's devastating bomb attack at the 800-year-old shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, the country's managers are looking for scapegoats abroad.
And the military has openly taken charge of the proceedings, relegating pretentions of political propriety to the background.
Soon after the bombing, army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa vowed that "each drop of [the] nation's blood shall be avenged, and avenged immediately".
There would be "no more restraint for anyone", he said.
The object of his remark was clear an hour later when the military announced that Pakistan had closed its border with Afghanistan to all traffic, including pedestrians.
On Friday morning, Afghan embassy officials were summoned to the army's headquarters in Rawalpindi. They were handed a list of 76 "terrorists" said to be hiding in their country, with the demand that they be arrested and handed over to Pakistan, the military says.
The fiery reaction came after a series of deadly militant attacks in five days from Sunday killed more than 100 people across Pakistan, including civilians, the police and soldiers.
This is the worst spell of violence since 2014, when Pakistan launched an operation to eliminate militant sanctuaries in its north-western tribal region.
The numerous militant attacks this week have raised questions about the authorities' security strategy
Violence decreased considerably as a result, with Pakistani leaders claiming the militants had been defeated. But this week, that sense of security has been blown away.
The latest surge in attacks comes amid reports of the reunification of some powerful factions of the Pakistani Taliban. Some of them have links with the Afghanistan-Pakistan chapter of the so-called Islamic State, which itself emerged from a former faction of the Pakistani Taliban.
Most of these groups have hideouts in border areas of Afghanistan, where they relocated after Pakistan launched its anti-militant operations.
Pakistan now accuses Afghanistan of tolerating these sanctuaries. It also blames India for funding these groups.
Officials say India and Afghanistan want to hurt Pakistan economically and undermine China's plans to build a multi-billion dollar "economic corridor" through the country.
At least 80 people were killed in the Sufi shrine attack on Thursday in Sehwan, Sindh province
But many in Pakistan and elsewhere don't buy that argument. They believe that militancy in Pakistan is actually tied to the country's own covert wars that sustain the economy of its security establishment.
In Kashmir, for example, the BBC has seen militants living and operating out of camps located close to army deployments. Each camp is placed under the charge of an official from what locals describe as the "launching wing" of the intelligence service.
In Balochistan, which has been under de-facto military control for nearly a decade, state agencies have allegedly been promoting Islamist militants to counter an armed separatist insurgency by secular ethnic Baloch activists.
Last year the regional police compiled a report on militant sanctuaries across several parts of Balochistan, but an operation recommended by the police in those areas was never launched.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Amateur footage from inside the shrine shows people fleeing the scene
Likewise, the world knows about the safe havens which the Afghan Taliban continue to enjoy in the Quetta region and elsewhere in Balochistan province, as well as in some parts of the tribal region in the north-west, from where they continue to launch raids inside Afghanistan.
Many observers believe that the Pakistani military uses militant proxies to advance its wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and takes advantage of the domestic security situation to control political decision making.
This is important, they say, if the military is to sustain a vast business, industrial and real estate empire which they believe enjoys unfair competitive advantages, state patronage and tax holidays.
But with such a cocktail of militant networks in the border region, many find it hard to buy the Pakistani line that India and Afghanistan are to blame.
All militants on the ground - from disputed Kashmir to Quetta and Afghanistan - come from the same stock. They are the second-generation standard bearers of an armed Islamist movement that was formed on Pakistani soil during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s.
They may have regional affiliations or partisan loyalties, but all have been raised under the influence of Wahhabi Islam and its various ideological offshoots, imported here by Arab warriors who came to help liberate Afghanistan.
As such, they are capable of forming complex group-alliances and cross-border linkages with each other. And they are all united in considering Shia Muslims and Sunni adherents of native Sufi Islam as misguided and heretical.
This may also partly answer the riddle as to how these groups manage to survive and operate even though they do not command popular support in any part of Afghanistan or Pakistan. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39003673 | news_world-asia-39003673 |
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Does India have a problem with false rape claims? - BBC News | 2017-02-08 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | There has been an increase in false rape reports against men in India - but do the figures tell the real story behind India's rape crisis? | Magazine | After the infamous 2012 gang rape of a student on a bus in Delhi, the number of rape cases reported to police in India rose sharply. But one survey concluded that in Delhi, in 2013-14, more than half of these reports were "false" - fuelling claims by male activists that women are alleging rape in order to extort money from men.
Yogesh Gupta always knew he had evidence that could prove, indisputably, he was not a rapist, but getting the police to recognise his innocence was another matter.
The 44-year-old Delhi estate agent's troubles began after he caught an employee embezzling money and threatened to go to the police.
The employee reacted by coercing a woman to pose as a potential house buyer who, after viewing a property, asked Gupta for a lift to the local metro station. She later accused him of driving her to an empty fourth floor apartment and raping her.
"Thankfully I had CCTV installed in my office," he says.
"The whole process of taking the stairs to the fourth floor, opening the flat, taking her inside, then getting out and dropping her at the metro station would have taken at least 37 - 40 minutes.
"I could prove I was back in my office within 11 minutes."
But when the woman registered her complaint to the police, Gupta found himself caught up in a system that seemed to care little about the evidence and a lot about branding him a criminal.
"Nobody listened to what I had to say," he says. "The police didn't even consult me. I tried everything, but I didn't get justice."
The gang-rape and murder of a student in Delhi in 2012 provoked mass protests
For the next eight months as the police investigation continued, Gupta had to endure the public disgrace of being accused of rape.
"I can't even begin to explain the ordeal that my wife, kids, my father and brother had to go through," he says.
"My children have had the toughest time. My daughter, who is just six years old, would write letters to god pleading to spare her father."
When the case finally went to court, the woman confessed she had made up the accusation and Gupta was acquitted, but much damage had already been done.
Lawyer Vinay Sharma says he defends many clients who have been falsely accused
Gupta sees himself as a victim of what men's rights campaigners say is a growing problem - the false allegations of rape - and it's one that some argue stems directly from the 2012 Delhi gang rape.
As graphic details of the brutal attack were made public, protesters took to the streets to demand changes to India's deeply patriarchal society which they said ignores or even encourages violence against women.
The media responded with a spike in reports of sexual assault, particularly violent assaults by strangers, and the government widened the definition of rape, made it mandatory for police to register all complaints and introduced special fast-track courts.
This in turn encouraged more women to report sexual violence, with the number of cases registered in Delhi rising by more than 100% in the year after the 2012 gang-rape.
All these developments were widely welcomed as positive steps to tackle sexual violence.
But when a body called the Delhi Commission for Women published a report in 2014 describing 53% of rapes reported in the city the previous year as "false" this was seized upon by men's rights activists as evidence that the legal changes and noisy public debate had ended up making victims out of men.
"Of all the rape cases that are registered, only 1% is genuine," says Gupta's lawyer, Vinay Sharma, who regularly defends men accused of rape in Delhi.
"The rest are either registered to take revenge or to take advantage of the person in some financial matter," he says.
"The reality at that point in time was that India had enough stringent laws to curb rape and punish the offenders," he says.
"Today the definition of rape has changed so much and anything and everything is reported as rape."
The evidence from the Commission for Women is in fact far from conclusive. It classes as "false" all reports of rape that were dropped before they reached court, without analysing the reasons why.
So it doesn't distinguish between cases dropped because it was clear the woman was lying and those where a woman was put under pressure to withdraw her claim - or where there was simply insufficient evidence to build a strong case. Forensic evidence is rarely used in Indian rape cases, so it's often just his word against hers.
One person who decided to do her own investigation was data journalist Rukmini Shrinivasan.
When she moved to Delhi from Mumbai to take up a post at The Hindu newspaper, she wanted to know whether Delhi's reputation as the rape capital of India was justified.
Instead of counting dropped rape cases, she looked at the 460 cases that went to a full trial in Delhi district courts in 2013 and compared the initial complaint made to police with what happened in court.
Her first discovery was that the media's alarm about stranger rape was overblown.
"Stranger rape, the thing that gets most highly reported in India, was an absolutely tiny category," she says. It accounted for just 12 of the 460 cases.
On the question of false rape, her findings were mixed.
More than one third of the 460 cases involved young people who had engaged in consensual sex outside marriage until their parents found out and used the criminal justice system to end the relationship.
"Families are more willing to have the stigma of rape rather than having the stigma of their daughter choosing her own sex or life partner," she says.
Shrinivasan found that many of these cases dealt with inter-caste or mixed-religion relationships which are considered taboo in conservative society. There was often a typical script that was used when parents filed the case with the police.
"I was repeatedly seeing stories of women being picked up in moving cars, being given a cold drink laced with sedatives which would render them unconscious, and then they would be raped," she said.
"But when I started reading more and more cases I realised that there are patterns to how complaints are filed. So this sedative-laced drink becomes important because it is necessary to show that consent was not given."
Another large category - nearly a quarter of the total - were cases where the man had broken his promise to marry the woman.
Although this would not be considered rape in many countries, in India a man can be charged with falsely obtaining consent for sex if he promises to marry a woman and then changes his mind.
"The parents say, 'You've lost your virginity, it's going to be impossible to get you married, you file this case, he'll get scared and he'll marry you,'" says Shrinivasan.
What she did not find was any cases like Yogesh Gupta's, where a woman had filed a case maliciously or to extort money.
"In some cases it would be the argument of the defence that the woman was trying to abstract money," she says. "But I cannot think of a case where this was proven."
While Shrinivasan's study would appear to indicate that the proportion of false rape cases in Delhi is high by international standards - in more than one country, researchers have put the proportion of false rape claims at about 8% of the total - academic Nithya Nagarathinam argues that this is a distraction from a more pressing issue, the under-reporting of rape.
"Although there has been a jump in rape reporting since the Delhi gang-rape, there are still many cases that go unreported and there are so many reasons for that," she says, pointing to traditional patriarchal structures that mean violence against women is consistently downplayed.
"That is a more serious issue to me than a few cases where the parents have probably wrongly accused the man."
Nagarathinam cites a 2014 study using data from the Indian National Crime Records Bureau and the National Family Health Surveys that suggests only 6% of incidents of sexual violence against women are reported to the police.
She insists India needs better data, to understand the scale and nature of the problem.
"If you don't have hard data to base your arguments on, the result is the emotion-driven men's rights versus women's rights arguments that are going on now," she says.
However big Delhi's false rape problem may be, Yogesh Gupta can attest to the powerful stigma of being falsely identified as sexual predator.
"The allegation of rape has affected my social status," he says.
"Even if one is acquitted, one cannot regain that status. You can't prove your innocence to each and every person. People are quick to judge in a rape case without even knowing whether the person is guilty or not."
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38796457 | news_magazine-38796457 |
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What really happened when Swedes tried six-hour days? - BBC News | 2017-02-08 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Sweden has been experimenting with six-hour days but now the trials are over, has it really worked? | Business | Emilie Telander (right) says she is more tired now she is back on eight-hour days
Sweden has been experimenting with six-hour days, with workers getting the chance to work fewer hours on full pay, but now the most high-profile two-year trial has ended - has it all been too good to be true?
Assistant nurse Emilie Telander, 26, cheers as one of the day patients at Svartedalen's elderly care home in Gothenburg manages to roll a six in a game of Ludo.
But her smile fades as she describes her own luck running out at the end of the year, when after 23 months of six-hour shifts, she was told to go back to eight-hour days.
"I feel that I am more tired than I was before," she reflects, lamenting the fact that she now has less time at home to cook or read with her four-year-old daughter.
"During the trial all the staff had more energy. I could see that everybody was happy."
Gothenburg has been experimenting with shorter working days - but the policy isn't cheap
Ms Telander is one of about 70 assistant nurses who had their days shortened for the experiment, the most widely reported of a handful of trials in Sweden involving a range of employers, from start-ups to nursing homes.
Designed to measure well-being in a sector that's struggling to recruit enough staff to care for the country's ageing population, extra nurses were brought in to cover the lost hours.
The project's independent researchers were also paid to study employees at a similar care home who continued to work regular days.
Their final report is due out next month, but data released so far strongly backs Ms Telander's arguments.
Gothenburg's move has put a shorter working day "on the agenda both for Sweden and for Europe", says Daniel Bernmar
During the first 18 months of the trial the nurses working shorter hours logged less sick leave, reported better perceived health and boosted their productivity by organising 85% more activities for their patients, from nature walks to sing-a-longs.
However, the project also faced tough criticism from those concerned that the costs outweighed the benefits.
Centre-right opponents filed a motion calling on Gothenburg City Council to wrap it up prematurely last May, arguing it was unfair to continue investing taxpayers' money in a pilot that was not economically sustainable.
Saved from the axe at the eleventh hour, the trial managed to stay within budget, but still cost the city about 12 million kronor (£1.1m; $1.3m).
"Could we do this for the entire municipality? The answer is no, it will be too expensive," says Daniel Bernmar, the Left Party councillor responsible for running Gothenburg's elderly care.
But he argues the experiment still proved "successful from many points of view" by creating extra jobs for 17 nurses in the city, reducing sick pay costs and fuelling global debates about work culture.
Sweden's 40-hour working week is likely to remain
"It's put the shortening of the work day on the agenda both for Sweden and for Europe, which is fascinating," he says.
"In the past 10, 15 years there's been a lot of pressure on people working longer hours and this is sort of the contrary of that."
Yet while work-life balance is already championed across the political spectrum in Sweden, the chances of the Nordic country trimming back its standard 40-hour week remain slim.
On a national level, the Left Party is the only parliamentary party in favour of shortening basic working hours, backed by just 6% of voters in Sweden's last general election.
Nevertheless, a cluster of other Swedish municipalities are following in Gothenburg's footsteps, with locally funded trials targeting other groups of employees with high levels of illness and burnout, including social workers and hospital nurses.
Cleaners at Skelleftea Hospital will begin an 18-month project next month.
There's also been an increase in pilots in the private sector, with advertising, consulting, telecoms and technology firms among those testing the concept.
Yet while some have also reported that staff appear calmer or are less likely to phone in sick, others have swiftly abandoned the idea.
"I really don't think that the six-hour day fits with an entrepreneurial world, or the start-up world," argues Erik Gatenholm, chief executive of Gothenburg-based bio-ink company.
He is candid enough to admit he tested the method on his production staff after "reading about the trend on Facebook" and musing on whether it could be an innovative draw for future talent.
But the firm's experiment was ditched in less than a month, after bad feedback from employees.
"I thought it would be really fun, but it felt kind of stressful," says Gabriel Peres, as he slots a Petri dish inside one of the 3D printers he's built for the company.
"It's a process and it takes time and when you don't have all that [much] time it kind of feels like skipping homework at school, things are always building up."
More research is being done on Sweden's shifting work patterns
On the other side of the country, his concerns are shared by Dr Aram Seddigh, who recently completed his doctorate at Stockholm University's Stress Research Institute and is among a growing body of academics focusing on the nation's shifting work patterns.
"I think the six-hour work day would be most effective in organisations - such as hospitals - where you work for six hours and then you just leave [the workplace] and go home.
"It might be less effective for organisations where the borders between work and private life are not so clear," he suggests.
"This kind of solution might even increase stress levels given that employees might try to fit all the work that they have been doing in eight hours into six - or if they're office workers they might take the work home."
Back in Gothenburg, Bengt Lorentzon, the lead researcher for the Svartedalen care home project, argues that the concept of six-hour days also jars with the strong culture of flexible working promoted by many Swedish businesses.
Improving your working life is not just about how long your day is, says Bengt Lorentzon
"A lot of offices are already working almost like consultancies. There's no need for managers to have all their workers in the office at the same time, they just want to get the results and people have to deliver," he says.
"Compare that to the assistant nurses - they can't just leave work to go to the dentist or to the doctors or the hairdressers."
"So I don't think people should start with the question of whether or not to have reduced hours.
"First, it should be: what can we do to make the working environment better? And maybe different things can be better for different groups.
"It could be to do with working hours and working times, but it could be a lot of other things as well."
Listen to Maddy Savage's report on Sweden's experiment with six-hour days on The World Tonight. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38843341 | news_business-38843341 |
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What will the BP board decide to pay Bob Dudley this year? - BBC News | 2017-02-08 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The group chief executive's pay award will shed light on the executive pay debate. | Business | If BP group chief executive Bob Dudley was paid £14m for delivering a $6.5bn (£5.3bn)* loss last year, what on earth will he get paid for delivering a profit in 2017?
The answer to this will shed a lot of light on the politically current and intense debate around executive pay.
A year ago, Mr Dudley became the unwilling poster boy for angry shareholders when, at the BP annual general meeting, 59% of shareholders voted against his £14m pay award.
He got the money anyway because the vote was not binding, so the board did not have to do what the owners of the company wanted.
Under rules introduced by the coalition government and championed by then Business Secretary Vince Cable, shareholders can only reject a pay packet or the formula by which it is calculated every three years. That measure gave them more control than they had previously enjoyed but it clearly did not work or go far enough.
Remember, the formula by which Mr Dudley's pay was calculated in 2016 was approved by 95% of shareholders in 2014. Two years later they did not like the answer that formula spat out.
In defence of Mr Dudley, it was not his fault that BP's Deepwater Horizon platform exploded in 2010 killing 11 people and pumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (that was on the watch of his predecessor Tony Hayward).
The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig led to an environmental disaster
It was not his fault that the price of oil in 2015 came crashing down from more than $100 (£81) a barrel to around $30 (£24) during that year. Given the hand he was dealt, goes the argument, he did a pretty good job.
Some of the arguments will be the same this year. It is not his fault that he had to put another $7bn (£5.7bn) in the Deepwater kitty, but it is also not to his credit that the oil price rebounded to its current price of $56 (£45).
The chairman of BP's pay committee, Dame Ann Dowling, came in for a lot of stick for not using more discretion in adjusting the final pay award down last year and I understand that she has met with dozens of shareholder groups to avoid the same howls of protest this time around.
This April's vote on 2016 pay will also be non-binding but there will be a binding vote on the formula used to calculate pay packets for the next three years. It would take a particularly tin ear for BP to settle on a formula that finds it at such odds with its shareholders in the future.
Many executives are rewarded with a formula that takes a large account of relative performance. Doing badly - but less badly than the competition - means you did well. Even though the company lost money - you can often take home a hefty bonus.
The merits of this approach will be hotly debated this year as around half the companies in the FTSE 100 have binding votes on executive pay formulas. That will add real edge to a debate that has already been politically sharpened by Theresa May's warnings to corporate Britain over the rocketing disparity between bosses and workers' pay.
We are expecting new proposals on changing the manner, and in whose interests, UK companies are run when the government publishes its green paper on corporate governance in March.
I have presented the economic arguments as to why high performance-related pay is actually bad for companies and the economy here before. In short, it can prioritise cost cutting over investment which damages productivity and ultimately living standards. They are arguments that are gaining currency in Whitehall and it is not only shareholders who are disgruntled.
It may be only February, but this year's shareholder spring promises to be a belter.
*the headline loss of $6.5bn includes the compensation paid for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The number reported in our news story excludes one-off items to give a better sense of the underlying economics of the company. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38895706 | news_business-38895706 |
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Germany warns the City over Brexit risk - BBC News | 2017-02-11 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A Bundesbank executive says London is likely to stop being the “gateway to Europe” and warns the UK against a post-Brexit “regulatory race to the bottom”. | Business | One of Germany's most senior banking regulators has warned London that it is likely to lose its role as "the gateway to Europe" for vital financial services.
Dr Andreas Dombret, executive board member for the German central bank, the Bundesbank, said that even if banking rules were "equivalent" between the UK and the rest of the European Union, that was "miles away from access to the single market".
Mr Dombret's comments were made at a private meeting of German businesses and banks organised by Boston Consulting Group in Frankfurt earlier this week.
They give a clear - and rare - insight into Germany's approach as Britain starts the process of leaving the European Union.
And that approach is hawkish.
"The current model of using London as a gateway to Europe is likely to end," Mr Dombret said at the closed-door event.
Mr Dombret made it clear that he did not support a "confrontational approach" to future relations between the UK's substantial financial services sector and the EU.
But he argued there was "intense uncertainty" about how the Brexit negotiations would progress and significant hurdles to overcome.
The Bundesbank executive, who is responsible for banking and financial supervision, said he was concerned that the trend towards internationally agreed standards was under pressure.
And that Britain might try to become the "Singapore of Europe" following Brexit, by cutting taxes and relaxing financial regulations to encourage banks and businesses to invest in the UK.
"Brexit fits into a certain trend we are seeing towards renationalisation," he said.
"I strongly believe that this negatively affects the well-being of us all.
"We should therefore invest all our efforts in containing these trends.
"This holds for the private sector as well as for supervisors and policymakers in the EU and the UK.
"Some voices are calling for deregulation after Brexit," he continued.
"One such example is the 'financial centre strategy' that is being discussed as a fallback option for the City of London.
"Parts of this recipe are low corporate taxes and loose financial regulation.
"We should not forget that strictly supervised and well-capitalised financial systems are the most successful ones in the long run.
"The EU will not engage in a regulatory race to the bottom."
At present, London operates as the financial services capital for the EU.
More than a third of all wholesale banking between larger businesses, governments and pension funds takes place in Britain.
Nearly 80% of all foreign exchange transactions in the EU are carried out in the UK.
The business is valued in trillions of pounds, with billions of pounds being traded every day to insure companies, for example, against interest rate changes, currency fluctuations and inflation risk.
If there were significant changes to the present free-trading relationship between Britain and the EU, that could have a major impact on the value of the financial services to the UK and on the one million people employed in the sector.
Mr Dombret said it would also have an impact on German businesses which use London as a source of funding.
Some banks are hoping that, with the government looking to fully leave the single market, an "equivalence regime" can be agreed where the UK and the EU recognise each other's regulatory standards.
That would allow cross-border transactions to continue with few regulatory hurdles.
But Mr Dombret said that equivalence had "major drawbacks" and was not an "ideal substitute".
"I am very sceptical about whether equivalence decisions offer a sound footing for banks' long-term location decisions," he said.
"Equivalence is miles away from single market access.
"Equivalence decisions are reversible, so banks would be forced to adjust to a new environment in the event that supervisory frameworks are no longer deemed equivalent.
"These lead to the overall conclusion that equivalence decisions are no ideal substitute for passporting [which allows banks in one EU country to operate in another as part of the single market]."
Whatever the arrangements, Mr Dombret said that a "transition period" would ease the pressure of change and reduce what he described as the "earnings risk".
"Let me say that I expect London to remain an important financial centre," Mr Dombret told the audience.
"Nevertheless, I also expect many UK-based market participants to move at least some business units to the EU in order to hedge against all possible outcomes of the negotiations."
One of the biggest EU-focused businesses in the UK is euro-denominated clearing - insurance products called derivatives, which allow companies to protect themselves from movements in currencies, interest rates and inflation.
Three-quarters of the multi-trillion-pounds-a-day market is executed in London and a recent report from the accountancy firm EY estimated that nearly 83,000 jobs could be lost in Britain over the next seven years if clearing has to move to an EU member state following Brexit.
Mr Dombret said it was difficult to see how euro-clearing could remain in London, as it depended on the "acceptance of the European Court of Justice" as the arbiter of the thousands of legal contracts signed between counter-parties, many of which last for years.
Britain has made it clear that it does not want to be bound by ECJ judgements once it has left the EU.
"I see strong arguments for having the bulk of the clearing business inside the euro area," Mr Dombret said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38925440 | news_business-38925440 |
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Trump's America: Are things as bad as he says? - BBC News | 2017-02-11 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Trump decries urban violence, terrorism and police shootings. Is his image of 'American carnage' fair? | US & Canada | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'This American carnage stops right here,' Donald Trump said at his inauguration
During his presidential campaign, and since taking office, Donald Trump has repeatedly warned of the dangers facing the United States.
"I have learned a lot in the past two weeks," he told a meeting of police officers in Washington DC on Wednesday.
"Terrorism is a far greater threat than the people of our country understand. I'm going to take care of it."
His comments came as the legal battle continued over his travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority nations. Not putting the ban in place would mean the US "can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled", he said on Twitter.
On Wednesday, he also lamented inner-city violence, as well as the killing of police officers.
It is a vision of an America full of danger, with multiple threats on many fronts, encapsulated by the new president's inaugural address referencing "American carnage". But is it correct?
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In July 2016, the BBC's More or Less programme investigated the unreliable numbers around police shootings in the USA.
"The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty last year increased by 56% from the year before," President Trump said on Wednesday. And the statistic is accurate, unlike some others he has quoted in the past.
The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty did indeed jump 56%, from 41 in 2015 to 64 last year - that's according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
It is a stark statistic. Starker still is the fact that 21 of those officers were killed in ambush-style shootings, a 163% increase on the previous year.
However, it would be incorrect to read from this that a wave of police shootings has swept the country. Eight of those killings were in two assaults in 10 days in July 2016, in Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and occurred in the context of protests against police killings of African-Americans.
"Last year in Dallas, police officers were targeted for execution - think of this, whoever heard of this?" President Trump told the meeting of police officers.
But the targeting of police officers is not in itself a new phenomenon - it is only that 2016 had higher numbers than before. And statistics show that officers are still more likely to be shot dead responding to a domestic disturbance than any other incident.
In fact, if you look at the bigger picture, police deaths on duty have been dropping for some time.
The worst year for police deaths was 1930, when 307 died. More recently, there was a peak of 241 in 2001, largely due to the 11 September attacks.
But between 2011 and 2013, there was an almost 40% drop in police fatalities - from 177 to 109. The numbers have crept up again in the years since - up 10% in 2016 to 135 - but there is an overall pattern of decline, with the numbers now down to the levels of the 1950s.
Having said that, the likelihood of a police officer being shot dead is far higher than that of a member of the public being killed by the police.
Read more: How many police die every year?
"Right now, many communities in America are facing a public safety crisis," President Trump told police in Washington on Wednesday. "Murders in 2015 experienced their largest single-year increase in nearly half a century.
His statement is factually correct (though he has often, wrongly, said that the murder rate was the highest it has been in nearly half a century, and even attacked the press on Tuesday for not reporting this falsehood.)
There was a 10.8% jump in nationwide murder rates from 2014 to 2015, and that represents the biggest year-to-year increase since 1970-71, according to the fact-checking website Politifact.
But it is again important to look at the longer-term trend.
The number of reported murders and rapes across the country did indeed increase from 2014 to 2015, as did robberies.
But all are still below the levels they were at 10 years ago - and are respectively 13%, 6% and 34% lower than 20 years ago (even though the population of the US has increased by 55 million in that time).
The picture is more mixed in large cities, however.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In September 2016, Donald Trump said some US inner cities were more dangerous than Afghanistan - the BBC's More or Less programme investigated his claim.
Last month, The Economist magazine, having obtained an early look at the 2016 FBI data for violence in 50 US cities, showed that there were four broad trends in play.
Murder rates are stable in 13 of the 50 cities, including Los Angeles and New York, which saw 11 days without a murder in 2015.
In 15 other cities, including Houston and Las Vegas, murder rates are low but increasing. In another nine, including Philadelphia and Detroit, they are high but stable. And in 13, including Indianapolis and Chicago, they are high and rising. (You can read The Economist's analysis here).
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Life and death on the lost streets of Chicago
In Chicago, murders rose sharply last year, with more than 760 last year compared with 473 the year before. Up to then, there had been a steady fall in the number of murders since a peak of the early 70s.
Mr Trump has repeatedly used the city as an example. "In Chicago, more than 4,000 people were shot last year alone and the rate so far this year has been even higher. What is going on in Chicago?" he said on Wednesday.
Last month, he even threatened to send federal agents into the city if the violence did not subside.
But again, worrying though recent increases in violence in some cities may be, it is critical to look at how those increases fit in to a longer-term trend.
Ames Grawert, of the Brennan Center for Justice, co-authored a report into crime rates in US cities, and spoke to the BBC's More or Less programme. "If you look at crime rates in American cities in the past 30 years, even with the recent uptick in murders in some cities, we are very far below where we used to be with murder rates in big cities like New York and Los Angeles."
Read more (from 2015): Why have cities' murder rates increased?
President Trump, when he announced the travel restrictions last month, said it was to "keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the US". The restrictions, now in legal limbo, affected citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen - the measures also blocked Syrian refugees from arriving in the US.
So how big a problem is terrorism in the US? First of all, Mr Trump, like other presidents before him, measures the danger of terrorism to the US according to what could happen, rather than what has happened. His comment "I have learned a lot in the past two weeks" indicated he had specific information on the threat to the US.
And secondly, it all depends on what your definition of what terrorism is (more on that later on).
Read more: Trump says terror attacks 'under-reported': Is that true?
