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EU's Juncker calls empty European Parliament 'ridiculous' - BBC News | 2017-07-04 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The head of the European Commission launches a bitter attack on MEPs for failing to show up. | Europe | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Juncker: I will never again attend a meeting of this kind
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has launched a bitter attack on members of the European Parliament for failing to show up.
Standing up in almost empty chamber in Strasbourg, he denounced the body as "ridiculous, totally ridiculous".
Estimating the number of MEPs present at about 30, he said it proved that the parliament was "not serious".
Parliament President Antonio Tajani reacted furiously, accusing him of a lack of respect.
"You can criticise the Parliament, but it's not the Commission's job to control the parliament, it's the Parliament that has to control the Commission," he said.
But the clash continued. Mr Juncker, who is in charge of the EU's executive body, angrily rebuked MEPs for failing to attend the session reviewing the six-month presidency of Malta, the bloc's smallest member state.
It was one of the most acrimonious public rows between top EU officials in recent years. A Parliament spokesman said later that the two men had met and Mr Juncker had expressed regret for the words he had chosen.
The vast majority of MEPs were absent from the morning debate
It is rare for the head of one European institution to take such a public swipe at the legitimacy of another.
I counted fewer than 100 people in the chamber this morning, and that included the officials accompanying Mr Juncker and the Maltese prime minister.
"People can't be bothered to turn up," a British MEP told me. "Some have started their seven weeks of paid holiday already."
Others point out that much of the work in this place is done in low-profile committees, and that the building has become busier throughout the day. Nevertheless, parliamentary authorities will be unhappy they have been criticised so publicly by such a high profile figure as Mr Juncker.
Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat looked on with a broad grin as the argument unfolded. The debate was due to focus primarily on the EU's struggle to relocate 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece.
"There are only a few members in the plenary to control the commission. You are ridiculous," Mr Juncker repeated. In total, the parliament has 751 deputies.
Ignoring a further objection by the Parliament president to his choice of language, Mr Juncker told the few MEPs in the chamber: "I will never again attend a meeting of this kind."
Antonio Tajani (R) took over as president of the Parliament in January
Mr Juncker complained that if Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel or French President Emmanuel Macron had been in the chamber, it would have been full.
The spat overshadowed Mr Muscat's own assessment of the EU's response to the migrant crisis.
Describing the situation as a "fiasco", the Maltese leader called for an honest debate on Europe's values.
The vast majority of the 101,000 migrants entering Europe in 2017 so far have crossed the Mediterranean towards Italy. According to latest figures, 2,247 people have died or are missing at sea. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40492396 | news_world-europe-40492396 |
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Michael Gove: UK won't accept US chlorinated chickens - BBC News | 2017-07-26 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The UK would not agree a US trade deal which included chlorine-washed chicken, Michael Gove says. | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Environment Secretary Michael Gove tells Today a US trade deal will not allow chlorinated chicken
The UK should not accept imports of chlorinated chickens as part of any future trade deal with the US, Michael Gove has said.
The environment secretary told the BBC that the UK would not "compromise" on or "dilute" its animal welfare standards in the interests of trade.
The EU currently bans chlorine-washed chickens on welfare grounds.
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has questioned this but downplayed the potential for UK-US disagreement.
It will be up to the UK to decide whether to retain the ban once it leaves the EU in March 2019.
Labour said the government's "casual and inconsistent" approach risked undermining British farmers.
On a visit to Washington on Monday, Mr Fox said chlorinated chicken was just one detail in one sector that would only be addressed at the end of discussions about a free trade deal - which are likely to be years away.
He has suggested there are no food safety issues regarding chlorine-washed chickens, a view shared by many UK experts.
In the US, it is legal to wash chicken carcasses in strongly chlorinated water.
Producers argue that it stops the spread of microbial contamination from the animal's digestive tract to the meat, a method approved by US regulators.
But the practice has been banned in the EU since 1997, where only washing with cold air or water is allowed.
The EU argues that chlorine washes could increase the risk of bacterial-based diseases such as salmonella on the grounds that dirty abattoirs with sloppy standards would rely on it as a decontaminant rather than making sure their basic hygiene protocols were up to scratch.
There are also concerns that such "washes" would be used by less scrupulous meat processing plants to increase the shelf-life of meat, making it appear fresher than it really is.
Agriculture is likely to be one of the sticking points in talks over a deal, amid concerns about differing farming and welfare practices, such the use of growth hormones given to cows and cattle.
Asked whether lifting the ban on chlorinated chickens was a price to be paid for sealing a post-Brexit deal with the US, Mr Gove told BBC Radio 4's Today: "No. I have made it perfectly clear we are not going to dilute our high environmental standards or our animal welfare standards in the pursuit of a trade deal.
"We need to ensure that we do not compromise those standards. And we need to be in a position as we leave the European Union to be leaders in environmental and in animal welfare standards."
On whether poultry could scupper a US trade deal, he added: "The Trade Secretary, quite rightly, pointed out that, of course, this issue is important, but we mustn't concentrate just on this one issue when we look at the huge potential that a trade deal can bring."
While membership of the EU meant the UK had to accept some environmental obligations "which do not work in the interests of the environment", he said the UK had been a world leader in environmental standards for decades and that would continue after Brexit.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Fox: It's early days in US trade discussions
Mr Fox, who concluded a four-day trip to the US on Wednesday, has said the UK will not be lowering its food safety or animal welfare standards after Brexit but decisions on US chicken imports and other consumer protection issues should be based on scientific advice.
"There is no health issue with that - the European Union has said that it is perfectly safe," he said. "The issue lies around some of the secondary issues of animal welfare and it's perfectly reasonable for people to raise that, but it will come much further down the road."
A Lords report on Wednesday warned that UK farmers' livelihoods could be threatened by an influx of cheaper food imports from the US. It said there was evidence that UK consumers would be willing to pay more for food reared to higher standards but it remained to be seen if this would happen in practice.
For Labour, shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman said the cabinet was in disarray over the issue.
"Theresa May must set the record straight by publicly supporting British poultry farmers and committing to protect the British public from substandard food produce in a race-to-the-bottom Brexit," she said.
But Conservative MP John Redwood said British farmers were already losing out to cheaper competition from the European continent, where welfare standards - both in terms of the rearing and transport of animals - were not as high as in the UK.
"When we leave the EU we will be free to set our own standards, which will be higher than EU minimum requirements," he wrote on his blog. "This makes animal welfare an odd argument for people to use who want us to stay in the EU system." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40726208 | news_uk-politics-40726208 |
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Theresa May sacking ministers 'would get MPs' support' - BBC News | 2017-07-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A senior backbencher backs the PM as she tries to restore discipline to her cabinet after leaks. | UK Politics | The cabinet has been posing for an official photo
Theresa May would have the backing of Tory MPs if she sacked disloyal ministers for plotting and briefing, a senior backbencher says.
Charles Walker, vice-chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, told ministers to "stop chattering away".
Earlier the prime minister told her cabinet to show "strength and unity" as she attempted to stem recent leaks.
And Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon called for the military virtues of "loyalty, cohesion and discipline".
Speaking at an event organised by the Policy Exchange think tank on Tuesday evening, Sir Michael urged the cabinet to "concentrate their fire" on Jeremy Corbyn, whom he described as a "dangerous enemy in reach of Downing Street".
At the same time, he said his party needed to make traditional Conservative arguments for "lower taxation, for honest public financing, for wider opportunity, enterprise and ownership".
Mrs May's attempt to instil discipline follows a sustained outbreak of cabinet leaks and leadership gossip.
Number 10 said press briefings were a case of colleagues not taking their responsibilities seriously.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World at One, Mr Walker said that aside from a few "outliers", the party was united behind Mrs May - adding that those plotting were "not doing themselves any favours at all".
The defence secretary has issued a warning to his colleagues
"I do not care about people's personal ambitions," he said.
"If the prime minister has to start removing secretaries of state because they are not focusing on their job, they are focusing on their own personal ambitions, so be it.
"And she will have the support of the 1922 Committee."
According to her spokesman, the PM told cabinet at its regular Tuesday meeting: "There's a need to show strength and unity as a country and that starts around the cabinet table."
Tuesday's cabinet meeting was the last before the summer recess
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was among those at Downing Street
Trade Secretary Liam Fox, seen arriving with Environment Secretary Michael Gove, has said he "deplores" leaks
On Monday she told Tory MPs to end the "backbiting" over disagreements within the party.
At a summer reception for backbench Tory MPs on the House of Commons terrace on Monday, Mrs May told the party "no backbiting, no carping".
The choice, she said, is "me or Jeremy Corbyn... and nobody wants that".
Go away over the summer for a "proper break", she told MPs, and "come back ready for serious business".
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said media reports of splits and negative briefings did not reflect her experience in cabinet.
She said Mrs May was "absolutely right" to tell ministers that "what is said in the cabinet should stay in the cabinet".
The PM's plea to her party for unity comes after she lost her Commons majority when her snap general election gamble backfired.
Hostile briefings in the press over the weekend appeared to show a growing rift in the cabinet.
On Sunday, Chancellor Philip Hammond suggested colleagues opposed to his approach to Brexit had been briefing against him, following press reports of his cabinet remarks on public sector pay.
During Treasury questions in the Commons, Mr Hammond dismissed Lord Heseltine's claim - raised by Labour - that he was "enfeebled".
"I don't feel particularly enfeebled," he said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40639715 | news_uk-politics-40639715 |
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Parliament takes pride in role in gay rights struggles - BBC News | 2017-07-08 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | How politicians and Parliament have been at the centre of battles over gay rights over the past 60 years. | Parliaments | Flying the flag for LGBT rights - Parliament shows it solidarity
Westminster's "palace of enchantments" will be given an LGBTI gleam this weekend - lit up in the colours of the rainbow flag to mark both Pride Week and also the 50th anniversary of the Act of Parliament which legalised gay sex.
The decision was taken by Commons Speaker John Bercow and the Lord Speaker, Lord Fowler, who explained their thinking in their first-ever joint interview, for Radio 4's Today in Parliament.
Legalisation, in 1967, was the product of a ten-year parliamentary campaign to follow-up the 1957 Wolfenden Report which had recommended the decriminalisation of consenting male homosexual sex.
There had been gathering pressure and determined resistance as the issue surfaced repeatedly in Parliament, with furious internal argument within the two main parties.
My favourite moment was a question put by the Conservative former Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, who asked "are your Lordships going to pass a bill that would make it lawful for two senior officers of police to go to bed together?"
The Conservative MP Humphrey Berkeley brought in a bill for reform, but lost his seat in the 1966 general election. He was not reselected, and was told that his local party could tolerate him being for either homosexual law reform or the abolition of hanging, but not both.
The torch was passed to the Labour MP, Leo Abse, who won approval for a ten-minute rule bill in July 1966, by 244 votes to 100. Abse had the support of the new Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, who battled in Cabinet to persuade reluctant colleagues to give government support to the Bill.
Opponents thought it was the product of middle class liberalism and would alienate Labour's working-class base, but the government did eventually crucial provide extra debating time in the Commons, when Abse's private members bill faced a filibuster.
The necessary 100 MPs needed to force votes at regular intervals in the debate was mustered, and at 5.50am on the morning of July 4, 1966, the Bill passed its Third Reading by 99 votes to 14, after a 20-hour sitting.
Legalisation was presented in an apologetic way - a measure to end the criminalisation of unfortunates - and not a "vote of confidence in homosexuality".
The age of consent was set at 21, and despite attempts to lower it by, among others, the Conservative Edwina Currie, it remained at that age until 2000.
Even after legalisation, the personal consequences for MPs and others in the public eye of being outed were still devastating.
There were cases like that of Maureen Colquhoun, a Labour MP elected in Northampton in 1974, who brought in bills on abortion, gender balance and the protection of prostitutes.
Her relationship with another woman was revealed in the Daily Mail. She defeated two attempts to deselect her, and she was forced to campaign for re-election in 1979, with some party members refusing to support her because of her private life, rather than her politics. She lost.
Maureen Colquhoun saw off two attempts to deselect her
Perhaps the most high profile example was that of someone who never actually made it into Parliament, Peter Tatchell, the Labour candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election, whose homosexuality became an election issue.
In an interview on Radio 4's Today in Parliament on Friday, Joanna Cherry, the gay SNP MP, said the level of "hate filled homophobia" he faced deterred her from any idea of a career in politics - although she would have liked (at that time) to be a Labour MP.
Labour's Chris Smith, a future Culture Secretary, was the first MP to come out as gay, in 1984.
And there was also legislation, like Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, which said local councils could not "intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".
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No prosecution was ever brought under Section 28, but it had considerable impact on, for example, lesbian, gay and bisexual support groups in schools and colleges. It was repealed in 2000.
In recent years the battles have tended to be on legislation designed to be anti-discriminatory, first the creation of Civil Partnerships, then the legislation to allow same-sex couples to marry, and most recently the "Turing Bill" to pardon gay men convicted for offences that would not be considered crimes today.
Today, Speaker Bercow's coat of arms features LGBT colours. And for Norman Fowler, the Lord Speaker, his experience as health secretary in the 1980s, when AIDS emerged as a major public health issue, it brought the issue for discrimination against gay people into focus.
Both wanted Parliament to pay its respects to the LGBT community and to show solidarity.
"We have gone in half a century from the criminalisation of one type of love to almost complete legal equality," Mr Bercow said.
Lord Fowler said the lighting of one of the most famous buildings in the world would be a symbol to people who were being persecuted.
• None Why is Pride important to you? | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-parliaments-40530264 | news_uk-politics-parliaments-40530264 |
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Cameron says fiscal discipline not 'selfish' amid austerity debate - BBC News | 2017-07-05 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The former PM says opponents of austerity are wrongly portraying the government as "uncaring". | UK Politics | The former PM says leaving debts to future generations is wrong
David Cameron has said opponents of fiscal discipline are "selfish" not "compassionate", as the debate within the Tories over austerity continues.
The ex-prime minister, who introduced the public sector pay cap, said those who believed in "sound finances" were wrongly being painted as "uncaring".
"The exact reverse is true," he said at an event in South Korea. "Giving up sound finances isn't being generous."
Chancellor Philip Hammond has urged ministers to "hold their nerve".
As a growing number of Tory MPs, as well as opposition parties and unions, call for the 1% cap on public sector pay increases to be reviewed, the chancellor has said the "right balance" must be struck in terms of fairness to workers and taxpayers.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson expressed his support for a rethink on Monday, while Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he sympathises with the millions of NHS workers whose pay has been squeezed since 2010 - firstly through a two-year pay freeze and then through the cap, which was imposed in 2012.
But Mr Cameron, who as prime minister of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition oversaw six years of cuts to public spending, defended his government's record on cutting the multibillion pound annual deficit and suggested it would be a mistake to now loosen up efforts.
Five million public sector workers have seen their pay capped since 2012
"The opponents of so-called austerity couch their arguments in a way that make them sound generous and compassionate," said the former PM, who stood down as an MP last year, at a conference in Seoul.
"They seek to paint the supporters of sound finances as selfish, or uncaring. The exact reverse is true.
"Giving up on sound finances isn't being generous, it's being selfish: spending money today that you may need tomorrow."
Rises of 1% for dentists, nurses, doctors and the military have already been agreed for this year and No 10 said ministers would respond to pay review bodies next recommendations in due course.
Nigel Lawson, a former chancellor to Margaret Thatcher, said it was Mr Hammond's job to keep control of public spending and urged ministers to formulate the policy behind closed doors.
"It's not easy but it is necessary," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "People understand we need to pay our way on the road to economic success."
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said increasing pay in line with inflation next year could cost about £5bn and to do so for the rest of the Parliament could "easily cost twice that".
However, director Paul Johnson told the BBC that Mr Hammond had a range of options to ease the constraints on pay without breaching his immediate financial targets.
"If that were the government's biggest priority then it could probably afford to do it," he said. "The country would hardly be bankrupt if the government were to borrow a few billion more than currently planned."
But he said it was not clear how much "headroom" Mr Hammond would have given uncertainty over the performance of the economy and other spending pressures.