One study, by the libertarian Cato Institute, details 3,432 murders committed on US soil between 1975 and late 2015 that it says can be classified as terrorist attacks. Of those, 88% were committed by foreign-born terrorists who entered the country (the 2,977 deaths in the 11 September attacks make up a large chunk of these fatalities).
But does this mean Americans should be worried about being caught up in a terror attack caused by a foreign-born national? Take a look at the numbers the Cato Institute came up with to provide context:
The report's author, Alex Nowrasteh, concluded the number of Americans killed in a terror attack by someone from one of the seven countries on Mr Trump's list, between 1975 and 2015, was zero.
(He does point out that six Iranians, six Sudanese, two Somalis, two Iraqis, and one Yemeni were convicted of attempting or carrying out terrorist attacks on US soil in that time).
Only three deaths were attributed to refugees in the 40 years spanned by the report - and those were caused by three Cuban terrorists in the 1970s.
For some perspective, here are some other causes of death in the US in 2015 alone:
Far more dangerous than terrorism to Americans are painkillers.
The leading cause of accidental death in the United States is now overdoses from painkillers - opioid medicines kill 60 people a day, or 22,000 a year, according to the National Safety Council.
But it is impossible to discuss the threat from terrorism without looking at how the US defines terrorism itself - and therein lies the problem. Even the FBI says there is "no single, universally accepted, definition of terrorism". The State Department defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".
In that case, there is an argument that shootings should be defined as terrorism: those such as the racially-motivated killing of nine black worshippers in South Carolina by a self-avowed white supremacist, the murder of 26 people including children in Newtown, Connecticut, and the murder of 12 people in a Colorado cinema.
If the number of people killed in shootings in the US were considered terrorism - at least 15,055 people were shot dead last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive - then the likelihood of an American being killed in an act of terrorism would increase substantially. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38911708 | news_world-us-canada-38911708 |
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Trump travel ban: What did we learn from the ruling? - BBC News | 2017-02-11 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Anthony Zurcher explains three things we learned (and two we didn't) from the court ruling. | US & Canada | Demonstrators spell out "No Muslim Ban" at a protest in Boston
Federal circuit courts usually toil in anonymity. They are a legal rest stop for landmark cases on the way to the Supreme Court.
But this week it was different. All eyes were on three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who, for a brief moment, had the fate of Donald Trump's immigration order in their hands.
They were considering whether to sustain a temporary injunction preventing implementation of Mr Trump's sweeping travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim nations.
On Thursday night they gave their ruling. Mr Trump's order stayed on ice.
Here are three things we learned from the ruling - and two questions that remain unanswered.
1. The immigration ban is going nowhere fast
The Ninth Circuit was the Trump administration's best chance to get the president's immigration order up and running again quickly.
The three judges could have re-instated the order and closed the borders as early as Thursday night.
Instead, the order remains in limbo and it's likely to take time to resolve. The Supreme Court could hear an appeal, but the chances of more than four justices agreeing to reverse the Ninth Circuit ruling seem slim.
Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer or Elena Kagan going to side with Mr Trump? Not likely.
If this goes back down to the district court in Seattle, where it began, the gears of justice will grind even more slowly. A trial on the merits - which is slated to happen next, pending Supreme Court action - is a slow process. Briefs need to be filed. Evidence has to be submitted. Oral arguments will be scheduled. These things can take months or even years.
That's a painful lesson Barack Obama learned in 2015, when a district court judge blocked implementation of some of his immigration reforms and the Supreme Court didn't hear the case for more than a year.
2. The case will be no slam-dunk for Trump
This may seem obvious now, but on Thursday the president was fairly certain that his case was open-and-shut when he read what he viewed as the governing immigration statute to a gathering of law enforcement officers.
"You can be a lawyer, or you don't have to be a lawyer; if you were a good student in high school or a bad student in high school, you can understand this," he said. "And it's really incredible to me that we have a court case that's going on so long."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bob Ferguson: Travel ban was adopted with "little thought, little planning, little oversight"
Some conservatives, as well, wrote that the governing laws were clear that the president has broad powers when dealing with immigration issues.
"For all except the most partisan, it is likely impossible to read the Washington state lawsuit... and not come away with the conclusion that the Trump order is on sound legal and constitutional ground."
In the end, however, the three justices - two appointed by Democrats and one nominated by Republican George W Bush - saw things differently. While they acknowledged the president's authority on immigration matters, they said the statute Mr Trump cited was not the final word on the matter.
"Although our jurisprudence has long counselled deference to the political branches on matters of immigration and national security, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held that courts lack the authority to review executive action in those arenas for compliance with the Constitution," the judges wrote.
In other words, federal immigration law may have been on Mr Trump's side, but the Constitution wasn't.
At the heart of the Ninth Circuit's decision to uphold the injunction against Mr Trump's order was that it violated the constitutional due process rights of all persons in the US, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. And time and time again the judges pointed to how the order was initially implemented as reason for keeping it on hold.
They wrote that permanent residents and lawful visa holders were not given "constitutionally sufficient notice and an opportunity to respond". While they noted that the Trump administration had since interpreted the order as allowing all permanent residents into the US, they were unconvinced that this new interpretation would be uniformly followed or safe from reversal.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
They said that the travel ban caused considerable harm, including the separation of families, stranding of US residents abroad and prevention of students and employees from travelling to American universities.
A more measured, orchestrated rollout of the immigration order may have avoided these complications, weakening the case against it.
Mr Trump said on Wednesday that speed was necessary in implementing the ban because otherwise a "whole pile of bad people, perhaps with very evil intentions" would enter the country before border restrictions tightened.
Here, however, haste may have killed his legal case.
Shortly after the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion, Nevada Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto released a statement saying that the court "reaffirms that President Trump's hateful and divisive executive order amounts to religious discrimination against Muslims".
While the decision was certainly a blow for the Trump administration, the judges were notably restrained in discussing the religious issue.
"The states' claims raise serious allegations and present significant constitutional questions," the judges wrote. Then they said they wouldn't consider the question further, since they had already decided the case on due process grounds.
They did offer one clue as to how they might eventually rule, however. The Trump administration had insisted that the order must be judged on its own, without taking into consideration past remarks made by Mr Trump and his supporters touting a "Muslim ban". The judges disagreed.
"It is well established that evidence of purpose beyond the face of the challenged law may be considered in evaluating Establishment and Equal Protection Clause claims."
In other words, when it comes time to consider whether the order amounted to a de facto Muslim ban, everything is on the table - Trump tweets, Rudy Giuliani diatribes and all.
Now that the Ninth Circuit has rendered its decision, the ball is firmly in the Trump administration's court. They could appeal to the US Supreme Court, where the eight justices - four liberal, four conservative - can consider as much, or as little, of the ruling as they see fit.
Mr Trump certainly seemed to hint that this was the next step, tweeting: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!" shortly after the ruling.
The administration could also decide to let the circuit court's decision stand and fight out the case in a full trial back in the Seattle district court. This would buy the president time to get his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, confirmed by the Republican-held Senate. Then, when the case eventually made its way to the high court, his chances of victory could be markedly improved.
Whatever happens, it's clear that this case will be a political football. The fight will be personal, and it will be ugly. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38927778 | news_world-us-canada-38927778 |
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Why did Turkey hold a referendum? - BBC News | 2017-02-11 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The BBC's Mark Lowen explains why a draft new constitution for Turkey had such fierce opposition. | Europe | The changes give sweeping new to powers Mr Erdogan
A new draft constitution that significantly increases the powers of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been approved by voters in a referendum. Here, the BBC's Turkey correspondent, Mark Lowen, explains why this was such a bitterly-contested process.
In one brawl, a government MP alleged an opponent bit into his leg. In another, a plant pot was hurled across parliament. A microphone was stolen and used as a weapon. An independent MP handcuffed herself to a lectern, sparking another scuffle. The parliamentary debate on changing Turkey's constitution wasn't a mild affair.
On the surface, it might seem a proposal that would enjoy cross-party consensus: modernising Turkey's constitution that was drawn up at the behest of the once-omnipotent military after the coup of 1980.
But instead it's arguably the most controversial political change in a generation, giving sweeping powers to the country's powerful but divisive President Erdogan.
The plan turns Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential republic. Among the numerous changes:
The government - and, principally, President Erdogan - argue that the reforms streamline decision-making and avoid the unwieldy parliamentary coalitions that have hamstrung Turkey in the past.
Since the president is no longer chosen by parliament but now elected directly by the people, goes the argument, he or she should not have to contend with another elected leader (the prime minister) to enact laws.
The current system, they say, is holding back Turkey's progress. They even argue that the change could somehow end the extremist attacks that have killed more than 500 people in the past 18 months.
Hundreds of people have been killed in attacks in Turkey in the past 18 months
A presidential system is all very well in a country with proper checks and balances like the United States, retort critics, where an independent judiciary has shown itself willing to stand up to Donald Trump and a rigorous free press calls him out on contentious policies.
But in Turkey, where judicial independence has plummeted and which now ranks 151 of 180 countries in the press freedom index of the watchdog Reporters Without Borders, an all-powerful president would spell the death knell of democracy, they say.
Mr Erdogan's opponents already decry his slide to authoritarianism, presiding over the world's biggest jailer of journalists and a country where some 140,000 people have been arrested, dismissed or suspended since the failed coup last year.
Granting him virtually unfettered powers, said the main opposition CHP, would "entrench dictatorship".
Since the failed coup 140,000 people have been arrested, dismissed or suspended from their jobs
Ahmet Kasim Han, a political scientist from Kadir Has University, said before the vote: "It doesn't look as bad as the opposition paints it and it's definitely not as benevolent as the government depicts it.
"The real weakness is that in its hurry to pass the reform, the government hasn't really explained the 2,000 laws that would change. So it doesn't look bright, especially with this government's track record."
How did the referendum come to happen? The governing AK Party had to rely on parliamentary votes from the far-right MHP to lead the country to a referendum.
Opposition to the reform was led by the centre-left CHP and the pro-Kurdish HDP parties, the latter of which had been portrayed by the government as linked to terrorism. Several of its MPs and the party leaders are now in prison.
Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far right MHP, now supports the proposed constitutional changes
AKP and MHP voters who opposed the reform might have felt pressured into voting in favour, so as not to be tarnished as supporting "terrorists", especially since the referendum took place under the state of emergency imposed after the attempted coup.
"Holding the vote under this state of emergency makes it susceptible to allegations that people don't feel free to say no," says Dr Kasim Han. "It casts a shadow over the outcome."
With the detail of the constitutional reform impenetrable to many, the referendum became focused around Mr Erdogan himself: a president who elicits utmost reverence from one side of the country and intense hatred from the other.
The result will now determine the political fate of this deeply troubled but hugely important country. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38883556 | news_world-europe-38883556 |
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Russia looms large behind Flynn affair - BBC News | 2017-02-15 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Mike Flynn's resignation won't put to rest wider questions about the Trump administration's connection with Russia. | US & Canada | As with any resignation there are a thousand small, but nevertheless important questions. Most are of the who-knew-what-and-when variety. But with this astonishing fall from grace there is one big overarching question. I'll save that best bit for last.
The small questions concern whether Donald Trump knew about the calls Mike Flynn was making to the Russian ambassador, and what the substance of their conversations were.
What happened to the advice given by the acting attorney general to the White House counsel cautioning that Gen Flynn had not been entirely honest. Was the president aware of this? Were there different factions operating within the White House yesterday with different agendas on the embattled national security adviser's future?
Then we can go a sub-section of those questions which revolve around management at the White House. The seemingly dull-sounding process questions: What are the lines of communication? Who reports to whom?
Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer had very different public reactions to stories about Flynn on Monday
If that all sounds rather trivial, ask this - how was it possible that within a single hour yesterday afternoon Kellyanne Conway, counsel to the president, said Mr Flynn enjoyed the full support of Mr Trump, and then shortly afterwards, Communications Director Sean Spicer said the president was evaluating Mr Flynn's position?
Those just aren't reconcilable statements. Who was speaking on whose authority? This is not good communications strategy; this is what shambles looks like.
And let's deal with one bit of smoke that has been thrown up since the resignation. Kellyanne Conway was across the US networks this morning with a simple and tempting argument - what sealed Flynn's fate was his misleading of the vice president over the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
That resulted in Mike Pence going on TV in the middle of January and saying: "It was strictly coincidental that they had a conversation. They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia."
Of course, you can't lie/mislead/deceive/inadvertently misreport to (delete as appropriate) the vice president. But, if you draw yourself a little timeline of what happened then, what is striking is this - it is not the lie/misleading/deception/inadvertent misreporting that cost General Flynn his job, it is the lie/misleading/deception/inadvertent misreporting being made public by the Washington Post that cost him his job.
We now know the acting attorney general went to the White House weeks before to say voice intercepts of Gen Flynn's call proved that lifting of sanctions was discussed. But no action was taken then.
Only when it blew up did this become an issue. This conforms to the little discussed 11th Commandment that Moses handed down on his tablets of stone: Thou Shall Not Get Found Out.
But let us move on to the really big question. What does this say about President Trump's relationship with Russia? For a man who at the drop of a hat will freely spray insults on Twitter to anyone and anything, the one person he stubbornly refuses to say a bad word about is Vladimir Putin. Not ever.
White House staff in the Oval Office as Donald Trump speaks by phone to Vladimir Putin in late January
In one recent interview he seemed to suggest that America as a state had no greater moral authority than Russia. It was the doctrine of American Unexceptionalism, if you like.
Michael Flynn had sat with the Russian president not that long ago at a dinner honouring the pro-Moscow TV network Russia Today. Extraordinary that a former three star US general would be there. A dossier drawn up by a former MI6 officer - that was flatly denied - alleged all manner of Russian involvement in President Trump's businesses and presidential campaign.
Make no mistake, the Trump base love what they've heard about the migrant ban, the eviction of illegal immigrants, the jobs pledges and a lot more besides.
But what causes a lot of people to scratch their heads is why the love-in with Putin? What is driving this? Even if the most lurid things in the dossier were untrue, are there other things that are? Does Putin have some kind of leverage over the new American president?
The smaller questions, like they often do, will fade away with the next news cycle. These huge ones won't. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38974215 | news_world-us-canada-38974215 |
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The pull of Putin - BBC News | 2017-02-15 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | What attracts some Western politicians to the President of Russia? | Europe | Donald Trump's willingness to build better relations with Russia is threatening to turn US foreign policy on its head. His openness towards Vladimir Putin has dismayed most of the foreign policy establishment in Washington. But it's now shared by some European politicians, not all of them far-right extremists, in France, Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic and elsewhere. They can't all be Kremlin agents - so what's the new pull of Putin for some in the West?
The two politicians, one American, one Russian, put down their drinks and clasped hands across the pub table. Then they both pushed. But there was no real contest.
The arm-wrestling match was over in a second and the winner was the deputy mayor of St Petersburg, a man who'd built up his strength through years of judo training. Few outside Russia had ever heard of him. But five years later he would become its president.
US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher still laughs when he recalls his brief duel with Vladimir Putin in 1995, when the Russian came over in an official delegation. He hasn't met Mr Putin since. But for many years he's been the most consistent voice for détente on Capitol Hill, often effectively in a minority of one.
"I don't see Putin as a good guy, I see him as a bad guy. But every bad guy in the world isn't our enemy that we have to find ways of thwarting and beating up," Congressman Rohrabacher says.
"There are a lot of areas where this would be a better world if we were working together, rather than this constant barrage of hostility aimed at anything the Russians are trying to do."
Mr Rohrabacher doesn't condone Russian hacking during the US election campaign or the Kremlin's military incursions into Ukraine. But he believes Russia is the victim of Western double standards.
US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher believes the West should co-operate more with Russia
And that view is shared by some Western experts on Russia, though the vast majority stress how aggressive the country has become under President Putin.
Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent, in the UK, is in the minority camp. "We are living in a huge echo chamber which only listens to itself," he says. "The key meme is 'Russian aggression' and it's repeated ad nauseam instead of thinking.
"When we have national interests, that's good. But when Russia tries to defend its interests, it's illegitimate, it's aggressive, and it's dangerous for the rest of the world."
Russia's 2014 takeover of Crimea and military support of separatists in eastern Ukraine is widely taken as evidence that Mr Putin seeks to extend his country's borders.
But Prof Sakwa sees the Ukrainian crisis as a symptom of the failure after the Cold War to establish a new international security system that would have included Russia.
Meanwhile Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies at New York University, argues that the "vilification" of President Putin in the West stems originally from disappointment that the Russian leader turned his back on some of the Western-inspired reforms of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin: reforms that many Russians blame for the lawlessness and falling living standards of that period.
"Putin is a European man trying to rule a country that is only partially European," Cohen says. "But we demand that the whole world be on our historical clock."
Did President Putin turn his back on Boris Yeltsin's reforms?
Prof Cohen is a rare liberal voice for detente. Most Americans who want better relations with Russia are on the political right.
Some are neo-isolationists who dislike what they see as their country's attempts to "export democracy", whether to Iraq, Syria or Russia. In that, they're at one with the Kremlin, which opposes any outside interference in the affairs of sovereign states.
Others are "strategic realists" who argue that great powers, including Russia, will always have "spheres of influence" beyond their borders.
America's Monroe Doctrine sought to prevent outside military and political involvement in the New World.
The opposite argument is that independent states have the right to belong to whatever alliances they like. Most former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe joined NATO and the EU after the Cold War.
And some present and former leaders of those states have warned Trump that any attempt to strike a grand bargain with Mr Putin would endanger the region's security.
But one central European government - Hungary's - takes a different view. "We don't see Russia as a threat to Hungary," its foreign minister Peter Szijjarto says. "If Russia and the US cannot work together on global issues, then that undermines security in Eastern Europe."
Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto says his country doesn't regard Russia as a threat
Hungary also wants to end the Western sanctions imposed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea. It says they've been counter-productive, leading to Russian counter-sanctions which have damaged European export industries.
Peter Toth, head of the Hungarian association of breeders of mangalica pigs - whose fat is much prized in Russia - says his members are among those now suffering.
But the Hungarian government, which has been widely criticised for curtailing some democratic checks and balance, also shares other interests with Russia. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said Europe must keep its "Christian values" in the face of immigration from Muslim countries.
The Kremlin has also made much of the need to preserve national identity and Christian values in its rhetoric, leading nationalists in the West to see Moscow as an ally.
Many, particularly on the right, believe the threat from mass immigration, and terrorism, is now greater than that from Russia.
Congressman Rohrabacher says: "To say Russia is the enemy, when they too are threatened by radical Islamic terrorism, is exactly the wrong way to go."
Arguments like that, reinforced by President Trump, seem to be swaying some Americans. By the end of last year, more than a third of Republican voters viewed President Putin favourably, according to a YouGov poll, compared to only a tenth in 2014.
It found however that Democrats dislike Mr Putin more than ever. Prof Stephen Cohen believes Donald Trump will have great difficulty selling a new policy on Russia.
"If Trump says we need a detente with Putin for the sake of our national security," he explains, "it's going to be very hard to get people in the centre and the left to support it, because they'll be called apologists for Putin and Trump. It's a double whammy."
Tim Whewell's BBC Radio 4 programme, The Pull of Putin, is available to listen to via BBC iPlayer. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38969166 | news_world-europe-38969166 |
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Winston Churchill's views on aliens revealed in lost essay - BBC News | 2017-02-15 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A newly unearthed essay by Winston Churchill reveals he was open to the possibility of life on other planets. | Science & Environment | Churchill wrote the first draft in 1939, as Europe headed towards war
A newly unearthed essay by Winston Churchill reveals he was open to the possibility of life on other planets.
In 1939, the year World War Two broke out, Churchill penned a popular science article in which he mused about the likelihood of extra-terrestrial life.
The 11-page typed draft, probably intended for a newspaper, was updated in the 1950s but never published.
In the 1980s, the essay was passed to a US museum, where it sat until its rediscovery last year.
The document was uncovered in the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, by the institution's new director Timothy Riley. Mr Riley then passed it to the Israeli astrophysicist and author Mario Livio who describes the contents in the latest issue of Nature journal.
Churchill's interest in science is well-known: he was the first British prime minister to employ a science adviser, Frederick Lindemann, and met regularly with scientists such as Sir Bernard Lovell, a pioneer of radio astronomy.
This documented engagement with the scientific community was partly related to the war effort, but he is credited with funding UK laboratories, telescopes and technology development that spawned post-war discoveries in fields from molecular genetics to X-ray crystallography.
In the essay, Churchill outlines the concept of habitable zones - more than 50 years before the discovery of exoplanets
Despite this background, Dr Livio described the discovery of the essay as a "great surprise".
He told the BBC's Inside Science programme: "[Mr Riley] said, 'I would like you to take a look at something.' He gave me a copy of this essay by Churchill. I saw the title, Are We Alone in the Universe? and I said, 'What? Churchill wrote about something like this?'"
Dr Livio says the wartime leader reasoned like a scientist about the likelihood of life on other planets.
Churchill's thinking mirrors many modern arguments in astrobiology - the study of the potential for life on other planets. In his essay, the former prime minister builds on the Copernican Principle - the idea that human life on Earth shouldn't be unique given the vastness of the Universe.
Churchill defined life as the ability to "breed and multiply" and noted the vital importance of liquid water, explaining: "all living things of the type we know require [it]."
More than 50 years before the discovery of exoplanets, he considered the likelihood that other stars would host planets, concluding that a large fraction of these distant worlds "will be the right size to keep on their surface water and possibly an atmosphere of some sort". He also surmised that some would be "at the proper distance from their parent sun to maintain a suitable temperature".
Churchill also outlined what scientists now describe as the "habitable" or "Goldilocks" zone - the narrow region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold for life.
Churchill supported the development of game-changing technologies such as radar
Correctly, the essay predicts great opportunities for exploration of the Solar System.
"One day, possibly even in the not very distant future, it may be possible to travel to the Moon, or even to Venus and Mars," Churchill wrote.
But the politician concluded that Venus and Earth were the only places in the Solar System capable of hosting life, whereas we now know that icy moons around Jupiter and Saturn are promising targets in the search for extra-terrestrial biology. However, such observations are forgivable given scientific knowledge at the time of writing.
In an apparent reference to the troubling events unfolding in Europe, Churchill wrote: "I for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilisation here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time."
Churchill was a prolific writer: in the 1920s and 30s, he penned popular science essays on topics as diverse as evolution and fusion power. Mr Riley, director of the Churchill Museum, believes the essay on alien life was written at the former prime minister's home in Chartwell in 1939, before World War II broke out.
It may have been informed by conversations with the wartime leader's friend, Lindemann, who was a physicist, and might have been intended for publication in the News of the World newspaper.
It was also written soon after the 1938 US radio broadcast by Orson Welles dramatising The War of the Worlds by HG Wells. The radio programme sparked a panic when it was mistaken by some listeners for a real news report about the invasion of Earth by Martians.
Dr Livio told BBC News that there were no firm plans to publish the article because of issues surrounding the copyright. However, he said the Churchill Museum was working to resolve these so that the historically important essay can eventually see the light of day. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38985425 | news_science-environment-38985425 |
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Jack Barsky: The KGB spy who lived the American dream - BBC News | 2017-02-23 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The remarkable double life of undercover agent Jack Barsky who lived the American dream at the KGB's expense. | Magazine | It's no secret that the Russians have long tried to plant "sleeper agents" in the US - men and women indistinguishable from normal Americans, who live - on the surface - completely normal lives. But what happens when one of them doesn't want to go home?
Jack Barsky died in September 1955, at the age of 10, and was buried in the Mount Lebanon Cemetery in the suburbs of Washington DC.
His name is on the passport of the man sitting before me now - a youthful 67-year-old East German, born Albert Dittrich. The passport is not a fake. Albert Dittrich is Jack Barsky in the eyes of the US government.
The story of how this came to be is, by Barsky's own admission, "implausible" and "ridiculous", even by the standards of Cold War espionage. But as he explains in a new memoir, Deep Undercover, it has been thoroughly checked out by the FBI. As far as anyone can tell, it is all true.
It began in the mid-70s, when Dittrich, destined at the time to become a chemistry professor at an East German university, was talent-spotted by the KGB and sent to Moscow for training in how to behave like an American.
His mission was to live under a false identity in the heart of the capitalist enemy, as one of an elite band of undercover Soviet agents known as "illegals".
"I was sent to the United States to establish myself as a citizen and then make contact, to the extent possible, at the highest levels possible of decision makers - particularly political decision makers," he says.
This "idiotic adventure," as he now calls it, had "a lot of appeal to an arrogant young man, a smart young man" intoxicated by the idea of foreign travel and living "above the law".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. "This kind of double life wears on you"
He arrived in New York in the Autumn of 1978, at the age of 29, posing as a Canadian national, William Dyson. Dyson, who had travelled via Belgrade, Rome, Mexico City and Chicago, "immediately vanished into thin air", having served his purpose. And Dittrich began his new life as Jack Barsky.
He was a man with no past and no identification papers - except for a birth certificate obtained by an employee of the Soviet embassy in Washington, who had kept his eyes open during a walk in the Mount Lebanon cemetery.
Barsky had supreme self-confidence, a near-flawless American accent, and $10,000 in cash.
He also had a "legend" to explain why he did not have a social security number. He told people he had had a "tough start in life" in New Jersey and had dropped out of high school. He had then worked on a remote farm for years before deciding "to give life another chance and move back to New York city".
He rented a room in a Manhattan hotel and set about the laborious task of building a fake identity. Over the next year, he parlayed Jack Barsky's birth certificate into a library card, then a driver's licence and, finally, a social security card.
But without qualifications in Barsky's name, or any employment history, his career options were limited. Rather than rubbing shoulders with the upper echelons of American society, as his KGB handlers had wanted, he initially found himself delivering parcels to them, as a cycle courier in the smarter parts of Manhattan.
The young KGB agent arrived in New York in the late 1970s
"By chance it turned out that the messenger job was actually really good for me to become Americanised because I was interacting with people who didn't care much where I came from, what my history was, where I was going," he says.
"Yet I was able to observe and listen and become more familiar with American customs. So for the first two, three years I had very few questions that I had to answer."
The advice from his handlers on blending in - gleaned from Soviet diplomats and resident agents in the US - "turned out to be, at minimum, weak but, at worst, totally false", he says.
"I'll give you an example. One of the things I was told explicitly was to stay away from the Jews. Now, obviously, there is anti-Semitism in there, but secondly, the stupidity of that statement is that they sent me to New York. There are more Jews in New York than in Israel, I think."
Barsky would later use his handlers' prejudices and ignorance of American society against them.
But as a "rookie" agent he was eager to please and threw himself into the undercover life. He spent much of his free time zig-zagging across New York on counter-surveillance missions designed to flush out any enemy agents who might be following him.
He would update Moscow Centre on his progress in weekly radio transmissions, or letters in secret writing, and deposit microfilm at dead drop sites in various New York parks, where he would also periodically pick up canisters stuffed with cash or the fake passports he needed for his trips back to Moscow for debriefing.
He would return the to the East every two years, where he would be reunited with his German wife Gerlinde, and young son Matthias, who had no idea what he had been up to. They thought he was doing top secret but very well-paid work at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Barsky's handlers were delighted with his progress except for one thing - he could not get hold of an American passport. This failure weighed heavily on him.
On one early trip to the passport office in New York an official asked him to fill out a questionnaire which asked, among other things, the name of the high school he had attended.
"I had a legend but it could not be verified," he says. "So if somebody went to check on that they would have found out that I wasn't real."
Terrified that his cover might be blown, he scooped up any documents with his name on them and marched out of the office in a feigned temper at all this red tape.
The real Jack Barsky is buried in a Washington DC cemetery
Without a passport, Barsky was limited to low-level intelligence work and his achievements as a spy were, by his own account, "minimal".
He profiled potential recruits and compiled reports on the mood of the country during events such as the 1983 downing of a Korean Airlines flight by a Soviet fighter, which ratcheted up tensions between the US and the Soviet Union.
On one occasion, he flew to California to track down a defector (he later learned, to his immense relief, that the man, a psychology professor, had not been assassinated).
He also carried out some industrial espionage, stealing software from his office - all of it commercially available - which was spirited away on microfilm to aid the floundering Soviet economy.
But it often seemed the very fact of him being in the US, moving around freely without the knowledge of the authorities, was enough for Moscow.
"They were very much focused on having people on the other side just in case of a war. Which I think, in hindsight, was pretty stupid. That indicated very old thinking."
The myth of the "Great Illegals" - heroic undercover agents who had helped Russia defeat the Nazis and gather vital pre-war intelligence in hostile countries - loomed large over the Soviet intelligence agencies, who spent a lot of time and effort during the Cold War trying to recapture these former glories, with apparently limited success.
Barsky later found out that he was part of a "third wave" of Soviet illegals in the US - the first two waves having failed. And we now know that illegals continued to be infiltrated in the 1980s and beyond.
He believes about "10 to 12" agents were trained up at the same time as him. Some, he says, could still be out there, living undercover in the United States, though he finds it hard to believe that anyone exposed to life in the US would retain an unwavering communist faith for long.
He is scathing about his KGB handlers, who were "very smart" and the "cream of the crop" but who seemed chiefly concerned with making his mission appear a success to please their bosses.
"The expectations of us, of me - I didn't know anybody else - were far, far too high. It was just really wishful thinking," he now says of his mission.
On the other hand, the KGB's original plan for him might actually have worked, he says.
"I am glad it didn't work out because I could have done some damage.
"The idea was for me to get genuine American documentation and move to Europe, say to a German-speaking country, where the Russians were going to set me up with a flourishing business. And they knew how to do that.
"And so I would become quite wealthy and then go back to the United States without having to explain where the money came from. At that point, I would have been in a situation to socialise with people that were of value."
This plan fell through because of his failure to get a passport, so the KGB reverted to Plan B.
This was for Barsky was to study for a degree and gradually work his way up the social order to the point where he could gather useful intelligence - a mission he describes as "nearly impossible".
The degree part was relatively straightforward. He was, after all, a university professor in his former life. He graduated top of his class in computer systems at Baruch College, which enabled him to get a job as a programmer at Met Life insurance in New York.
Like many undercover agents before him, he began to realise that much of what he had been taught about the West - that it was an "evil" system on the brink of economic and social collapse - was a lie.
Barsky (fourth right) felt at home with co-workers at Met Life
"There was a way to rationalise that because we were taught that the West was doing so well because they took all the riches out of the Third World," he says.
But, he adds, "what eventually softened my attitude" was the "normal, nice people" he met in his daily life.
"[My] sense was that the enemy was not really evil. So I was always waiting to eventually find the real evil people and I didn't even find them in the insurance company."
Met Life almost felt like home, he says, "because it was a very paternalistic, 'we take care of you' kind of a culture".
"There was nothing like we were taught. Nothing that I expected. I wanted to really hate the people and the country and I couldn't bring myself to hate them. Not even dislike them."
But he was keeping a far bigger secret from his KGB bosses than his wavering commitment to communism.
In 1985, he had married an illegal immigrant from Guyana he had met through a personal ad in the Village Voice newspaper - and they now had a daughter together.
He now had two families to go with his two identities, and he knew the time would come when he had to choose between them.
It finally happened in 1988, when after 10 years undercover he was suddenly ordered to return home immediately. Moscow was in a panic, believing the FBI was on to him.
To do anything other than run as ordered - grab his emergency Canadian birth certificate and driver's licence and get out of the US - would be potentially suicidal.
He dithered and stalled for a week. Could he really leave his beloved baby daughter Chelsea behind forever?
But the KGB was losing patience. One morning, on a subway platform a resident agent delivered a chilling message: "You have got to come home or else you're dead."
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It was time for some lateral thinking.
From discussions with his handlers in Moscow, Barsky had come to believe the Soviet hierarchy feared three things about America.
He already knew about their anti-Semitism and their fear of Ronald Reagan, who they saw as an unpredictable religious zealot who might launch a nuclear strike to "accelerate" the Biblical "end times".
But he also remembered their "morally superior" attitude to the Aids epidemic - their belief that it "served the Americans right" and their determination to protect the motherland from infection.
Barsky stalled a bit more and then hatched a plan.
"I wrote this letter, in secret writing, that I wouldn't come back because I had contracted Aids, and the only way for me to get treatment would be in the United States.
"I also told the Russians in the same letter that I would not defect, I would not give up any secrets. I would just disappear and try to get healthy."
To begin with Barsky lived in constant fear for his life, remembering that threat on the subway platform. But after a few months, he began to breathe more easily.
"I started thinking 'I think I got away with this.' The FBI had not knocked on the door. The KGB had not done anything."
He gradually let his guard down and settled into the life of a typical middle-class American in a comfortable new home in upstate New York.
While he had fallen for the American Dream and the trappings of the consumer society, he still had some conflicting feelings.
"My loyalties to communism and the homeland and Russia, they were still pretty strong. My resignation, you can also call it a 'soft defection' - that was triggered by having this child here. It was not ideological. It would be easy to claim that. But it wasn't true."
Playing at the back of his mind was always the question of whether his past would catch up with him. And, finally, one day, it did.
The man who exposed him was a KGB archivist, Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin, who defected to the West in 1992 - after the fall of communism - with a vast trove of Soviet secrets, including the true identity of Jack Barsky.
The FBI watched him for more than three years, even buying the house next door to his as they tried to figure out whether he really was a KGB agent and, if so, whether he was still active.
In the end, Barsky himself gave the game away, during an argument with his wife, Penelope, that was picked up by the FBI's bugs.
"I was trying to repair a marriage that was slowly falling apart. I was trying to tell my wife the 'sacrifice' I had made to stay with Chelsea and her. So in the kitchen I told her, 'By the way, this is what I did. I am a German. I used to work for the KGB and they told me to come home and I stayed here with you and it was quite dangerous for me. This is what I sacrificed.'
"And that completely backfired. Instead of bringing her over to my side, she said: 'What does that mean for me if they ever catch you?'"
It was the evidence the FBI needed to pick him up. In a meticulously planned operation, Barsky was pulled over by a Pennsylvania state trooper as he drove away from a toll booth on his way home from work one evening.
After stepping out of his car, he was approached by a man in civilian clothes, who held up a badge and said in a calm voice: "Special agent Reilly, FBI. We would like to talk with you."
The colour drained from Barsky's face. "I knew the gig was up," he says. But with characteristic bravado he asked the FBI man: "What took you so long?"
He kidded around with Joe Reilly and the other agents who interrogated him, and tried to give them as much information about the KGB's operations as he could. But inside he was panicking that he would be sent to jail and that his American family, which he had been trying to hold together, would be broken up.
In fact, luck was on his side. After passing a lie-detector test he was told that he was free to go and, even more remarkably, that the FBI would help him fulfil his dream of becoming an American citizen.
Reilly, who went on to become Barsky's best friend and golfing partner, even visited the elderly parents of the real Jack Barsky, who agreed not to reveal that their son's identity had been stolen.
"I was so lucky and so was my family that the decision-makers were nice enough to say, 'Well, you were so well-established, we don't want to disrupt your life,'" he says.
"It required some interesting gymnastics to make me legal because one thing I didn't have was proof of entry into the country. I came here on documentation that was fraudulently obtained, so it took 10-plus years to finally become a citizen. And when it did, it felt good."
Barsky is now married for a third time and has a young daughter. He has also found God, completing his journey from a hardline communist and atheist to a churchgoing, all-American patriot.
He has even managed to reconnect with the family he left behind in Germany, although his first wife, Gerlinde, is still not speaking to him.
"I have a very good relationship with Matthias, my son, and his wife. And I am now a grandfather. When we talk about things like Americans playing soccer against Germans, I say 'us'. I mean the Americans. I am not German any more. The metamorphosis is complete."
The final act in his story came two years ago when he revealed the secret of his extraordinary double life on the US current affairs programme, 60 Minutes.
He had long wanted to share his story with the world, but his bosses at the New York electricity company where he worked as a software developer were less than impressed to find they had a former KGB agent on the payroll, and promptly fired him.
Barsky says he has no regrets. He knows how fortunate he has been.
"This kind of double life wears on you. And most people can't handle it. I am not saying that I lived a charmed life but I got away with it.
"I am in good health. I have had some issues with alcohol that I have overcome and I got another chance to have a good family life. And another child. And I am finally getting to live the life that I should have lived a long time ago. I am really lucky."
Perhaps the supreme irony of Jack Barsky's story is that he was only able to complete the mission the KGB had set him - to obtain an American passport and citizenship - with the help of the FBI. He cannot resist a smile at the thought of telling his KGB handlers that he has not been such a failure after all.
"I wouldn't mind meeting one or two of those fellows I worked with and saying 'Hey, see I did it!'"
Deep Undercover - My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America, by Jack Barsky and Cindy Coloma, is published next month
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38846022 | news_magazine-38846022 |
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Unilever stung into action by Kraft - BBC News | 2017-02-23 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Kraft Heinz's failed bid for Unilever has forced the Anglo-Dutch company to focus on the bottom line. | Business | Unilever is behind some of Britain's best-known brands
Think of Kraft Heinz's assault on Unilever as a slap in the face for management. It was short-lived, shocking, and will smart for a good while yet.
It's a slap that says "we think we can do a better job for your shareholders than you". That is not a message you want to get lodged in shareholders minds if you are Unilever's management and today the company acknowledged the sting.
"Unilever is conducting a comprehensive review of options available to accelerate delivery of value for the benefit of our shareholders. The events of the last week have highlighted the need to capture more quickly the value we see in Unilever."
That is the sound of a company cheek smarting.
It is very rare for corporate raiders like Warren Buffett (24% owner of Kraft Heinz) and Brazilian financier Jorge Lemann (owner of 3G) to back off so quickly. Once you dangle higher returns in front of pragmatic investors, they usually want to see what the next chat up line might be.
The Unilever management will take some pride in the fact they convinced some of their own major shareholders to back their rejection of the offer so flatly. The management argument, as told to me by senior management, went something like this.
Yes - Kraft has much higher profit margins than Unilever (23% compared to 15%) so looks like the better operator. But - Kraft habitually invests less in the future, therefore has lower organic (internally generated) growth and is saddled with more than average amounts of debt.
As a result it needs to acquire other companies to keep the growth going and pays for it by using yet more debt, which is financed in part with cash the target company has in the bank.
That model, argues Unilever, is not sustainable. Before long, we would be part of an underinvested, short-term profit-seeking, company-eating machine. As soon as Unilever had been digested, Kraft would be hungry again.
When the management of the company you want to buy REALLY don't want to sell to you, you can always go over their heads, cut them out of the negotiation and appeal directly to the shareholders.
But "going hostile" costs a lot more money and excites much more regulatory and political interest than a deal which the management recommends.
Many UK politicians welcomed the Kraft defeat as a victory for responsible long-term thinking by one of Europe's biggest companies and its shareholders who wisely eschewed the Jerry Maguire "show me the money" approach.
It's lucky for them they did. It will give the government a bit more time to figure out their own play book for how to deal with future bids - which are certainly coming thanks to the discount UK companies are selling at thanks to a near 20% depreciation in sterling post-referendum.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, I spoke to half a dozen US executives who were running the rule over potential UK targets - big and small.
Current rules only allow the government to intervene when takeovers could compromise financial stability, national security or media plurality.
Targets I heard discussed included food and drink, engineering and technology companies based or listed in the UK with foreign earnings potential. You can come up with a reasonably long list using those criteria.
Despite a few eye-catching deals like Japan's Softbank swoop on ARM Holdings and the upstart company Skyscanner being sold to a Chinese rival, there is no flood yet.
In fact, merger activity overall is still subdued as bidders are still wary of the prospects for UK companies with exposure to domestic and EU markets until greater clarity emerges on the future relationship between the two.
As Kraft Heinz retreats with its tail between its legs for now there is plenty of food for thought for both Unilever and government.
Unilever's CEO Paul Polman has been warned that if he doesn't focus more on the bottom line, someone else will.
The government may have to decide quickly whether foreign takeovers are a sign of confidence in the UK to be welcomed or opportunistic raiding parties to be resisted. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39056240 | news_business-39056240 |
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Crystal Palace: Has the Sam Allardyce effect deserted Palace? - BBC Sport | 2017-02-23 | None | Sam Allardyce has traditionally made an instant impact at clubs - so why is it not happening at Crystal Palace? | null | Historically, if you need a manager to make a quick impact at a club, Big Sam tends to be your man.
Sam Allardyce has enjoyed impressive starts to life at previous clubs, including Bolton, Newcastle, Blackburn and West Ham.
So when Crystal Palace decided Alan Pardew was no longer needed in December, it made sense that the Londoners turned to the quick-fixer in their bid to remain in the Premier League.
In a BBC Sport poll, 52% of voters think that Allardyce will not be able to keep Crystal Palace up this season.
It was a swift return to the familiarity of club football for Allardyce, 62, who had suffered the ignominy of seeing his spell as England boss end after one game.
So why have the Eagles, now 19th in the table and two points from safety, not benefited from the traditional Big Sam bounce?
How bad has Allardyce's start been?
Allardyce has a reputation for achieving positive results when he joins a club mid-season and, similarly, clubs generally see a downturn in results if he leaves in mid-season.
In fact, Palace are the first team where that pattern has not continued for Allardyce.
His first eight league games in charge at Selhurst Park have produced an average of 0.5 points, the exact same average of his predecessor Pardew's last eight games before he was sacked.
Overall, this is one of the worst starts Allardyce has ever made at a new club.
Aside from Notts County, whom he failed to steer away from relegation to League Two in 1996-97 (although they were promoted again by March the next year), Allardyce is on course for his lowest points average from his first 10 league games.
Allardyce's average of 0.5 points from his eight Premier League matches at Palace is 0.4 points lower than the average for his first 10 games at Sunderland and way below the 1.8 average of his start at West Ham.
There is hope for Eagles fans, though, as Allardyce has guided the last two clubs he joined in mid-season away from the drop zone - Blackburn in 2008-09 and Sunderland in 2015-16, the latter despite eight defeats in his first 10 games.
Where Allardyce's teams finish when he joins mid-season
Why the change in fortune?
One argument could be that Allardyce has not been his usual cunning self in his first transfer window.
Allardyce spent £34.6m in January - more than he has spent in any of his first transfer windows at new clubs - and that outlay was splurged on just four players: Jeffrey Schlupp (£11.7m), Luka Milivojevic (£10.8m), Patrick van Aanholt (£10m) and Mamadou Sakho (loan fee of £1.9m).
In the 2007 summer transfer window at Newcastle, he spent a comparable £30.8m, but that was on nine players.
And his most successful start at a club - West Ham in 2011 - coincided with the mass influx of 12 new players during the summer window
It should be noted that clubs generally bring in fewer players in winter windows, and have less time to line up signings.
But Allardyce managed to bring in six players at a cost of £17.6m at Sunderland in January 2016, and went on to save the club from relegation.
Alternatively, perhaps a change in tactics is the source of Allardyce's struggles?
Renowned for his preference for a pragmatic, long-ball style of play, Allardyce seems to have forgone that approach in an attempt to play a more compact version of the game.
Only 18% of his side's passes have been long passes (defined as a pass over 35 yards with an intended target) - lower than at Newcastle, Blackburn and Sunderland.
And what about the old cliche that Allardyce's sides are the masters of the set-piece?
Allardyce has become associated with well-drilled teams when it comes to the dead ball - a threat at the opposition end and organised in their own box.
Well, Allardyce does seem to have firmed Palace up at the back in that respect, conceding from just 24% of defensive set-pieces (three of 14) since his arrival, compared with 47% (15 from 32) under Pardew this term.
But the same effect has yet to register at the other end, Palace scoring from 25% of their attacking set plays (1/4) compared with 43% (12/28) under Pardew this season.
Analysis - Can Allardyce keep Palace up?
Crystal Palace assumed they were appointing a guarantee of Premier League safety when Sam Allardyce was hastily ushered through the door at Selhurst Park to replace sacked Alan Pardew in December.
Allardyce was the impact manager and arch-pragmatist whose record had never been stained by relegation from the Premier League, proving his ability to navigate a route out of danger at Sunderland last season, a task he performed with such success it landed him the job as England manager. Briefly.
To say the move has yet to have the desired effect is an understatement, with Palace now in a far more perilous plight than when he arrived after a home defeat by Chelsea that left them lying 17th.
Allardyce's tried and trusted methods have so far failed miserably, despite inheriting a squad that looked built for his favoured method of using wide players and a powerful striker, with Christian Benteke a disappointment, Wilfried Zaha's role reduced by his presence at the Africa Cup Of Nations with the Ivory Coast and Andros Townsend out of favour.
But is the real problem with Allardyce himself? Has the man whose concrete-clad self-confidence in everything he did been scarred by his calamitous one-match, 67-day reign as England manager, which ended after he was caught in a newspaper sting? Certainly Allardyce has not seemed the bullish, brash operator of old.
The England job was meant to be the pinnacle of his career, the job he had craved for more than a decade, not an embarrassing "blink and you'll miss it" interlude before another Premier League relegation battle.
Is the man who prides himself on breathing life into his squad battling to motivate himself to the old levels? It is hard to imagine but the loss of his managerial life's dream will have had a devastating impact, even on an experienced campaigner such as Allardyce.
There was a brief flash of the old Allardyce when he danced in front of Crystal Palace's mascot before the home game with Sunderland - but the music soon stopped as his side were 4-0 down to their relegation rivals by half-time.
It was a result that snuffed out the brief optimism of his only league win, a 2-0 victory at Bournemouth. Palace's fans are unimpressed with Allardyce and his methods, but more significantly by his results.
Palace and Allardyce simply cannot wait any longer to get their act together - they must start getting results to move out of trouble and for their manager to prove he has not arrived at Selhurst Park as badly damaged goods. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38986643 | rt_football_38986643 |
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Driver screams obscenities at BBC presenter Jeremy Vine - BBC News | 2017-02-01 | None | Jeremy Vine posted footage of a driver screaming obscenities at him as he cycled in Kensington. | null | A driver filmed screaming obscenities at BBC presenter Jeremy Vine as he cycled on a narrow road has been found guilty of road rage offences.
Shanique Syrena Pearson, 22, made a gun sign and threatened Mr Vine during the row in Kensington, west London.
Mr Vine filmed the argument using his helmet camera and posted it online. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38830432 | news_uk-england-london-38830432 |
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FA reform: MPs pass 'no confidence' motion after House of Commons debate - BBC Sport | 2017-02-09 | None | A motion of "no confidence" in the Football Association is passed by MPs debating the organisation's ability to reform itself. | null | A motion of "no confidence" in the Football Association has been passed by MPs debating the organisation's ability to reform itself.
While the motion is largely symbolic, MPs have warned legislation will be brought in if changes are not made.
Sports Minister Tracey Crouch has said the FA could lose £30m-£40m of public funding if it does not modernise.
Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Select Committee chairman Damian Collins said: "No change is no option."
• None Timeline: Calls for changes at the FA
He added: "The FA, to use a football analogy, are not only in extra time, they are at the end of extra time, in 'Fergie time'. They are 1-0 down and if they don't pick up fairly quickly, reform will be delivered to them."
I would have thought with the state of the NHS, the lack of building, not enough cash for defence, that [MPs] would put energy into that not the organisation of football
FA chairman Greg Clarke has said he will quit if the organisation cannot win government support for its reform plans.
"I watched the debate and respect the opinions of the MPs," he said.
"As previously stated, we remain committed to reforming governance at the FA to the agreed timescale of the minister."
Collins suggested ministers should intervene to overhaul English football's governing body because "turkeys won't vote for Christmas" and it will not reform itself.
Crouch warned the FA that if it played "Russian roulette" with public money it will lose.
The minister also said the government would be prepared to consider legislation if the FA fails to present plans for required reforms before April. However she felt the debate - which was sparsely attended by MPs - was premature given her desire to see the FA's proposals.
How have we got here?
The committee has published two reports since 2010 recommending greater representation at the FA for fans and the grassroots game, as well as more diversity in positions of authority. It also wants to dilute the perceived dominance of the Premier League.
Collins has said the FA was given six months to meet the government guidance on best practice for sports governance but had failed to do so. That guidance called for things such as a move towards gender equality on boards, more independent oversight, more accountability and term limits for office bearers.
He was joined by fellow Tories and Labour MPs - keen to ensure the "national game" is run correctly - in bemoaning the current state of the FA.
The cross-party motion stated that MPs have no confidence in the FA's ability to comply fully with its duties as its existing governance structures make it "impossible for the organisation to reform itself".
It was approved unopposed at the end of a backbench business debate, which was attended by fewer than 30 MPs.
The FA is effectively run by its own parliament, the FA Council, which has 122 members - just eight are women and only four from ethnic minorities. More than 90 of the 122 members are aged over 60.
Shadow sports minister Rosena Allin-Khan said: "Not only is diversity not in the heart of the FA ,it isn't in its body, or even its soul."
Labour MP Keith Vaz, whose constituency of Leicester East is home to the Premier League champions Leicester City, added: "A quarter of all professional footballers are black, however only 17 of the 92 top clubs have an ethnic minority person in a senior coaching role."
However, Keith Compton - one of 25 FA life vice-presidents and a director of Derbyshire FA - questioned why the FA was being discussed in Parliament.
"It is pity that the MPs have got nothing better to do," he told BBC Radio 5 live.
"I would have thought with the state of the NHS, the lack of building, too many people living in boxes, not enough cash for defence, that some people would put energy into that not the organisation of football.
"Football is reforming all of the time."
Asked whether there should be more female and ethnic minority involvement in FA decisions, he said: "That's not really the responsibility of the council. If those people were interested enough, and we had enough people, we would have enough women and other people on the FA.
"I have heard people say supporters aren't represented but that is not true. They have one representative. People want the council to be reduced and now I am hearing it should be increased."
• None FA Council member: 'Old, grey-haired men still have a lot to offer'
Responding to the interview, former FA chairman David Bernstein said: "I think if you want an argument for change, you've just heard it."
And Yunus Lunat, the first Muslim to get a seat on the FA Council before leaving three years ago, said new recruits were needed.
"No-one is disputing the contribution the previous generation has made but there comes a time when you have got to recognise that you are not the most suitable people for the role," he said.
The debate may have been attended by fewer MPs than is needed for a full football match, but the fact a motion of no confidence in the FA was passed still gives it an embarrassing bloody nose, ramping up the pressure on the governing body.
The few MPs who spoke seemed to mostly agree with each other, demanding greater diversity on the council, independent directors and fan representation on the board, and raising concerns over the clout and money of the professional clubs, especially the Premier League.
But the people who really matter here are the government.
The sports minister said the debate was "premature" and reiterated that she may consider the nuclear option of legislation to force through reforms - but only if a threat to cut funding does not work. That however, remains some way off and the FA is confident it can comply with a new code of governance. If it fails, chairman Greg Clarke has vowed to step down and then it really will be in the last-chance saloon.
What do fans think?
Football Supporters' Federation chairman Malcolm Clarke: "We're very pleased to see so many MPs back our proposals for a minimum of five fan representatives on the FA Council, representation on the FA board, and increased diversity.
"Supporters are integral to the health of our national sport yet are still shockingly under-represented in the FA hierarchy - the FA Council has only one supporter representative, yet the Armed Forces and Oxbridge have five.
"It is also important to acknowledge that the FA Council has stood up to rampant commercialism within the game and protected fans' interests - such as when the FA Council stopped the 'Hull Tigers' name change."
What the MPs said - key quotes
Sports minister Tracey Crouch: "The FA's current model does not, in my opinion, and clearly that of other colleagues, stand up to scrutiny. Reform is therefore required."
Judith Cummins (Labour, Bradford South): "At best they're dragging their feet, at worst they're wilfully failing to act."
Andrew Bingham, CMS Select Committee member: "The issues of Sam Allardyce, who manages the (England) team for 67 days, one game, walks away with allegedly around £1m, it is destroying people's faith in football."
Nigel Huddleston (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire): "I have a great deal of respect for Greg Clarke but I sense his hands are tied and a sense of institutional inertia pervades the governance of football in this country." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38920489 | rt_football_38920489 |
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What really happened when Swedes tried six-hour days? - BBC News | 2017-02-09 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Sweden has been experimenting with six-hour days but now the trials are over, has it really worked? | Business | Emilie Telander (right) says she is more tired now she is back on eight-hour days
Sweden has been experimenting with six-hour days, with workers getting the chance to work fewer hours on full pay, but now the most high-profile two-year trial has ended - has it all been too good to be true?
Assistant nurse Emilie Telander, 26, cheers as one of the day patients at Svartedalen's elderly care home in Gothenburg manages to roll a six in a game of Ludo.
But her smile fades as she describes her own luck running out at the end of the year, when after 23 months of six-hour shifts, she was told to go back to eight-hour days.
"I feel that I am more tired than I was before," she reflects, lamenting the fact that she now has less time at home to cook or read with her four-year-old daughter.
"During the trial all the staff had more energy. I could see that everybody was happy."
Gothenburg has been experimenting with shorter working days - but the policy isn't cheap
Ms Telander is one of about 70 assistant nurses who had their days shortened for the experiment, the most widely reported of a handful of trials in Sweden involving a range of employers, from start-ups to nursing homes.
Designed to measure well-being in a sector that's struggling to recruit enough staff to care for the country's ageing population, extra nurses were brought in to cover the lost hours.
The project's independent researchers were also paid to study employees at a similar care home who continued to work regular days.
Their final report is due out next month, but data released so far strongly backs Ms Telander's arguments.
Gothenburg's move has put a shorter working day "on the agenda both for Sweden and for Europe", says Daniel Bernmar
During the first 18 months of the trial the nurses working shorter hours logged less sick leave, reported better perceived health and boosted their productivity by organising 85% more activities for their patients, from nature walks to sing-a-longs.
However, the project also faced tough criticism from those concerned that the costs outweighed the benefits.
Centre-right opponents filed a motion calling on Gothenburg City Council to wrap it up prematurely last May, arguing it was unfair to continue investing taxpayers' money in a pilot that was not economically sustainable.
Saved from the axe at the eleventh hour, the trial managed to stay within budget, but still cost the city about 12 million kronor (£1.1m; $1.3m).
"Could we do this for the entire municipality? The answer is no, it will be too expensive," says Daniel Bernmar, the Left Party councillor responsible for running Gothenburg's elderly care.
But he argues the experiment still proved "successful from many points of view" by creating extra jobs for 17 nurses in the city, reducing sick pay costs and fuelling global debates about work culture.
Sweden's 40-hour working week is likely to remain
"It's put the shortening of the work day on the agenda both for Sweden and for Europe, which is fascinating," he says.
"In the past 10, 15 years there's been a lot of pressure on people working longer hours and this is sort of the contrary of that."
Yet while work-life balance is already championed across the political spectrum in Sweden, the chances of the Nordic country trimming back its standard 40-hour week remain slim.
On a national level, the Left Party is the only parliamentary party in favour of shortening basic working hours, backed by just 6% of voters in Sweden's last general election.
Nevertheless, a cluster of other Swedish municipalities are following in Gothenburg's footsteps, with locally funded trials targeting other groups of employees with high levels of illness and burnout, including social workers and hospital nurses.
Cleaners at Skelleftea Hospital will begin an 18-month project next month.
There's also been an increase in pilots in the private sector, with advertising, consulting, telecoms and technology firms among those testing the concept.
Yet while some have also reported that staff appear calmer or are less likely to phone in sick, others have swiftly abandoned the idea.
"I really don't think that the six-hour day fits with an entrepreneurial world, or the start-up world," argues Erik Gatenholm, chief executive of Gothenburg-based bio-ink company.
He is candid enough to admit he tested the method on his production staff after "reading about the trend on Facebook" and musing on whether it could be an innovative draw for future talent.
But the firm's experiment was ditched in less than a month, after bad feedback from employees.
"I thought it would be really fun, but it felt kind of stressful," says Gabriel Peres, as he slots a Petri dish inside one of the 3D printers he's built for the company.
"It's a process and it takes time and when you don't have all that [much] time it kind of feels like skipping homework at school, things are always building up."
More research is being done on Sweden's shifting work patterns
On the other side of the country, his concerns are shared by Dr Aram Seddigh, who recently completed his doctorate at Stockholm University's Stress Research Institute and is among a growing body of academics focusing on the nation's shifting work patterns.
"I think the six-hour work day would be most effective in organisations - such as hospitals - where you work for six hours and then you just leave [the workplace] and go home.
"It might be less effective for organisations where the borders between work and private life are not so clear," he suggests.
"This kind of solution might even increase stress levels given that employees might try to fit all the work that they have been doing in eight hours into six - or if they're office workers they might take the work home."
Back in Gothenburg, Bengt Lorentzon, the lead researcher for the Svartedalen care home project, argues that the concept of six-hour days also jars with the strong culture of flexible working promoted by many Swedish businesses.
Improving your working life is not just about how long your day is, says Bengt Lorentzon
"A lot of offices are already working almost like consultancies. There's no need for managers to have all their workers in the office at the same time, they just want to get the results and people have to deliver," he says.