After the Tories' failure to win a majority, the chancellor has said it is up to his party to again make the case for a market-based economy, underpinned by sound public finances, and oppose those calling for a "different path".
Labour said immediate action was needed from the government not "just more empty words or infighting from members of the cabinet".
"The fact that some of the pillars of our community and the public sector such as teachers, doctors and police officers are seeing their pay cut exposes the double standards of a government that likes to praise their work but will not actually truly reward it," said shadow chancellor John McDonnell. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40496775 | news_uk-politics-40496775 |
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Is there institutional racism in mental health care? - BBC News | 2017-07-05 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Statistics suggest black people are four times more likely to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. | Health | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Eche explains how he was Tasered when sectioned under the Mental Health Act
Black people are being failed by the UK's mental health services because of "institutional racism", it has been warned. How does this affect those who experience it?
When Eche Egbuonu, who has bipolar disorder, was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, he should have been taken to a safe environment - usually a hospital - for a medical assessment.
Instead, he was taken straight to a police station.
"Being in the police cell was probably the worst thing they could have done to me in the state of mind that I was in," he tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme.
Under the Mental Health Act, a person can be detained if they are considered to be suffering from a mental disorder and in immediate need of care or control.
Eche was released two days later. But shortly after, following an altercation at his home, his parents called the police.
This time, after he refused to go willingly, one of the officers used a Taser.
Eche says: "I'm in my room, and I'm like, 'I'm not going [with police].' The first time, I was compliant.
"Physically they tried to get me down, that didn't work. So they brought the Taser out, 50,000 volts.
"Before I know it, I'm back in handcuffs.
"It's made me more resistant and distrusting of the system in general because it felt like a prison experience. I feel like a criminal."
The matter of black overrepresentation within the mental health system is a complex one.
Statistics suggest a black man in the UK is 17 times more likely than a white man to be diagnosed with a serious mental health condition such as schizophrenia or bipolar.
Black people are also four times more likely to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Issues such as unemployment and poverty play a part in the inequality, but there are fears that institutional racism also has a role.
Councillor Jacqui Dyer says mental health services must change for black communities to trust them
Jacqui Dyer - a councillor in Lambeth, London, the borough with the biggest black population in the country - believes this is the case.
She is vice-chair of the government-appointed Mental Health Taskforce for England.
"What we find is that there's a differential experience so these I might describe as structural inequalities, unconscious bias, institutional racism, whatever you're more comfortable with in terms of terminology which means decisions that are made in these structures, sort of biases those communities," she says.
Ms Dyer says there is a belief within some black communities that if you go into mental health services, "it's not that you get recovery, it's that you die [there]".
This, she says, leads to people "presenting later" for treatment, when their case is more severe.
"We have to change the narrative, by actually changing the services," she says.
The Reverend Freddie Brown says the church is "indispensible to the solution"
According to the Reverend Freddie Brown, from Tooting New Testament Assembly, the Church could play a vital role in creating this change.
He is part of the Pastor's Network, set up because of concern about the number of parishioners presenting with mental health problems.
Church leaders in the network have taken accredited family therapy courses to try to improve the situation.
He believes - by working with other mental health services - they can be "indispensable to the solution".
Lorraine Khan, from the Centre for Mental Health, also believes "institutional racism" is embedded in the system.
A new report from the think tank found when black people tried to access help, they were less likely to receive the support they wanted.
They are now calling on the government to overhaul its approach to mental health to tackle the issue, which she says has been overlooked:
"I think there is a problem with institutional racism in the way we take action and try to improve things. This problem doesn't affect the majority of the country so it becomes a minority issue as far as commissioners are concerned.
"We find there's not the investment in research to improve the programmes that young men and women say they want. It's not considered the priority. The priority is, all the services are geared towards white people."
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "We want to make sure that everyone, regardless of ethnicity, age or background, gets the mental health treatment they need.
"Work to consider reform of mental health legislation will begin to ensure mental health is prioritised in the NHS in England - and in part reflecting concern about the disproportionate rate of detention of black people under the existing system."
Maitreya, a singer-songwriter, was sectioned for a second time a few weeks ago, following an argument with a family member.
She says she found it difficult to access mental health care from the NHS in the year before she was detained.
"I was actually trying to tell them, 'I feel very much suicidal at the moment.'
Maitreya says she was not taken seriously when she reported suicidal thoughts to doctors
"I took myself into a hospital. I took myself into A&E. I've called ambulances."
But Maitreya says she was not taken seriously.
"It's made me lose trust in the mental health service.
"Now I've gone through a whole process of being sectioned - and I need more help to deal with the trauma - I'm scared because I'm like, 'How will the help come now?'"
After being sectioned, Maitreya has now been diagnosed with psychosis, something she disputes.
When she was detained she rejected medication, saying she had developed her own coping mechanisms.
According to some experts, black people are more likely to be medicated while admitted to mental health services.
Donald Masi, a psychiatric doctor, believes this is the result of a wider cultural perception that black people are more dangerous.
"Say there's a petite 50-year-old white lady with a mental illness and a 6ft [1.8m] black guy with the same illness," he says.
Donald Masi says there is a societal perception of "black people being the aggressor"
"Both may be calm but may have episodes of irritability, frustration or aggression because they're distressed from their mental illness.
"People are more likely to think that the black guy is going to do something and hurt them, because essentially there is a cultural idea of black people being the aggressor."
Dr Masi says, however, that the problem is more of a wider societal issue, rather than one specific to the health service - adding that the NHS was "a lot better than it used to be".
Eche believes in his case "there could have been a subconscious [racial] bias".
He says: "When I think about some of the other people that I saw in the ward, I'm like, 'What that person was doing was definitely more aggressive than me - but they stayed in that open ward, they didn't come into intensive care.'"
Eche says "it was basically all BME [black and minority ethnic]" in the intensive care unit.
And the "whole system needs an overhaul" to deal with the ingrained bias.
"How race impacts your experience in the mental health system, how painful it is, I think something needs to be done," he says.
Watch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40495539 | news_health-40495539 |
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Student debt rising to more than £50,000, says IFS - BBC News | 2017-07-05 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Rising tuition fees and interest rates mean higher costs for graduates, says the IFS. | Education & Family | Students will have accrued £5,800 in interest charges before they graduate, says the IFS
Students in England are going to graduate with average debts of £50,800, after interest rates are raised on student loans to 6.1%, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Those from the poorest backgrounds, with more loans available to support them, will graduate with debts of over £57,000 says the think tank.
Interest charges are levied as soon as courses begin and the IFS says students on average will have accrued £5,800 in interest charges by the time they have graduated from university.
Report author Chris Belfield describes the interest as "very high", but the Department for Education declined to comment on the increase in charges.
Universities Minister Jo Johnson says that more disadvantaged students than ever are going to university.
The study from the IFS compares England's current student finance system introduced in 2012, where fees were raised to £9,000, with the previous system introduced in 2006, when fees were about £3,000.
Because the level at which graduates have to repay also increased, to £21,000, it meant that those with low incomes were initially better off, says the IFS.
But the repayment threshold has been frozen since 2012 - and the IFS report says that graduates on all income levels are now worse off than under the previous fee regime.
Students from disadvantaged backgrounds can borrow more in maintenance support - but because these are now loans rather than grants, it means that the poorest students will leave with the highest debts.
The increase in interest rates and tuition fees going up to £9,250 per year will push up the cost of loans for all graduates - and higher earners will pay interest of £40,000 on top of the amount borrowed.
Mr Belfield says the 6.1% being charged on loans is "very high compared with current market rates".
But if loans are not repaid after 30 years, they are written off - and the IFS forecasts that about three-quarters of students will not pay off all their debt, despite making payments from their earnings into their 50s.
The government also wants to sell off student loans to private investors - with some pre-2012 loans having already been put up for sale.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Universities minister refuses to say on Today whether student loan interest rates will go down
The report says there have been two main beneficiaries from the current fee system - universities and the government's finances.
Universities have increased per-student funding by 25% since fees rose to £9,000, says the IFS, after taking into account the money they no longer receive directly from the government.
Last week, Mr Johnson warned against university leaders being paid excessive salaries - with some vice-chancellors earning over £400,000.
Replacing grants with loans and freezing the earnings threshold for repayment has made the system less expensive for the government.
The IFS says that the lowest-earning third of graduates are paying 30% more than in 2012, when the £21,000 threshold was introduced.
The switch in costs to students will mean cutting government borrowing by £3bn in the long term.
Tuition fees became a high-profile issue during the general election - with Labour promising to scrap tuition fees.
The big swing to Labour in university seats was seen as suggesting that young people were concerned about tuition fees - and plans for them to begin rising each year.
Senior Conservative minister Damian Green, speaking last week, recognised that fees had become a big issue, particular for young voters, and that universities needed to show they were providing value for money.
The IFS analysis says scrapping tuition fees would cost £11bn per year. But it also warns that continuing on the current trajectory of "high debts, high interest rates and low repayment rates" would mean problems both for "graduates and the public finances".
The report says that the overall trend has been to increase university funding, reduce government spending on higher education, "while substantially increasing payments by graduates, especially high-earning graduates".
Labour's shadow education minister, Gordon Marsden, said: "This report shows that any argument that the current fee system is progressive is absolute nonsense.
"From scrapping the maintenance grant to freezing the repayment threshold, this government has increased the debt burden of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who will graduate with debts in excess of £57,000."
"Under the Tories, student debt continues to rise with no end in sight, and students in the UK will now graduate with a shocking average of over £50,000 in debt."
Mr Johnson said: "The government consciously subsidises the studies of those who for a variety of reasons, including family responsibilities, may not repay their loans in full.
"This is a vital and deliberate investment in the skills base of this country, not a symptom of a broken student finance system.
"And the evidence bears this out: young people from poorer backgrounds are now going to university at a record rate - up 43% since 2009." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40493658 | news_education-40493658 |
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Five times food fights have had an impact on trade talks - BBC News | 2017-07-27 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Chlorine chicken isn't the only food that has got politicians in a flap | Business | Trade talks, tense affairs at the best of times, often get particularly sticky when it comes to food.
When the UK starts to negotiate new trade deals as it leaves the EU in 2019, food will be one of many areas that will need to be addressed.
The ongoing spat over chlorine chicken highlights how tastes and safety practices around the world can differ hugely.
What might seem normal practice in one country can seem problematic elsewhere.
In the US, it is legal to wash chicken carcasses in chlorinated water to kill germs - but this has been banned in the EU since 1997.
UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove has said the UK should not allow these imports in a post-Brexit trade deal with the US, but Trade Secretary Liam Fox says the practice is "perfectly safe".
Anthony Scaramucci, US president Donald Trump's new communications director, told BBC Newsnight that there would "100%" be a trade deal between his country and the UK - although he confessed he had no idea what was happening about chlorinated chicken.
Here are five occasions when spats over food have made past trade talks tricky.
The US wouldn't import Mexican avocados for many years
For more than 80 years, the US refused to import Mexican avocados on the grounds that the fruit was infested with fruit flies and other bugs.
After the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) in 1994, the US came under pressure to relax its ban, rather than rely on its pricier home-grown avocados.
"Avocados are always used as a pawn in the trading process. Whenever the United States talks to Mexico about opening up other agricultural commodities to US growers... it always comes back to avocados," Jerome Steyhle, who chairs the California Avocado Growers Commission, told the BBC in 2003.
In 1997, the restrictions started to be lifted, and by 2016 the US was importing 1.7 billion avocados across the border each year, according to marketing group Avocados from Mexico.
But the avocado war could be reignited now that President Trump has threatened to renegotiate Nafta - which he described as "the single worst trade deal ever approved [by the United States]".
Earlier this year, there were reports of several Mexican avocado lorries being turned away at the border following an argument about US potato imports.
Some cattle in the US are fed growth hormones
One of the best known food-related trade disputes was over hormone-fed beef.
The use of certain growth hormones in cattle rearing is legal in the US.
But in 1988, the EU banned the use of several major growth promotion hormones, which it said posed a potential risk to human health. This was an effective ban on American beef.
A decade later, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled the EU's refusal to import US beef was not based on scientific evidence and violated its members' obligations.
However, the trading bloc still wouldn't buy the meat, leading the US to retaliate by levying higher trade tariffs on some of its EU imports.
"American ranchers raise some of the best beef on the planet, but restrictive European Union policies continue to deny EU consumers access to US beef at affordable prices. For several years we have been asking the EU to fix an agreement that is clearly broken, despite its original promise to provide a favourable market for US beef," US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said last year.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted assurances that the country would still be able to stockpile food
Several years ago, India blocked the implementation of a 2013 global trade agreement it feared would stop it stockpiling food for the poor.
India refused to back the Trade Facilitation Agreement until it was assured proposed limits to farming subsidies would not affect its $12bn (£9.2bn) food-security programme.
It pays farmers over the odds for grain, some of which it sells to poorer households while the rest is set aside in case of shortages.
The WTO trade agreement simplified customs procedures and was designed to add $1tn to the global economy, and benefit developing countries in particular, so India's defiance was strongly criticised by the global community.
India agreed to lift the veto after WTO members agreed that an arrangement known as a "peace clause" - which protects food stockpiling - would remain valid until the WTO could find a permanent solution.
It was due to expire in 2017, but will now effectively continue indefinitely.
EU negotiators wanted to sell more dairy products to the Japanese, who in turn wanted to sell more cars
Negotiations on a big trade deal between Japan and the EU began in 2013.
Both sides wanted to slash tariffs on a huge range of goods, to boost trade.
This is a sensitive process because domestic producers tend to be wary of foreign competition.
The Japanese side was particularly keen to boost car sales in Europe, while the EU negotiators wanted to sell more dairy products.
Loosening the dairy rules wasn't such a big deal for hard cheeses such as cheddar and gouda, which are not made in Japan.
But Japanese dairy farmers do make softer cheeses, which proved a roadblock in the final stages of the talks, earlier this year.
After some late night haggling, the EU's Agriculture Commissioner, Phil Hogan, secured a compromise.
The EU would have a yearly quota of 31,000 tonnes for soft cheese exports, in exchange for almost complete market access for hard cheese.
A few days later in Brussels, EU leaders and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the completion of the deal, dubbed "cars for cheese".
Some Belgian dairy farmers were worried about the impact of free trade
After years of negotiations, the EU completed its most ambitious free-trade deal to date: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta) with Canada.
But under EU rules, some far-reaching trade agreements require the consent of all 28 EU countries before they can come into force.
To make things even more complicated, in Belgium seven federal, regional and community bodies had to give their approval as well.
Wallonia, the country's French-speaking region, said no.
Politicians in the staunchly socialist region had concerns about the dispute-settlement mechanism in the agreement, along with something else - milk.
Wallonian dairy farmers worried about the impact of free trade on their sales.
A group of them marched outside the European Commission in Brussels to voice their disapproval of Ceta.
Eventually, Belgian political leaders reached a consensus and broke the deadlock, agreeing an addendum to the Canadian deal, which addressed concerns over the rights of farmers and governments.
The European Parliament approved Ceta in February, although it has not come into force yet.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40732185 | news_business-40732185 |
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Newspaper headlines: Conservative MP's 'N-word shame' - BBC News | 2017-07-11 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Racist language used by a Conservative MP and the decision to cap teachers' pay feature on the front pages. | The Papers | The parents of Charlie Gard appear in many of the newspapers
Several papers report the warning from a pay review body that schools in England are struggling to recruit teachers, after the government decided to cap their pay rises at 1%.
The story makes the lead in the Daily Telegraph, which says the prime minister is likely to face more challenges from her own MPs on the issue.
The paper says the pay review body's warning will add to mounting pressure on Chancellor Philip Hammond to ease the pay cap in his Budget later this year.
The Guardian says Mrs May has been accused of insulting teachers.
It also believes pressure is building on the government to announce a review of public sector pay in the autumn Budget.
In other education news, ministers are considering scrapping the Conservative programme to build hundreds more free schools, as they struggle to fund a manifesto promise to boost education budgets by £4bn, according to the Times.
The paper also reports the decision to continue the 1% cap on pay rises for teachers, calling it another real-terms salary cut for half a million staff in England and Wales.