"Compare that to the assistant nurses - they can't just leave work to go to the dentist or to the doctors or the hairdressers."
"So I don't think people should start with the question of whether or not to have reduced hours.
"First, it should be: what can we do to make the working environment better? And maybe different things can be better for different groups.
"It could be to do with working hours and working times, but it could be a lot of other things as well."
Listen to Maddy Savage's report on Sweden's experiment with six-hour days on The World Tonight. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38843341 | news_business-38843341 |
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Jack Barsky: The KGB spy who lived the American dream - BBC News | 2017-02-24 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The remarkable double life of undercover agent Jack Barsky who lived the American dream at the KGB's expense. | Magazine | It's no secret that the Russians have long tried to plant "sleeper agents" in the US - men and women indistinguishable from normal Americans, who live - on the surface - completely normal lives. But what happens when one of them doesn't want to go home?
Jack Barsky died in September 1955, at the age of 10, and was buried in the Mount Lebanon Cemetery in the suburbs of Washington DC.
His name is on the passport of the man sitting before me now - a youthful 67-year-old East German, born Albert Dittrich. The passport is not a fake. Albert Dittrich is Jack Barsky in the eyes of the US government.
The story of how this came to be is, by Barsky's own admission, "implausible" and "ridiculous", even by the standards of Cold War espionage. But as he explains in a new memoir, Deep Undercover, it has been thoroughly checked out by the FBI. As far as anyone can tell, it is all true.
It began in the mid-70s, when Dittrich, destined at the time to become a chemistry professor at an East German university, was talent-spotted by the KGB and sent to Moscow for training in how to behave like an American.
His mission was to live under a false identity in the heart of the capitalist enemy, as one of an elite band of undercover Soviet agents known as "illegals".
"I was sent to the United States to establish myself as a citizen and then make contact, to the extent possible, at the highest levels possible of decision makers - particularly political decision makers," he says.
This "idiotic adventure," as he now calls it, had "a lot of appeal to an arrogant young man, a smart young man" intoxicated by the idea of foreign travel and living "above the law".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. "This kind of double life wears on you"
He arrived in New York in the Autumn of 1978, at the age of 29, posing as a Canadian national, William Dyson. Dyson, who had travelled via Belgrade, Rome, Mexico City and Chicago, "immediately vanished into thin air", having served his purpose. And Dittrich began his new life as Jack Barsky.
He was a man with no past and no identification papers - except for a birth certificate obtained by an employee of the Soviet embassy in Washington, who had kept his eyes open during a walk in the Mount Lebanon cemetery.
Barsky had supreme self-confidence, a near-flawless American accent, and $10,000 in cash.
He also had a "legend" to explain why he did not have a social security number. He told people he had had a "tough start in life" in New Jersey and had dropped out of high school. He had then worked on a remote farm for years before deciding "to give life another chance and move back to New York city".
He rented a room in a Manhattan hotel and set about the laborious task of building a fake identity. Over the next year, he parlayed Jack Barsky's birth certificate into a library card, then a driver's licence and, finally, a social security card.
But without qualifications in Barsky's name, or any employment history, his career options were limited. Rather than rubbing shoulders with the upper echelons of American society, as his KGB handlers had wanted, he initially found himself delivering parcels to them, as a cycle courier in the smarter parts of Manhattan.
The young KGB agent arrived in New York in the late 1970s
"By chance it turned out that the messenger job was actually really good for me to become Americanised because I was interacting with people who didn't care much where I came from, what my history was, where I was going," he says.
"Yet I was able to observe and listen and become more familiar with American customs. So for the first two, three years I had very few questions that I had to answer."
The advice from his handlers on blending in - gleaned from Soviet diplomats and resident agents in the US - "turned out to be, at minimum, weak but, at worst, totally false", he says.
"I'll give you an example. One of the things I was told explicitly was to stay away from the Jews. Now, obviously, there is anti-Semitism in there, but secondly, the stupidity of that statement is that they sent me to New York. There are more Jews in New York than in Israel, I think."
Barsky would later use his handlers' prejudices and ignorance of American society against them.
But as a "rookie" agent he was eager to please and threw himself into the undercover life. He spent much of his free time zig-zagging across New York on counter-surveillance missions designed to flush out any enemy agents who might be following him.
He would update Moscow Centre on his progress in weekly radio transmissions, or letters in secret writing, and deposit microfilm at dead drop sites in various New York parks, where he would also periodically pick up canisters stuffed with cash or the fake passports he needed for his trips back to Moscow for debriefing.
He would return the to the East every two years, where he would be reunited with his German wife Gerlinde, and young son Matthias, who had no idea what he had been up to. They thought he was doing top secret but very well-paid work at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Barsky's handlers were delighted with his progress except for one thing - he could not get hold of an American passport. This failure weighed heavily on him.
On one early trip to the passport office in New York an official asked him to fill out a questionnaire which asked, among other things, the name of the high school he had attended.
"I had a legend but it could not be verified," he says. "So if somebody went to check on that they would have found out that I wasn't real."
Terrified that his cover might be blown, he scooped up any documents with his name on them and marched out of the office in a feigned temper at all this red tape.
The real Jack Barsky is buried in a Washington DC cemetery
Without a passport, Barsky was limited to low-level intelligence work and his achievements as a spy were, by his own account, "minimal".
He profiled potential recruits and compiled reports on the mood of the country during events such as the 1983 downing of a Korean Airlines flight by a Soviet fighter, which ratcheted up tensions between the US and the Soviet Union.
On one occasion, he flew to California to track down a defector (he later learned, to his immense relief, that the man, a psychology professor, had not been assassinated).
He also carried out some industrial espionage, stealing software from his office - all of it commercially available - which was spirited away on microfilm to aid the floundering Soviet economy.
But it often seemed the very fact of him being in the US, moving around freely without the knowledge of the authorities, was enough for Moscow.
"They were very much focused on having people on the other side just in case of a war. Which I think, in hindsight, was pretty stupid. That indicated very old thinking."
The myth of the "Great Illegals" - heroic undercover agents who had helped Russia defeat the Nazis and gather vital pre-war intelligence in hostile countries - loomed large over the Soviet intelligence agencies, who spent a lot of time and effort during the Cold War trying to recapture these former glories, with apparently limited success.
Barsky later found out that he was part of a "third wave" of Soviet illegals in the US - the first two waves having failed. And we now know that illegals continued to be infiltrated in the 1980s and beyond.
He believes about "10 to 12" agents were trained up at the same time as him. Some, he says, could still be out there, living undercover in the United States, though he finds it hard to believe that anyone exposed to life in the US would retain an unwavering communist faith for long.
He is scathing about his KGB handlers, who were "very smart" and the "cream of the crop" but who seemed chiefly concerned with making his mission appear a success to please their bosses.
"The expectations of us, of me - I didn't know anybody else - were far, far too high. It was just really wishful thinking," he now says of his mission.
On the other hand, the KGB's original plan for him might actually have worked, he says.
"I am glad it didn't work out because I could have done some damage.
"The idea was for me to get genuine American documentation and move to Europe, say to a German-speaking country, where the Russians were going to set me up with a flourishing business. And they knew how to do that.
"And so I would become quite wealthy and then go back to the United States without having to explain where the money came from. At that point, I would have been in a situation to socialise with people that were of value."
This plan fell through because of his failure to get a passport, so the KGB reverted to Plan B.
This was for Barsky was to study for a degree and gradually work his way up the social order to the point where he could gather useful intelligence - a mission he describes as "nearly impossible".
The degree part was relatively straightforward. He was, after all, a university professor in his former life. He graduated top of his class in computer systems at Baruch College, which enabled him to get a job as a programmer at Met Life insurance in New York.
Like many undercover agents before him, he began to realise that much of what he had been taught about the West - that it was an "evil" system on the brink of economic and social collapse - was a lie.
Barsky (fourth right) felt at home with co-workers at Met Life
"There was a way to rationalise that because we were taught that the West was doing so well because they took all the riches out of the Third World," he says.
But, he adds, "what eventually softened my attitude" was the "normal, nice people" he met in his daily life.
"[My] sense was that the enemy was not really evil. So I was always waiting to eventually find the real evil people and I didn't even find them in the insurance company."
Met Life almost felt like home, he says, "because it was a very paternalistic, 'we take care of you' kind of a culture".
"There was nothing like we were taught. Nothing that I expected. I wanted to really hate the people and the country and I couldn't bring myself to hate them. Not even dislike them."
But he was keeping a far bigger secret from his KGB bosses than his wavering commitment to communism.
In 1985, he had married an illegal immigrant from Guyana he had met through a personal ad in the Village Voice newspaper - and they now had a daughter together.
He now had two families to go with his two identities, and he knew the time would come when he had to choose between them.
It finally happened in 1988, when after 10 years undercover he was suddenly ordered to return home immediately. Moscow was in a panic, believing the FBI was on to him.
To do anything other than run as ordered - grab his emergency Canadian birth certificate and driver's licence and get out of the US - would be potentially suicidal.
He dithered and stalled for a week. Could he really leave his beloved baby daughter Chelsea behind forever?
But the KGB was losing patience. One morning, on a subway platform a resident agent delivered a chilling message: "You have got to come home or else you're dead."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Americans producers: 'Here was someone who lived it'
It was time for some lateral thinking.
From discussions with his handlers in Moscow, Barsky had come to believe the Soviet hierarchy feared three things about America.
He already knew about their anti-Semitism and their fear of Ronald Reagan, who they saw as an unpredictable religious zealot who might launch a nuclear strike to "accelerate" the Biblical "end times".
But he also remembered their "morally superior" attitude to the Aids epidemic - their belief that it "served the Americans right" and their determination to protect the motherland from infection.
Barsky stalled a bit more and then hatched a plan.
"I wrote this letter, in secret writing, that I wouldn't come back because I had contracted Aids, and the only way for me to get treatment would be in the United States.
"I also told the Russians in the same letter that I would not defect, I would not give up any secrets. I would just disappear and try to get healthy."
To begin with Barsky lived in constant fear for his life, remembering that threat on the subway platform. But after a few months, he began to breathe more easily.
"I started thinking 'I think I got away with this.' The FBI had not knocked on the door. The KGB had not done anything."
He gradually let his guard down and settled into the life of a typical middle-class American in a comfortable new home in upstate New York.
While he had fallen for the American Dream and the trappings of the consumer society, he still had some conflicting feelings.
"My loyalties to communism and the homeland and Russia, they were still pretty strong. My resignation, you can also call it a 'soft defection' - that was triggered by having this child here. It was not ideological. It would be easy to claim that. But it wasn't true."
Playing at the back of his mind was always the question of whether his past would catch up with him. And, finally, one day, it did.
The man who exposed him was a KGB archivist, Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin, who defected to the West in 1992 - after the fall of communism - with a vast trove of Soviet secrets, including the true identity of Jack Barsky.
The FBI watched him for more than three years, even buying the house next door to his as they tried to figure out whether he really was a KGB agent and, if so, whether he was still active.
In the end, Barsky himself gave the game away, during an argument with his wife, Penelope, that was picked up by the FBI's bugs.
"I was trying to repair a marriage that was slowly falling apart. I was trying to tell my wife the 'sacrifice' I had made to stay with Chelsea and her. So in the kitchen I told her, 'By the way, this is what I did. I am a German. I used to work for the KGB and they told me to come home and I stayed here with you and it was quite dangerous for me. This is what I sacrificed.'
"And that completely backfired. Instead of bringing her over to my side, she said: 'What does that mean for me if they ever catch you?'"
It was the evidence the FBI needed to pick him up. In a meticulously planned operation, Barsky was pulled over by a Pennsylvania state trooper as he drove away from a toll booth on his way home from work one evening.
After stepping out of his car, he was approached by a man in civilian clothes, who held up a badge and said in a calm voice: "Special agent Reilly, FBI. We would like to talk with you."
The colour drained from Barsky's face. "I knew the gig was up," he says. But with characteristic bravado he asked the FBI man: "What took you so long?"
He kidded around with Joe Reilly and the other agents who interrogated him, and tried to give them as much information about the KGB's operations as he could. But inside he was panicking that he would be sent to jail and that his American family, which he had been trying to hold together, would be broken up.
In fact, luck was on his side. After passing a lie-detector test he was told that he was free to go and, even more remarkably, that the FBI would help him fulfil his dream of becoming an American citizen.
Reilly, who went on to become Barsky's best friend and golfing partner, even visited the elderly parents of the real Jack Barsky, who agreed not to reveal that their son's identity had been stolen.
"I was so lucky and so was my family that the decision-makers were nice enough to say, 'Well, you were so well-established, we don't want to disrupt your life,'" he says.
"It required some interesting gymnastics to make me legal because one thing I didn't have was proof of entry into the country. I came here on documentation that was fraudulently obtained, so it took 10-plus years to finally become a citizen. And when it did, it felt good."
Barsky is now married for a third time and has a young daughter. He has also found God, completing his journey from a hardline communist and atheist to a churchgoing, all-American patriot.
He has even managed to reconnect with the family he left behind in Germany, although his first wife, Gerlinde, is still not speaking to him.
"I have a very good relationship with Matthias, my son, and his wife. And I am now a grandfather. When we talk about things like Americans playing soccer against Germans, I say 'us'. I mean the Americans. I am not German any more. The metamorphosis is complete."
The final act in his story came two years ago when he revealed the secret of his extraordinary double life on the US current affairs programme, 60 Minutes.
He had long wanted to share his story with the world, but his bosses at the New York electricity company where he worked as a software developer were less than impressed to find they had a former KGB agent on the payroll, and promptly fired him.
Barsky says he has no regrets. He knows how fortunate he has been.
"This kind of double life wears on you. And most people can't handle it. I am not saying that I lived a charmed life but I got away with it.
"I am in good health. I have had some issues with alcohol that I have overcome and I got another chance to have a good family life. And another child. And I am finally getting to live the life that I should have lived a long time ago. I am really lucky."
Perhaps the supreme irony of Jack Barsky's story is that he was only able to complete the mission the KGB had set him - to obtain an American passport and citizenship - with the help of the FBI. He cannot resist a smile at the thought of telling his KGB handlers that he has not been such a failure after all.
"I wouldn't mind meeting one or two of those fellows I worked with and saying 'Hey, see I did it!'"
Deep Undercover - My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America, by Jack Barsky and Cindy Coloma, is published next month
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38846022 | news_magazine-38846022 |
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The pull of Putin - BBC News | 2017-02-16 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | What attracts some Western politicians to the President of Russia? | Europe | Donald Trump's willingness to build better relations with Russia is threatening to turn US foreign policy on its head. His openness towards Vladimir Putin has dismayed most of the foreign policy establishment in Washington. But it's now shared by some European politicians, not all of them far-right extremists, in France, Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic and elsewhere. They can't all be Kremlin agents - so what's the new pull of Putin for some in the West?
The two politicians, one American, one Russian, put down their drinks and clasped hands across the pub table. Then they both pushed. But there was no real contest.
The arm-wrestling match was over in a second and the winner was the deputy mayor of St Petersburg, a man who'd built up his strength through years of judo training. Few outside Russia had ever heard of him. But five years later he would become its president.
US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher still laughs when he recalls his brief duel with Vladimir Putin in 1995, when the Russian came over in an official delegation. He hasn't met Mr Putin since. But for many years he's been the most consistent voice for détente on Capitol Hill, often effectively in a minority of one.
"I don't see Putin as a good guy, I see him as a bad guy. But every bad guy in the world isn't our enemy that we have to find ways of thwarting and beating up," Congressman Rohrabacher says.
"There are a lot of areas where this would be a better world if we were working together, rather than this constant barrage of hostility aimed at anything the Russians are trying to do."
Mr Rohrabacher doesn't condone Russian hacking during the US election campaign or the Kremlin's military incursions into Ukraine. But he believes Russia is the victim of Western double standards.
US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher believes the West should co-operate more with Russia
And that view is shared by some Western experts on Russia, though the vast majority stress how aggressive the country has become under President Putin.
Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent, in the UK, is in the minority camp. "We are living in a huge echo chamber which only listens to itself," he says. "The key meme is 'Russian aggression' and it's repeated ad nauseam instead of thinking.
"When we have national interests, that's good. But when Russia tries to defend its interests, it's illegitimate, it's aggressive, and it's dangerous for the rest of the world."
Russia's 2014 takeover of Crimea and military support of separatists in eastern Ukraine is widely taken as evidence that Mr Putin seeks to extend his country's borders.
But Prof Sakwa sees the Ukrainian crisis as a symptom of the failure after the Cold War to establish a new international security system that would have included Russia.
Meanwhile Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies at New York University, argues that the "vilification" of President Putin in the West stems originally from disappointment that the Russian leader turned his back on some of the Western-inspired reforms of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin: reforms that many Russians blame for the lawlessness and falling living standards of that period.
"Putin is a European man trying to rule a country that is only partially European," Cohen says. "But we demand that the whole world be on our historical clock."
Did President Putin turn his back on Boris Yeltsin's reforms?
Prof Cohen is a rare liberal voice for detente. Most Americans who want better relations with Russia are on the political right.
Some are neo-isolationists who dislike what they see as their country's attempts to "export democracy", whether to Iraq, Syria or Russia. In that, they're at one with the Kremlin, which opposes any outside interference in the affairs of sovereign states.
Others are "strategic realists" who argue that great powers, including Russia, will always have "spheres of influence" beyond their borders.
America's Monroe Doctrine sought to prevent outside military and political involvement in the New World.
The opposite argument is that independent states have the right to belong to whatever alliances they like. Most former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe joined NATO and the EU after the Cold War.
And some present and former leaders of those states have warned Trump that any attempt to strike a grand bargain with Mr Putin would endanger the region's security.
But one central European government - Hungary's - takes a different view. "We don't see Russia as a threat to Hungary," its foreign minister Peter Szijjarto says. "If Russia and the US cannot work together on global issues, then that undermines security in Eastern Europe."
Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto says his country doesn't regard Russia as a threat
Hungary also wants to end the Western sanctions imposed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea. It says they've been counter-productive, leading to Russian counter-sanctions which have damaged European export industries.
Peter Toth, head of the Hungarian association of breeders of mangalica pigs - whose fat is much prized in Russia - says his members are among those now suffering.
But the Hungarian government, which has been widely criticised for curtailing some democratic checks and balance, also shares other interests with Russia. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said Europe must keep its "Christian values" in the face of immigration from Muslim countries.
The Kremlin has also made much of the need to preserve national identity and Christian values in its rhetoric, leading nationalists in the West to see Moscow as an ally.
Many, particularly on the right, believe the threat from mass immigration, and terrorism, is now greater than that from Russia.
Congressman Rohrabacher says: "To say Russia is the enemy, when they too are threatened by radical Islamic terrorism, is exactly the wrong way to go."
Arguments like that, reinforced by President Trump, seem to be swaying some Americans. By the end of last year, more than a third of Republican voters viewed President Putin favourably, according to a YouGov poll, compared to only a tenth in 2014.
It found however that Democrats dislike Mr Putin more than ever. Prof Stephen Cohen believes Donald Trump will have great difficulty selling a new policy on Russia.
"If Trump says we need a detente with Putin for the sake of our national security," he explains, "it's going to be very hard to get people in the centre and the left to support it, because they'll be called apologists for Putin and Trump. It's a double whammy."
Tim Whewell's BBC Radio 4 programme, The Pull of Putin, is available to listen to via BBC iPlayer. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38969166 | news_world-europe-38969166 |
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Winston Churchill's views on aliens revealed in lost essay - BBC News | 2017-02-16 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A newly unearthed essay by Winston Churchill reveals he was open to the possibility of life on other planets. | Science & Environment | Churchill wrote the first draft in 1939, as Europe headed towards war
A newly unearthed essay by Winston Churchill reveals he was open to the possibility of life on other planets.
In 1939, the year World War Two broke out, Churchill penned a popular science article in which he mused about the likelihood of extra-terrestrial life.
The 11-page typed draft, probably intended for a newspaper, was updated in the 1950s but never published.
In the 1980s, the essay was passed to a US museum, where it sat until its rediscovery last year.
The document was uncovered in the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, by the institution's new director Timothy Riley. Mr Riley then passed it to the Israeli astrophysicist and author Mario Livio who describes the contents in the latest issue of Nature journal.
Churchill's interest in science is well-known: he was the first British prime minister to employ a science adviser, Frederick Lindemann, and met regularly with scientists such as Sir Bernard Lovell, a pioneer of radio astronomy.
This documented engagement with the scientific community was partly related to the war effort, but he is credited with funding UK laboratories, telescopes and technology development that spawned post-war discoveries in fields from molecular genetics to X-ray crystallography.
In the essay, Churchill outlines the concept of habitable zones - more than 50 years before the discovery of exoplanets
Despite this background, Dr Livio described the discovery of the essay as a "great surprise".
He told the BBC's Inside Science programme: "[Mr Riley] said, 'I would like you to take a look at something.' He gave me a copy of this essay by Churchill. I saw the title, Are We Alone in the Universe? and I said, 'What? Churchill wrote about something like this?'"
Dr Livio says the wartime leader reasoned like a scientist about the likelihood of life on other planets.
Churchill's thinking mirrors many modern arguments in astrobiology - the study of the potential for life on other planets. In his essay, the former prime minister builds on the Copernican Principle - the idea that human life on Earth shouldn't be unique given the vastness of the Universe.
Churchill defined life as the ability to "breed and multiply" and noted the vital importance of liquid water, explaining: "all living things of the type we know require [it]."
More than 50 years before the discovery of exoplanets, he considered the likelihood that other stars would host planets, concluding that a large fraction of these distant worlds "will be the right size to keep on their surface water and possibly an atmosphere of some sort". He also surmised that some would be "at the proper distance from their parent sun to maintain a suitable temperature".
Churchill also outlined what scientists now describe as the "habitable" or "Goldilocks" zone - the narrow region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold for life.
Churchill supported the development of game-changing technologies such as radar
Correctly, the essay predicts great opportunities for exploration of the Solar System.
"One day, possibly even in the not very distant future, it may be possible to travel to the Moon, or even to Venus and Mars," Churchill wrote.
But the politician concluded that Venus and Earth were the only places in the Solar System capable of hosting life, whereas we now know that icy moons around Jupiter and Saturn are promising targets in the search for extra-terrestrial biology. However, such observations are forgivable given scientific knowledge at the time of writing.
In an apparent reference to the troubling events unfolding in Europe, Churchill wrote: "I for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilisation here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time."
Churchill was a prolific writer: in the 1920s and 30s, he penned popular science essays on topics as diverse as evolution and fusion power. Mr Riley, director of the Churchill Museum, believes the essay on alien life was written at the former prime minister's home in Chartwell in 1939, before World War II broke out.
It may have been informed by conversations with the wartime leader's friend, Lindemann, who was a physicist, and might have been intended for publication in the News of the World newspaper.
It was also written soon after the 1938 US radio broadcast by Orson Welles dramatising The War of the Worlds by HG Wells. The radio programme sparked a panic when it was mistaken by some listeners for a real news report about the invasion of Earth by Martians.
Dr Livio told BBC News that there were no firm plans to publish the article because of issues surrounding the copyright. However, he said the Churchill Museum was working to resolve these so that the historically important essay can eventually see the light of day. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38985425 | news_science-environment-38985425 |
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If 'not now' when will a second referendum take place? - BBC News | 2017-03-17 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Prime Minister Theresa May says "now is not the time" for a second Scottish referendum, but is she willing to sit down with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and discuss a date that suits? | Scotland politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon: "I am up for continued discussion."
Delegates at the SNP conference in Aberdeen are being told today Scotland will have another referendum.
The party faithful are being promised by the leadership that they will not be denied a vote on independence.
But is that a promise their leaders can keep?
The SNP firmly believe they have the moral authority to call another referendum. But it is the UK government who have the legal authority to decide when or if there is another referendum.
So what are Nicola Sturgeon's options now?
I've just asked her what she will do if Theresa May refuses to discuss the possibility of another vote.
The First Minister says she is convinced the PM's position is not sustainable, that she cannot continue to deny Scotland a vote without incurring major political damage and possibly even strengthening the case for independence.
For the SNP this argument about who has the right to decide when or if Scotland can have another referendum is an example of why Scotland should leave the UK.
It allows them to make the case that Scotland is once more being dictated to by Westminster and says that shows why independence would be a better option.
Just saying no might be a politically risky path for the Prime Minister but if she sticks to that position what can the Scottish government do?
They can demand negotiations over when a referendum could take place. But they can't enter discussions with someone who won't speak to them.
There is the option of holding a referendum without the authority from the UK government. That would have no legal standing and it could be challenged in the courts.
But it could also demonstrate the strength of feeling in Scotland.
Theresa May has said "now is not the time" for Nicola Sturgeon to call for an independence referendum
Ms Sturgeon will not yet discuss that possibility, saying she is concentrating on the vote in the Scottish Parliament next week and then making a formal request to Theresa May to give the authority for another vote.
Speaking to me today, Ms Sturgeon indicated she might be prepared to discuss the timing of another vote with Mrs May.
The Scottish government want a referendum between Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019.
It looks like they would be prepared to negotiate a different, later, date.
However, it is not yet clear that the UK government are prepared to talk about a date.
The PM did say "now is not the time" for another referendum. She didn't say never. So, will she talk about holding a vote in the future?
That seems to be the question today. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39306159 | news_uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39306159 |
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Competing mandates over indyref2 - BBC News | 2017-03-17 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Theresa May's stand-off with Nicola Sturgeon over independence is about competing mandates - and political calculations. | Scotland politics | Theresa May has declared "now is not the time" for Nicola Sturgeon to call for an independence referendum
To govern is to choose. The prime minister has now chosen to exercise her power over the constitution, reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998.
This is about competing power, competing mandates, competing interpretations of the verdicts delivered during the European referendum last year.
Theresa May accords primacy to the Brexit negotiations. She says she does not want even to contemplate the prospect of indyref2 during that period. That means she will not countenance a transfer of powers under Section 30 of the Scotland Act, again at this stage.
Nicola Sturgeon accords primacy to the impact upon Scotland of the Brexit process. She says it is undemocratic for the PM to refuse to give Scotland a meaningful choice - that word again - within a suitable timescale, proximate to the Brexit plans. It is sinking the ship and puncturing Scotland's lifeboat.
But this is also about political confidence. Political calculation. Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, plainly calculates that she will have Scottish public opinion on her side. Or, more precisely, a sufficient quotient of public opinion.
The Tories in Scotland have been through a period where they were the party which dared not speak its name, the toxic party. They now reckon those days are behind them. And why? The Union, post-2014.
Their calculation - and it is an arithmetical sum - is that they can corral behind them the supporters of Union in Scotland. That, just as in the past, in the 1950s for example, they can draw backing from a relatively wide range of Scottish society, predicated upon concrete support for the Union - and fixed opposition to the SNP.
It worked, to a substantial degree, in the last Holyrood elections when they became the largest opposition party. Their calculation is that it will work again, this time.
Nicola Sturgeon is likely to press ahead with a Holyrood vote calling for a Section 30 order
Will there be anger in some quarters at the Prime Minister's decision? There will indeed. Stand by for demonstrations to that effect at the SNP conference in Aberdeen.
But the calculation by the Tories - and this is less quantifiable, but a calculation nevertheless - is that sufficient numbers of the populace in Scotland will be relieved that they do not have to decide on independence in the next 18 months to two years.
The Tory leadership insists that they are not blocking a referendum entirely. That was Ruth Davidson's answer when she was reminded that she had told my estimable colleague Gordon Brewer in July last year that there should not be a constitutional block placed upon indyref2.
The argument was that they are merely setting terms: evident fairness and discernible popular/political support for a further plebiscite.
However, these are not absolute, they are open to interpretation. It would seem to be that the verdict on these factors would also lie with the Prime Minister. Such is the nature of reserved power.
But, again, the Tory triumvirate - PM, secretary of state, Scottish leader - stress that a referendum might be feasible once Brexit is signed, sealed and settled. David Mundell seemed particularly keen to stress that point.
However, if they won't contemplate Section 30 meantime, then the time needed for legislation, consultation and official preparation would suggest that - by that calendar - any referendum would be deferred until 2020 or possibly later. Possibly after the next Holyrood elections.
Options for the FM? She could sanction an unofficial referendum, without statutory backing. Don't see that happening. It would be a gesture - and Nicola Sturgeon, as the head of a government, is generally averse to gestures. Unless they advance her cause.
She could protest and seek discussions. Some senior Nationalists believe this to be a negotiation ploy by the PM, the prelude to talks.
Will the first minister proceed with the vote next week at Holyrood, demanding a Section 30 transfer in which the Greens are expected to join with the SNP to create a majority? I firmly expect her to do so, to add to the challenge to the PM.
Beyond that, expect the First Minister to cajole, to urge - but also to campaign. To deploy this deferral of an independence referendum as an argument for…an independence referendum. She will seek public support, arguing that Scotland's interests have been ignored. Just as Ruth Davidson will seek public support, arguing that she is protecting those interests.
Final thought. One senior Nationalist suggested to me that delay might, ultimately, be in the SNP's interests: that people were already disquieted by Brexit and would prefer a pause. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, to quote the old song.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39297497 | news_uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39297497 |
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Why transgender Africans turned against a famous feminist - BBC News | 2017-03-17 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Nigeria's LGBT community respond to transgender comments made by writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | BBC Trending | A leading African writer has transfixed the internet with her comments on gender - but fellow Nigerians say they feel hurt.
Transgender women in Africa have benefited from "male privilege" because they grew up as men. With this argument, writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie kicked off a vexed discussion, trending everywhere from Facebook to Teen Vogue.
But a less noticed discussion has been the pained one among gay and transgender Nigerians. BBC Trending has been speaking to the leading voices.
It all began last weekend when Adichie, a best-selling Nigerian novelist and outspoken feminist, was asked in an interview with Channel 4 News whether a transgender woman was "any less of a real woman."
"I think if you've lived in the world as a man with the privileges the world accords to men, and then switched gender, it's difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning in the world as a woman, and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are."
The interview has sparked a passionate online debate around the world. But specifically among Africans, one of Adichie's most vocal critics is London-based, Nigerian transgender model Miss Sahhara, who runs an online support community for transgender women called transvalid.org.
Miss Sahhara says transgender women in Nigeria rely on online communities for support
Writing on her Facebook page she said Adichie - who has written several essays and given a viral TED talk on feminism - was divisive in her comments.
"Ahhhhh, I am fuming, these TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) feminists always think they are above all women who don't fit into their narrative of what a woman should be."
"What happened to being inclusive and tolerant of all women, no matter their life histories?"
"I get a lot of online messages from Nigerian trans girls who are there now and they find it so difficult. A nightmare," Sahhara told BBC Trending, "there's no male privilege for trans women in Africa."
Growing up in rural northern Nigeria, where homosexual activity can be punishable by death (although no executions by law for homosexual activity have been verified), Sahhara says that it was "obvious to all" that she was "a girl in a boy's body".
Nigeria is one 34 African countries that outlaws same-sex relationships, and since the Nigerian government tightened its anti-gay laws in 2014, punishments have become much harsher.
"My uncles beat me up for the way I behaved," Sahhara says. "It's the way it's done in Africa."
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Sahhara moved to the UK 13 years ago, but is in close online contact with the LGBT community in Africa.
She says that social media is a vital lifeline for the transgender community there, who often live in secret. Sahhara lives openly as an LGBT activist in the UK, and many of these women get in touch with her through her Facebook page.
"I've had transgender women from South Africa get in touch with me and ask what hormones I recommend," Sahhara says, "or women from Nigeria saying 'listen sister, a friend of mine has been locked up, can you raise awareness online?'."
"They communicate with me on my Facebook page, or secretly through private digital groups I refer them to".
Mike Daemon (not his real name) who runs an LGBT advocacy website called No Strings Nigeria told BBC Trending: "Africa's transgender women rely on a secret digital life involving Whatsapp groups and closed Facebook groups."
"People are added through referrals and recommendations when they are trusted."
However he reflected the nuanced response Chimanda Ngozi Adiche's comments. Many of those commenting acknowledged Adicihie's feminist contribution and that the issue is complex. Daemon said Adichie was being "realistic" and that trans women and biologically born women have "different journeys."
Miss Sahhara, for her part, is hesitant when BBC Trending asked her if she identifies as a feminist.
"I believe in equal rights and pay for women," she says but, "when I start hearing the ladies from the TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist), it discourages me from wanting to be part of feminism. We are fighting for equality and yet you say other women are not equal because you don't feel comfortable with who they are or who they used to be."
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, a vocal advocate of LGBT rights in Africa, declined an interview with BBC Trending and referred us to her statement on Facebook.
"I think the impulse to say that trans women are just like women born female comes from a need to make trans issues mainstream," she says there. "Because by making them mainstream, we might reduce the many oppressions they experience. But it feels disingenuous to me. The intent is a good one but the strategy feels untrue. Diversity does not have to mean division."
Next story: The mysterious death of a live-streaming gamer
Brian Vigneault had been playing for more than 20 hours continuously when he died
The death of a young father leads to a conversation about marathon gaming sessions. READ MORE
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-39271690 | news_blogs-trending-39271690 |
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'LED street lights are disturbing my sleep' - BBC News | 2017-03-13 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Cities around the world are converting to low-energy LED street lights - but some residents say their sleep is being affected and are fighting back. | Magazine | In towns and cities across the world, the colour of night is changing. Traditional yellow sodium street lights are steadily being replaced by white LED lamps. The new lights use less energy, dramatically cutting carbon emissions and saving money. But not everybody is happy.
"When the leaves left the trees and I tried to sleep, I turned to one side and the light's shining right in my eyes."
Like most of us, Karen Snyder had never really paid much attention to street lights. But that all changed last year when the city council began installing LED lights outside her home in a quiet corner of Washington DC.
In addition to the light shining into her bedroom, the 63-year-old teacher's guest room, where she watches TV, is now bathed in something akin to strong moonlight.
"It's like there's a ray coming in. Like a blue ray. Right directly on to the couch. If you are sitting down, the moon would be above the house and you'd get the beautiful feel of the moon. This is shining right in your eyes so it's pretty different than a moon. Moons don't go this low into the windows."
An LED light (left) shines directly into Snyder's guest room, while a sodium light glows on the other side of the house
Her friend, Delores Bushong, says her sleep has also been disturbed by the LED street lights outside her home, and is now one of the main opponents of the new lighting in the city. She fears they will ruin the atmosphere on her back porch, where she likes to relax after dark in a hammock in the sweltering summer months.
"In some kinds of torture they put a light on someone's face all the time," she says. "Am I going to be subjected to a kind of torture forever? It doesn't make sense to me. Just because we have a new technology and you can save money."
Bushong has become well-versed in the jargon of colour temperature (measured in degrees Kelvin) and light intensity (measured in Lumens), as she battles to get the city to take her concerns seriously. At the very least, she wants the 4,000-Kelvin bulbs in her neighbourhood, which she compares to the harsh lighting in a prison yard, to be replaced by bulbs with lower Kelvin ratings, closer in look and feel to the old high-pressure sodium bulbs.
The city insists it is listening to her campaign group's concerns but there is no turning back the march of the LEDs.
"There are many reasons why cities are switching to LED lights," says Seth Miller Gabriel, the director of Washington DC's Office of Public Private Partnerships.
"One, not be looked over, is cost - 50% or more over the life cycle of this new light. The lights last a lot longer. So we save electricity, by at least 50%, we save on the maintenance costs and we get a better lighting solution."
Then there are the environmental benefits: "We estimate that in the District of Columbia by switching our 71,000 street lights over to LEDs we can save upwards of 30 million pounds (13,600 tonnes) of coal a year, in electricity we won't be using for the lights," he says.
Miller Gabriel argues that many city-dwellers are blundering around in neighbourhoods that have never been properly lit, allowing crime to fester in the shadows. He dreams of a world where every street light is an LED. He may live long enough to see that happen.
About 10% of America's street lights have so far been converted, but the Department of Energy has estimated that if the whole country switched to LEDs over the next two decades it would save $120bn over that 20-year period.
Cities across Europe and the Asia Pacific region are going down the LED route and, in China, the central planning agency is in the middle of a conversion programme it expects will cut annual carbon emissions by 48 million tonnes.
Against these sort of statistics, those campaigning against LEDs can sound like Luddites, railing against scientific progress, but they insist they have a strong case.
They point to a recent report by the American Medical Association (AMA), which warns that the blue light emitted by first generation high-intensity LEDs, used in many cities around the world including New York, can adversely affect circadian sleep rhythms, leading to reduced duration and quality of sleep, "impaired daytime functioning" and obesity.
The AMA report calls on cities to use the lowest-intensity LEDs possible and shade them better to reduce glare, which it warns can also harm wildlife.
Seth Miller Gabriel says the report does not contain original research and is "more of a literature review of what's been published elsewhere".
"We would really like to see more concrete evidence of what's going on with these lights," he says. "If it's really a problem, based on a particular intensity of lights, we want to know that. That AMA report really didn't give us the kind of hard data we would need [on which] to base a large scale procurement."
He is overseeing the tendering process for the next phase of Washington's LED conversion which he promises will be done in a more sensitive way, with lower Kelvin ratings, better shading and remote controls, so that lights can be dimmed or increased in intensity at different times to suit the needs of particular neighbourhoods.
But he adds: "Let's be honest, humans are not engineered for change. So when we come home and see a different light. Even if it's a much better light, there's going to be a reaction - 'Oh my goodness, it's a different light, what happened?'"
It is true that many of the same arguments being made against LED lights were heard in the early 1970s, when cities were converting to the yellow sodium lights we are so familiar with today.
There was no LED lighting in Edward Hopper's day
High-pressure sodium bulbs used less energy than the mercury vapour bulbs they replaced. But some campaigners, most notably a Vancouver-based artist called Ralf Kelman, argued at the time that their "antiseptic orange" glow was too bright and would damage growth in young trees, as well as blocking out the stars in the night sky.
The light pollution argument has also been used against LEDs, although some researchers say that properly directed, they could dramatically improve the visibility of stars.
But, for some people, the debate goes beyond dry arguments about Kelvin ratings, light pollution and carbon emissions and touches on questions about the quality of life city-dwellers should expect.
"When the lighting is right you have a sense of peace and contemplation, of aesthetic joy in the world," says novelist Lionel Shriver, who is campaigning against LEDs in the South Brooklyn neighbourhood where she spends part of the year.
"I am not someone who believes she can stand in the way of the march of the LEDs. The savings in energy are too great. The savings in money are too great. And if we just say 'but it's not pretty' that's not going to stop these things.
"The truth is that the technology of LEDs has advanced fantastically so that it is no longer necessary to make a stark choice between economy and the environment and aesthetics. You can have both.
"What is going on in some cities, in New York especially, that is what I am most familiar with, amounts to a kind of widespread civic vandalism."
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38526254 | news_magazine-38526254 |
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London attack: The path from violent crime to killer - BBC News | 2017-03-25 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Westminster attacker Khalid Masood had a history of violence, but how typical is his past of those who go on to carry out acts of terror? | UK | Westminster attacker Khalid Masood had a history of violence, but how typical is his past of those who go on to carry out acts of terror?
Masood, 52, who has been claimed by so-called Islamic State as a "soldier of the Caliphate", had spent time in prison for offences including violent assaults and possession of offensive weapons.
In one instance, when in his mid-30s, Masood slashed a man's face with a knife following an argument in a pub, for which he served two years.
While this criminal past may contradict stereotypes of those involved in religious extremism, Masood is only the latest manifestation of a criminal-turned-jihadist.
Throughout Europe, there has been a pattern of criminals being drawn to violent jihad.
Those who travel to Syria as foreign fighters are typically already known to police for something other than extremism.
Khalid Masood had been jailed for violent crimes
In Germany, two-thirds of foreign fighters had criminal records and more than half of those from Belgium and the Netherlands had a similar background.
Among perpetrators of terrorist attacks, criminal pasts are also common.
Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri had convictions for theft and violence, and had sold cocaine in the months before the attack.
Among the perpetrators of the November 2015 Paris attacks, a number had previous convictions for robberies and drug dealing.
This is no mere coincidence, as the extremist narrative often resonates with criminals.
At the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) in King's College London, we recently published a report analysing the criminal backgrounds of European jihadists and found their radicalisation is often linked to their criminality.
Indeed, jihadism is sometimes used to legitimise further crime against "non-believers", with some extremists stating that crime and violence is permissible when living in the West.
They also claim that jihadism offers redemption from previous sins, the search for which typically comes after a period of crisis in the perpetrators' lives.
That crisis is often prompted by criminality - such as being imprisoned - but it need not be.
Masood crashed his car into railings outside Parliament
However, it is striking that Masood does not fit the typical profile of a criminal-turned-jihadist, simply due to his age of 52.
Older jihadists are usually more involved in extremist support networks - as radicalisers and recruiters, rather than as attackers.
While Theresa May said Masood had been investigated in relation to concerns about violent extremism, he was considered a peripheral figure and was not part of current investigations into extremism.
In one crucial respect, however, Masood does fit the picture of the criminals-turned-jihadists that we have examined - he was familiar with violence.
If a terrorist has a criminal background, it is very often a violent one.
Stabbings, assaults, and violent behaviour are recurrent patterns amongst perpetrators of terrorist attacks with existing criminal records.
This violent group is disproportionately represented when compared with those convicted of non-violent crimes.
For Masood, this familiarity with personal violence may have made the "jump" into ideologically motivated violence that much smaller than it would otherwise have been.
Rajan Basra is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, in the Department of War Studies, at King's College London. Follow him @rajanbasra
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39380049 | news_uk-39380049 |
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Scotland's future: What are Theresa May's options? - BBC News | 2017-03-14 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The prime minister is extremely unlikely to either concede another referendum or rule one out straight away but what are the other possibilities? | UK Politics | If it was designed to grab headlines it certainly did that. Nicola Sturgeon slammed the ball into Theresa May's court on the question of another independence referendum.
There were accusations on both sides yesterday. The first minister accused the prime minister of "intransigence", of being a "brick wall". The PM accused the Scottish government of "playing politics" (yes that old chestnut) and Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell said Ms Sturgeon was "obsessed".
The first minister has turned up the attacks today, questioning the prime minister's mandate for governing, in this tweet.
Forget about the political verbiage between the two for a second though. What might Theresa May's options actually be?
Is there actually going to be a second independence referendum vote, when it is the last thing that Number 10 wants to happen?
1. She could say 'No' immediately: This is extremely unlikely. Both sides know this would likely give the SNP a big bump in the polls and wouldn't remotely take the issue off the table.
2. Say 'Yes' immediately: This is also extremely unlikely. Number 10 doesn't want this vote to take place and backing down now is almost unthinkable for a prime minister whose first visit was to Scotland, making it clear preserving the union is near the top of her list
3. Say 'Not now, but not never': This is basically the position the government has taken so far, as David Mundell suggested yesterday. Westminster does not want to make it easy for the Scottish government. And what they won't agree to is the SNP's timetable of holding a vote before the Brexit negotiations are done.
4. Play it long: This seems to be the second part of the strategy. Don't allow Nicola Sturgeon to set the terms of the narrative. She did yesterday, but with Theresa May holding off from triggering Article 50, the next fortnight could leave Nicola Sturgeon twisting in the wind, looking as if she moved too fast. While trying to avoid accepting a referendum, the Tories will try to keep the arguments focused on why they believe a vote should not take place. The SNP, however, may equally try to make this look as if Westminster is ignoring their demands, which of course, strengthens their case still further.
5. Do a deal behind closed doors: This isn't the official position and no one on either side would acknowledge such a thing. But there are whispers that this has already happened. The theory goes that the UK government has accepted the inevitable and will allow the referendum to go ahead, but only on the basis that the agreement to do so includes a "sunrise clause" - so Nicola Sturgeon wins the right to hold the vote but in law, can't do so until the UK has left the EU. There's even a suggestion Westminster may stipulate that the second vote can't take place until after the next Holyrood election. That would be fiercely resisted by the SNP who could argue their victory in 2016 gave them a clear mandate for a second vote.
6. Call Ms Sturgeon's bluff: Theresa May could suddenly suggest that despite the frustrations of their talks so far, that there could be a different deal for Scotland, and she will appeal to the EU Commission on Scotland's behalf to pursue that path. If Number 10 explored this publicly, it would be much harder for the Scottish Government to make its case. One SNP insider said it would "shoot our fox". But a UK government source downplayed the possibility of doing so. It would be a significant change in the UK approach and could open the door to complicated concessions and demands on many different fronts.
Let's be clear, Theresa May really doesn't want to have a referendum. Senior SNP figures insist that Nicola Sturgeon, as she said yesterday, is completely serious about still being open to compromises if they can be made.
But with the political temperature already at boiling point, it's hard to see how they can find a solution that works for both sides. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39270725 | news_uk-politics-39270725 |
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Why does everyone keep making Nazi comparisons? - BBC News | 2017-03-14 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | From Turkey to Trump, Boris and Russia - comparisons to Nazi Germany abound in not so diplomatic discourse. | World | Associating someone with Nazis - as in this Turkish TV broadcast - is unlikely to win any logical arguments
Labelling an opponent as "worse than Hitler" or saying a policy is "like Nazi Germany" is hardly new.
But recently, it has crept into political discussion on an international scale.
As a row between Turkey and the EU deepened in early 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused both the Germans and the Dutch of using Nazi tactics.
Similar comparisons plagued the 2016 US presidential election, and they can be found in every medium, from Twitter to national parliaments.
So why is it so widespread?
The answer, according to America's Anti-Defamation League (ADL), is simply that it is the "most available historical event illustrating right versus wrong."
When an argument descends to such fundamentals, the comparison inevitably turns up.
But "misplaced comparisons trivialise this unique tragedy in human history," the ADL's national director Jonathan Greenblatt says, "particularly when public figures invoke the Holocaust in an effort to score political points."
A German float in the Rose Monday parade declaring "blonde is the new brown" referenced the brownshirts - Nazi paramilitaries
Mr Greenblatt made those comments during the US presidential election, at a time when Donald Trump's policy announcements had led to comparisons to Adolf Hitler.
Yet Trump has done the exact same thing himself - comparing the US intelligence agencies to "Nazi Germany".
Johan Franklin's election message went viral - though he admits it's a "pretty crude" comparison
In fact, comparing someone to Hitler to invalidate their point is so popular it's been given its own fake Latin name, the reductio ad Hitlerum - a play on the very real logic term reductio ad absurdum. It's mostly used to point out the fallacy of comparing almost anyone to Hitler.
Even the German man who posted a viral image comparing Mr Trump to Hitler during the election acknowledged the comparison was "pretty crude".
Of course, nowhere are Nazi slurs more numerous than on the internet - and it's always been that way.
In 1990, an American lawyer named Mike Godwin noticed that arguments on early internet forums would constantly resort to calling the other side a Nazi.
And so Godwin's Law - that if an online discussion goes on long enough sooner or later someone will make a comparison to Hitler - was born, and became a "rule of the internet".
But Godwin originally coined the phrase to point out how ridiculous the comparison always is.
"I wanted to hint that most people who brought Nazis into a debate... weren't being thoughtful and independent. Instead, they were acting just as predictably, and unconsciously, as a log rolling down a hill," he wrote in an opinion column for the Washington Post.
In some parts of the internet, the appearance of Godwin's law was seen as a sign the discussion is over.
But the recent spate of high-profile spats proves that it hasn't reduced spurious Hitler references in real life.
When Turkey's President Erdogan levelled accusations of Nazi practices against Germany, it made international headlines.
But for Germans, it's treading old ground in a country which has strong laws against Holocaust denial or glorifying Nazi activity.
"I don't think that most Germans are too fazed about this type of comparison," said Professor Christoph Mick, a historian from the University of Warwick.
"They are used to it, and find it just bizarre that the most democratic and most liberal state in German history is compared to the Third Reich. These comparisons say more about those making [them] than about today's Germany and its politicians."
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So - if a Nazi reference trivialises the Holocaust, is widely acknowledged as a logical fallacy, is ridiculed online, and ignored by the Germans - it must have some persuasive power to have stayed around so long - right?
Not so, according to the English Speaking Union, an educational charity that promotes clear communication and critical thinking.
"Wielding accusations of fascism as an insult doesn't help to get your audience on side - instead, you raise the stakes of the debate, forcing a polarisation between 'good' and 'evil' into a discussion that may have reasonable positions on both sides," says Amanda Moorghen, the group's senior research and resources officer.
"Most of the time, people call others 'Nazis' because they think it will grab the attention of the audience.
"This is a big mistake, because any attention they do get will be drawn to the use of that word, rather than to the nitty gritty of the topic at hand."
And the secret to real success?
"It's far better to save strong words for the argument itself, rather than attacking the people you're arguing with," Amanda Moorghen says. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-39266863 | news_world-39266863 |
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'LED street lights are disturbing my sleep' - BBC News | 2017-03-14 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Cities around the world are converting to low-energy LED street lights - but some residents say their sleep is being affected and are fighting back. | Magazine | In towns and cities across the world, the colour of night is changing. Traditional yellow sodium street lights are steadily being replaced by white LED lamps. The new lights use less energy, dramatically cutting carbon emissions and saving money. But not everybody is happy.
"When the leaves left the trees and I tried to sleep, I turned to one side and the light's shining right in my eyes."
Like most of us, Karen Snyder had never really paid much attention to street lights. But that all changed last year when the city council began installing LED lights outside her home in a quiet corner of Washington DC.
In addition to the light shining into her bedroom, the 63-year-old teacher's guest room, where she watches TV, is now bathed in something akin to strong moonlight.
"It's like there's a ray coming in. Like a blue ray. Right directly on to the couch. If you are sitting down, the moon would be above the house and you'd get the beautiful feel of the moon. This is shining right in your eyes so it's pretty different than a moon. Moons don't go this low into the windows."
An LED light (left) shines directly into Snyder's guest room, while a sodium light glows on the other side of the house
Her friend, Delores Bushong, says her sleep has also been disturbed by the LED street lights outside her home, and is now one of the main opponents of the new lighting in the city. She fears they will ruin the atmosphere on her back porch, where she likes to relax after dark in a hammock in the sweltering summer months.
"In some kinds of torture they put a light on someone's face all the time," she says. "Am I going to be subjected to a kind of torture forever? It doesn't make sense to me. Just because we have a new technology and you can save money."
Bushong has become well-versed in the jargon of colour temperature (measured in degrees Kelvin) and light intensity (measured in Lumens), as she battles to get the city to take her concerns seriously. At the very least, she wants the 4,000-Kelvin bulbs in her neighbourhood, which she compares to the harsh lighting in a prison yard, to be replaced by bulbs with lower Kelvin ratings, closer in look and feel to the old high-pressure sodium bulbs.
The city insists it is listening to her campaign group's concerns but there is no turning back the march of the LEDs.
"There are many reasons why cities are switching to LED lights," says Seth Miller Gabriel, the director of Washington DC's Office of Public Private Partnerships.
"One, not be looked over, is cost - 50% or more over the life cycle of this new light. The lights last a lot longer. So we save electricity, by at least 50%, we save on the maintenance costs and we get a better lighting solution."
Then there are the environmental benefits: "We estimate that in the District of Columbia by switching our 71,000 street lights over to LEDs we can save upwards of 30 million pounds (13,600 tonnes) of coal a year, in electricity we won't be using for the lights," he says.
Miller Gabriel argues that many city-dwellers are blundering around in neighbourhoods that have never been properly lit, allowing crime to fester in the shadows. He dreams of a world where every street light is an LED. He may live long enough to see that happen.
About 10% of America's street lights have so far been converted, but the Department of Energy has estimated that if the whole country switched to LEDs over the next two decades it would save $120bn over that 20-year period.
Cities across Europe and the Asia Pacific region are going down the LED route and, in China, the central planning agency is in the middle of a conversion programme it expects will cut annual carbon emissions by 48 million tonnes.
Against these sort of statistics, those campaigning against LEDs can sound like Luddites, railing against scientific progress, but they insist they have a strong case.
They point to a recent report by the American Medical Association (AMA), which warns that the blue light emitted by first generation high-intensity LEDs, used in many cities around the world including New York, can adversely affect circadian sleep rhythms, leading to reduced duration and quality of sleep, "impaired daytime functioning" and obesity.
The AMA report calls on cities to use the lowest-intensity LEDs possible and shade them better to reduce glare, which it warns can also harm wildlife.
Seth Miller Gabriel says the report does not contain original research and is "more of a literature review of what's been published elsewhere".
"We would really like to see more concrete evidence of what's going on with these lights," he says. "If it's really a problem, based on a particular intensity of lights, we want to know that. That AMA report really didn't give us the kind of hard data we would need [on which] to base a large scale procurement."
He is overseeing the tendering process for the next phase of Washington's LED conversion which he promises will be done in a more sensitive way, with lower Kelvin ratings, better shading and remote controls, so that lights can be dimmed or increased in intensity at different times to suit the needs of particular neighbourhoods.
But he adds: "Let's be honest, humans are not engineered for change. So when we come home and see a different light. Even if it's a much better light, there's going to be a reaction - 'Oh my goodness, it's a different light, what happened?'"
It is true that many of the same arguments being made against LED lights were heard in the early 1970s, when cities were converting to the yellow sodium lights we are so familiar with today.
There was no LED lighting in Edward Hopper's day
High-pressure sodium bulbs used less energy than the mercury vapour bulbs they replaced. But some campaigners, most notably a Vancouver-based artist called Ralf Kelman, argued at the time that their "antiseptic orange" glow was too bright and would damage growth in young trees, as well as blocking out the stars in the night sky.
The light pollution argument has also been used against LEDs, although some researchers say that properly directed, they could dramatically improve the visibility of stars.
But, for some people, the debate goes beyond dry arguments about Kelvin ratings, light pollution and carbon emissions and touches on questions about the quality of life city-dwellers should expect.
"When the lighting is right you have a sense of peace and contemplation, of aesthetic joy in the world," says novelist Lionel Shriver, who is campaigning against LEDs in the South Brooklyn neighbourhood where she spends part of the year.
"I am not someone who believes she can stand in the way of the march of the LEDs. The savings in energy are too great. The savings in money are too great. And if we just say 'but it's not pretty' that's not going to stop these things.
"The truth is that the technology of LEDs has advanced fantastically so that it is no longer necessary to make a stark choice between economy and the environment and aesthetics. You can have both.
"What is going on in some cities, in New York especially, that is what I am most familiar with, amounts to a kind of widespread civic vandalism."
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38526254 | news_magazine-38526254 |
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Thatcher to inspire UK's Brexit 'divorce bill' talks? - BBC News | 2017-03-10 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Boris Johnson says the UK has an "illustrious precedent" and should reject any Brexit bill demands. | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
As Theresa May arrived at her last Brussels summit before pushing the button on Brexit, it is enough to give you a splitting headache.
Not just the complexity of actually getting a deal done, but the ceiling of the brand new European Council HQ in Brussels, decked out in a crazy patchwork of rainbow colours.
The architect told the BBC he hopes his design will lead to "joyful meetings" in a space "where politicians' deep talents can be expressed like poets".
Harsh words and hard bargaining are more likely to be a feature of the next two years despite the architect's dreams.
Even if there is goodwill on both sides, as British ministers increasingly hope, the technicalities of doing a deal are impossible to dismiss.
First off there's an exit process to negotiate, with a likely exit bill of as much as £50bn.
Ministers have been careful so far not to say too much.
But Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told me Britain has an "illustrious precedent" and should reject the demands - just as Margaret Thatcher did at the fabled summit in 1984 when she wielded her handbag and didn't just ask for money back, she threatened to walk out if she didn't get her way.
He told me: "We have illustrious precedent in this matter... I think you can recall the 1984… summit in which Mrs Thatcher said she wanted her money back and I think that is exactly what we will, we will get."
A rather more provocative way of telling the rest of the EU that the contentious demands expected to be made just aren't going to happen and - by mentioning the Fontainbleu incident - implying at least that it is possible the UK could walk out over the cash.
That's before we start to untangle four decades when our countries, laws, rules and regulations have been becoming more and more enmeshed.
Then there are the prospects of getting a deal on the future of our relationships done.
What happens to security arrangements, information sharing, rules and regulations, our entire legal system, our future immigration system, fishing, farming, air traffic control, water quality rules, Europol, continent-wide arrest warrants? The list goes on and on.
Theresa May has arrived at her last Brussels summit before pushing the button on Brexit
Then, as our interview with Nicola Sturgeon makes plain, the constitutional implications at home are only starting to be understood.
There are fights too for powers in Northern Ireland with risks of destabilising the peace process, argues Tony Blair.
And if those two nations are fighting for more powers as control returns from Brussels, can Wales sit and just play along?
The hardest solutions to find though are on trade.
It's true that those who were ardent Remainers now in government say privately they are more hopeful.
A senior figure told me: "It's like a divorce. At the start you say, I hate you, I never want to see you again. Then you say, I still don't like you, but we need to talk about the kids."
There is no question that, in Westminster at least, the expectation is that individual members of the EU are softening their resistance.