The grim-faced parents of Charlie Gard are pictured on the Daily Mirror's front page, after a hearing at the High Court on Monday.
The Times reports how they shouted at the judge and a lawyer as they were told to provide fresh evidence that their terminally-ill baby should be taken abroad for treatment.
The Daily Mail says that after the hearing, many were left pondering the same simple clash of arguments.
It was the medical establishment versus a family not prepared to admit defeat, as long as someone, somewhere, was saying that something might be done.
The main story in the Financial Times is that the drugs industry is going to court to try to stop the NHS imposing new limits on the price it will pay for medicines.
The FT says the industry has complained that the policy might prevent patients from securing cutting-edge medicines for the most serious diseases.
The paper says the rules also affect drugs for very rare illnesses, which often affect children, and will be subject to a cost limit for the first time.
The Guardian's front page, meanwhile, highlights a warning from scientists that the sixth mass extinction of species in the earth's history is well under way.
The paper says the new study analysed both common and rare species and found that billions of regional or local populations had been lost, mainly because of human overpopulation and over-consumption.
Animals affected include lions in South Africa, Guatemalan bearded lizards, as well as red squirrels and barn swallows.
A front-page report in the Financial Times says the government has conceded that the European Court of Justice could continue to have sway over Britain for a limited time after Brexit.
The paper sees the move as a "blurring" of one of Prime Minister Theresa May's red lines over negotiations with the EU, and says it could pave the way for a softer Brexit.
The FT calls it the most consequential concession since the referendum.
Mrs May's call for a cross-party approach to tacking the challenges facing the UK is given short shrift in the Telegraph.
The paper says that instead of prompting a great coming together, the idea seems to be falling apart almost immediately.
The Conservatives sometimes appear to have lost their bearings, the paper says, and the prime minister will not find the right path by following Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
But the Sun believes it was honest and brave of Mrs May to offer other parties a say.
What it calls Jeremy Corbyn's "graceless" rebuff was predictable, it says.
Amid all the Wimbledon coverage, the Telegraph highlights complaints of sexism in the tournament's scheduling.
It says critics have pointed out that the show courts at the All England Club are routinely hosting two men's games, but only one women's match, each day.
It says Andy Murray has entered the fray, urging Wimbledon to begin play earlier on Centre Court to allow four matches and an equal split.
And finally, there is widespread coverage of two new studies, which conclude that drinking coffee can reduce the risk of dying early.
The findings make the lead in the Daily Express, which says three cups a day can cut the risk of cancer, heart disease and strokes.
The Times adds that while coffee has been blamed for health problems such as insomnia, heartburn and weak bones, the new findings appear to show that the benefits outweigh the risks.
Fill the cafetiere, it advises, but ditch the cigarette. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-40564307 | news_blogs-the-papers-40564307 |
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Spanish airline Iberia to drop pregnancy test demand - BBC News | 2017-07-11 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Iberia insists the tests were for the women's own safety but is ridiculed for the claim. | Europe | Iberia insists it did not refuse to hire anyone for being pregnant - and says requiring tests is commonplace in Spain
The Spanish airline Iberia has said it will stop requiring female job candidates to take a pregnancy test after it was fined for the practice.
Labour inspectors in the Balearic Islands discovered the airline insisted on the tests, and fined it €25,000 (£22,000; $28,000).
The airline argued it had only been trying to "guarantee that [pregnant women] did not face any risks".
But this explanation drew ridicule on social media.
"You need help to improve your arguments," tweeted one blogger, Eva Snijders, having earlier tweeted, "Hello, we are Iberia and we live in medieval times."
The airline practice was uncovered after a campaign on the Balearic Islands to combat discrimination in the workplace, reports El Pais in English.
Inspectors subsequently found Iberia had required a recruitment company, Randstad, to carry out the test on candidates along with other medical checks, the paper says.
Iberia insists it did not turn down candidates discovered to be pregnant, saying five had been hired. It also reportedly argues that requiring pregnancy tests is commonplace in Spain.
"You need help to improve your arguments," tweeted Eva Snijders
But Spanish Health Minister Dolors Montserrat said she "rejected" the practice.
"Maternity can in no way be an obstacle for access to a job," she told reporters.
Iberia, which merged with British Airways in 2010, is free to appeal against the fine imposed by the Balearic regional government. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40567647 | news_world-europe-40567647 |
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Thousands march on Parliament in anti-government protest - BBC News | 2017-07-01 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Jeremy Corbyn addressed crowds calling for an end to Theresa May's austerity programme. | UK | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Protesters listened to speeches from politicians and activists in Parliament Square
Thousands of people gathered in central London to demonstrate against the UK government's economic policies.
The protest was organised by a group called the People's Assembly Against Austerity.
Demonstrators met outside BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place, before marching past Downing Street and on to Parliament Square.
The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was among the speakers who addressed crowds at The Not One Day More protest.
Speaking in Parliament Square, Mr Corbyn said: "The Tories are in retreat, austerity is in retreat, the economic arguments of austerity are in retreat.
"It's those of social justice, of unity, of people coming together to oppose racism and all those that would divide us, that are the ones that are moving forward."
The crowd chanted "oh Jeremy Corbyn" and "Tories out" during the rally, while many carried banners saying Justice For Grenfell.
One protester told BBC News that "anger" had motivated her to join the protest, saying: "What's going on isn't good enough under the Tory government.
"There have been cuts to every single service you can think of. It's just the pure negligence. How can you be cutting vital services?"
The organisers said on Facebook that they "invite everyone - from campaigns and community groups across the country, from the trade unions, from political parties and any individual - to come together in one massive show of strength and solidarity".
The statement added: "We're marching against a government committed to austerity, cuts and privatisation.
"We're marching for a decent health service, education system, housing, jobs and living standards for all."
Downing Street did not want to comment on the protest. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40468881 | news_uk-40468881 |
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How flammable cladding gets approved - BBC News | 2017-07-01 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | BBC Newsnight Chris Cook explains how engineering reports have been used to justify using more flammable materials on more high-rises in England | UK | Newsnight has obtained confidential reports that help explain how flammable material has become more common on tall buildings.
Combustible cladding has been permitted based on reports arguing fires involving combustible aluminium panels would behave similarly to ones with non-combustible ceramic tiles.
Developers use them to persuade inspectors to sign off buildings.
Exova, the company that produced the reports, refused to comment.
The company, also known as Exova Warringtonfire, is a fire testing and engineering company.
It has previously cited client confidentiality in refusing to comment and has not responded to requests since Newsnight obtained copies of the reports relating to two buildings late on Friday afternoon.
The confidential reports obtained by Newsnight contain assessments that persuaded inspectors that a given cladding design was safe and met legal standards.
Part of the engineers' reasoning was that, in a fire test, you would get similar results if you were to use either combustible aluminium panels or non-combustible ceramic tiles.
As a consequence, it argued, you could use successful fire tests involving ceramic tiles as a guide to the likely fire safety of a system using aluminium panels.
The report said: "If this... would be tested... the external flame spread results would be comparable to those with ceramic tile."
While there is no test that contradicts the authors' conclusions about the safety of the proposed cladding system, experts were surprised at the arguments advanced by the authors, which they felt was not strongly supported by evidence.
Aluminium composite panels are two sheets of thin aluminium around a "core" of some other substance. In a fire, these panels can "delaminate": the outer aluminium peels away, exposing the inner core.
If the inner core is combustible, these panels can allow the rapid spread of fire. Ceramic tiles do not contain combustible material and do not have layers that can come apart.
That fire performance is why so much attention has been paid to the use of aluminium panelling with a plastic core on Grenfell Tower. The government is currently demanding local authorities and housing associations send in samples of aluminium panelling for test.
One of the documents obtained by Newsnight was used to approve materials now in use in the Greetham Street student residences run by Unite Students, a student accommodation provider, in Portsmouth.
The two reports both related to a style of cladding system similar to that used at Grenfell Tower: a combustible insulation material underneath aluminium composite panels.
Neither of the reports, though, proposed using the same materials as those used on Grenfell Tower. Both reports related to aluminium cladding containing fire retardants.
While the reports related to slightly different designs and had different authors, both advanced the same technical arguments which concerned experts.
These assessments, one said, "appeared to extrapolate an apple into an orange" and they agreed that this showed up weaknesses in the way that we make sure buildings are fire safe.
These reports - known as "desktop studies" - are a legal alternative to laboratory testing.
There are several regulatory routes to demonstrating to an inspector that cladding is safe on a tall building.
First, all the parts of the cladding can be tested separately and found to be of "limited combustibility", broadly meaning that the parts will not catch alight or spread fire.
If, however, some parts do not meet that standard, developers can arrange for a laboratory to construct a model of the entire proposed wall system and assess what would happen in a fire.
But if a developer wishes to follow plans similar to a setup which has already been fire-tested, they can ask an engineer to perform a desktop study, certifying that the proposed construction would pass the test without the need for one to be carried out.
Unite Students have sent cladding for testing and consulted with local fire authorities to make sure their Greetham Street building in Portsmouth in safe
The scale of the use of desktop studies is actually still unknown: they are not published and are even considered commercially confidential.
But there is now growing concern in government that desktop studies may be an important factor - directly and indirectly - in explaining why so many buildings have been found to have combustible components within their cladding.
Newsnight has applied for documents from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to establish whether desktop studies were used to justify the cladding configuration used on the Grenfell Tower.
Unite, which runs the building in Portsmouth, said: "Fire safety is always a key priority for Unite - which is why we work with the Avon Fire and Rescue Service to ensure that our buildings, policies and procedures not only comply with existing regulations but exceed them.
"As a matter of general practice, we regularly review and assess the fire risk in all of our buildings, using members of the Institution of Fire Engineers."
Both documents were commissioned and paid for by Kingspan, the makers of the insulation used in the cladding.
Kingspan said: "In the instances where Kingspan has commissioned desktop studies, it has always been from the UK's most highly respected fire assessment consultancies.
"These experts put their professional reputations on the line when providing their safety opinion and we are very confident that this is never compromised." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40465399 | news_uk-40465399 |
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Newspaper headlines: PM faces 'chorus of Tory demands' - BBC News | 2017-07-01 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The prime minister is facing demands from senior Conservatives to overhaul state funding, according to several papers. | The Papers | The papers report on a growing battle within the cabinet over austerity and public spending
The Sunday Telegraph says a new front has opened up in the cabinet battle over austerity.
The paper says Education Secretary Justine Greening has told Prime Minister Theresa May the Tories should abandon plans to cut per-pupil funding, with the change in direction being announced soon so that schools know where they stand.
According to the paper, senior figures at Number 10 admit they are braced for "a big battle" over spending this summer.
The Sunday Times reports that more than 20 MPs cornered the Conservative chief whip last week, demanding change, and more than double that number are threatening to rebel over spending plans unless the 1% public sector pay cap is lifted.
University tuition fees are the focus in the Mail on Sunday, which leads with the suggestion by Mrs May's most senior minister, Damian Green, that a national debate may be needed on the issue.
The paper also highlights what it describes as fading public support for austerity policies, but it notes that lifting the pay cap, and linking it to inflation instead, would cost the Treasury an extra £1.4bn a year alone.
The Sun on Sunday reports that Ms Greening and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt are leading the charge for public sector workers to get a pay rise.
"There are very good arguments for continuing to bear down on the deficit," a cabinet source tells the paper, "but the case on public sector pay is becoming irresistible."
According to The Observer, Mr Hunt may press for the lifting of the public sector pay cap for NHS workers, citing a pay review body report that suggests the costs of plugging gaps caused by staff shortages could soon be greater than the savings.
It refers to a "chorus of Tory demands" facing Mrs May.
Writing in The Sunday Mirror, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth says nurses and paramedics should not have to wait until the autumn Budget to learn whether the pay cap will be lifted.
But The Sunday Times is having none of it.
Describing it as "a government in danger of losing its financial wits," the paper warns that a Conservative Party that stands for nothing, including fiscal discipline, will flounder.
The Telegraph, likewise, urges Chancellor Philip Hammond to resist the calls for change, saying the government is in danger of giving up on financial prudence as though it is a television programme we have got bored with.
The country as a whole, it says, should have the moral fibre to face the financial reality in front of us.
But The Observer argues that capping public sector pay has fuelled recruitment and retention problems.
It is not just mean, the paper says, it is a false economy.
The news that British fishermen are to have the exclusive rights to a 12-mile zone around the coastline leads The Sunday Express.
The paper welcomes it as a first step towards taking control of the country's fishing policy.
The new Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, tells The Sunday Times that his father's fishing business was hit by the EU, and pulling out of the London Fisheries Convention was "a chance to put things right".
The Sunday Times also has what it calls "awkward" scientific findings.
Researchers in Rotterdam have apparently found that men's average IQ is four points above women's - because they typically have bigger brains.
The paper describes the finding as the latest twist in a debate with powerful political implications.
It notes that in the 19th Century, the view that women's smaller brains made them less intelligent was used to justify denying them rights such as voting.
Finally, the day before the start of Wimbledon has brought with it the inevitable exhaustive analysis of Andy Murray's chances.
"It's been brutal but I'm ready," is the headline in The Mirror, which describes how a hip injury has wrought havoc with the player's preparations.
The Express says the man who it describes as "Battler Andy" has grown into a dignified champion, and it wishes him good luck in defence of his Wimbledon title.
Reporting that Murray has now declared himself fit, The Sun recalls how it urged millions of its readers on Saturday to collectively lay their soothing hands on a front-page picture of his troublesome hip.
"It Was The Sun Wot Rubbed It!", the paper declares. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-40471145 | news_blogs-the-papers-40471145 |
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Purged: The officers who cannot go home to Turkey - BBC News | 2017-07-06 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | After last year's botched coup in Turkey, thousands were arrested or fired in a far-reaching purge - including some Turkish military officers and their families stationed abroad. | Magazine | Last July, a botched military coup led to fighting on the streets of Ankara and Istanbul. Quickly peace was restored, the perpetrators were arrested - and a purge began of thousands of people, from judges to teachers, accused of links with the plotters. As Maria Psara in Brussels explains, the purge reached as far as Belgium, where its effects are still being felt.
Sitting at the back of a small cafe in Brussels, the two men were looking around to check whether they had been followed. The two women who accompanied them were silent, waiting for a signal that it was safe to talk.
Ibrahim had already told me that they all feared for their lives.
"The Turkish media call us 'terrorists' and say that Turkish or even Russian intelligence should kill us," he said. "Turkish officials describe us as traitors and advise people to attack us if they meet us."
A year ago, Ibrahim and Abdullah (not their real names) were high-ranking members of the Turkish military delegation to Nato. Now they are jobless and de facto stateless - two of the myriad casualties of a purge that followed an attempted military coup in Turkey a year ago.
Ayse and Deniz (also pseudonyms) are the wives of two other purged Turkish Nato officers. All their lives have changed dramatically. They have lost their homes and their incomes and may never be able to return to the country of their birth.
After the unsuccessful coup on the night of 15 July 2016, tens of thousands of civil servants, judges, teachers, journalists, and others were arrested, suspected of being followers of Fethullah Gulen, the exiled cleric who is supposed - although he denies it - to have orchestrated the attempt to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Among them were hundreds of military officers, but those serving abroad felt safe. It was clear, at least, that they had not taken any active role in the fighting.
"The Turkish army has more than 600,000 personnel," says Ibrahim. "If an army of this size has decided to carry out a coup, it does not need the few officers it has abroad to execute it. The ones in Turkey would suffice."
One of the officers holds his cancelled passport
In August, however, lists of names began to arrive in Brussels every Friday after business hours - they were the names of officers who had been suspended or dismissed without explanation.
At the end of September, a long document with 221 names arrived at Turkish missions abroad, including the Nato headquarters in Brussels and in Mons, nearby. In it, the Turkish General Staff ordered the officers to return to Turkey immediately, again without explanation.
"My name was in the list. We called Turkey in an attempt to understand the accusations against us," says Abdullah.
"Take the first flight back," was the only response.