That's why part of the UK government's strategy is unquestionably to divide and conquer.
But there isn't much sign of any softening, or at least anyone willing to say so in public.
That's why, despite their optimism, there is a realism in government too, and they are preparing to think about having to walk away, with the Brexit Secretary David Davis admitting to me, he is very hopeful of "Plan A", but that ministers "have to do the work for the so-called Plan B or C".
He also reiterated the government's position that there is no way they will agree to a deal on EU citizens in Britain without agreement from the other side of the table.
He claims the "highest probability" is of getting a deal done.
For the many ministers and officials we've spoken to, they believe - for some of them it's more accurately a hope - that a good deal can be reached because in the end, money talks.
Just as Vote Leave argued, the belief at the highest levels of government is that whether it's German cars or Italian prosecco, European politicians will come willingly to an agreement because they rely on the buying power of the British consumer.
That is the argument that's continually cited and the ultimate irony.
Britain's politicians are relying on the EU to put economics before politics.
One of the reasons Britain chose to leave the EU is the perpetual frustration felt on our side of the Channel that continental politicians are incapable of doing just that.
It's a gamble perhaps that Theresa May didn't have much choice but to take.
But if she's wrong, the government, arguably the country, will need Mr Davis' Plan B. And the dreams of an architect might in fact be the start of a nightmare. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39217083 | news_uk-politics-39217083 |
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David Haye edgy but Tony Bellew must be perfect to win in London - BBC Sport | 2017-03-04 | [] | BBC Sport's boxing correspondent talks about an on-edge David Haye, Tony Bellew's challenge and Amir Khan's surprise. | null | Coverage: Full commentary on BBC Radio 5 live and live text updates on the BBC Sport website.
David Haye has rarely been one to conform.
Before commentating on his first world-title success in November 2007, I remember wandering into the lobby of the hotel in Paris where we were both staying to see Haye lounging around, talking to friends.
It was late Saturday afternoon and the biggest occasion of his career at that stage - against the Frenchman Jean-Marc Mormeck - was just hours away.
Frank (now Kellie) Maloney, his then promoter, was concerned about Haye's attitude. "I wish he would just go to his room and relax," Frank said to me.
Rest and solitude might have been prescribed for most boxers but Haye never read the copybook.
• None Listen to Costello and Bunce on 5 live's boxing podcast
In beating Mormeck, a man who had lost only once in the previous decade, Haye produced one of the greatest wins by a British boxer in a foreign ring.
Two years later, he gave away seven stone in weight and made the Russian beanstalk Nikolai Valuev chase shadows in Nuremberg to add a version of the world heavyweight crown to his cruiserweight glories.
Previously, only Evander Holyfield had won world titles in both divisions. And Haye won each of his away from home.
Back then, his ability to revile took root. His comments at news conferences and other promotional events were as disgusting as his ringside analysis was erudite. Social media platforms were unborn or in their infancy but still he got his vulgarity across.
Judging by his attitude in the build-up to the Tony Bellew fight this weekend, the persona endures. But in attempting to rattle Bellew, Haye himself has lost at least a semblance of control.
He complained after Monday's news conference in Liverpool about some of the abuse he was subjected to by the hundreds of Bellew fans in attendance. Having promised to "cave someone's skull in", there was little room for objection when the fire was returned.
A sub-plot on Saturday is the daunting challenge facing the trainers, both of whom are coming off defeat in a world title fight. Shane McGuigan was in the corner when Carl Frampton was beaten by Leo Santa Cruz in their rematch in January. Dave Coldwell has suffered reverses with Gavin McDonnell and heavyweight David Price in a three-week spell.
The careers of McGuigan and Coldwell will continue after Haye and Bellew have departed the scene but the result on Saturday will help shape how they are regarded.
Part of the trainers' role will be to moderate emotions and limit the red-mist tendencies. But whatever the guidance from the corner, the most important factor relates to how much of Haye the fighter, the calculated practitioner who beat Mormeck and Valuev, remains.
In almost five years, Haye has been involved in only two fights, against non-league opposition, lasting a total of less than seven minutes. In the same period, Bellew's log shows 13 fights and 113 rounds.
For all that, the fight has the feel of last year's showdown in Las Vegas between Amir Khan and the Mexican Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, when Khan was knocked out savagely in the sixth round.
We tried to make a case for the underdog but the evidence against him was overwhelming. And Bellew is quoted at even longer odds than Khan was back then.
McGuigan has indicated that Haye might weigh in lighter than Bellew, suggesting an attempt to rekindle the blazes of old. The adage tells us that the last asset a fighter loses is the power of his punch. Perhaps… but he does lose the ability to land it.
Even so, Haye only has to get it right once. Bellew must get it right all night.
Momentum is building around a showdown between Khan and WBO world welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao. Khan was BBC Radio 5 live's big fight summariser alongside me in Vegas recently when Frampton was outpointed by Santa Cruz.
That night, Khan was adamant that his next fight would be a relatively low-key affair because he wanted to test the right hand on which he had surgery after the Alvarez defeat last May.
But the money and the prestige of a showdown against Pacquiao make an offer difficult to refuse. I watched them train together in making a documentary about Pacquiao for BBC World Service in 2010. At the time, the Filipino was preparing for a light-middleweight title fight against Mexican Antonio Margarito and Khan was among the sparring partners.
Pacquiao beat Margarito emphatically and Khan went on to outpoint Argentina's Marcos Maidana in Vegas shortly afterwards for one of the most impressive victories of his career.
More recently, Pacquiao has recovered from his defeat against Floyd Mayweather almost two years ago to beat Americans Timothy Bradley and Jessie Vargas. At 38, he might well be fading but Pacquiao is still better than most. And those performances since May 2015 serve to endorse the greatness of Mayweather.
The critics continue to carp about Mayweather's credentials and a record supposedly padded with carefully-chosen fall-guys. Yet consider what Puerto Rico's Miguel Cotto, Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez and Pacquiao have gone on to achieve after losing to him and the arguments descend into nonsense.
Fighting talk is decades in the making
We launched a new "5 Live Boxing" podcast this week, with me and long-time ally Steve Bunce in union. It is 42 years this week since we first appeared together on a junior club show in Streatham, south-east London, at a boxing hotbed called The Cat's Whiskers.
We both lost but a lifelong passion was being battered into us. Also on the bill was Sammy Reeson, who 10 years later became the first holder of the British title in the new cruiserweight division.
Among my future opponents was Jim McDonnell, who later took the legendary Ghanaian Azumah Nelson into the 12th round of a world title fight and now trains the British world super-middleweight champion James DeGale. Jim beat me on points and never granted me a rematch. Strangely, I never complained. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/39122111 | rt_boxing_39122111 |
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Cherry Healey: 'How being a single mum shattered my prejudices' - BBC News | 2017-03-26 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Single mothers have often been stigmatised and denounced. Cherry Healey explains why she's proud to be one. | Magazine | Single mothers have often been stigmatised and denounced. Cherry Healey explains why she's proud to be one.
I'm a single mum. I'm glad I live in an age and a place where it's OK to admit that.
We have moved on so much, so fast. Once, Margaret Thatcher deemed a single parent family so bad for a child that she felt it was better for the mother and child to be removed and placed within a religious group.
When I first heard that, I felt such unbelievable pain and heartbreak for all those young mothers that were pressured into following this advice.
And it would have had many ripples of pain for the family as a whole.
The judgement of others is a powerful thing and people will do unfathomable things to avoid bringing shame onto themselves and their families.
And this is the judgement that I want to see gone. Completely.
Yes we have progressed - but even today there is such an insipid, damaging view of single parents that we need to keep revisiting it until single parents feel free of useless, ignorant judgement - and instead receive respect as parents and support if they, and therefore their child, needs it.
Sadly, even in 2017 I felt the cold wind of judgement when I became a single parent. It's hard to know whether the judgement I felt comes from society or whether it comes from myself. I think it is a bit of both.
I hate to admit this, but I had a negative view of single mums before I became one. As I grew up I heard, read and watched society's depiction of The Single Mum, and it certainly wasn't positive.
Comedy sketches depicting single mums smoking cigarettes and drinking cider in the park while neglecting their babies, endless newspaper stories about single mothers on benefits draining the system, statements from politicians about the connection between "Broken Britain" and one-parent families - all fed my prejudice gremlin until one day, I too was a dreaded single mum. And I began to question everything I'd ever consumed about this subject.
I was happy to discover that I was the same person. I was a good parent as a married woman and I was a good parent as single mother.
Money was tighter but my ability to maintain order at home, get homework done on time and love my children had not changed.
Separating and re-establishing my life was difficult but I felt so hugely grateful that at least I was able to pay the bills thanks to my job - and it made me realise that there is so much stigma attached to being a single mother. At exactly the time when the single parent needs support and help, they are stigmatised and judged.
It also made me realise that for many of us there is a strong, not very flattering stereotype of The Single Mum. And so I wanted to break free from that and give a voice to some single parents that haven't been heard before.
And I'm glad to say that any prejudice, both conscious and subconscious, was gradually eroded.
I spoke to Kirsty, a single mother with a terminal illness, who smashes the traditionalist's argument that it's better to stay in an unhealthy marriage, regardless of the circumstances. Even though she was suffering and weak from cancer, she did not regret leaving her relationship and was happy that her daughter's environment was at least peaceful.
She acknowledges that it was hard caring for her daughter alone: "I definitely still have guilt over it. There are times at bedtime when she'll cry for her daddy."
But she still feels it was the right decision. She is now able to co-parent with her partner in a more harmonious way. Her message that together is not always best for the child, even in such a challenging situation, was powerful.
I also spoke to Meena, whose story moved me profoundly.
Knowing that she would be disowned by her family, Meena made the decision to leave her husband as the environment had become so toxic that social services had been involved.
"I come from an Asian background so divorce or separation - that's a no-no," she tells me.
"I was expected to remain in the marriage and make it work and just put up with it," she says.
"If I go to a family function I get looked at like a demon with two horns."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Chris Hart: 'They were all shocked when I said I was keeping the baby'
I was given, and desperately needed, a huge amount of emotional and logistical support from my family during my separation, and it's hard to image the impact the removal of that would have had on my mental state and therefore the indirect impact on my children.
Without financial, emotional or logistical support, Meena began a new life with her child, with the help of her flexible work shifts as a train driver.
The resilience was startling but the grace was profound. Even after being rejected by her family, at exactly the moment she and her daughter needed care, she was still working towards a reconciliation for the sake of her daughter's future.
When I think about the negative single-mother narrative in the 90s and subsequent reduction of support, and increase in single-mother stigma, it made me feel extremely angry that as a society we leave incredible mothers like Meena fighting against such a huge tide.
And for others, the term single parent felt like a strange fit. Rupa (not her real name), an accident and emergency consultant, had decided to go it alone and conceive via a sperm donor. There was nothing "broken" about it, a term often placed on to a single parent. It had been carefully considered and planned for.
Rupa recalls: "We met once before the first insemination, and then the next time he came round and donated, and then showed himself out while I was just chilling out in my own bedroom, playing music, and you know he left me a little pot on the stairs and showed himself out."
I spent the morning in her house watching her beautiful, happy daughter play and cuddle her mother.
Again, I struggled to understand why anyone would assume single mothers can't offer as much love and security to a child as a two-parent family.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39358725 | news_magazine-39358725 |
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If 'not now' when will a second referendum take place? - BBC News | 2017-03-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Prime Minister Theresa May says "now is not the time" for a second Scottish referendum, but is she willing to sit down with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and discuss a date that suits? | Scotland politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon: "I am up for continued discussion."
Delegates at the SNP conference in Aberdeen are being told today Scotland will have another referendum.
The party faithful are being promised by the leadership that they will not be denied a vote on independence.
But is that a promise their leaders can keep?
The SNP firmly believe they have the moral authority to call another referendum. But it is the UK government who have the legal authority to decide when or if there is another referendum.
So what are Nicola Sturgeon's options now?
I've just asked her what she will do if Theresa May refuses to discuss the possibility of another vote.
The First Minister says she is convinced the PM's position is not sustainable, that she cannot continue to deny Scotland a vote without incurring major political damage and possibly even strengthening the case for independence.
For the SNP this argument about who has the right to decide when or if Scotland can have another referendum is an example of why Scotland should leave the UK.
It allows them to make the case that Scotland is once more being dictated to by Westminster and says that shows why independence would be a better option.
Just saying no might be a politically risky path for the Prime Minister but if she sticks to that position what can the Scottish government do?
They can demand negotiations over when a referendum could take place. But they can't enter discussions with someone who won't speak to them.
There is the option of holding a referendum without the authority from the UK government. That would have no legal standing and it could be challenged in the courts.
But it could also demonstrate the strength of feeling in Scotland.
Theresa May has said "now is not the time" for Nicola Sturgeon to call for an independence referendum
Ms Sturgeon will not yet discuss that possibility, saying she is concentrating on the vote in the Scottish Parliament next week and then making a formal request to Theresa May to give the authority for another vote.
Speaking to me today, Ms Sturgeon indicated she might be prepared to discuss the timing of another vote with Mrs May.
The Scottish government want a referendum between Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019.
It looks like they would be prepared to negotiate a different, later, date.
However, it is not yet clear that the UK government are prepared to talk about a date.
The PM did say "now is not the time" for another referendum. She didn't say never. So, will she talk about holding a vote in the future?
That seems to be the question today. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39306159 | news_uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39306159 |
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Is North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un rational? - BBC News | 2017-03-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Analysing the aims of the head of the controversial regime. | Asia | Is Kim Jong-un rational? The new US ambassador to the United Nations thinks he is not. Nikki Haley said after North Korea's simultaneous launch of four ballistic missiles: "This is not a rational person." But is she right?
Kim Jong-un may have many flaws. He is without doubt ruthless - the bereaved relatives of the victims of his regime, including within his own family, would testify to that. He may have driven through an economic policy that keeps his people living at a standard way below that in South Korea and, increasingly, China.
And he seems to have personal issues, such as eating a lot - photographs show his bulging girth - and being a fairly heavy smoker.
But whatever these failings and foibles, is he actually irrational - which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as "not logical or reasonable, not endowed with the power of reason"?
Scholars who study him think he is behaving very rationally, even with the purging and terrorising of those around him. Prof Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul told the BBC: "He is perfectly rational. He sometimes overdoes it. He sometimes tends to apply excessive force. Why kill hundreds of generals when dozens will do?
Kim Jong-nam, Kim-Jong-un's half-brother, was killed while in Malaysia in February 2017
"Most people he kills would never join a conspiracy but he feels it's better to overdo it. It's better to kill nine loyal generals and one potential conspirator than to allow a conspirator to stay alive.
Prof John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul said that even having his half-brother killed (as the allegation is - denied by Pyongyang) would be a rational act; not nice but rational.
"A sad fact of history is that young kings often kill their uncles and elder brothers. It may be cruel, but it is not 'irrational'. If you don't take my word for it, read Shakespeare."
On this assassination of Kim Jong-nam, allegedly at the hands of agents of the regime, Prof Lankov says it is similar to the Ottoman Empire, where concubines of the Sultan had countless children, any of whom had a bloodline that might one day legitimise a claim to the throne.
Prof Lankov thinks that Kim Jong-nam was, accordingly, a threat, probably not that great a one but still intolerable: "Probably he was not that dangerous but you never know. He was definitely under Chinese control."
Prof Delury said that there was nothing irrational about Kim Jong-un's drive to obtain credible nuclear weapons: "He has no reliable allies to guarantee his safety, and he faces a hostile superpower that has, in recent memory, invaded sovereign states around the world and overthrown their governments.
"The lesson North Koreans learned from the invasion of Iraq was that if Saddam Hussein really possessed those weapons of mass destruction, he might have survived."
Could Kim Jong-un's drive to achieve a nuclear capability safeguard his regime's future?
This was compounded by the lesson of Libya, according to Prof Lankov: "Did American promises of American prosperity help Gaddafi and his family? Kim Jong-un knows perfectly well what happened to the only fool who believed Western promises and renounced the development of nuclear weapons. And he's not going to make that mistake. Once you don't have nuclear weapons you are completely unprotected.
"Did Russian or American and British promises to guarantee Ukrainian integrity help Ukraine? No. Why should he expect American, Russian or Chinese promises to help him stay alive? He is rational."
If he is rational, what does he want? On this, scholars are divided. Prof Brian Myers of Dongseo University in Busan in South Korea said that Kim Jong-un wants security but also a united Korea as the only way he and the regime can survive in the long term.
"As every North Korean knows, the whole point of the military-first policy is 'final victory', or the unification of the peninsula under North Korean rule."
A credible nuclear force would give him the ability to pressure the United States to remove its troops from the peninsula.
"North Korea needs the capability to strike the US with nuclear weapons in order to pressure both adversaries into signing peace treaties. This is the only grand bargain it has ever wanted," said Prof Myers.
Some analysts believe North Korea's strategy aims to see the US withdraw from South Korea
And once the US troops had gone, on this argument, North Korean rule would be unstoppable.
Prof Lankov doesn't agree with the emphasis. He thinks survival is by far the most important motive behind Kim Jong-un's actions: "Above all, he wants to stay alive. Second, economic prosperity and growth - but it's a distant second."
So what's to be done? Prof Lankov sees no good options: "I don't see any solution right now." He thinks the best option is to persuade North Korea to freeze its development of nuclear weapons at a particular size of arsenal "but it will be very difficult and North Koreans may not keep their promises".
And money would have to be paid. "But this deal isn't good from an American point of view because it means paying a reward to a blackmailer, and if you pay a reward to a blackmailer once, you invite more blackmail.
"The second option which might work is a military operation but that is likely to trigger a second Korean war and will permanently damage American credibility as a reliable ally and protector.
"Worldwide, a lot of people would see that it's better to have enemies than such friends." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39269783 | news_world-asia-39269783 |
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Jack Barsky: The KGB spy who lived the American dream - BBC News | 2017-03-05 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The remarkable double life of undercover agent Jack Barsky who lived the American dream at the KGB's expense. | Magazine | It's no secret that the Russians have long tried to plant "sleeper agents" in the US - men and women indistinguishable from normal Americans, who live - on the surface - completely normal lives. But what happens when one of them doesn't want to go home?
Jack Barsky died in September 1955, at the age of 10, and was buried in the Mount Lebanon Cemetery in the suburbs of Washington DC.
His name is on the passport of the man sitting before me now - a youthful 67-year-old East German, born Albert Dittrich. The passport is not a fake. Albert Dittrich is Jack Barsky in the eyes of the US government.
The story of how this came to be is, by Barsky's own admission, "implausible" and "ridiculous", even by the standards of Cold War espionage. But as he explains in a new memoir, Deep Undercover, it has been thoroughly checked out by the FBI. As far as anyone can tell, it is all true.
It began in the mid-70s, when Dittrich, destined at the time to become a chemistry professor at an East German university, was talent-spotted by the KGB and sent to Moscow for training in how to behave like an American.
His mission was to live under a false identity in the heart of the capitalist enemy, as one of an elite band of undercover Soviet agents known as "illegals".
"I was sent to the United States to establish myself as a citizen and then make contact, to the extent possible, at the highest levels possible of decision makers - particularly political decision makers," he says.
This "idiotic adventure," as he now calls it, had "a lot of appeal to an arrogant young man, a smart young man" intoxicated by the idea of foreign travel and living "above the law".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. "This kind of double life wears on you"
He arrived in New York in the Autumn of 1978, at the age of 29, posing as a Canadian national, William Dyson. Dyson, who had travelled via Belgrade, Rome, Mexico City and Chicago, "immediately vanished into thin air", having served his purpose. And Dittrich began his new life as Jack Barsky.
He was a man with no past and no identification papers - except for a birth certificate obtained by an employee of the Soviet embassy in Washington, who had kept his eyes open during a walk in the Mount Lebanon cemetery.
Barsky had supreme self-confidence, a near-flawless American accent, and $10,000 in cash.
He also had a "legend" to explain why he did not have a social security number. He told people he had had a "tough start in life" in New Jersey and had dropped out of high school. He had then worked on a remote farm for years before deciding "to give life another chance and move back to New York city".
He rented a room in a Manhattan hotel and set about the laborious task of building a fake identity. Over the next year, he parlayed Jack Barsky's birth certificate into a library card, then a driver's licence and, finally, a social security card.
But without qualifications in Barsky's name, or any employment history, his career options were limited. Rather than rubbing shoulders with the upper echelons of American society, as his KGB handlers had wanted, he initially found himself delivering parcels to them, as a cycle courier in the smarter parts of Manhattan.
The young KGB agent arrived in New York in the late 1970s
"By chance it turned out that the messenger job was actually really good for me to become Americanised because I was interacting with people who didn't care much where I came from, what my history was, where I was going," he says.
"Yet I was able to observe and listen and become more familiar with American customs. So for the first two, three years I had very few questions that I had to answer."
The advice from his handlers on blending in - gleaned from Soviet diplomats and resident agents in the US - "turned out to be, at minimum, weak but, at worst, totally false", he says.
"I'll give you an example. One of the things I was told explicitly was to stay away from the Jews. Now, obviously, there is anti-Semitism in there, but secondly, the stupidity of that statement is that they sent me to New York. There are more Jews in New York than in Israel, I think."
Barsky would later use his handlers' prejudices and ignorance of American society against them.
But as a "rookie" agent he was eager to please and threw himself into the undercover life. He spent much of his free time zig-zagging across New York on counter-surveillance missions designed to flush out any enemy agents who might be following him.
He would update Moscow Centre on his progress in weekly radio transmissions, or letters in secret writing, and deposit microfilm at dead drop sites in various New York parks, where he would also periodically pick up canisters stuffed with cash or the fake passports he needed for his trips back to Moscow for debriefing.
He would return the to the East every two years, where he would be reunited with his German wife Gerlinde, and young son Matthias, who had no idea what he had been up to. They thought he was doing top secret but very well-paid work at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Barsky's handlers were delighted with his progress except for one thing - he could not get hold of an American passport. This failure weighed heavily on him.
On one early trip to the passport office in New York an official asked him to fill out a questionnaire which asked, among other things, the name of the high school he had attended.
"I had a legend but it could not be verified," he says. "So if somebody went to check on that they would have found out that I wasn't real."
Terrified that his cover might be blown, he scooped up any documents with his name on them and marched out of the office in a feigned temper at all this red tape.
The real Jack Barsky is buried in a Washington DC cemetery
Without a passport, Barsky was limited to low-level intelligence work and his achievements as a spy were, by his own account, "minimal".
He profiled potential recruits and compiled reports on the mood of the country during events such as the 1983 downing of a Korean Airlines flight by a Soviet fighter, which ratcheted up tensions between the US and the Soviet Union.
On one occasion, he flew to California to track down a defector (he later learned, to his immense relief, that the man, a psychology professor, had not been assassinated).
He also carried out some industrial espionage, stealing software from his office - all of it commercially available - which was spirited away on microfilm to aid the floundering Soviet economy.
But it often seemed the very fact of him being in the US, moving around freely without the knowledge of the authorities, was enough for Moscow.
"They were very much focused on having people on the other side just in case of a war. Which I think, in hindsight, was pretty stupid. That indicated very old thinking."
The myth of the "Great Illegals" - heroic undercover agents who had helped Russia defeat the Nazis and gather vital pre-war intelligence in hostile countries - loomed large over the Soviet intelligence agencies, who spent a lot of time and effort during the Cold War trying to recapture these former glories, with apparently limited success.
Barsky later found out that he was part of a "third wave" of Soviet illegals in the US - the first two waves having failed. And we now know that illegals continued to be infiltrated in the 1980s and beyond.
He believes about "10 to 12" agents were trained up at the same time as him. Some, he says, could still be out there, living undercover in the United States, though he finds it hard to believe that anyone exposed to life in the US would retain an unwavering communist faith for long.
He is scathing about his KGB handlers, who were "very smart" and the "cream of the crop" but who seemed chiefly concerned with making his mission appear a success to please their bosses.
"The expectations of us, of me - I didn't know anybody else - were far, far too high. It was just really wishful thinking," he now says of his mission.
On the other hand, the KGB's original plan for him might actually have worked, he says.
"I am glad it didn't work out because I could have done some damage.
"The idea was for me to get genuine American documentation and move to Europe, say to a German-speaking country, where the Russians were going to set me up with a flourishing business. And they knew how to do that.
"And so I would become quite wealthy and then go back to the United States without having to explain where the money came from. At that point, I would have been in a situation to socialise with people that were of value."
This plan fell through because of his failure to get a passport, so the KGB reverted to Plan B.
This was for Barsky was to study for a degree and gradually work his way up the social order to the point where he could gather useful intelligence - a mission he describes as "nearly impossible".
The degree part was relatively straightforward. He was, after all, a university professor in his former life. He graduated top of his class in computer systems at Baruch College, which enabled him to get a job as a programmer at Met Life insurance in New York.
Like many undercover agents before him, he began to realise that much of what he had been taught about the West - that it was an "evil" system on the brink of economic and social collapse - was a lie.
Barsky (fourth right) felt at home with co-workers at Met Life
"There was a way to rationalise that because we were taught that the West was doing so well because they took all the riches out of the Third World," he says.
But, he adds, "what eventually softened my attitude" was the "normal, nice people" he met in his daily life.
"[My] sense was that the enemy was not really evil. So I was always waiting to eventually find the real evil people and I didn't even find them in the insurance company."
Met Life almost felt like home, he says, "because it was a very paternalistic, 'we take care of you' kind of a culture".
"There was nothing like we were taught. Nothing that I expected. I wanted to really hate the people and the country and I couldn't bring myself to hate them. Not even dislike them."
But he was keeping a far bigger secret from his KGB bosses than his wavering commitment to communism.
In 1985, he had married an illegal immigrant from Guyana he had met through a personal ad in the Village Voice newspaper - and they now had a daughter together.
He now had two families to go with his two identities, and he knew the time would come when he had to choose between them.
It finally happened in 1988, when after 10 years undercover he was suddenly ordered to return home immediately. Moscow was in a panic, believing the FBI was on to him.
To do anything other than run as ordered - grab his emergency Canadian birth certificate and driver's licence and get out of the US - would be potentially suicidal.
He dithered and stalled for a week. Could he really leave his beloved baby daughter Chelsea behind forever?
But the KGB was losing patience. One morning, on a subway platform a resident agent delivered a chilling message: "You have got to come home or else you're dead."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Americans producers: 'Here was someone who lived it'
It was time for some lateral thinking.
From discussions with his handlers in Moscow, Barsky had come to believe the Soviet hierarchy feared three things about America.
He already knew about their anti-Semitism and their fear of Ronald Reagan, who they saw as an unpredictable religious zealot who might launch a nuclear strike to "accelerate" the Biblical "end times".
But he also remembered their "morally superior" attitude to the Aids epidemic - their belief that it "served the Americans right" and their determination to protect the motherland from infection.
Barsky stalled a bit more and then hatched a plan.
"I wrote this letter, in secret writing, that I wouldn't come back because I had contracted Aids, and the only way for me to get treatment would be in the United States.
"I also told the Russians in the same letter that I would not defect, I would not give up any secrets. I would just disappear and try to get healthy."
To begin with Barsky lived in constant fear for his life, remembering that threat on the subway platform. But after a few months, he began to breathe more easily.
"I started thinking 'I think I got away with this.' The FBI had not knocked on the door. The KGB had not done anything."
He gradually let his guard down and settled into the life of a typical middle-class American in a comfortable new home in upstate New York.
While he had fallen for the American Dream and the trappings of the consumer society, he still had some conflicting feelings.
"My loyalties to communism and the homeland and Russia, they were still pretty strong. My resignation, you can also call it a 'soft defection' - that was triggered by having this child here. It was not ideological. It would be easy to claim that. But it wasn't true."
Playing at the back of his mind was always the question of whether his past would catch up with him. And, finally, one day, it did.
The man who exposed him was a KGB archivist, Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin, who defected to the West in 1992 - after the fall of communism - with a vast trove of Soviet secrets, including the true identity of Jack Barsky.
The FBI watched him for more than three years, even buying the house next door to his as they tried to figure out whether he really was a KGB agent and, if so, whether he was still active.
In the end, Barsky himself gave the game away, during an argument with his wife, Penelope, that was picked up by the FBI's bugs.
"I was trying to repair a marriage that was slowly falling apart. I was trying to tell my wife the 'sacrifice' I had made to stay with Chelsea and her. So in the kitchen I told her, 'By the way, this is what I did. I am a German. I used to work for the KGB and they told me to come home and I stayed here with you and it was quite dangerous for me. This is what I sacrificed.'