Those who didn't comply were purged in a decree issued on 22 November, accusing them of links with a "terrorist organisation", a reference to the Gulenist movement.
Their assets in Turkey were frozen and their passports were cancelled.
By this stage it had long become clear that obeying the summons to Turkey was fraught with danger.
A group of officers who were quick to sell their furniture and their cars, and close their contracts with electricity and gas suppliers, returned in early October and almost all were arrested - some on arrival at the airport, others when they reported to headquarters.
Around the same time, a Navy officer was called from Brussels to an emergency meeting on "standardisation" at the general staff in Ankara.
"Anyone in the armed forces knows that standardisation is not a subject that one would ever classify as emergency. Even though everything about this meeting was fishy, the officer went because there was no reason to be afraid," says Ibrahim.
It turned out to be a set-up. He was arrested and has been in jail awaiting trial ever since. "Up until now, he has not been informed about any evidence against him," Abdullah says.
His wife and three children, who were not officially notified of his arrest, remain behind in Belgium, trying to survive without him.
Describing these family tragedies, and their own, the officers and officers' wives are understandably grim-faced. One story, though, evokes a bitter smile. The men explain that a colleague was involved in a serious road accident in the days before the coup. At the time it happened he was in intensive care in a Belgian hospital. "He was unconscious," Ibrahim says. But he too was accused of being involved in the coup.
Overall, more than 700 officers out of 950 officers serving at Nato and in Turkish diplomatic missions around the world are estimated to have been purged. Most have applied for asylum in their host countries, and some - in Germany and Norway, for example - have already received it.
Most of the Turkish officers in Belgium were living with their families in military housing. Many were ordered to move out at the end of September, though those in Mons were allowed to stay until the end of the school year, because their children went to school on the base. Some left early anyway, to start adapting to their new life as soon as possible. Others stayed, on the grounds that they had nothing to hide and were not afraid.
"However hard the Turkish national military representative tried to make us leave the base and make life harder for us, Nato put up a stance against his illogical arguments," says Abdullah.
The head of Nato's allied command headquarters in Mons, Gen Curtis Scaparotti, dismissed the idea that these officers could have been involved in the planning of a coup, Abdullah says. Foreign colleagues tried to help in different ways. Some offered monetary help, others invited the Turkish families to Christmas dinner, some even offered their personal houses in their homelands.
"Unanimously, all advised against going back to Turkey."
For children, moving from the Nato school to a Belgian school is a huge change. Suddenly, instead of studying in English, they are in an environment where everyone speaks either Flemish or French.
The families have so far been surviving on their savings. They will soon need to find work - but they are barred from employment until, or unless, they are granted asylum.
They are also hesitant about leaving the house, afraid of being targeted by pro-Erdogan zealots. More than three-quarters of Turks in Belgium who cast a ballot in a referendum held last April voted in favour of granting sweeping new powers to the president. Clashes between the president's supporters and opponents, as voting took place, left several in hospital.
Since they were teenagers the officers have been at military schools, and have always been reluctant to express political views. They deny any connection with Fethullah Gulen. At the same time, they are clearly deeply alarmed by the direction President Erdogan is leading the country - away from the West, as they see it, closer to the Muslim world and to Russia.
The role of the Turkish Army as the guardian of a modern secular republic is under threat, they argue, while the purge has resulted in pro-Western officers being replaced with officers who either support political Islam or have a "pro-East, pro-Russia ideology".
Privately, Nato sources admit that the quality of the new officers is nowhere near that of those who were forced out.
The patriotism of the former officers is visible in their anger.
"See this?" asks Abdullah, showing his passport. "Throughout my whole life I have served my country, my flag, and now I have to hide my identity, although I did nothing wrong."
"Our husbands sacrificed their daily life, their family life for their work. They were married with their work, not with us," says Ayse.
Abdullah says his greatest wish for the future is for Turkey to "return to normality" as he puts it.
"To be again a country we would be proud of," he adds.
"And we want to go back."
Maria Psara is Brussels correspondent for the Ethnos newspaper
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40500182 | news_magazine-40500182 |
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EU and Japan reach free trade deal - BBC News | 2017-07-06 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The European Union and Japan conclude a landmark free trade deal in Brussels, EU officials announce. | Business | The European Union and Japan have formally agreed an outline free-trade deal.
The agreement paves the way for trading in goods without tariff barriers between two of the world's biggest economic areas.
However, few specific details are known and a full, workable agreement may take some time.
Two of the most important sectors are Japanese cars and, for Europe, EU farming goods into Japan.
The EU and Japan have done two deals for the price of one: a trade deal and a complementary "Strategic Partnership". One will create a major free-trading economic bloc, the second will see them co-operate in other areas like combating climate change.
Both are "in principle" deals, some details to be agreed, so there could still be hurdles. But the signal this sends, bringing two of the world's biggest economic powers together, is unmistakeable.
EU-Japan negotiations began in 2012 then stalled. It was Donald Trump's election, and the inward turn America is taking, that spurred the EU and Japan to overcome their differences. Both want to show domestic audiences they can deliver signature deals that promise new economic opportunities.
They also want to send a clear message internationally that the EU and Japan, highly-developed democracies, remain committed to a liberal, free-trading, rules-based world, and they will seek to shape it even if the US won't.
The outline plan was signed in Brussels after a meeting between the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, and the European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, on the eve of a meeting of the G20 group of leading economies in Hamburg.
It comes hard on the heels of the collapse of a long-awaited trade agreement between Japan, the US and other Pacific ring countries, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was scrapped in January by US President Donald Trump.
The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said the agreement showed the EU's commitment to world trade: "We did it. We concluded EU-Japan political and trade talks. EU is more and more engaged globally."
Mr Tusk also said the deal countered the argument put forward by some of those in favour of Brexit that the EU was unable to promote free trade: "Although some are saying that the time of isolationism and disintegration is coming again, we are demonstrating that this is not the case."
He added that the deal was not just about common trade interests, but reflected "the shared values that underpin our societies, by which I mean liberal democracy, human rights and the rule of law".
Japan is the world's third-largest economy, with a population of about 127 million.
As it stands, the country is Europe's seventh biggest export market.
One of the most important trade categories for the EU is dairy goods.
Japan's appetite for milk and milk-based products has been growing steadily in recent years.
The EU's dairy farmers are struggling with falling demand in its home nations and an ultra-competitive buying climate, which farmers say means they are paid less than the cost of production.
Even once the agreement is fully signed, the deal is likely to have in place long transition clauses of up to 15 years to allow sectors in both countries time to adjust to the new outside competition. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40520218 | news_business-40520218 |
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Tony Blair 'not straight' with UK over Iraq, says Chilcot - BBC News | 2017-07-06 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The former PM was "emotionally truthful" but relied on beliefs rather than facts, Sir John Chilcot says. | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Blair 'not straight' with country over Iraq, says Sir John Chilcot
Tony Blair was not "straight with the nation" about his decisions in the run up to the Iraq War, the chairman of the inquiry into the war has told the BBC.
Speaking for the first time since publishing his report a year ago, Sir John Chilcot discussed why he thinks the former PM made those decisions.
He said the evidence Mr Blair gave the inquiry was "emotionally truthful" but he relied on beliefs rather than facts.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said "all these issues" had been dealt with.
They added that Sir John had also made clear that he believed Mr Blair had "not departed from the truth".
In a wide-ranging, exclusive interview with the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Sir John also talked about Mr Blair's state of mind during the inquiry and his relationship with the then US President George W Bush in the build-up to the 2003 conflict.
Sir John also admitted that at the start of the inquiry he had "no idea" how long it would take, but defended its conduct and the seven years it took to complete.
The inquiry concluded that Mr Blair overstated the threat posed by Iraq leader Saddam Hussein and the invasion was not the "last resort" action presented to Parliament, when it backed the action, and the public.
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When the inquiry finally emerged in its full two million words, in the chaotic aftermath of the EU referendum, its analysis was polite, but firmly critical of the decision-making process and behaviour of the UK government both in the run-up to, conduct of, and aftermath of one of the most controversial conflicts in British foreign policy - what many now regard as one of the UK's biggest foreign policy mistakes.
In the immediate aftermath of the inquiry itself, Sir John, a former Whitehall permanent secretary who had worked for decades at the highest level of government, declined to take further part in the debate, as his and his panels' conclusions were digested.
But in the run-up to the report's anniversary, he agreed to speak for the first time about the inquiry's conclusions, its criticisms and consequences for us all.
Asked if the former prime minister had been as straight as he could have been with the country and the inquiry, Sir John told the BBC: "Any prime minister taking a country into war has got to be straight with the nation and carry it, so far as possible, with him or her. I don't believe that was the case in the Iraq instance."
He went on: "Tony Blair is always and ever an advocate. He makes the most persuasive case he can. Not departing from the truth but persuasion is everything. Advocacy for my position, 'my Blair position'."
He said the former Labour leader gave the case for war based on his own assessment of the circumstances, saying Mr Blair made the case "pinning it on my belief, not on the fact, what the assessed intelligence said."
"You can make an argument around that, both ethical and - well, there is an ethical argument I think."
Asked by the BBC whether Mr Blair gave the fullest version of events, Sir John replied: 'I think he gave an - what was - I hesitate to say this, rather but I think it was from his perspective and standpoint, emotionally truthful and I think that came out also in his press conference after the launch statement.
"I think he was under very great emotional pressure during those sessions… he was suffering. He was deeply engaged. Now in that state of mind and mood you fall back on your instinctive skill and reaction, I think."
The UK's seven-year involvement in Iraq resulted in the deaths of 179 British personnel
Sir John criticises Tony Blair's "with you whatever" memo to US President George W Bush in 2002
Sir John also talked at length about Mr Blair's relationship with the US president in the build-up to the war.
"Tony Blair made much of, at various points, the need to exert influence on American policy making," he said.
"To do that he said in terms at one point, 'I have to accept their strategic objective, regime change, in order to exert influence.' For what purpose? To get them to alter their policy? Of course not. So in effect it was a passive strategy. Just go along."
Commenting on the documentation revealed when the Iraq Inquiry was published, Sir John revealed that his first response on reading a note sent by Mr Blair to Mr Bush in 2002 in which he told him 'I shall be with you whatever', was "you mustn't say that".
His reaction was: "You're giving away far too much. You're making a binding commitment by one sovereign government to another which you can't fulfil. You're not in a position to fulfil it. I mean he didn't even know the legal position at that point."
Asked if the relationship between Mr Blair and Mr Bush was appropriate, Sir John says the former prime minister was running "coercive diplomacy" that clashed with the settled position of the government.
"I think that the fundamental British strategy was fractured, because our formal policy, right up to the autumn of 2002 was one of containment. That was the concluded decision of cabinet.
"But the prime minister was running one of coercive diplomacy. With the knowledge and support of the foreign secretary, but the foreign secretary hoped that diplomacy would win and not coercion. I think to the prime minister it probably looked the other way round.".
Residents fled the city of Basra in March 2003
Speaking after the publication of the Iraq Inquiry report last year, Mr Blair said he felt sorrow and regret at the deaths of 179 British personnel in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 and those of countless Iraqi civilians.
He accepted the intelligence had been wrong and post-war planning had been poor.
But he insisted that he did what he thought was the "right thing" at the time and he still believed Iraq was "better off" without Saddam Hussein.
In response to Sir John's interview, a spokesman for Mr Blair said on Thursday: "A full reading of the interview shows that Sir John makes clear that Mr Blair had not 'departed from the truth'.
"Sir John also makes clear that on the eve of the invasion Mr Blair, 'asked the then Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, can you tell me beyond any reasonable doubt that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. To which the answer was, yes I can. He was entitled to rely on that'.
"Five different inquiries have all shown the same thing: that there was no falsifying of the intelligence."
Maj Gen Tim Cross, who was involved in post-war planning in Iraq and gave evidence to the inquiry, said Mr Blair was "an emotional guy" and that he was "sure" his emotions affected the decision to go to war.
He told BBC Breakfast: "When I briefed Tony Blair, it was quite clear that he felt this was a necessity, that there was a just cause, that we had to do something about this. How he portrayed that politically… I do not think he played it very well."
Current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was an opponent of the Iraq War, said various reports into it had concluded "there was an interpretation placed on advice that Tony Blair was given that was simply not correct and we ended up going to war with Iraq and the consequences are still with us".
Lord Menzies Campbell, who was foreign affairs spokesman for the Lib Dems at the time they were opposing the war, said: "In truth, Mr Blair's decision was fundamentally wrong.
"A bad decision, even if made in good faith, is still a bad decision." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40510540 | news_uk-politics-40510540 |
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Newspaper headlines: Corbyn on student debt and Needham 'breakthrough' - BBC News | 2017-07-24 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Labour's leader discussing student debt, and a Ben Needham case development make the front pages. | The Papers | Jeremy Corbyn's claim on Sunday that he had never promised to write off student debt from loans for university tuition fees, during the election campaign, makes front page headlines.
For the Sun, it's a jaw-dropping U-turn.
The Daily Express says it's small wonder that thousands of students queued at the polling stations in the false hope that if Mr Corbyn were prime minister, he would shake the magic money tree at them.
The Daily Mail describes the Labour leader's argument that he didn't know how much it would cost to do so, as a risible excuse.
On the second day of its cyber crime series, the i paper leads on a report that the computer systems of dozens of public sector organisations - from hospitals and councils to museums and watchdogs - have been attacked more than 400 times in the last three years.
It says cyber criminals have been seeking to extort money, cause disruption or extract data.
An investigation by the paper has found that the vast majority of the incidents have not previously been made public - and many are not being reported to the police.
According to the Guardian's main story, doctors are warning that almost 63,000 people in England will die over the next five years from liver problems linked to heavy drinking, unless ministers tackle the scourge of cheap alcohol.
It says senior members of the medical profession and health charities are urging the government to bring in minimum unit pricing and crack down on drink advertising to avert what they claim is a public health crisis of liver disease deaths.
England's dramatic victory over India in the Women's Cricket World Cup final is reported on many front pages - as well as the sports pages.
The Times says women have not always been made to feel welcome at Lord's - female members were permitted to enter the pavilion only in 1999.
But in front of more than 26,000 paying spectators on Sunday, there was a sense that women's cricket had come of age.
The Financial Times says the tournament has marked a breakthrough for the women's game, with extensive media coverage and avid crowds.
Increasingly - the Daily Telegraph says - spectators are tuning in to women's sport to find skill and spectacle every bit the equal of the men's game.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph says it can disclose that the BBC is planning to take men off radio and television programmes and replace them with women in an attempt to close the gender pay gap.
Quoting "insiders", the paper reports that the BBC will seek to boost women's pay by giving them plum jobs when contracts of male presenters come up for renewal.
With the budget for BBC talent constrained by strict spending controls, the corporation can only increase women's pay by cutting that of men, it adds.
Several papers report that there's been a third shark alert off the coast of Majorca this summer.
The Mail says swimmers were ordered to leave the water at Estanys beach in Colonia de Sant Jordi, on Saturday and a red flag was hoisted to ban bathing.
According to the Express, a tourist was left with a grazed arm after the shark brushed against him. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-40701131 | news_blogs-the-papers-40701131 |
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Germany's big businesses' Brexit worries - BBC News | 2017-07-24 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | How are Germany's economic giants viewing the UK's negotiations to leave the EU? | Europe | It must be serious. They've deployed the Royals.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been on tour in Germany with a very specific purpose: to reassure the country that Brexit doesn't mean the break-up of a beautiful relationship.
Prince William, after speaking a few words in German, told guests at a British embassy garden party: "This relationship between UK and Germany really matters, it will continue despite Britain's recent decision to leave the European Union. I am confident we will remain the firmest of friends."
But since the British election, German politicians are more troubled than ever about Brexit. The German council for foreign relations' director, Daniela Schwarzer, told me: "Policymakers in Berlin are surprised and worried at the degree of confusion in London, the lack of clarity as to the strategy the UK wants to follow.
"There is a lot surprise about how the negotiations are being handled and the somewhat incoherent messages which come out of London."
Of course, Germany is just one country in the European Union - but it is first among equals, its chancellor by far the most senior politician, with a new and determined ally in President Macron, who's refreshed the Franco-German alliance.
Even before Brexit became a reality, there's been an argument, almost an assumption, that German industry would put pressure on German politicians to argue for a good deal for the UK - access to the European market without having to abide by the rules.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge recently toured Germany
So far, Mrs Merkel has been adamant: no cherry picking. Will German industry push her to change her mind?
I visited the Trumpf company in Stuttgart, a concern with a turnover of 3bn euros (£2.7bn) a year that makes sheet metal, laser cutters and machine tools. It employs 4,000 people in Germany and another 8,000 globally: in the USA, China, Japan, South Korea - and in Luton, Southampton and Rugby.
The company's Heidi Maier tells me orders from the UK are up because people have got used to the idea of Brexit.
"Despite political insecurities and decisions we don't like and we don't back, our business is doing very well," she says.
We stand in front of the True Punch 5000. The machine is swift and certain, precise and elegant, all the qualities that make Germans so proud of their engineering prowess.
The exact opposite of these qualities - slowness and uncertainty - is what worries German industry about Brexit.
I ask Ms Maier what they want Mrs Merkel to push for. "What would help is decisions, and fast decisions," she says.
"As soon as we know the new rules, we can go ahead. We are actually preparing for tariffs, which is the implication [of what the British government is saying], which would worsen our business. The goods we produce in Great Britain would become more expensive due to the tariffs, and we don't know how our customers would react to that."
Most German businesses tend to lobby government through powerful trade associations. And one industry has more horsepower than any other.
Germany's glittering car industry is an industrial giant with immense political clout and a 400bn euro turnover, employing 800,000 people. And the relationship with the UK is very important. One in seven cars exported from Germany goes to the UK, its single biggest market.
The Trumpf machine is just one example of German high-tech engineering
Ever since Brexit was a speck on the horizon, enthusiasts for leaving have argued the mighty German auto industry wouldn't allow politicians to punish Britain, a point I put to Matthias Wissman, the president of the VDA, the German automotive industry association.
"What we want is to keep the European Union of the 27 together," he says. "That is the first priority. Second priority is to have a trade area with the UK with no tariff barriers, no non-tariff barriers. That is possible if the UK understands what the preconditions are.
"We want a good deal for Britain, but the best deal for Britain would be to stay in the customs union. Anything else would be worse for both sides. The best thing would be to stay in the internal market, like Norway."
He accused pro-Brexiteers of making "totally unrealistic" promises. "I see a lot which is astonishing for a friend of Great Britain. I miss the traditional British pragmatism. We would like to have it in the future, but I see more and more ideological points of view which make pragmatism very difficult and unfortunately in both parties, Conservative and Labour."
The UK is the German auto industry's biggest export market
When I put to him Liam Fox's view that a trade deal with the EU could be "one of the easiest in human history", he laughs and says it would take years and years but "time is running out".
"You need a transition period. And if you want an easy solution, stay in the customs union and the internal market.
"A transition period would also be very pragmatic. We hope that on the British side that gets deeper and deeper into the intellectual capabilities of those who decide."
This is not just the view of one man, or one industry. There seems to be a consensus among the industrial powerbrokers.
Klaus Deutsch of the federation of German industry, the BDI, makes it clear they did not want Brexit in the first place and would like the UK to stay in the single market and observe all the rules.
But that's not the government's intention, so what follows?
"We would favour a comprehensive agreement. But the most important thing is legal certainty in the period from A to B. If you don't have a transition period of many years, then there will be a huge disruption to all sorts of businesses.
"The concern of business is unless you get a clear cut and legally safe agreement, you can't sell pharmaceuticals, or cars or what have you, across the Channel, you have to stop business, divest, change business models."
Will Germany prioritise EU unity over its economic relationship with the UK?
He makes it clear only the British government can decide what it wants, but what about the idea they'll push Mrs Merkel to soften her approach?
"That's completely unlikely," Mr Deutsch says. "The importance of the European Union for German corporates is even higher than the importance of a bilateral relationship with the United Kingdom. So, the priority of safeguarding… the unity of the European Union is much more important than one economic relationship. There are a lot of illusions - it won't happen."
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend programme, Owen Paterson, the former cabinet minister, who recently visited Germany, told me he had felt a "sense of denial" in the country over Brexit.
"It is hugely in everyone's interest that we maintain reciprocal free trade and as we have absolute conformity of standards, everyone should get their head round that," he told me.
"Whereas [the Germans] are still thinking entirely in terms of remaining in the current institutions and that's clearly what we are not going to do.
"We're not going to stay in the single market. We are not going to stay in the customs union. We're certainly not going to stay under the remit of the European Court of Justice. I found that that was something they had not really got their heads round."
And my overriding impression of the view of the big beasts of Germany industry?
Frustration that they don't know where the British government wants to head and a strong sense that any outcome will be worse than what exists.
But also, a total rejection of the idea that the economic relationship with the UK outweighs the German interest in European unity. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40683091 | news_world-europe-40683091 |
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Tech firms unite for 'net neutrality' protest - BBC News | 2017-07-12 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A host of US internet giants will protest against plans to roll back rules protecting 'net neutrality'. | Technology | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Dave Lee explains what the protest is about
A host of internet giants - from social networks to dating apps to porn sites - will join a protest Wednesday against plans to roll back rules protecting "net neutrality".
The sites will display a variety of messages, or simulate the potential effects of losing the basic principle of all internet traffic being treated equally.
The US communications regulator earlier this year voted to remove an Obama-era rule that would prevent the prioritisation - or "throttling" - of data, as well as other measures campaigners consider to be detrimental to the internet.
Opponents to net neutrality say it stifles innovation and discourages investment in telecoms infrastructure.
Among the companies protesting, the headliners include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Reddit, AirBnB, Twitter and Snapchat.
Crowdfunding site Kickstarter will be involved, as will craft-selling site Etsy and dating app OkCupid. PornHub, one of the world's most visited sites, will also be taking part.
Google will be among those protesting
"Internet service providers could create special fast lanes for content providers willing to pay more," said Corey Price, vice president of PornHub.
"That means slow streaming, which, especially in regards to online porn, is quite problematic as you can imagine."
Campaigners told the BBC around 80,000 websites and services in all are taking part in the co-ordinated action that is designed to draw attention to a public consultation about the proposed rule reversal.
"What we want the FCC to hear, and we want members of Congress to hear, is that net neutrality is wildly popular, which it is, and we want them to stop trying to murder it," said Sean Vitka, a lawyer for pro-net neutrality groups Demand Progress and Fight for the Future.
"It stops large companies, like internet service providers, from controlling who wins or loses on the internet. There'd be nothing to stop your ISP stopping the next Facebook, the next Google, from accessing customers equally.
"If a new company can't access companies on the same terms as the incumbents they're not going to have the chance to thrive."
This kind of protest technique has been effective in the past.
When numerous firms went "dark" in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act, which they argued was a threat to free speech, it led to the bill being withdrawn.
But protest groups face a tougher battle in convincing the Republican-controlled FCC headed by new commissioner Ajit Pai.
Earlier this year the department described President Obama's rule as risking "online investment and innovation, threatening the very open internet it purported to preserve".
It added: "Requiring ISPs to divert resources to comply with unnecessary and broad new regulatory requirements threatens to take away from their ability to make investments that benefit consumers."
Promoting investment in infrastructure is the strongest of the anti-net neutrality arguments, with major telecoms companies arguing that the Googles and Facebooks of the world would not be able to run were it not for the high-speed internet connections offered by internet service providers.
Campaigners have countered this by suggesting it is the lure of enticing premium services like Netflix that tempt users into paying more for better internet access.
A more curious position came from mobile carrier AT&T which said it was supporting the protest - despite in the past being a vocal opponent of net neutrality.
"We agree that no company should be allowed to block content or throttle the download speeds of content in a discriminatory manner," the firm said.
"So, we are joining this effort because it's consistent with AT&T's proud history of championing our customers' right to an open internet and access to the internet content, applications, and devices of their choosing."
Campaign groups gave the company little credit, pointing out that it has sought to put in place data prioritisation, which would allow web companies to pay AT&T in order to get priority - i.e. quicker - access to their users.
"AT&T are lying when they say they support net neutrality, while actively opposing it," said Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, in an interview with tech news site Ars Technica.
You can reach Dave securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +1 (628) 400-7370 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40575882 | news_technology-40575882 |
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Newspaper headlines: 'Give us hope Johanna' and Brexit 'threat' - BBC News | 2017-07-12 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Johanna Konta's upcoming Wimbledon semi-final and Labour's Brexit "threat" make the front pages. | The Papers | Theresa May is interviewed by the Sun to mark her first year as prime minister
The Times leads on a claim that Google has paid millions of dollars in secret funds to UK and US academics in the hope that their research would sway public opinion and influence government policy.
According to a US watchdog group, payments from the tech giant ranged from $5,000 to $400,000 but were not declared by research teams in two-thirds of cases.
The paper says many of the studies made arguments in Google's favour, such as that collecting large amounts of data was a fair exchange for its free services.
Google tells the paper the Campaign for Accountability's report was "misleading".
You could soon be able to write your will in a text or record it on a voicemail, the Daily Telegraph says.
It reports on a new consultation from the Law Commission for England and Wales, which says it wants to bring legislation on wills into the digital age.
The existing law on wills being written, signed and witnessed dates back to 1839.
The commission admits that the proposals could add to family disputes if people who are seriously ill make last-minute changes to their will on a smartphone or tablet.
The Sun is the only paper to have an interview with Theresa May to mark her first year as prime minister.
She appeals to be allowed to stay on in Downing Street for at least the "next few years", so she can deliver Brexit.
But the paper says Mrs May refused to say if she will fight the next election as leader and thinks her remarks are "the strongest public signal yet" that she is preparing to stand down before 2022.
In its editorial, the paper states "it's not too late for her to rescue her time as prime minister" and her determination to do so is "commendably clear".
"The Great Ambulance Betrayal" is the headline in the Daily Mail.
The paper says health chiefs are being accused of putting lives at risk by sending cars to 999 calls instead of ambulances, to help them meet response targets.
The Mail says there is concern that seriously injured people are waiting longer for treatment because the cars can only take people to hospital if they can sit in the back seat.
An anonymous paramedic is quoted as saying that "care, patient safety and dignity are being badly compromised".
The paper says the NHS is now moving to close the loophole and will give call handlers more time to assess calls and dispatch ambulances.
The Financial Times leads on concerns from financial watchdogs that pension reforms are putting savers in danger of paying too much in fees, or making risky investments.
The paper's editorial says many experts predicted this would happen when former Chancellor George Osborne brought in the changes in 2015 to give savers more choice about what they did with their money.
It concludes that it is too soon to call the reforms "a fiasco", but the early signs "do not look promising".
Most of the papers have pictures of a grimacing Andy Murray on the front and back pages, as the defending champion was knocked out of Wimbledon while being hampered by a hip injury.
"Pain, Set and Match" is the Daily Star's summary, while the Metro and the Daily Mail both go for "Andy's Agony".
Murray's exit prompts the Sun to put another British player on its front page with the headline "Give us Hope Johanna", which it hopes tennis fans will sing when Johanna Konta plays Venus Williams in the semi-final later.
The Times is among the papers to report that the Australian High Commissioner has tried to reclaim the British number one as an Aussie - because she was born there.
But the Telegraph tells him in no uncertain terms "hands off Konta!"
And the Daily Express features a railways fan who has built a replica station, complete with a 60ft platform, in his back garden in East Sussex.
The paper says it was "just the ticket" to house Stuart Searle's collection of rail memorabilia including hundreds of station signs.
He has also built a 50ft-long underground station.
But according to the paper he will not stop there, and now has plans to build a cinema for his large collection of film posters. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-40590100 | news_blogs-the-papers-40590100 |
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MPs speak out about 'sinister' election abuse - BBC News | 2017-07-12 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Tory and Labour MPs talk about intimidation they have faced - as ministers announce inquiry. | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
MPs have spoken about the abuse and intimidation they were subjected to during the general election.
Conservative Simon Hart said colleagues were targeted for their sexuality, religious beliefs and social background by people who were intent on "driving them out of politics altogether".
Labour's Diane Abbott said she had had a torrent of "mindless" racist and sexist abuse including death threats.
Ministers have announced an inquiry by the standards watchdog.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life will look at the nature of the problem of intimidation, considering the current protections and measures in place for candidates, reporting back to the prime minister.
Cabinet Office minister Chris Skidmore said harassment could not be tolerated and the integrity of the UK's democracy and public service must be upheld.
During an hour-long debate in Westminster Hall, MPs detailed how they have faced racist abuse, anti-Semitism, death threats from supporters of rival parties on social media, as well as physical intimidation and threats.
Using strong and graphic language, Diane Abbott gave examples of the offensive sexist and racist messages and "mindless abuse" she and her staff had to endure every day on social media, not just at election time.
The shadow home secretary said abuse of MPs was not new but it had been "turbo charged" by the speed and anonymity of social media. She added that male MPs get abuse "but it is much worse for women".
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Mr Hart said he had heard of candidates having swastikas painted on their offices and windows smashed while he said the "hashtag Tory scum had become a regular feature of our lives" on social media.
While elections used to be about winning votes and arguments, he suggested that the 2017 poll was characterised by efforts by individuals and groups to silence people who did not agree with them.
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Urging a review of current laws, he said it was up to leaders of all the political parties to condemn such actions and say "not in my name" rather than issuing "mealy-mouthed messages of condemnation" on Twitter.
"It is not about thin-skinned politicians having a bit of a bruising time and feeling a bit sorry for themselves. It is about families, staff, helpers and volunteers."
Conservative MP Andrew Percy said he had been subjected to anti-Semitic abuse while his staff had been spat at. While he was used to being challenged by opponents, he said "something more sinister" was going on in the country.
Labour's Paula Sheriff said the 2017 election had been the "most brutal" to date.
Labour said it had fought a "positive, hopeful campaign"
She said this kind of abuse had been going on for years but what had changed in recent times was the increasing connection between "online abuse and commentary in the mainstream media".
She added: "It is not about a particular party or particular faction. It is about the degradation of political discourse online."
Women and ethnic minority candidates were particularly vulnerable, according to a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, which is calling for tougher discipline by parties.
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The Conservatives and Labour have accused each other of not doing enough to stop it.
In a letter to Conservative Party chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin ahead of the debate Labour chairman Ian Lavery and Cat Smith, shadow minister for voter engagement, say: "Abuse against candidates on social media is completely unacceptable.
"The Conservative Party perpetrated this on an industrial scale by spending millions of pounds to post highly personalised and nasty attack adverts on voters' Facebook timelines without their permission."
Conservative MP Nus Ghani told BBC Radio 4's Today: "I am a Conservative, I am a woman, I am Asian and I am Muslim and that makes some people very angry.
"And the fact that I had the audacity to stand for public office causes some people offence."
On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May asked whether Jeremy Corbyn was doing enough in response to complaints of intimidation, saying she was "surprised at any party leader who's not willing to condemn that".
The Labour leader has repeatedly said personal attacks have no place in the party.
Labour MP Yvette Cooper said some of her party's supporters had targeted female Conservative MPs - as well as Labour members - with "vitriolic abuse". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40577325 | news_uk-politics-40577325 |
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How Britain supported the early release of Rudolf Hess - BBC News | 2017-07-20 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Newly released files reveal that the UK supported the release of the Nazi leader as early as 1956. | UK | Files from the National Archives reveal that the British government supported the release of the Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess as early as 1956.
Rudolf Hess was Adolf Hitler's deputy and, for a while, one of the most powerful figures in Nazi Germany. He is mainly remembered for flying to Britain in 1941 in a bizarre and unsuccessful solo peace mission, which resulted in his arrest and imprisonment for the rest of World War Two.
After the war Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment and spent the rest of his days in Berlin's Spandau Prison. For much of his time he was its only inmate.
But Foreign Office files released on Thursday show that the British supported Hess's release more than three decades before his suicide in 1987.