"And that completely backfired. Instead of bringing her over to my side, she said: 'What does that mean for me if they ever catch you?'"
It was the evidence the FBI needed to pick him up. In a meticulously planned operation, Barsky was pulled over by a Pennsylvania state trooper as he drove away from a toll booth on his way home from work one evening.
After stepping out of his car, he was approached by a man in civilian clothes, who held up a badge and said in a calm voice: "Special agent Reilly, FBI. We would like to talk with you."
The colour drained from Barsky's face. "I knew the gig was up," he says. But with characteristic bravado he asked the FBI man: "What took you so long?"
He kidded around with Joe Reilly and the other agents who interrogated him, and tried to give them as much information about the KGB's operations as he could. But inside he was panicking that he would be sent to jail and that his American family, which he had been trying to hold together, would be broken up.
In fact, luck was on his side. After passing a lie-detector test he was told that he was free to go and, even more remarkably, that the FBI would help him fulfil his dream of becoming an American citizen.
Reilly, who went on to become Barsky's best friend and golfing partner, even visited the elderly parents of the real Jack Barsky, who agreed not to reveal that their son's identity had been stolen.
"I was so lucky and so was my family that the decision-makers were nice enough to say, 'Well, you were so well-established, we don't want to disrupt your life,'" he says.
"It required some interesting gymnastics to make me legal because one thing I didn't have was proof of entry into the country. I came here on documentation that was fraudulently obtained, so it took 10-plus years to finally become a citizen. And when it did, it felt good."
Barsky is now married for a third time and has a young daughter. He has also found God, completing his journey from a hardline communist and atheist to a churchgoing, all-American patriot.
He has even managed to reconnect with the family he left behind in Germany, although his first wife, Gerlinde, is still not speaking to him.
"I have a very good relationship with Matthias, my son, and his wife. And I am now a grandfather. When we talk about things like Americans playing soccer against Germans, I say 'us'. I mean the Americans. I am not German any more. The metamorphosis is complete."
The final act in his story came two years ago when he revealed the secret of his extraordinary double life on the US current affairs programme, 60 Minutes.
He had long wanted to share his story with the world, but his bosses at the New York electricity company where he worked as a software developer were less than impressed to find they had a former KGB agent on the payroll, and promptly fired him.
Barsky says he has no regrets. He knows how fortunate he has been.
"This kind of double life wears on you. And most people can't handle it. I am not saying that I lived a charmed life but I got away with it.
"I am in good health. I have had some issues with alcohol that I have overcome and I got another chance to have a good family life. And another child. And I am finally getting to live the life that I should have lived a long time ago. I am really lucky."
Perhaps the supreme irony of Jack Barsky's story is that he was only able to complete the mission the KGB had set him - to obtain an American passport and citizenship - with the help of the FBI. He cannot resist a smile at the thought of telling his KGB handlers that he has not been such a failure after all.
"I wouldn't mind meeting one or two of those fellows I worked with and saying 'Hey, see I did it!'"
Deep Undercover - My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America, by Jack Barsky and Cindy Coloma, is published next month
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38846022 | news_magazine-38846022 |
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Cherry Healey: 'How being a single mum shattered my prejudices' - BBC News | 2017-03-27 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Single mothers have often been stigmatised and denounced. Cherry Healey explains why she's proud to be one. | Magazine | Single mothers have often been stigmatised and denounced. Cherry Healey explains why she's proud to be one.
I'm a single mum. I'm glad I live in an age and a place where it's OK to admit that.
We have moved on so much, so fast. Once, Margaret Thatcher deemed a single parent family so bad for a child that she felt it was better for the mother and child to be removed and placed within a religious group.
When I first heard that, I felt such unbelievable pain and heartbreak for all those young mothers that were pressured into following this advice.
And it would have had many ripples of pain for the family as a whole.
The judgement of others is a powerful thing and people will do unfathomable things to avoid bringing shame onto themselves and their families.
And this is the judgement that I want to see gone. Completely.
Yes we have progressed - but even today there is such an insipid, damaging view of single parents that we need to keep revisiting it until single parents feel free of useless, ignorant judgement - and instead receive respect as parents and support if they, and therefore their child, needs it.
Sadly, even in 2017 I felt the cold wind of judgement when I became a single parent. It's hard to know whether the judgement I felt comes from society or whether it comes from myself. I think it is a bit of both.
I hate to admit this, but I had a negative view of single mums before I became one. As I grew up I heard, read and watched society's depiction of The Single Mum, and it certainly wasn't positive.
Comedy sketches depicting single mums smoking cigarettes and drinking cider in the park while neglecting their babies, endless newspaper stories about single mothers on benefits draining the system, statements from politicians about the connection between "Broken Britain" and one-parent families - all fed my prejudice gremlin until one day, I too was a dreaded single mum. And I began to question everything I'd ever consumed about this subject.
I was happy to discover that I was the same person. I was a good parent as a married woman and I was a good parent as single mother.
Money was tighter but my ability to maintain order at home, get homework done on time and love my children had not changed.
Separating and re-establishing my life was difficult but I felt so hugely grateful that at least I was able to pay the bills thanks to my job - and it made me realise that there is so much stigma attached to being a single mother. At exactly the time when the single parent needs support and help, they are stigmatised and judged.
It also made me realise that for many of us there is a strong, not very flattering stereotype of The Single Mum. And so I wanted to break free from that and give a voice to some single parents that haven't been heard before.
And I'm glad to say that any prejudice, both conscious and subconscious, was gradually eroded.
I spoke to Kirsty, a single mother with a terminal illness, who smashes the traditionalist's argument that it's better to stay in an unhealthy marriage, regardless of the circumstances. Even though she was suffering and weak from cancer, she did not regret leaving her relationship and was happy that her daughter's environment was at least peaceful.
She acknowledges that it was hard caring for her daughter alone: "I definitely still have guilt over it. There are times at bedtime when she'll cry for her daddy."
But she still feels it was the right decision. She is now able to co-parent with her partner in a more harmonious way. Her message that together is not always best for the child, even in such a challenging situation, was powerful.
I also spoke to Meena, whose story moved me profoundly.
Knowing that she would be disowned by her family, Meena made the decision to leave her husband as the environment had become so toxic that social services had been involved.
"I come from an Asian background so divorce or separation - that's a no-no," she tells me.
"I was expected to remain in the marriage and make it work and just put up with it," she says.
"If I go to a family function I get looked at like a demon with two horns."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Chris Hart: 'They were all shocked when I said I was keeping the baby'
I was given, and desperately needed, a huge amount of emotional and logistical support from my family during my separation, and it's hard to image the impact the removal of that would have had on my mental state and therefore the indirect impact on my children.
Without financial, emotional or logistical support, Meena began a new life with her child, with the help of her flexible work shifts as a train driver.
The resilience was startling but the grace was profound. Even after being rejected by her family, at exactly the moment she and her daughter needed care, she was still working towards a reconciliation for the sake of her daughter's future.
When I think about the negative single-mother narrative in the 90s and subsequent reduction of support, and increase in single-mother stigma, it made me feel extremely angry that as a society we leave incredible mothers like Meena fighting against such a huge tide.
And for others, the term single parent felt like a strange fit. Rupa (not her real name), an accident and emergency consultant, had decided to go it alone and conceive via a sperm donor. There was nothing "broken" about it, a term often placed on to a single parent. It had been carefully considered and planned for.
Rupa recalls: "We met once before the first insemination, and then the next time he came round and donated, and then showed himself out while I was just chilling out in my own bedroom, playing music, and you know he left me a little pot on the stairs and showed himself out."
I spent the morning in her house watching her beautiful, happy daughter play and cuddle her mother.
Again, I struggled to understand why anyone would assume single mothers can't offer as much love and security to a child as a two-parent family.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39358725 | news_magazine-39358725 |
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Living loud in China's lively public spaces - BBC News | 2017-03-11 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Even for a long-time foreign resident, the loudness of life in China can still come as a surprise. | China blog | Little chance of a quiet cuppa in some Beijing cafes
There are some societies where people are expected to avoid being noisy in public and they behave accordingly. Then there's China.
This country that I love is many things, but quiet is not one of them.
There are plenty of bustling cities - rammed with millions of people - where you could be frowned upon for disrupting others with a raised voice: Seoul, London, Tokyo… especially Tokyo.
China does not have those cities.
The word most often used here to describe a great restaurant is not "moody" nor "intimate" nor "tasteful" but "renao". To be 热闹 is to be bustling with noise and excitement.
After all, who'd want to go to one of those fussy, dull joints where you couldn't bring kids or laugh too loud or spill a beer?
Laughter is often part of the noise
Now, given that I've lived in Beijing for 12 years, you would think that outbursts in public would be as nothing to this hardened correspondent, fully enmeshed in the ways of the Middle Kingdom, yet China can always turn on a surprise.
So there I am at a cafe nearby, feeling all urbane with a light caffeine buzz on: newspaper; some other reading material; Chet Baker's mournful trumpet floating around the room at just the right level; I can't help noticing a smart-looking beautiful woman across the other side of the room talking to her friend and…
Somebody starts a phone call at the top of their voice in full-flight pirate-sounding Beijing dialect. Anyone who has heard a Beijing taxi driver on the phone to the family at home will know exactly how this sounds.
"Naaaarrrrrr? Bu shirrrrrr baaaaa." [Where? No it isn't.]
A cafe in Japan on the other hand, is likely to be an oasis of calm
At this point a Chinese farmer walks in carrying the fake and/or stolen watches he's been selling on the street.
He's carrying his flask of tea, has no intention of buying anything at the cafe and sits on a stool with best view out of the window, next to his mate who also has no intention of buying anything but is very interested in showing the purveyor of watches an awesome new video game on his phone.
Woooshhhh! Bam! Bam! Ba-doing!!! The two of them crack up laughing and they keep playing.
Just as the first conversation is getting heated, a young convert to Christianity sits down next to me and starts praying before diving into her diary-style, each-day-a-new-lesson, introduction to Jesus.
Many countries are densely populated but they respond to the squeeze in different ways
Game, argument, praying, talk, game, laughter, talk... "Look at the stars… Look how they shine for you…"
A hippie looking Chinese bloke has booted up his laptop and Coldplay starts belting out of the speakers.
"And everything you do. Yeah they were all yellow."
He has his eyes closed and is gyrating in the seat as he sings along to himself.
I look around the cafe and, amidst this cacophony of chaos, nobody but me has reacted as if this is anything but completely normal. Some people are chatting amongst themselves, others reading or sending messages on mobile phones but they've not even glanced up to pay attention to the activities around them.
The Big Apple - and unlikely ally to China when it comes to bustle
The other place in the world I've seen this phenomenon is New York.
I went to a diner there once which had an open plan kitchen. It was packed for the morning rush hour. I was preparing to take in the New York Times over breakfast when one of the cooks started ribbing his workmate and the tension was building. At least I thought so.
Then the cook being hassled turned to the other and said in a pretty menacing tone: "Yeah keep talkin' funny guy!" At this point I was considering the possible uses of a spatula as a weapon.
Then the diner owner called out at the top of his voice from the payment counter by the door: "Heh, Pauly, go downstairs and get me some of those ******* strawberries!!!"
The whole country feels like it's on the move
There is something incredible about the way in which societies, cities, subcultures find their level in terms of acceptable public volume.
If a megacity has its own disruptive sound maybe you have to speak up to get over it? But with what noise does a Chinese farmer have to compete in the field?
Maybe you have to speak up in order to be heard amongst a huge population? Yet most Chinese people in recent years grew up with no brothers or sisters and had only their parents at home for evening conversations.
Back in the cafe, Mr Coldplay has packed up his laptop, the game boys have gone and only the first woman is still speaking on the phone… but now much more quietly: she's crying.
Her call has been more important than I had given her credit for.
Loudly playing Coldplay songs in public does not go down well everywhere
I can remember being in London many years ago on a backpacking trip when I got the news that a good friend, a brilliant young doctor, had died back in Sydney.
I didn't know what to do so I went to a cafe and wrote her a letter to say goodbye.
I was crying my eyes out in a public place and people were looking at me but not disapprovingly. They just didn't know how to take it.
When I told a BBC colleague I was going to write this piece she laughed: "What? An Australian talking about noisy people?"
Maybe we are. I hadn't thought about it.
Is that why I fit in here? | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-39214869 | news_blogs-china-blog-39214869 |
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An absence of peace: When is a war actually a war? - BBC News | 2017-03-11 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The BBC's defence and diplomatic correspondent examines how armed conflict and war differ. | World | Earlier this month, a relic from World War Two intruded into daily life in north London. A 500lb Luftwaffe bomb was discovered by builders excavating in the leafy suburb of Brondesbury.
Local homes were evacuated, local train services were closed down. Eventually the weapon was made safe and finally removed to be detonated on an army range.
This relic of a war that ended more than 70 years ago set me thinking.
World War Two - just like the Great War that preceded it - was a total war. The fates of all the countries involved were in the balance. Ordinary soldiers were largely not professionals but were conscripted citizens. The whole of society - its energies and industrial might - were mobilised for the conflict.
Once the war was over, many of its constraints inevitably lingered - the rationing of food, for example. War-ravaged cities also bore their scars.
As a child I remember the temporary homes - the rectangular "prefabs" or prefabricated houses - that dotted many of the bomb sites in east London near my grandparents' home.
My childhood was dominated by films and documentaries about the war. I lose track of the number of plastic Spitfire model kits I must have built to battle with their Messerschmitt equivalents.
But whatever the memories and cultural obsessions, the conflict was definitively over. There was, in short, a clear distinction between war and peace.
Thankfully the so-called Cold War of the 1950s and 60s remained just that: in Europe, at least, it never went hot. War and peace were two separate states of affairs.
Fast forward to today. This week, in London, a memorial was unveiled to the service personnel and civilians who lost their lives in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the government's own website it is described as the Iraq and Afghanistan Memorial.
In the West, at least, the Cold War never became hot
In the lengthy press release that follows there is no mention of the word "war", except to say that the new memorial stands close to monuments to World War Two and the Korean War.
There is rightly, of course, mention of the lives lost and the medals won. There is, too, appreciation for those who "put themselves in harm's way" - an Americanism that has intruded itself into the public debate on armed conflict.
But there you have it. These were undoubtedly armed conflicts far from our shores. But in what sense were they wars? Well of course they were, I hear you say, this is all semantic argument.
Well, they were certainly wars for the Afghans and the Iraqis who were in some cases willing, and in many cases, unwilling participants in the struggles.
They were certainly wars for those actually engaged in combat. From my very limited experience under fire, it matters little if it is a skirmish or a fully-fledged battle if it is you on the spot where the bullets are flying.
The Queen unveiled the Iraq and Afghanistan memorial in London
But were Britain, the United States or their many allies who have contributed troops to these conflicts really "at war"? To what extent were their societies adapted or mobilised for the struggle? In some senses, very little. But in others, perhaps, more than we would like to admit.
None of their economies was on a war footing and the fighting was done largely by regular professional troops or volunteer reservists. Boots on the ground were combined with the signature style of the modern Western military campaign: lashings of air power along with the use of sophisticated armed drones.
Paradoxically, the primary impact of these wars was on the home front: the political obsession with terrorism which has had an impact on policing, community relations and security legislation and created an atmosphere in which debate about "fear of the other" has become an increasingly important factor in democratic elections and referendums.
It has also led increasingly to a militarisation of foreign policy - the idea that the military has an answer for most of the world's problems.
And, in the midst of this, the former US Pentagon official and academic Rosa Brooks has mused eloquently on this theme in a book cogently titled How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything.
Her message, that the blurring of the boundaries of war and peace has consequences for all our lives, is one that seems to resound with ever more people around the globe. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-39222619 | news_world-39222619 |
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Scotland's future: What are Theresa May's options? - BBC News | 2017-03-15 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The prime minister is extremely unlikely to either concede another referendum or rule one out straight away but what are the other possibilities? | UK Politics | If it was designed to grab headlines it certainly did that. Nicola Sturgeon slammed the ball into Theresa May's court on the question of another independence referendum.
There were accusations on both sides yesterday. The first minister accused the prime minister of "intransigence", of being a "brick wall". The PM accused the Scottish government of "playing politics" (yes that old chestnut) and Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell said Ms Sturgeon was "obsessed".
The first minister has turned up the attacks today, questioning the prime minister's mandate for governing, in this tweet.
Forget about the political verbiage between the two for a second though. What might Theresa May's options actually be?
Is there actually going to be a second independence referendum vote, when it is the last thing that Number 10 wants to happen?
1. She could say 'No' immediately: This is extremely unlikely. Both sides know this would likely give the SNP a big bump in the polls and wouldn't remotely take the issue off the table.
2. Say 'Yes' immediately: This is also extremely unlikely. Number 10 doesn't want this vote to take place and backing down now is almost unthinkable for a prime minister whose first visit was to Scotland, making it clear preserving the union is near the top of her list
3. Say 'Not now, but not never': This is basically the position the government has taken so far, as David Mundell suggested yesterday. Westminster does not want to make it easy for the Scottish government. And what they won't agree to is the SNP's timetable of holding a vote before the Brexit negotiations are done.
4. Play it long: This seems to be the second part of the strategy. Don't allow Nicola Sturgeon to set the terms of the narrative. She did yesterday, but with Theresa May holding off from triggering Article 50, the next fortnight could leave Nicola Sturgeon twisting in the wind, looking as if she moved too fast. While trying to avoid accepting a referendum, the Tories will try to keep the arguments focused on why they believe a vote should not take place. The SNP, however, may equally try to make this look as if Westminster is ignoring their demands, which of course, strengthens their case still further.
5. Do a deal behind closed doors: This isn't the official position and no one on either side would acknowledge such a thing. But there are whispers that this has already happened. The theory goes that the UK government has accepted the inevitable and will allow the referendum to go ahead, but only on the basis that the agreement to do so includes a "sunrise clause" - so Nicola Sturgeon wins the right to hold the vote but in law, can't do so until the UK has left the EU. There's even a suggestion Westminster may stipulate that the second vote can't take place until after the next Holyrood election. That would be fiercely resisted by the SNP who could argue their victory in 2016 gave them a clear mandate for a second vote.
6. Call Ms Sturgeon's bluff: Theresa May could suddenly suggest that despite the frustrations of their talks so far, that there could be a different deal for Scotland, and she will appeal to the EU Commission on Scotland's behalf to pursue that path. If Number 10 explored this publicly, it would be much harder for the Scottish Government to make its case. One SNP insider said it would "shoot our fox". But a UK government source downplayed the possibility of doing so. It would be a significant change in the UK approach and could open the door to complicated concessions and demands on many different fronts.
Let's be clear, Theresa May really doesn't want to have a referendum. Senior SNP figures insist that Nicola Sturgeon, as she said yesterday, is completely serious about still being open to compromises if they can be made.
But with the political temperature already at boiling point, it's hard to see how they can find a solution that works for both sides. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39270725 | news_uk-politics-39270725 |
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Why does everyone keep making Nazi comparisons? - BBC News | 2017-03-15 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | From Turkey to Trump, Boris and Russia - comparisons to Nazi Germany abound in not so diplomatic discourse. | World | Associating someone with Nazis - as in this Turkish TV broadcast - is unlikely to win any logical arguments
Labelling an opponent as "worse than Hitler" or saying a policy is "like Nazi Germany" is hardly new.
But recently, it has crept into political discussion on an international scale.
As a row between Turkey and the EU deepened in early 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused both the Germans and the Dutch of using Nazi tactics.
Similar comparisons plagued the 2016 US presidential election, and they can be found in every medium, from Twitter to national parliaments.
So why is it so widespread?
The answer, according to America's Anti-Defamation League (ADL), is simply that it is the "most available historical event illustrating right versus wrong."
When an argument descends to such fundamentals, the comparison inevitably turns up.
But "misplaced comparisons trivialise this unique tragedy in human history," the ADL's national director Jonathan Greenblatt says, "particularly when public figures invoke the Holocaust in an effort to score political points."
A German float in the Rose Monday parade declaring "blonde is the new brown" referenced the brownshirts - Nazi paramilitaries
Mr Greenblatt made those comments during the US presidential election, at a time when Donald Trump's policy announcements had led to comparisons to Adolf Hitler.
Yet Trump has done the exact same thing himself - comparing the US intelligence agencies to "Nazi Germany".
Johan Franklin's election message went viral - though he admits it's a "pretty crude" comparison
In fact, comparing someone to Hitler to invalidate their point is so popular it's been given its own fake Latin name, the reductio ad Hitlerum - a play on the very real logic term reductio ad absurdum. It's mostly used to point out the fallacy of comparing almost anyone to Hitler.
Even the German man who posted a viral image comparing Mr Trump to Hitler during the election acknowledged the comparison was "pretty crude".
Of course, nowhere are Nazi slurs more numerous than on the internet - and it's always been that way.
In 1990, an American lawyer named Mike Godwin noticed that arguments on early internet forums would constantly resort to calling the other side a Nazi.
And so Godwin's Law - that if an online discussion goes on long enough sooner or later someone will make a comparison to Hitler - was born, and became a "rule of the internet".
But Godwin originally coined the phrase to point out how ridiculous the comparison always is.
"I wanted to hint that most people who brought Nazis into a debate... weren't being thoughtful and independent. Instead, they were acting just as predictably, and unconsciously, as a log rolling down a hill," he wrote in an opinion column for the Washington Post.
In some parts of the internet, the appearance of Godwin's law was seen as a sign the discussion is over.
But the recent spate of high-profile spats proves that it hasn't reduced spurious Hitler references in real life.
When Turkey's President Erdogan levelled accusations of Nazi practices against Germany, it made international headlines.
But for Germans, it's treading old ground in a country which has strong laws against Holocaust denial or glorifying Nazi activity.
"I don't think that most Germans are too fazed about this type of comparison," said Professor Christoph Mick, a historian from the University of Warwick.
"They are used to it, and find it just bizarre that the most democratic and most liberal state in German history is compared to the Third Reich. These comparisons say more about those making [them] than about today's Germany and its politicians."
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So - if a Nazi reference trivialises the Holocaust, is widely acknowledged as a logical fallacy, is ridiculed online, and ignored by the Germans - it must have some persuasive power to have stayed around so long - right?
Not so, according to the English Speaking Union, an educational charity that promotes clear communication and critical thinking.
"Wielding accusations of fascism as an insult doesn't help to get your audience on side - instead, you raise the stakes of the debate, forcing a polarisation between 'good' and 'evil' into a discussion that may have reasonable positions on both sides," says Amanda Moorghen, the group's senior research and resources officer.
"Most of the time, people call others 'Nazis' because they think it will grab the attention of the audience.
"This is a big mistake, because any attention they do get will be drawn to the use of that word, rather than to the nitty gritty of the topic at hand."
And the secret to real success?
"It's far better to save strong words for the argument itself, rather than attacking the people you're arguing with," Amanda Moorghen says. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-39266863 | news_world-39266863 |
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Mixed-race couple: 'The priest refused to marry us' - BBC News | 2017-03-01 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Trudy and Barclay Patoir met when mixed-race relationships were still taboo. More than 70 years later they reveal the obstacles they overcame. | Magazine | Trudy and Barclay Patoir met during World War Two at a time when mixed-race relationships were still taboo. More than 70 years later they reveal the obstacles they had to overcome to stay together.
When Trudy Menard and Barclay Patoir told friends and family they were going to get married, no-one thought it was a good idea - because Trudy was white and Barclay was black.
"When I told them at work they thought I was daft marrying a black man. They all said, 'It won't last you know,' because it was a mixed-race marriage," says Trudy.
"I think some people thought I was marrying beneath myself."
When the couple had first met, a year or so earlier, Trudy admits she too had been uneasy.
Barclay (bottom right) with fellow volunteers in the US en route to Britain
"I had been working at Bryant and May's match factory, but it got bombed in the Blitz," says Trudy, now 96.
"I needed a new job and was told they wanted girls at the Rootes aircraft factory in Speke. We were paired up with engineers and they told me to go with Barclay. I said, 'I'm not going with a coloured man. I've never seen one before.' But they told me if I didn't I'd be sacked so I just got on with it."
Barclay, 97, was an apprentice engineer who had travelled to the UK from British Guiana in South America, now known as Guyana.
"There was a shortage of engineer skills in Britain in World War Two so young men from the Caribbean volunteered to help the mother country," he says.
Between 1941 and 1943, 345 civilians from the Caribbean region travelled to Liverpool under a scheme to increase war production. Barclay was assigned to work on Halifax bombers at the factory in Speke and Trudy was chosen to work as his assistant.
Barclay (left) pictured with the Duke of Devonshire at Downing Street
"He stood on one side of the wings with a drill and I stood on the other side with the dolly. I was frightened to death of him - I'm not frightened of him now!" says Trudy, laughing.
"We didn't speak for a while and then he started to bring me a cup of tea, and then he started bringing me sandwiches."
Over time the pair became firm friends.
"We used to talk about Liverpool and history. And she was very inquisitive about Guiana," Barclay says.
"The others at work used to say, 'They're never going to come down now, they're talking too much,'" Trudy adds.
The couple worked together on the wings of Halifax bombers
They went out for the first time when production at the factory slowed down and staff were given a chance to take time off.
"I took him to Southport on the train. We got some dirty looks then. I could tell some people were talking about us on the train but we took no notice, did we dear?
"When we got there we had something to eat and on the way back we went to his place, the hostel, for a cup of tea. And all the lads were so happy to meet me," Trudy says.
Liverpool had the longest-established black community in the country, however racism was still very much apparent in the 1940s. A study of West Indian workers' experiences in Liverpool found that while many white women would talk to black colleagues at work, they would ignore them in public. They feared "the attitude their friends or their family would adopt if they found out that she had been out with a coloured man," writes the author of the study, Anthony Richmond.
It was a prejudice that Trudy and Barclay were all too aware of.
"I didn't tell my mother when I was going to see Barclay," Trudy says.
"She thought I was going in to town to meet the girls. She had noticed I was very happy but she didn't know why.
"When she did find out she threatened to throw me out the house."
Trudy and Barclay went to watch the Austrian tenor, Richard Tauber, perform
The couple would go to tea rooms and sit in the park together. One special date was to a concert by the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber, who was touring the country.
"We saw him at the Empire Theatre. He sang 'My heart and I.' That's our song," Trudy says.
"I knew then that I couldn't live without Barclay, but I didn't dare tell anybody for months."
Eventually, in 1944, after they had known each other for about a year, Trudy decided she was ready to take the plunge and told Barclay she would like to marry him.
"He said to me: 'It's going to be very hard, you know that don't you?' And I said: 'Yes, I know.'"
Trudy was keen to have a church wedding but the priest at the local Catholic church in Liverpool refused to perform the service.
"He said, 'There's so many coloured men coming over here and going back home leaving the women with children. So I'm not marrying you.' We were upset about that," says Trudy.
However, they were determined to marry and settled for a brief ceremony at the Liverpool Register Office.
"Only Barclay's friend and one of my sisters went. The four of us went for a meal afterwards," Trudy says.
Shortly afterwards they decided to leave Liverpool.
"I had a friend who told me: 'Come to Manchester. It's more hospitable and there aren't as many racial problems,'" Barclay says.
"But it was difficult to find accommodation because nobody would have you if you were a mixed marriage."
They eventually got a room in a boarding house where Barclay's friend lived.
"The landlady had lodgers in but she took us in anyway and gave us her big front room," Trudy says.
"She was a prostitute herself but what a good woman she was."
Barclay continued to work in Liverpool, returning to Manchester at night. When the war ended he took the option offered to volunteers from British colonies to remain in the UK. However, it took him some time to adapt to his new home.
"You've got to have a good mentality to survive. I missed my family for about 10 years - I used to dream about them. And I found the freezing cold hard. I was used to a tropical climate," he says.
"He had more clothes on in bed than he took off!" Trudy adds. "He couldn't get warm in bed at all."
Barclay missed the family he left behind in Georgetown, British Guiana, pictured here in 1941
Barclay found it difficult to find a new job and ended up walking the streets of Manchester looking for work. He was eventually hired by the Manchester Ship Canal dry dock.
The couple settled in to their new life in Manchester. They joined the local sports club, where they played tennis.
"We won a set of cutlery in the doubles," Barclay says.
The local Catholic priest agreed to perform a second wedding ceremony for them in his church. Two daughters - Jean and Betty - followed, and the young family were desperate to get a home of their own.
"The priest mentioned that they were building houses in Wythenshawe," Barclay says.
"Nobody from Manchester wanted to live there, as there we no shops, just fields."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Trudy and Barclay on the secrets of a happy marriage
Trudy went to have a look at the new housing development.