Hess was sentenced at the Nuremberg trials in 1946 by the so-called Four Powers - the UK, the US, France and Russia - and support for his release was needed by all of them before any change could be made. By 1966, the six other prisoners held in Spandau - including Hitler's architect, Albert Speer - had been freed or had died.
Hess, by this time 72, was to remain Spandau's solitary prisoner for the rest of his life. While healthy for his age, Hess was inevitably frail. His son organised a campaign for his release, receiving considerable press coverage in West Germany. There was also growing support for this in the UK.
Hess at the Nuremberg trials, sitting next to Hermann Goering
The files show the British government stepped up its efforts to have him freed. In 1979, just after becoming Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington wrote a particularly strong note to his Soviet counterpart Andrei Gromyko. "It would be both inhumane and pointless," he said, "to insist that this old man should die in prison."
In all, the British made 11 unilateral appeals for Hess to be freed. The Americans and French supported them in a further nine. The Soviets always refused to consider the case.
Nearly 40 years after the end of the war, Soviet politicians and diplomats argued that the release of such a leading figure in the Nazi regime would not be understood by the Soviet people, or by others who had suffered. One diplomat said he was not convinced by the so-called humanitarian argument - "The suffering which he and other Nazis had inflicted was not human," he said.
Tony Le Tissier was the last British governor of Spandau, holding the post in the decade leading up to Hess's death. There were also French, American and Russian governors - they took turns to run the prison, for a month at a time.
Tony Le Tissier, the last British governor of Spandau prison
The rules of Spandau, drawn up after the Nuremberg trials, were harsh. Prisoners were only to be addressed by their number, never their name. Punishments were strict. When in 1955 Hess failed to greet a Soviet warder, he lost all his reading materials for 10 days.
Prisoners could be put on bread and water, or placed in punishment cells. But Le Tissier says that by the time he arrived, the regime was far more relaxed. Although Hess was supposed to be called Number Seven, not everyone stuck to that - some officers did address him by name. He was not supposed to watch the television news - but that wasn't rigidly enforced either.
He could go into the garden when he chose, and he had two cooks to prepare any meal he wanted. "He ate an awful lot!" says Le Tissier. "Quite a surprising amount."
Le Tissier did chat to Hess but he says the prisoner never talked about his past: "It was a closed circle - never came into it." Neither did they ever talk about the news or politics.
While Le Tissier tried to make Hess's stay as comfortable as possible, organising new chairs for his room for instance and a new bed, he did not personally agree with the argument that he should have been freed. Le Tissier thinks Hess deserved to die in prison, for all that he had done.
"He got his just deserts," he says. "He was a fanatical Nazi - an enemy. I did feel very strongly that he was there till he finished."
In August 1987 Hess killed himself, wrapping a lamp cord round his neck. Some suggested he was helped but Le Tissier is convinced that Hess acted unaided. Security was extremely tight in Spandau, he says. There was only one key to the gate, and only the chief warder had it.
Le Tissier recalls his reaction: "It was a fait accompli - it was over." He thinks it was a good thing. "It was such a waste of time and money, involving so many people."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40647291 | news_uk-40647291 |
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University first-class degrees soaring - BBC News | 2017-07-20 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Universities awarding first-class degrees to over 40% of students. | Education & Family | The proportion of first-class degrees has more than trebled since the 1990s
The proportion of top degree grades being awarded by UK universities has soared - with some universities giving first-class degrees to more than a third of their students.
The University of Surrey awarded a first-class degree to 41% of students last year, more than doubling the proportion five years ago.
And firsts awarded at the University of East Anglia have almost trebled to 37%.
Among the prestigious Russell Group of universities more than a quarter of students received a first-class degree.
The Press Association survey, analysing figures for 2015-16 from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), indicates it is now more common to graduate with a first-class degree than a lower second (2:2) grade - with 24% getting a first last year, compared with 21% getting a lower second. The most widely awarded degree was an upper second (2:1), received by about 51%.
The figures from HESA go back only as far as 1994 - when 7% of students received a first, but they show the proportion of firsts has more than trebled in the past two decades, up to 24% last year.
Among the 148 universities with comparable data, only a handful saw fewer first-class degrees last year than five years previously, with a number having doubled or trebled the proportion awarded.
Among specialist institutions, such as in the creative arts, proportions of firsts could be even higher - such as 64% of students getting firsts at the Royal Academy of Music.
"There are people who think the system isn't as robust as it might be," said Nick Hillman, head of the Higher Education Policy Institute.
"It can all be a bit bit cosy - you ask someone you know to be an external examiner."
Universities are their own degree-awarding bodies, so can decide their own levels of degree grades.
"A comparison would be if schools could decide how many A grades to give in A-levels - it's a big incentive for grade inflation," said Mr Hillman.
Prof Smithers, of the University of Buckingham, said unlike with national exams such as GCSEs and A-levels, universities were "free to award as many firsts as they like".
"They have every incentive to do so," he said.
"Students like to have top-class degrees and may choose universities on that basis."
Increasing firsts could push universities up league tables, said Prof Smithers.
"If every other university is doing it, you don't want to get left behind," he said.
But it meant that it was difficult for employers to interpret the value and that "an upper-second has almost become the pass grade".
Universities are competing for students and their tuition fees, rising to £9,250, and there have been suggestions that more higher top degrees will be an incentive for applicants.
First-class degrees will be an advantage for future job opportunities - and some companies recruit only from graduates with an upper second or above.
But there have also been arguments that rising degree grades reflect the improved A-level grades of those entering university and a more focused attention to studying.
Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the University of Surrey increased its proportion of first-class degrees awarded, from 19% to 41%.
Prof Jane Powell, the university's vice-provost, said it "reflects a combination of national trends and the University of Surrey's concentrated focus on enhancing all aspects of our educational provision".
"It is very pleasing to see this high level of commitment by both staff and students translating into excellent degree results, the rigorous standards of which are confirmed by external independent assurance processes."
Imperial College has the highest proportion of firsts among mainstream universities.
A spokeswoman said this reflected the very high entry grades required to get a place at such a top-ranking institution.
Biggest increases in first-class degrees in mainstream universities 2010-11 to 2015-16 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40654933 | news_education-40654933 |
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Should there be comprehensive universities? - BBC News | 2017-07-20 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A report argues that universities should embrace the comprehensive principle and reject selection. | Education & Family | Is a culture of highly selective universities getting in the way of social mobility?
The long-running battle over grammar schools - put back into the deep freeze after the general election result - saw deep-rooted divisions over the impact of dividing pupils by academic ability.
Opponents argued that academic selection really became social selection - and that what appeared to be selection by ability became a filter shaped by social background.
But when it comes to university, it seems that such attitudes are turned on their head.
It's not even even really questioned that higher education should operate on an entry system specifically outlawed in secondary education.
So why shouldn't there be comprehensive universities?
That's the argument put by Tim Blackman, vice-chancellor of Middlesex University, in what Nick Hillman, the influential director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said was one of the "most thought-provoking papers ever published on UK higher education".
Prof Blackman's contention is that the university system, with its obsession with hierarchies and rankings, has become a barrier to meritocracy.
Instead of driving social mobility, he says, the university system has become a mirror to existing inequalities and is amplifying social segregation.
At the top are the highest ranking powerhouse universities, Oxford and Cambridge and the leading London institutions, followed by the rest of the Russell Group universities and then down through the ranks of red-bricks, 1960s campuses, middling institutions and then on to the "new universities" that were often former polytechnics.
This is also a system without any real relegation or promotion on merit - as a university group such as the Russell Group can choose who is or isn't a member.
Should brighter students be spread more widely throughout the system?
Prof Blackman sees this not as an academic ladder, but a stratified class system.
Even if more young people from disadvantaged families are going to university, there is still a strong pattern of better-off teenagers getting into the highest ranked universities.
He talks of "hyper-selection" at the top of the table, in the scramble for places at the most sought after institutions.
And this creates a system in which a "good" university is likely to be synonymous with being the most selective.
This, says Prof Blackman, is the opposite of what the country needs from a higher education system.
If the UK is blighted with low productivity and a skills gap, he says, what is needed are universities that are strong across the whole range of institutions.
The brightest students should be spread across the system, rather than being clustered in a small number of universities crammed with other similar youngsters.
And he proposes the benefits of a comprehensive university, with a mixed ability intake, making the most of the talent of those who attend - rather than concentrating the prestige, funding and brightest students in a few institutions, to the detriment of the majority.
The analogy used is that a "good" hospital would be one that got the best outcomes for its patients, not the one that started out with the healthiest intake.
But even with this radical thinking, Prof Blackman still suggests that there would be an economic argument for a handful of elite institutions - "strategically important world-class research universities".
And it remains easier to identify the flaws in the current system than to propose a practical way of changing it.
What should be the purpose of a modern university?
Prof Blackman suggests that the funding system should be shaped to reward universities that create a social mix of students.
But, he says, the current arrangements of high and low status institutions are "based on snobbery and discrimination rather than evidence".
The concept of a non-selective university might seem strange.
It seems to go against the grain of the idea that university is the summit of a journey after getting over a series of tough exams.
But Prof Blackman says the higher education system needs to borrow from the comprehensive principle if it is going to make a difference to social equality and to address the needs of an economy demanding more highly skilled staff.
"The root of these problems is academic selection, which has created a sector based on social class advantages," he says.
The government has tried to shake up the old order in universities somewhat, grading the quality of teaching, in a way that has put some top institutions at the back of the queue.
Universities Minister Jo Johnson said: "Social mobility should be at the heart of our higher education system. This is becoming the case, with more students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to and staying at university than ever before.
"But we know there is more work to do. Soon, all providers - including the most selective - will be required to publish application, drop-out and attainment data by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background.
"The Teaching Excellence Framework is also refocusing the sector's attention on teaching - putting in place incentives that will raise standards and encourage providers to ensure they are supporting students throughout their studies." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40654935 | news_education-40654935 |
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John McCain has brain cancer, his office says - BBC News | 2017-07-20 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The 80-year-old US senator may undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatment, a statement says. | US & Canada | Veteran US Republican Senator John McCain has been diagnosed with brain cancer and is reviewing treatment options, according to his office.
The options may include chemotherapy and radiation, his doctors said. The 80-year-old politician is in "good spirits" recovering at home.
He thanked those who had wished him well and said he would be back soon.
The tumour was discovered during a surgery to remove a blood clot from above his left eye last week.
A Vietnam veteran, Mr McCain spent more than five years as a prisoner of war.
The six-term senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate underwent surgery at a clinic in Phoenix, in the state of Arizona, last Friday.
Tissue analysis revealed that a primary brain tumour known as glioblastoma was associated with the clot, a statement from the Mayo Clinic said.
"The senator's doctors say he is recovering from his surgery 'amazingly well' and his underlying health is excellent," it added.
"Treatment options may include a combination of chemotherapy and radiation."
Senior Republicans and Democrats wished him a speedy recovery, prompting Mr McCain to tweet his thanks, and a warning:
"I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support - unfortunately for my sparring partners in Congress, I'll be back soon, so stand-by!"
John McCain is known in Washington as a tough, independent-minded senator - a warrior who is now facing another battle against cancer.
He earned his reputation the hard way, being shot down as a US Navy pilot over Vietnam where he was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years, including two in solitary confinement.
Repeatedly beaten and tortured, Mr McCain was never again able to raise his arms above his head.
During the most recent presidential election campaign, Donald Trump belittled the senator as "not a war hero" saying "I like people who weren't captured".
Mr McCain may have annoyed many Republicans by arguing for reforms to campaign finance and immigration laws.
He may have irritated opponents of America's many wars with his forceful arguments in favour of the projection of US military might.
But this country reveres its veterans. The attacks on John McCain's personal sacrifice were roundly condemned then - and millions of Americans will be praying for his recovery now.
Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive brain tumour, and increases in frequency with age, affecting more men than women.
Mr McCain, who is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, was in "good spirits as he continues to recover at home with his family", his office said.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'We are in shock': John Kennedy says senators prayed for John McCain
His family reacted with "shock" to the news, his 32-year-old daughter Meghan said.
"It won't surprise you to learn that in all of this, the one of us who is most confident and calm is my father," she said on Twitter.
"So he is meeting this challenge as he has every other. Cancer may afflict him in many ways: but it will not make him surrender. Nothing ever has."
President Donald Trump said Mr McCain had "always been a fighter" and, in a statement, said: "Get well soon".
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Mr McCain was a "hero to our country".
"He has never shied from a fight, and I know that he will face this challenge with the same extraordinary courage that has characterized his life," he said on Twitter.
Former President Barack Obama tweeted: "John McCain is an American hero and one of the bravest fighters I've ever known. Cancer doesn't know what it's up against. Give it hell, John." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40664635 | news_world-us-canada-40664635 |
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Thousands march on Parliament in anti-government protest - BBC News | 2017-07-02 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Jeremy Corbyn addressed crowds calling for an end to Theresa May's austerity programme. | UK | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Protesters listened to speeches from politicians and activists in Parliament Square
Thousands of people gathered in central London to demonstrate against the UK government's economic policies.
The protest was organised by a group called the People's Assembly Against Austerity.
Demonstrators met outside BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place, before marching past Downing Street and on to Parliament Square.
The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was among the speakers who addressed crowds at The Not One Day More protest.
Speaking in Parliament Square, Mr Corbyn said: "The Tories are in retreat, austerity is in retreat, the economic arguments of austerity are in retreat.
"It's those of social justice, of unity, of people coming together to oppose racism and all those that would divide us, that are the ones that are moving forward."
The crowd chanted "oh Jeremy Corbyn" and "Tories out" during the rally, while many carried banners saying Justice For Grenfell.
One protester told BBC News that "anger" had motivated her to join the protest, saying: "What's going on isn't good enough under the Tory government.
"There have been cuts to every single service you can think of. It's just the pure negligence. How can you be cutting vital services?"
The organisers said on Facebook that they "invite everyone - from campaigns and community groups across the country, from the trade unions, from political parties and any individual - to come together in one massive show of strength and solidarity".
The statement added: "We're marching against a government committed to austerity, cuts and privatisation.
"We're marching for a decent health service, education system, housing, jobs and living standards for all."
Downing Street did not want to comment on the protest. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40468881 | news_uk-40468881 |
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Newspaper headlines: PM faces 'chorus of Tory demands' - BBC News | 2017-07-02 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The prime minister is facing demands from senior Conservatives to overhaul state funding, according to several papers. | The Papers | The papers report on a growing battle within the cabinet over austerity and public spending
The Sunday Telegraph says a new front has opened up in the cabinet battle over austerity.
The paper says Education Secretary Justine Greening has told Prime Minister Theresa May the Tories should abandon plans to cut per-pupil funding, with the change in direction being announced soon so that schools know where they stand.
According to the paper, senior figures at Number 10 admit they are braced for "a big battle" over spending this summer.
The Sunday Times reports that more than 20 MPs cornered the Conservative chief whip last week, demanding change, and more than double that number are threatening to rebel over spending plans unless the 1% public sector pay cap is lifted.
University tuition fees are the focus in the Mail on Sunday, which leads with the suggestion by Mrs May's most senior minister, Damian Green, that a national debate may be needed on the issue.
The paper also highlights what it describes as fading public support for austerity policies, but it notes that lifting the pay cap, and linking it to inflation instead, would cost the Treasury an extra £1.4bn a year alone.
The Sun on Sunday reports that Ms Greening and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt are leading the charge for public sector workers to get a pay rise.
"There are very good arguments for continuing to bear down on the deficit," a cabinet source tells the paper, "but the case on public sector pay is becoming irresistible."
According to The Observer, Mr Hunt may press for the lifting of the public sector pay cap for NHS workers, citing a pay review body report that suggests the costs of plugging gaps caused by staff shortages could soon be greater than the savings.
It refers to a "chorus of Tory demands" facing Mrs May.
Writing in The Sunday Mirror, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth says nurses and paramedics should not have to wait until the autumn Budget to learn whether the pay cap will be lifted.
But The Sunday Times is having none of it.
Describing it as "a government in danger of losing its financial wits," the paper warns that a Conservative Party that stands for nothing, including fiscal discipline, will flounder.
The Telegraph, likewise, urges Chancellor Philip Hammond to resist the calls for change, saying the government is in danger of giving up on financial prudence as though it is a television programme we have got bored with.
The country as a whole, it says, should have the moral fibre to face the financial reality in front of us.
But The Observer argues that capping public sector pay has fuelled recruitment and retention problems.
It is not just mean, the paper says, it is a false economy.
The news that British fishermen are to have the exclusive rights to a 12-mile zone around the coastline leads The Sunday Express.
The paper welcomes it as a first step towards taking control of the country's fishing policy.
The new Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, tells The Sunday Times that his father's fishing business was hit by the EU, and pulling out of the London Fisheries Convention was "a chance to put things right".
The Sunday Times also has what it calls "awkward" scientific findings.
Researchers in Rotterdam have apparently found that men's average IQ is four points above women's - because they typically have bigger brains.
The paper describes the finding as the latest twist in a debate with powerful political implications.
It notes that in the 19th Century, the view that women's smaller brains made them less intelligent was used to justify denying them rights such as voting.
Finally, the day before the start of Wimbledon has brought with it the inevitable exhaustive analysis of Andy Murray's chances.
"It's been brutal but I'm ready," is the headline in The Mirror, which describes how a hip injury has wrought havoc with the player's preparations.
The Express says the man who it describes as "Battler Andy" has grown into a dignified champion, and it wishes him good luck in defence of his Wimbledon title.
Reporting that Murray has now declared himself fit, The Sun recalls how it urged millions of its readers on Saturday to collectively lay their soothing hands on a front-page picture of his troublesome hip.
"It Was The Sun Wot Rubbed It!", the paper declares. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-40471145 | news_blogs-the-papers-40471145 |
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Johnny Mercer: I'd never voted before becoming an MP - BBC News | 2017-08-03 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Ex-soldier Johnny Mercer on why he decided to become an MP despite a lack of faith in the political class. | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Johnny Mercer MP talks to Mark D'Arcy about his journey to Westminster
Frustrated by out-of-touch politicians and the poor treatment of veterans, former army commando Johnny Mercer decided the best course of action was to become an MP. He spoke to the BBC's Mark D'Arcy about his new book, which charts his journey to Westminster.
The prospect of becoming a politician wasn't particularly appealing for Johnny Mercer and it was a career move that "disappointed" his wife.
He says he belongs to a generation that has "very little faith" in the political class. Such was his disengagement that, until he became an MP two years ago, he'd never voted in an election.
Even now, when asked if he's a politician, he balks at the idea and jokes: "That's not really a term people are going to queue up to get is it? I would hate to say yes but I suppose I'm a Member of Parliament so yes, I guess in some ways I may be."
Despite his reservations, the former army commando - who completed three tours of Afghanistan - felt he had a "calling" to bridge what he calls the "appalling" gap between what politicians say about military action and the realities of war.
A Conservative MP since 2015, Johnny Mercer told BBC Parliament's Booktalk programme: "I got fed up of the difference between what people say in the House of Commons and these platitudes that come out on Remembrance Day and how that actually feels for people who've lost their sons and daughters in operations.
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"That gap is appalling and in some ways it still remains. For a nation to treat its servicemen like that, in my view, is unacceptable and that is what's fuelled this change to a career in politics, which is hugely challenging - and I don't always enjoy it - but there's work to be done and I'm determined to do it."
His time in Afghanistan included seeing his friend Mark Chandler shot dead next to him. He is among the 456 British servicemen and women killed in that country.
Another friend later committed suicide, leaving a note saying: "Ever since I came back from hell I've turned into a horrible person and I don't like who I am anymore."
The UK began military operations in Afghanistan in 2001 - in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. From 2006, the UK was based in Helmand, one of the most dangerous regions in a volatile country. The UK's involvement in the conflict ended in 2014 although around British 500 troops are still there, training the Afghan army.
David Cameron was given a "sanitised" view of the Afghan conflict, the MP believes
Over the 13-year combat period three prime ministers - Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron - came and went.
The MP recalled visits to Afghanistan by ministers who, he says, were given a "sanitised" version of the operation.
"I remember looking at them, the likes of David Cameron and William Hague, and thinking... you don't really know what I'm going on about - but you make the executive decisions because you are elected."
Mr Mercer was speaking to BBC Parliament about his book - "We Were Warriors: One Soldier's Story Of Brutal Combat" - in which he gives a frank account of a challenging childhood, his military career and his decision to stand as Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View.
He said the decision to become an MP "was not particularly appealing... my wife was thoroughly disappointed, but I'm afraid when you've got a calling and you believe in something, you're prepared to take the hits as you go."
There was no road to Damascus moment. It was prompted by what he judged to be ignorance at Westminster, the failure to treat army personnel properly when they got home - and having a family.
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"When you're running into rooms not knowing what's there, it's inherently dangerous, and as you get older and you get married and you have children, you're making that calculation all the time - is this sensible?
"You go through all these internal battles. Am I turning into a bit of a wimp? Those things came together and I thought I'm not prepared to accept the way we treat our servicemen in this country."
He chose the Conservative Party because it was his "nearest home". But that certainly doesn't mean he agrees with everything the party does. He thought the Conservatives were on the "wrong side of the argument" in the past by opposing gay marriage and the minimum wage.
He has also polled his constituents on fox hunting in a form of direct democracy - he pledged to vote for whichever view had the majority.
What steered him towards the Conservative Party was its position on welfare reform because he believes it is not "right" for people to be better off on benefits than in work.
"I don't blame people for having a life on benefits. That's the system. But what you can do is change the system and that's why I decided to join the Conservative Party."
Johnny Mercer increased his majority in this year's general election. Since then, he's been trying to challenge the narrative he thinks has developed around veterans that they are in some way "broken" and "not much use for anything".
"I think the vast majority of veterans contribute wonderfully to life after their service. We just need to give a little bit of help to some of them at the right time.
"With veterans' care if you intervene early enough, upstream, before people get really poorly with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, before they hit substance abuse or homelessness... you can change the whole conversation around it."
And he feels there is no time to lose. "If we don't tackle this veterans' care problem now, it's just going to get worse. There are some brilliant organisations in this country who are doing some amazing things, if the government could take a lead and coordinate it."
"The thing is, veterans' care is not sexy. Looking after people isn't sexy but I would argue it's a fundamental part of conflict, of what we do in this country. The Americans are much more ahead of the game than us on this and I would like to see us catch them up - because the blokes deserve it."
* You can watch Mark D'Arcy's interview with Johnny Mercer on BBC iPlayer. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40791838 | news_uk-politics-40791838 |
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Sky Sports football pundit Peter Beagrie sacked over assault conviction - BBC News | 2017-08-17 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Peter Beagrie says he is innocent and will appeal against his conviction for attacking Zarah Blake. | York & North Yorkshire | Peter Beagrie was said to be angry and drunk when he attacked his partner
Ex-Premier League footballer Peter Beagrie has been sacked as a Sky Sports pundit after being convicted of an assault on his partner.
The 51-year-old ex-Everton, Manchester City and Bradford City winger punched Zarah Blake while angry and drunk, his trial heard.
Beagrie, of Killinghall, North Yorkshire, was sentenced to a 12-month community order on Tuesday.
He said he intended to appeal against his conviction.
In a statement following the hearing at Skipton Magistrates Court, Beagrie said: "I am innocent, something I have maintained from the outset; that is why the verdict was so devastating.
Beagrie (right) played for several clubs including Bradford City, Everton, Manchester City and Scunthorpe United
He said he was still with Ms Blake, adding: "This has been an upsetting and traumatic time for us and we both feel there is no other alternative but to appeal."
The court heard he punched his partner during an argument in Harrogate in April.
A Sky Sports spokesman said: "When we first became aware of the charge, we removed Peter from our coverage pending his case.
"Following the outcome we have terminated his contract with immediate effect."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-40953098 | news_uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-40953098 |
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How can GCSEs get harder and results stay the same? - BBC News | 2017-08-25 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | This year's GCSEs are made more difficult, so why are there not more people getting lower results? | Education & Family | The more things change... the more things stay the same.
A revolution has been announced for GCSEs in England, with tougher exams, a more stretching syllabus, no hiding behind coursework and standards that are higher than anything since the demise of the O-levels in the 1980s.
But the results - give or take a fraction of a percentage point - are uncannily similar to last year.
Of course, the most important thing about GCSE results is the individual pupils, their families and teachers.
It's about hard work, long nights of revision and youngsters making the most of their opportunities, sometimes in tough circumstances.
It's not about the statistical snowstorm that GCSE results coverage can too easily become.
But how does the exam system deliver greater rigour and more difficult exams - and at the same time not see any significant change in grades?
Pupils found out their GCSE results after the long wait
The balancing act, if not a conjuring trick, is pulled off by changing the grade boundaries.
The upper-tier maths paper might be pencil-chewingly difficult, but a grade-4 pass required a mark of only 18%.
To get a grade 7, equivalent to an A grade, required a mark of 52%.
The new ultra-high grade 9, for the very brightest students and meant to be much tougher than the old A*, required 79%.
So, by adjusting the grade boundaries, the proportions getting the different grades can be kept constant with previous years.
It's a bit like intellectual limbo, changing the height of the stick to decide how many get through.
Professor Alan Smithers, from the University of Buckingham's Centre for Education and Employment Research, said this meant "more or less giving away the grade".
Head teachers' leader Geoff Barton says there is something "Alice in Wonderland" about this pursuit of exams being much harder, but results being pegged as more or less the same.
Mr Barton, head of the ASCL head teachers' union, questions whether this will remain sustainable - and asks how schools are able to show authentic progress, if year after year the grading system keeps holding everyone to the same level.
He says he is no "apologist" for some of the weaknesses in the former content of GCSEs.
But he says there needs to be a change in the "mindset" of what is expected from the exam system - and more transparency about how the final outcomes are constructed.
"We need to open up the rather surreal nature of what we're doing to make sure that results are consistent."
Lawrence Schofield got a top grade 9 in three subjects
But in defence of the exam boards, the other side of the argument is that in a qualifications system that seems to face constant change, it would be very unfair if individual year groups suddenly faced a cliff-edge collapse in results.
They need to be protected from the sudden changes in direction and shifting expectations.
The exam regulator Ofqual says the "boundaries were set using a combination of statistics and examiner judgment. We are confident that they reflect an appropriate standard of performance".
Exam boards and schools are also caught between a rock and a hard place with results.
If results were to suddenly improve, there would be accusations of grade inflation and dumbing down.
If results went sharply down, there would be claims of a collapse in standards and that schools were letting down their pupils.
So, instead, the "comparable outcome" system keeps things in more or less the same place - constructing the results accordingly, so that they bob up each year in the same place, like a self-righting mechanism on a lifeboat.
What does this mean for overall objective standards? What does it mean for international competition? How much is the exam system bent out of shape by political pressure?
Even when it's about a maths exam, this is a day that's about more than such calculations. Families will have been sharing their own news headlines. There are congratulations and commiserations.
And next year, it will start all over again, and we'll watch exam results nudge slightly upwards or downwards, as if of their own accord. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41041595 | news_education-41041595 |
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How your digital self could 'live' on after you die - BBC News | 2017-08-22 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Start-ups are beginning to swoop in on the death and funerals sector to shake up a staid industry. | Business | What if you could "talk" digitally to your descendants, not just appear in photo albums?
The death and funerals industry is due for a shake-up, a growing number of tech start-ups believe.
After you die, how do you fancy springing back to life in the form of a digital avatar?
Your digital ghost could jump onto Facebook and join in a light-hearted argument about Friends, or post Instagram updates reminiscing about that Italian road trip you took with an ex-lover.
Living a digital afterlife might sound strange - a possible episode of satirical TV show Black Mirror perhaps - but some start-ups are investing serious time and money in the concept.
Eternime, for example, plans to combine your online footprint - made up of everything you've ever posted on social media, your thoughts, smartphone pictures and so on - with artificial intelligence to create a digital version of yourself.
This digital representative could interact with your loved ones - and your descendants - long after you've died.
"Depending on the facts it has collected, the avatar will be able to offer anything from basic biographical data to being an engaging conversational partner," says Marius Ursache, Eternime's founder.
An avatar of a loved one could be "an engaging conversational partner", says Marius Ursache
It is set to launch next year, and according to Eternime, more than 37,000 people have already signed up for the service.
But if you feel such a digital imprint might be a step too far - not to mention creepy - you could always schedule a few social media messages via DeadSocial.org to be published online after you've died.
It might be best to pre-warn your nearest and dearest of your intentions, though.
More pragmatically, technology is also helping people organise their funerals before they die.
Rebekah Doran is only 28, but the Los Angeles-based travel consultant has already planned her funeral through a firm called Cake.
On the day, guests will be served chicken and waffles and glasses of French wine, while listening to classic folk music.
"Having an end-of-life plan is even more important for young people, because should the unthinkable happen, we are the least likely group to be prepared," she says.
Chicken and waffles will be on the menu at Rebekah Doran's funeral
Boston-based Cake lets consumers plan their end-of-life preferences, from the funeral to what happens to their Facebook page. All the information is stored, appropriately enough, in the cloud or shared with family or friends.
"As generations of digital natives age, it is inevitable that people will seek a digital solution for end-of-life planning," says Cake co-founder Suelin Chen.
"Your end-of-life plans are exactly the type of information that should live securely in the cloud, where they can be accessed and updated from anywhere, and not just on pieces of paper stuck in a drawer somewhere," she says.
The business of death in general has not been known for its technological innovation.
Yes, we've had ashes being blasted into space, and biodegradable coffins and urns - some containing seeds - but a growing number of start-ups around the world believe this is an industry needing to be shaken up.
In the UK, two companies - Co-operative Funeralcare and Dignity - dominate the £1.7bn funerals market, with shares of 25.2% and 18.4% respectively.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Two Silicon Valley start-ups seek to help users prepare for death
That's bad for competition, thought Funeralbooker, so it developed a marketplace that lets people compare the prices of funerals across the UK.
"Until we launched, there was zero transparency of pricing online," says Funeralbooker chief executive Ian Strang.
"Your only way to compare prices was to go round town and bargain with different funeral directors, all of whom have different pricing schemes."
Not only does Funeralbooker enable customers to shop around from the comfort of their own homes, he says, but it provides independent funeral directors with "a collective presence online to counter the spending power of the large chains".
Since the company launched last November, "several thousand" people have used its service, says Mr Strang.
In the US, Parting allows users to search for funeral directors by zip code (the US equivalent of postcode), while Stockholm-based online funeral planner Fenix organises funerals across Sweden online or by phone.
An online will writing service can be a "pragmatic organisational tool", says Alice Walsh
Making a will is also one of those unwelcome tasks too many of us put off.
But Alice Walsh, 37, used Farewill, a website offering will preparation and funeral-planning services for just £50.
"My husband and I had been meaning to do a will for about five years, but we never got round to it," says Ms Walsh, who runs her own accessories and jewellery brand.
"A will, to me, was always a slow, serious document that needed to be done with a lawyer. Instead, we found a pragmatic organisational tool that we can manage and update as our life develops.
"If I'm happy to bank online, shop online and run my business online, then having my will online is a given," she says.
Of course, such simple online will-preparation services may not be suitable for people with complex estates and children from multiple marriages, but as Mr Walsh says, it helped her cross off an unpleasant task from her list quickly and easily.
Dan Garrett, Farewill's founder and chief executive, says one of his clients "insisted his wife wore his green crocs to his funeral because of how intensely she hated them.
"That's real love to me, the kind of wish that makes you cry and laugh at the same time when you get it in real life," he says.
From live-streaming of funerals to after-life digital avatars, it's clear that technology is infiltrating this most staid of sectors.
"Technology is coming in and making the industry more transparent in many ways, from finding a funeral director, to end-of-life thinking," says Louise Winter, funeral director at Poetic Endings and the former editor of the Good Funeral Guide.
But she believes further innovation is needed. And Mr Strang agrees, saying: "Other sectors such as healthcare and artificial intelligence are more interesting to investors right now.