"There was thick mud everywhere and I had a baby in my arms as I stood looking at the place. I couldn't get inside to look but I didn't care. I couldn't live in one room any more."
She went straight to the Town Hall and told them they would take one of the new houses.
"We were jumping for joy when we got the key," Trudy says.
Jean and Betty Patoir. Trudy made sure her daughter always looked neat and tidy
The Patoirs were one of the first families to move into the area.
"We were the only mixed-race couple there but we didn't have any trouble in the community," Trudy says.
"When this place filled up everyone loved our girls."
However, their daughter Jean did encounter bullying on her first day at primary school.
"The teacher sent her home and asked me to keep her home while she had a chance to talk to the school about how God loved all his children. Jean didn't have problems after that," Trudy says.
Trudy's mother Margaret also changed her attitude towards Barclay after her granddaughters were born.
"She would come every weekend to stay - she loved seeing the girls," Trudy says.
Trudy and Barclay celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in September 2014. They received congratulations from the Pope (above)
Both Trudy and Barclay think attitudes to mixed-race relationships have improved dramatically over the decades.
"Before people would stop and watch you, or whisper and laugh as you passed and now they're not bothered," Barclay says.
"People don't walk on the other side of the street like they used to," Trudy adds.
Barclay has been very active in the community over the years. He has been president of the local social club, a school governor and sat on the local hospital board. He got involved in local politics after he stopped working at the dry dock in 1979.
The couple now have two children, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
"It's hard to keep track of them all," Trudy says.
They received congratulations from the Queen and the Pope on their 70th wedding anniversary in 2014.
"We discuss things if we don't agree. We never really had a big argument," Trudy says.
"We're so used to each other, we don't aggravate each other," Barclay agrees.
While Trudy says she "can't put her finger on" what she loves most about Barclay, her husband has a ready answer.
"Trudy is genuine, she's a partner," he says. "Every morning I wake up I thank the Lord for having such a good wife."
Trudy and Barclay have lived in the same house for 70 years
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39003902 | news_magazine-39003902 |
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Thatcher to inspire UK's Brexit 'divorce bill' talks? - BBC News | 2017-03-09 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Boris Johnson says the UK has an "illustrious precedent" and should reject any Brexit bill demands. | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
As Theresa May arrived at her last Brussels summit before pushing the button on Brexit, it is enough to give you a splitting headache.
Not just the complexity of actually getting a deal done, but the ceiling of the brand new European Council HQ in Brussels, decked out in a crazy patchwork of rainbow colours.
The architect told the BBC he hopes his design will lead to "joyful meetings" in a space "where politicians' deep talents can be expressed like poets".
Harsh words and hard bargaining are more likely to be a feature of the next two years despite the architect's dreams.
Even if there is goodwill on both sides, as British ministers increasingly hope, the technicalities of doing a deal are impossible to dismiss.
First off there's an exit process to negotiate, with a likely exit bill of as much as £50bn.
Ministers have been careful so far not to say too much.
But Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told me Britain has an "illustrious precedent" and should reject the demands - just as Margaret Thatcher did at the fabled summit in 1984 when she wielded her handbag and didn't just ask for money back, she threatened to walk out if she didn't get her way.
He told me: "We have illustrious precedent in this matter... I think you can recall the 1984… summit in which Mrs Thatcher said she wanted her money back and I think that is exactly what we will, we will get."
A rather more provocative way of telling the rest of the EU that the contentious demands expected to be made just aren't going to happen and - by mentioning the Fontainbleu incident - implying at least that it is possible the UK could walk out over the cash.
That's before we start to untangle four decades when our countries, laws, rules and regulations have been becoming more and more enmeshed.
Then there are the prospects of getting a deal on the future of our relationships done.
What happens to security arrangements, information sharing, rules and regulations, our entire legal system, our future immigration system, fishing, farming, air traffic control, water quality rules, Europol, continent-wide arrest warrants? The list goes on and on.
Theresa May has arrived at her last Brussels summit before pushing the button on Brexit
Then, as our interview with Nicola Sturgeon makes plain, the constitutional implications at home are only starting to be understood.
There are fights too for powers in Northern Ireland with risks of destabilising the peace process, argues Tony Blair.
And if those two nations are fighting for more powers as control returns from Brussels, can Wales sit and just play along?
The hardest solutions to find though are on trade.
It's true that those who were ardent Remainers now in government say privately they are more hopeful.
A senior figure told me: "It's like a divorce. At the start you say, I hate you, I never want to see you again. Then you say, I still don't like you, but we need to talk about the kids."
There is no question that, in Westminster at least, the expectation is that individual members of the EU are softening their resistance.
That's why part of the UK government's strategy is unquestionably to divide and conquer.
But there isn't much sign of any softening, or at least anyone willing to say so in public.
That's why, despite their optimism, there is a realism in government too, and they are preparing to think about having to walk away, with the Brexit Secretary David Davis admitting to me, he is very hopeful of "Plan A", but that ministers "have to do the work for the so-called Plan B or C".
He also reiterated the government's position that there is no way they will agree to a deal on EU citizens in Britain without agreement from the other side of the table.
He claims the "highest probability" is of getting a deal done.
For the many ministers and officials we've spoken to, they believe - for some of them it's more accurately a hope - that a good deal can be reached because in the end, money talks.
Just as Vote Leave argued, the belief at the highest levels of government is that whether it's German cars or Italian prosecco, European politicians will come willingly to an agreement because they rely on the buying power of the British consumer.
That is the argument that's continually cited and the ultimate irony.
Britain's politicians are relying on the EU to put economics before politics.
One of the reasons Britain chose to leave the EU is the perpetual frustration felt on our side of the Channel that continental politicians are incapable of doing just that.
It's a gamble perhaps that Theresa May didn't have much choice but to take.
But if she's wrong, the government, arguably the country, will need Mr Davis' Plan B. And the dreams of an architect might in fact be the start of a nightmare. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39217083 | news_uk-politics-39217083 |
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Is North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un rational? - BBC News | 2017-03-19 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Analysing the aims of the head of the controversial regime. | Asia | Is Kim Jong-un rational? The new US ambassador to the United Nations thinks he is not. Nikki Haley said after North Korea's simultaneous launch of four ballistic missiles: "This is not a rational person." But is she right?
Kim Jong-un may have many flaws. He is without doubt ruthless - the bereaved relatives of the victims of his regime, including within his own family, would testify to that. He may have driven through an economic policy that keeps his people living at a standard way below that in South Korea and, increasingly, China.
And he seems to have personal issues, such as eating a lot - photographs show his bulging girth - and being a fairly heavy smoker.
But whatever these failings and foibles, is he actually irrational - which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as "not logical or reasonable, not endowed with the power of reason"?
Scholars who study him think he is behaving very rationally, even with the purging and terrorising of those around him. Prof Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul told the BBC: "He is perfectly rational. He sometimes overdoes it. He sometimes tends to apply excessive force. Why kill hundreds of generals when dozens will do?
Kim Jong-nam, Kim-Jong-un's half-brother, was killed while in Malaysia in February 2017
"Most people he kills would never join a conspiracy but he feels it's better to overdo it. It's better to kill nine loyal generals and one potential conspirator than to allow a conspirator to stay alive.
Prof John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul said that even having his half-brother killed (as the allegation is - denied by Pyongyang) would be a rational act; not nice but rational.
"A sad fact of history is that young kings often kill their uncles and elder brothers. It may be cruel, but it is not 'irrational'. If you don't take my word for it, read Shakespeare."
On this assassination of Kim Jong-nam, allegedly at the hands of agents of the regime, Prof Lankov says it is similar to the Ottoman Empire, where concubines of the Sultan had countless children, any of whom had a bloodline that might one day legitimise a claim to the throne.
Prof Lankov thinks that Kim Jong-nam was, accordingly, a threat, probably not that great a one but still intolerable: "Probably he was not that dangerous but you never know. He was definitely under Chinese control."
Prof Delury said that there was nothing irrational about Kim Jong-un's drive to obtain credible nuclear weapons: "He has no reliable allies to guarantee his safety, and he faces a hostile superpower that has, in recent memory, invaded sovereign states around the world and overthrown their governments.
"The lesson North Koreans learned from the invasion of Iraq was that if Saddam Hussein really possessed those weapons of mass destruction, he might have survived."
Could Kim Jong-un's drive to achieve a nuclear capability safeguard his regime's future?
This was compounded by the lesson of Libya, according to Prof Lankov: "Did American promises of American prosperity help Gaddafi and his family? Kim Jong-un knows perfectly well what happened to the only fool who believed Western promises and renounced the development of nuclear weapons. And he's not going to make that mistake. Once you don't have nuclear weapons you are completely unprotected.
"Did Russian or American and British promises to guarantee Ukrainian integrity help Ukraine? No. Why should he expect American, Russian or Chinese promises to help him stay alive? He is rational."
If he is rational, what does he want? On this, scholars are divided. Prof Brian Myers of Dongseo University in Busan in South Korea said that Kim Jong-un wants security but also a united Korea as the only way he and the regime can survive in the long term.
"As every North Korean knows, the whole point of the military-first policy is 'final victory', or the unification of the peninsula under North Korean rule."
A credible nuclear force would give him the ability to pressure the United States to remove its troops from the peninsula.
"North Korea needs the capability to strike the US with nuclear weapons in order to pressure both adversaries into signing peace treaties. This is the only grand bargain it has ever wanted," said Prof Myers.
Some analysts believe North Korea's strategy aims to see the US withdraw from South Korea
And once the US troops had gone, on this argument, North Korean rule would be unstoppable.
Prof Lankov doesn't agree with the emphasis. He thinks survival is by far the most important motive behind Kim Jong-un's actions: "Above all, he wants to stay alive. Second, economic prosperity and growth - but it's a distant second."
So what's to be done? Prof Lankov sees no good options: "I don't see any solution right now." He thinks the best option is to persuade North Korea to freeze its development of nuclear weapons at a particular size of arsenal "but it will be very difficult and North Koreans may not keep their promises".
And money would have to be paid. "But this deal isn't good from an American point of view because it means paying a reward to a blackmailer, and if you pay a reward to a blackmailer once, you invite more blackmail.
"The second option which might work is a military operation but that is likely to trigger a second Korean war and will permanently damage American credibility as a reliable ally and protector.
"Worldwide, a lot of people would see that it's better to have enemies than such friends." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39269783 | news_world-asia-39269783 |
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London attack: The path from violent crime to killer - BBC News | 2017-03-24 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Westminster attacker Khalid Masood had a history of violence, but how typical is his past of those who go on to carry out acts of terror? | UK | Westminster attacker Khalid Masood had a history of violence, but how typical is his past of those who go on to carry out acts of terror?
Masood, 52, who has been claimed by so-called Islamic State as a "soldier of the Caliphate", had spent time in prison for offences including violent assaults and possession of offensive weapons.
In one instance, when in his mid-30s, Masood slashed a man's face with a knife following an argument in a pub, for which he served two years.
While this criminal past may contradict stereotypes of those involved in religious extremism, Masood is only the latest manifestation of a criminal-turned-jihadist.
Throughout Europe, there has been a pattern of criminals being drawn to violent jihad.
Those who travel to Syria as foreign fighters are typically already known to police for something other than extremism.
Khalid Masood had been jailed for violent crimes
In Germany, two-thirds of foreign fighters had criminal records and more than half of those from Belgium and the Netherlands had a similar background.
Among perpetrators of terrorist attacks, criminal pasts are also common.
Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri had convictions for theft and violence, and had sold cocaine in the months before the attack.
Among the perpetrators of the November 2015 Paris attacks, a number had previous convictions for robberies and drug dealing.
This is no mere coincidence, as the extremist narrative often resonates with criminals.
At the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) in King's College London, we recently published a report analysing the criminal backgrounds of European jihadists and found their radicalisation is often linked to their criminality.
Indeed, jihadism is sometimes used to legitimise further crime against "non-believers", with some extremists stating that crime and violence is permissible when living in the West.
They also claim that jihadism offers redemption from previous sins, the search for which typically comes after a period of crisis in the perpetrators' lives.
That crisis is often prompted by criminality - such as being imprisoned - but it need not be.
Masood crashed his car into railings outside Parliament
However, it is striking that Masood does not fit the typical profile of a criminal-turned-jihadist, simply due to his age of 52.
Older jihadists are usually more involved in extremist support networks - as radicalisers and recruiters, rather than as attackers.
While Theresa May said Masood had been investigated in relation to concerns about violent extremism, he was considered a peripheral figure and was not part of current investigations into extremism.
In one crucial respect, however, Masood does fit the picture of the criminals-turned-jihadists that we have examined - he was familiar with violence.
If a terrorist has a criminal background, it is very often a violent one.
Stabbings, assaults, and violent behaviour are recurrent patterns amongst perpetrators of terrorist attacks with existing criminal records.
This violent group is disproportionately represented when compared with those convicted of non-violent crimes.
For Masood, this familiarity with personal violence may have made the "jump" into ideologically motivated violence that much smaller than it would otherwise have been.
Rajan Basra is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, in the Department of War Studies, at King's College London. Follow him @rajanbasra
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39380049 | news_uk-39380049 |
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Living loud in China's lively public spaces - BBC News | 2017-03-12 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Even for a long-time foreign resident, the loudness of life in China can still come as a surprise. | China blog | Little chance of a quiet cuppa in some Beijing cafes
There are some societies where people are expected to avoid being noisy in public and they behave accordingly. Then there's China.
This country that I love is many things, but quiet is not one of them.
There are plenty of bustling cities - rammed with millions of people - where you could be frowned upon for disrupting others with a raised voice: Seoul, London, Tokyo… especially Tokyo.
China does not have those cities.
The word most often used here to describe a great restaurant is not "moody" nor "intimate" nor "tasteful" but "renao". To be 热闹 is to be bustling with noise and excitement.
After all, who'd want to go to one of those fussy, dull joints where you couldn't bring kids or laugh too loud or spill a beer?
Laughter is often part of the noise
Now, given that I've lived in Beijing for 12 years, you would think that outbursts in public would be as nothing to this hardened correspondent, fully enmeshed in the ways of the Middle Kingdom, yet China can always turn on a surprise.
So there I am at a cafe nearby, feeling all urbane with a light caffeine buzz on: newspaper; some other reading material; Chet Baker's mournful trumpet floating around the room at just the right level; I can't help noticing a smart-looking beautiful woman across the other side of the room talking to her friend and…
Somebody starts a phone call at the top of their voice in full-flight pirate-sounding Beijing dialect. Anyone who has heard a Beijing taxi driver on the phone to the family at home will know exactly how this sounds.
"Naaaarrrrrr? Bu shirrrrrr baaaaa." [Where? No it isn't.]
A cafe in Japan on the other hand, is likely to be an oasis of calm
At this point a Chinese farmer walks in carrying the fake and/or stolen watches he's been selling on the street.
He's carrying his flask of tea, has no intention of buying anything at the cafe and sits on a stool with best view out of the window, next to his mate who also has no intention of buying anything but is very interested in showing the purveyor of watches an awesome new video game on his phone.
Woooshhhh! Bam! Bam! Ba-doing!!! The two of them crack up laughing and they keep playing.
Just as the first conversation is getting heated, a young convert to Christianity sits down next to me and starts praying before diving into her diary-style, each-day-a-new-lesson, introduction to Jesus.
Many countries are densely populated but they respond to the squeeze in different ways
Game, argument, praying, talk, game, laughter, talk... "Look at the stars… Look how they shine for you…"
A hippie looking Chinese bloke has booted up his laptop and Coldplay starts belting out of the speakers.
"And everything you do. Yeah they were all yellow."
He has his eyes closed and is gyrating in the seat as he sings along to himself.
I look around the cafe and, amidst this cacophony of chaos, nobody but me has reacted as if this is anything but completely normal. Some people are chatting amongst themselves, others reading or sending messages on mobile phones but they've not even glanced up to pay attention to the activities around them.
The Big Apple - and unlikely ally to China when it comes to bustle
The other place in the world I've seen this phenomenon is New York.
I went to a diner there once which had an open plan kitchen. It was packed for the morning rush hour. I was preparing to take in the New York Times over breakfast when one of the cooks started ribbing his workmate and the tension was building. At least I thought so.
Then the cook being hassled turned to the other and said in a pretty menacing tone: "Yeah keep talkin' funny guy!" At this point I was considering the possible uses of a spatula as a weapon.
Then the diner owner called out at the top of his voice from the payment counter by the door: "Heh, Pauly, go downstairs and get me some of those ******* strawberries!!!"
The whole country feels like it's on the move
There is something incredible about the way in which societies, cities, subcultures find their level in terms of acceptable public volume.
If a megacity has its own disruptive sound maybe you have to speak up to get over it? But with what noise does a Chinese farmer have to compete in the field?
Maybe you have to speak up in order to be heard amongst a huge population? Yet most Chinese people in recent years grew up with no brothers or sisters and had only their parents at home for evening conversations.
Back in the cafe, Mr Coldplay has packed up his laptop, the game boys have gone and only the first woman is still speaking on the phone… but now much more quietly: she's crying.
Her call has been more important than I had given her credit for.
Loudly playing Coldplay songs in public does not go down well everywhere
I can remember being in London many years ago on a backpacking trip when I got the news that a good friend, a brilliant young doctor, had died back in Sydney.
I didn't know what to do so I went to a cafe and wrote her a letter to say goodbye.
I was crying my eyes out in a public place and people were looking at me but not disapprovingly. They just didn't know how to take it.
When I told a BBC colleague I was going to write this piece she laughed: "What? An Australian talking about noisy people?"
Maybe we are. I hadn't thought about it.
Is that why I fit in here? | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-39214869 | news_blogs-china-blog-39214869 |
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An absence of peace: When is a war actually a war? - BBC News | 2017-03-12 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The BBC's defence and diplomatic correspondent examines how armed conflict and war differ. | World | Earlier this month, a relic from World War Two intruded into daily life in north London. A 500lb Luftwaffe bomb was discovered by builders excavating in the leafy suburb of Brondesbury.
Local homes were evacuated, local train services were closed down. Eventually the weapon was made safe and finally removed to be detonated on an army range.
This relic of a war that ended more than 70 years ago set me thinking.
World War Two - just like the Great War that preceded it - was a total war. The fates of all the countries involved were in the balance. Ordinary soldiers were largely not professionals but were conscripted citizens. The whole of society - its energies and industrial might - were mobilised for the conflict.
Once the war was over, many of its constraints inevitably lingered - the rationing of food, for example. War-ravaged cities also bore their scars.
As a child I remember the temporary homes - the rectangular "prefabs" or prefabricated houses - that dotted many of the bomb sites in east London near my grandparents' home.
My childhood was dominated by films and documentaries about the war. I lose track of the number of plastic Spitfire model kits I must have built to battle with their Messerschmitt equivalents.
But whatever the memories and cultural obsessions, the conflict was definitively over. There was, in short, a clear distinction between war and peace.
Thankfully the so-called Cold War of the 1950s and 60s remained just that: in Europe, at least, it never went hot. War and peace were two separate states of affairs.
Fast forward to today. This week, in London, a memorial was unveiled to the service personnel and civilians who lost their lives in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the government's own website it is described as the Iraq and Afghanistan Memorial.
In the West, at least, the Cold War never became hot
In the lengthy press release that follows there is no mention of the word "war", except to say that the new memorial stands close to monuments to World War Two and the Korean War.
There is rightly, of course, mention of the lives lost and the medals won. There is, too, appreciation for those who "put themselves in harm's way" - an Americanism that has intruded itself into the public debate on armed conflict.
But there you have it. These were undoubtedly armed conflicts far from our shores. But in what sense were they wars? Well of course they were, I hear you say, this is all semantic argument.
Well, they were certainly wars for the Afghans and the Iraqis who were in some cases willing, and in many cases, unwilling participants in the struggles.
They were certainly wars for those actually engaged in combat. From my very limited experience under fire, it matters little if it is a skirmish or a fully-fledged battle if it is you on the spot where the bullets are flying.
The Queen unveiled the Iraq and Afghanistan memorial in London
But were Britain, the United States or their many allies who have contributed troops to these conflicts really "at war"? To what extent were their societies adapted or mobilised for the struggle? In some senses, very little. But in others, perhaps, more than we would like to admit.
None of their economies was on a war footing and the fighting was done largely by regular professional troops or volunteer reservists. Boots on the ground were combined with the signature style of the modern Western military campaign: lashings of air power along with the use of sophisticated armed drones.
Paradoxically, the primary impact of these wars was on the home front: the political obsession with terrorism which has had an impact on policing, community relations and security legislation and created an atmosphere in which debate about "fear of the other" has become an increasingly important factor in democratic elections and referendums.
It has also led increasingly to a militarisation of foreign policy - the idea that the military has an answer for most of the world's problems.
And, in the midst of this, the former US Pentagon official and academic Rosa Brooks has mused eloquently on this theme in a book cogently titled How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything.
Her message, that the blurring of the boundaries of war and peace has consequences for all our lives, is one that seems to resound with ever more people around the globe. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-39222619 | news_world-39222619 |
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Competing mandates over indyref2 - BBC News | 2017-03-16 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Theresa May's stand-off with Nicola Sturgeon over independence is about competing mandates - and political calculations. | Scotland politics | Theresa May has declared "now is not the time" for Nicola Sturgeon to call for an independence referendum
To govern is to choose. The prime minister has now chosen to exercise her power over the constitution, reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998.
This is about competing power, competing mandates, competing interpretations of the verdicts delivered during the European referendum last year.
Theresa May accords primacy to the Brexit negotiations. She says she does not want even to contemplate the prospect of indyref2 during that period. That means she will not countenance a transfer of powers under Section 30 of the Scotland Act, again at this stage.
Nicola Sturgeon accords primacy to the impact upon Scotland of the Brexit process. She says it is undemocratic for the PM to refuse to give Scotland a meaningful choice - that word again - within a suitable timescale, proximate to the Brexit plans. It is sinking the ship and puncturing Scotland's lifeboat.
But this is also about political confidence. Political calculation. Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, plainly calculates that she will have Scottish public opinion on her side. Or, more precisely, a sufficient quotient of public opinion.
The Tories in Scotland have been through a period where they were the party which dared not speak its name, the toxic party. They now reckon those days are behind them. And why? The Union, post-2014.
Their calculation - and it is an arithmetical sum - is that they can corral behind them the supporters of Union in Scotland. That, just as in the past, in the 1950s for example, they can draw backing from a relatively wide range of Scottish society, predicated upon concrete support for the Union - and fixed opposition to the SNP.
It worked, to a substantial degree, in the last Holyrood elections when they became the largest opposition party. Their calculation is that it will work again, this time.
Nicola Sturgeon is likely to press ahead with a Holyrood vote calling for a Section 30 order
Will there be anger in some quarters at the Prime Minister's decision? There will indeed. Stand by for demonstrations to that effect at the SNP conference in Aberdeen.
But the calculation by the Tories - and this is less quantifiable, but a calculation nevertheless - is that sufficient numbers of the populace in Scotland will be relieved that they do not have to decide on independence in the next 18 months to two years.
The Tory leadership insists that they are not blocking a referendum entirely. That was Ruth Davidson's answer when she was reminded that she had told my estimable colleague Gordon Brewer in July last year that there should not be a constitutional block placed upon indyref2.
The argument was that they are merely setting terms: evident fairness and discernible popular/political support for a further plebiscite.
However, these are not absolute, they are open to interpretation. It would seem to be that the verdict on these factors would also lie with the Prime Minister. Such is the nature of reserved power.
But, again, the Tory triumvirate - PM, secretary of state, Scottish leader - stress that a referendum might be feasible once Brexit is signed, sealed and settled. David Mundell seemed particularly keen to stress that point.
However, if they won't contemplate Section 30 meantime, then the time needed for legislation, consultation and official preparation would suggest that - by that calendar - any referendum would be deferred until 2020 or possibly later. Possibly after the next Holyrood elections.
Options for the FM? She could sanction an unofficial referendum, without statutory backing. Don't see that happening. It would be a gesture - and Nicola Sturgeon, as the head of a government, is generally averse to gestures. Unless they advance her cause.
She could protest and seek discussions. Some senior Nationalists believe this to be a negotiation ploy by the PM, the prelude to talks.
Will the first minister proceed with the vote next week at Holyrood, demanding a Section 30 transfer in which the Greens are expected to join with the SNP to create a majority? I firmly expect her to do so, to add to the challenge to the PM.
Beyond that, expect the First Minister to cajole, to urge - but also to campaign. To deploy this deferral of an independence referendum as an argument for…an independence referendum. She will seek public support, arguing that Scotland's interests have been ignored. Just as Ruth Davidson will seek public support, arguing that she is protecting those interests.
Final thought. One senior Nationalist suggested to me that delay might, ultimately, be in the SNP's interests: that people were already disquieted by Brexit and would prefer a pause. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, to quote the old song.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39297497 | news_uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39297497 |
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Why transgender Africans turned against a famous feminist - BBC News | 2017-03-16 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Nigeria's LGBT community respond to transgender comments made by writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | BBC Trending | A leading African writer has transfixed the internet with her comments on gender - but fellow Nigerians say they feel hurt.
Transgender women in Africa have benefited from "male privilege" because they grew up as men. With this argument, writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie kicked off a vexed discussion, trending everywhere from Facebook to Teen Vogue.
But a less noticed discussion has been the pained one among gay and transgender Nigerians. BBC Trending has been speaking to the leading voices.
It all began last weekend when Adichie, a best-selling Nigerian novelist and outspoken feminist, was asked in an interview with Channel 4 News whether a transgender woman was "any less of a real woman."
"I think if you've lived in the world as a man with the privileges the world accords to men, and then switched gender, it's difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning in the world as a woman, and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are."
The interview has sparked a passionate online debate around the world. But specifically among Africans, one of Adichie's most vocal critics is London-based, Nigerian transgender model Miss Sahhara, who runs an online support community for transgender women called transvalid.org.
Miss Sahhara says transgender women in Nigeria rely on online communities for support
Writing on her Facebook page she said Adichie - who has written several essays and given a viral TED talk on feminism - was divisive in her comments.
"Ahhhhh, I am fuming, these TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) feminists always think they are above all women who don't fit into their narrative of what a woman should be."
"What happened to being inclusive and tolerant of all women, no matter their life histories?"
"I get a lot of online messages from Nigerian trans girls who are there now and they find it so difficult. A nightmare," Sahhara told BBC Trending, "there's no male privilege for trans women in Africa."
Growing up in rural northern Nigeria, where homosexual activity can be punishable by death (although no executions by law for homosexual activity have been verified), Sahhara says that it was "obvious to all" that she was "a girl in a boy's body".
Nigeria is one 34 African countries that outlaws same-sex relationships, and since the Nigerian government tightened its anti-gay laws in 2014, punishments have become much harsher.
"My uncles beat me up for the way I behaved," Sahhara says. "It's the way it's done in Africa."
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Sahhara moved to the UK 13 years ago, but is in close online contact with the LGBT community in Africa.
She says that social media is a vital lifeline for the transgender community there, who often live in secret. Sahhara lives openly as an LGBT activist in the UK, and many of these women get in touch with her through her Facebook page.
"I've had transgender women from South Africa get in touch with me and ask what hormones I recommend," Sahhara says, "or women from Nigeria saying 'listen sister, a friend of mine has been locked up, can you raise awareness online?'."
"They communicate with me on my Facebook page, or secretly through private digital groups I refer them to".
Mike Daemon (not his real name) who runs an LGBT advocacy website called No Strings Nigeria told BBC Trending: "Africa's transgender women rely on a secret digital life involving Whatsapp groups and closed Facebook groups."
"People are added through referrals and recommendations when they are trusted."
However he reflected the nuanced response Chimanda Ngozi Adiche's comments. Many of those commenting acknowledged Adicihie's feminist contribution and that the issue is complex. Daemon said Adichie was being "realistic" and that trans women and biologically born women have "different journeys."
Miss Sahhara, for her part, is hesitant when BBC Trending asked her if she identifies as a feminist.
"I believe in equal rights and pay for women," she says but, "when I start hearing the ladies from the TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist), it discourages me from wanting to be part of feminism. We are fighting for equality and yet you say other women are not equal because you don't feel comfortable with who they are or who they used to be."
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, a vocal advocate of LGBT rights in Africa, declined an interview with BBC Trending and referred us to her statement on Facebook.
"I think the impulse to say that trans women are just like women born female comes from a need to make trans issues mainstream," she says there. "Because by making them mainstream, we might reduce the many oppressions they experience. But it feels disingenuous to me. The intent is a good one but the strategy feels untrue. Diversity does not have to mean division."
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