"Death is less sexy and far more difficult to disrupt due to the slow pace of change." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40935790 | news_business-40935790 |
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World Championships 2017: Why athletics is still worth fighting for - BBC Sport | 2017-08-14 | [] | Disappointments but great excitement and record-breaking crowds, the London World Championships were a success, says Tom Fordyce. | null | So this was a disappointing World Championships. Justin Gatlin beat Usain Bolt. Seven days later, cramp beat Bolt again. Wayde van Niekerk couldn't win his 200m/400m double. Isaac Makwala couldn't even start both.
Mo Farah, after 10 global golds on the bounce, finished with silver. Britain went fourth rather than conquered. Only one new championship record was set. On most days it was grey and on several nights it was as cold and wet as autumn.
It was also a Worlds where the old guard was superseded by the new in electrifying fashion. Upsets were everywhere: double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson out of the medals in the 100m, world record holder Keni Harrison off the podium in the sprint hurdles, Olympic 400m hurdles champion Kerron Clement overshadowed by charismatic young Norwegian Karsten Warholm.
There were comeback stories - Sally Pearson from a shattered wrist that almost led to amputation, South African long jump champion Luvo Manyonga from an addiction to crystal meth. Ding-dongs were everywhere - in the women's triple jump, in the long jump where six centimetres covered the first four athletes, in the women's 1500m and the men's 800m. Both steeplechases were thrillers.
So it was disappointing for Great Britain. Going into the final weekend, the largest squad they had assembled for a Worlds had just one medal to show for it, and that was Mo Farah's 10,000m title in the first night. £27m in funding over the four-year Olympic cycle, went the prevailing argument, should be bringing home so much more.
And then the relays happened. Gold for the men's sprint quartet, silver for the women. Silver for the women's 4x400m team, bronze for the men. Along with Mo Farah's 5,000m silver it meant Britain finished with six medals - on its target, the same number as after the last two Olympics, at the Worlds of 2013 and 2009.
Disappointments and great excitement, a struggle but a success. This is where athletics is, and the Worlds of 2017 brought both old doubts and fresh hope.
Britain wanted more. Maybe, in a Worlds without Russia, in a sport which is possibly cleaner than it used to be, it should have taken them.
Those relay medals were wonderful, each achieved through hours of drills and a tightness between the constituent parts that cannot be faked. They are also the lower hanging fruit on the track tree; only 16 teams invited for each. There is a reason they are targeted by British Athletics.
But athletics medals are hard to win. There are 208 member nations of the IAAF. It is a more truly global championships than that of track cycling or rowing, the two great engines of the British medal machine across the past three Olympics.
Last summer on Rio's Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, British rowers dominated the regatta, winning three gold medals and two silvers. With 43 athletes they also had the biggest team of any nation there. Forty-nine of the nations there qualified teams of fewer than 10 athletes - 32 of them had a team of just one or two rowers.
Only nine nations apart from Britain won a gold. At London 2017, 43 different nations won medals, 27 different nations gold.
Then there is the spread of the past 10 days. Five fourth-place finishes might sound like five failures, yet each was a stretch achievement for the individual who took it.
The IAAF produces something called a placings table, which aims to give a broader indication of each nation's strength. Eight points are awarded for a first place, seven for a second, down to one for eighth.
At the 2005 Worlds, Britain came 12th on this ranking with 35 points. Across the five Worlds since then they have hovered between fifth and seventh, their biggest total the 94 points of two years ago in Beijing.
Here in London they ended third, racking up 105 points. Maybe it means nothing compared to medals. Maybe that strength in depth won't convert to medals over the next four years. Maybe too it suggests encouragement, even as issues remain with the quality of coaching available, with the development of promising juniors into successful seniors, with the glaring gaps in several key disciplines.
There were an almost overwhelming number of reasons to be pessimistic about track and field coming to London. The end of Bolt, the ongoing struggle against doping, only the start of the complete rebuild the sport's governance and image requires.
All those issues were here right in front of you. There were several performances that wise insiders struggled to make sense of, the sight of returning cheats taking titles, athletes who have switched nationality for purely economic reasons winning medals for nations where they have never lived.
Eleven individuals and five relay teams were reallocated medals denied them by cheats in the recent past. If that was both welcome and dispiriting, so too was the warning from IAAF president Seb Coe that other nations may yet join Russia in mass exclusion from the biggest stage.
And yet impossible to ignore too were the great strengths of this beleaguered sport, the spells of magic that set it apart from others, the allure that still shines through when circumstances are right.
Over its 10 days, 705,000 people came to watch these championships. Never before has a Worlds brought in so many.
If that won't happen in Qatar in two years' time, neither does it happen in the same way at other great events in this sport-mad nation. An athletics crowd is untouchable in its diversity: families, kids, a blend of ethnicities that reflected this host city but was light years away from the far narrower demographics at Wimbledon, or Twickenham, or Lord's.
Then there is what they see: more nations brought together than at any other sporting championship, a wider range of skills and sizes, the action on those big nights happening all around the stadium at a dizzying lick.
It is both a simple sport, in that even a newcomer can work out how an event is run and won, and one with depth - running at astounding speed, throwing an astonishing distance, jumping longer and higher than we could ever imagine.
It can be easy to let the cynicism win. Everyone is at it. Too many of these results won't last. When the Worlds leave London's embrace the magic will dissipate and with it the crowds and energy. The troubles are still right there.
So too is the allure. There are clean athletes, and there are great champions. There are nights, like Saturday, when the thrill can still be pure and unrivalled.
It can be a beautiful sport. It is worth fighting for. Don't give up on it, even when it can feel so easy to do so. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/40920004 | rt_athletics_40920004 |
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Should Washington and Jefferson monuments come down? - BBC News | 2017-08-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Trump's argument that the removal of Confederate statues is a slippery slope to changing history has recharged the perennial debate about America's tormented racial legacy. | US & Canada | This article contains language that some readers may find offensive.
President Donald Trump's argument that the removal of Confederate statues is a slippery slope to changing history has recharged the perennial debate about America's tormented racial legacy.
"So this week it's Robert E Lee," he said on Tuesday of the rebel general's monument that was a flashpoint for last Saturday's violent rally in Virginia.
"I wonder, is it George Washington next week?" he asked journalists at Trump Tower. "And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?"
Let's put aside for a moment the irony that Lee may well have supported Charlottesville's plans to remove his bronze likeness, given that he urged the country to "obliterate the marks of civil strife" and refrain from erecting such monuments.
As President Trump pointed out, George Washington was a slaveholder.
So might the stone obelisk dedicated to the father of the nation, looming over the heart of his eponymous capital city, be the next battleground in the US culture wars?
Washington conceded the system of human bondage that underpinned the economy of 18th Century Virginia was a "wicked, cruel and unnatural trade".
He was the only founding father and commander-in-chief to liberate his slaves - he owned more than 300 - when he died.
But as Ron Chernow's magisterial biography Washington: A Life makes clear, while he lived, the nation's first president extracted his pound of flesh from those whom he preferred to call his "servants", or "family".
Washington saw himself as a benevolent master, but he did not tolerate suspected shirkers on his farm, even when they were pregnant, elderly or crippled.
He once scolded a slave who pleaded that he could not work because his arm was in a sling.
As Chernow writes, Washington picked up a rake and demonstrated how to use it with one arm.
"If you use your hand to eat," he said, "why can't you use it to work?"
He was not averse to shipping refractory slaves to the West Indies, such as one man named Waggoner Jack, where the tropical climate and relentless toil in sugarcane brakes tended to abbreviate life expectancy.
"There are few Negroes who will work unless there be a constant eye on them," Washington advised one overseer, warning of their "idleness and deceit" unless treated firmly.
Washington, Chernow notes, wholly approved in 1793 when one of his estate managers, Anthony Whitting, whipped a slave named Charlotte.
Martha, the president's wife, had deemed her to be "indolent".
"Your treatment of Charlotte was very proper," Washington wrote, "and if she or any other of the servants will not do their duty by fair means, or are impertinent, correction (as the only alternative) must be administered."
Washington badgered Whitting to keep another slave named Gunner hard at work to "continue throwing up brick earth". Gunner was 83 years old.
With his Mount Vernon plantation creaking under financial pressure owing to his long absences serving the country, Washington would fire off angry letters to his overseers insisting on greater crop productivity.
Given these reprimands it is perhaps hardly surprising that another of his estate managers, Hiland Crow, was notorious for brutally flogging slaves.
In early 1788 the Potomac river froze over for five weeks, but even with nine inches of snow on the ground, Washington did not spare them from gruelling outdoor labour.
He sent the female slaves to dig up tree stumps from a frozen swamp.
During this Arctic snap, Washington ventured to ride out and inspect his farms, but noted in his diary that, "finding the cold disagreeable I returned".
When some of his slaves absconded during the Revolutionary War to find protection - humiliatingly, for him - with the enemy, Washington did not let up in his efforts to reclaim what he saw as his property.
One internal British memo portrayed him after victory as demanding the runaways be returned "with all the grossness and ferocity of a captain of banditti". The British refused.
Whenever George and Martha's bondmen and women did flee, the first couple seemed to regard them as disloyal ingrates.
In one runaway notice Washington posted in a newspaper, he wrote that a slave named Caesar had escaped "without any cause whatever".
That these enslaved human beings might thirst for freedom, or even the opportunity to learn to read and write, did not seem to occur to him.
Professor Joseph Ellis, author of American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, says of the founding fathers: "They could imagine a nation-sized republic, which nobody else had ever done before.
"They could imagine the separation of church and state, which nobody else had ever done before.
"They could imagine a government based on checks and balances that prohibit any form of dictatorship at the presidential level. Nobody had ever done that before.
The Jefferson Memorial is one Washington DC's main landmarks
"They could imagine power flowing from the people upwards, rather than from God downward.
"All those unbelievable acts of imagination. The most creative political group in American history. We'll never replicate that.
"But they could not imagine a biracial society."
Jefferson, as every American schoolchild knows, is the nation's third president, and a genius political theoretician who penned arguably the five most important words in modern history - "all men are created equal" - in the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
He also owned up to 140 slaves.
A bon vivant who lived in luxury at a palatial Virginia estate, Jefferson knew America's original sin was a "depravity", as he described it.
But his statements about black people are rarely taught in classrooms today.
Here are some Jefferson quotes that visitors will not find on his memorial, a Roman pantheon-style temple to liberty where the Sage of Monticello's graven image keeps vigil over the Tidal Basin in Washington DC.
To his friend, French social reformer the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Jefferson confided that he envisaged eventual manumission to entail "exporting to a distance the whole black race".
The duke wrote: "He [Jefferson] bases his opinion on the certain danger… of seeing blood mixed without means of preventing it".
And yet Jefferson, historians say, fathered up to six children by one of his mixed-race slaves, Sally Hemings.
In his book Notes on the State of Virginia, he prophesied a race war in America and "convulsions which will probably never end but on the extermination of the one or the other race".
Jefferson also opined in this work that black people's "unfortunate difference of color" made them less beautiful than whites.
"They are more ardent after their female," he continued, "but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.
"Their griefs are transient… in reason much inferior."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Trump said versus what I saw - by the BBC's Joel Gunter
Professor Ellis believes a plaque should be put up at the Jefferson Memorial to correct the record and admit some of the Declaration author's less savoury statements.
"Jefferson embodies the inherent contradictions, a kind of self-deception, that co-exists in us, too," the biographer said.
"Given the relationship with Hemings, the fact that he refused to take a leadership position on ending slavery because of his fear of miscegenation, it makes his hypocrisy even more dramatic.
"He's got slaves who are his children serving him at dinner. But he doesn't seem to find that troubling. It's mind-boggling."
"Racism is a chromosome in the DNA of the United States," Professor Ellis added. "It's like cancer. It ain't never gonna be cured."
Should Americans therefore disavow these founding fathers as scoundrels and national embarrassments, or accept them as men of their time, demigods with feet of clay, who bore their imperfections even as they sought to steer their country beyond them?
What actually is the difference between monuments to the founding fathers and Confederate leaders?
Dr Clarence Jones - the African-American speechwriter who helped civil rights legend Dr Martin Luther King Jr craft his 1963 "I Have a Dream" address, four words that shaped modern America - explains.
He says: "Sure, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.
"There was no question they were morally compromised in their effort to fashion together this new country, a republic, based on the principles and precepts enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
"But neither of those two persons led the nation in treasonous insurrection to overthrow the government they had formed in order to preserve the institution of slavery. Period.
"On the contrary, they devoted their life to saving and founding this country."
He says that commemorating the valour of the Confederacy is just as wrong as celebrating the soldiers of the Third Reich.
"What Charlottesville tells us is, it's no longer possible for the United States to ignore this unresolved issue of reconciliation over slavery," said Dr Jones.
"Trump missed an extraordinary opportunity - and he still has it - of exercising the leadership of reconciler and healer-in-chief for the nation today."
Washington and Jefferson are not the only American historical titans who can seem diminished when viewed through the lens of present-day values.
Take Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator and Civil War leader who destroyed the South's slavocracy.
He is immortalised in another neo-classical shrine on the National Mall.
But as Hofstra University history professor Alan Singer points out, the nation's 16th president espoused racist opinions as his political persona evolved.
He is quoted as saying to applause at a debate at Charleston, Illinois, during an 1858 Senate election campaign: "There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
Donald Trump and wife Melania at the Lincoln Memorial in January
The Republican leader is also recorded as having tried to persuade a black delegation in 1862 that African-Americans should self-deport and colonise somewhere like Central America, arguing that it would be "extremely selfish" if they refused.
"The United States needs to have a general evaluation of who we are as a nation, so we can come to terms with our present by understanding our past," says Professor Singer.
"Nations need heroes to define who we are, to help us see ourselves in a better light.
"And the United States has heroes. But we tend not to see the warts.
"We tend to try to erase the parts we don't want to see. And this is a time when we have to look."
Sometimes, though, it can be hard to look.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson is lionised as the signer of the 1964 Civil Rights Act - one of the greatest legislative accomplishments of any US administration - which outlawed discrimination.
However, LBJ is also known to have frequently tossed racial slurs around the cloakrooms of the US Senate, according to his biographer Robert Caro.
Johnson nicknamed an earlier iteration of the landmark act for which he is known as "the n***** bill".
In his memoir, Capitol Hill in Black and White, African-American chauffeur Robert Parker relates a disturbing interaction while he was driving for the Texan.
Johnson, he recalls, asked him whether he objected to being called "n*****".
When Parker replied that he would rather be addressed by his own name, Johnson allegedly retorted: "As long as you are black, and you're gonna be black till the day you die, no one's gonna call you by your goddamn name.
"So no matter what you are called, n*****, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you'll make it. Just pretend you're a goddamn piece of furniture."
But Dr Jones believes that LBJ, for all his flaws, understood that his duty as chief magistrate of the United States was to lead his country towards sunlit uplands of a more perfect union, to achieve the unfulfilled promise of its founding.
The University of San Francisco professor is in little doubt what his old friend, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, would say to the current White House incumbent.
"I have no question," says Dr Jones, "that the pre-eminent apostle of love and non-violence in the 20th Century would remind President Trump he has a responsibility to indicate to the nation what is right and what is wrong.
"This is not a time to engage in moral relativity.
"I really believe that President Trump is not beyond redemption, that he still has an opportunity to rise to the majesty of the office." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40978515 | news_world-us-canada-40978515 |
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‘We were guinea pigs’: Jailed inmates agreed to birth control - BBC News | 2017-08-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The Tennessee county started offering time off inmate sentences in exchange for birth control | US & Canada | In a small county in rural Tennessee, inmates were offered 30 days off their sentences in exchange for a vasectomy or a long-acting birth control implant. County officials say it was a tool in the fight against opiate abuse - opponents call it eugenics.
This spring, Deonna Tollison found herself in Judge Sam Benningfield's courtroom in Sparta, Tennessee - a large, neon-lit room filled with wooden pews for the public. Tollison was accused of violating the conditions of her house arrest, the latest issue in a lifetime of trouble, which at its worst saw her living in her car, addicted to opiates.
On the stand, Tollison testified she'd been trying to get her life on the right track - she was off the drugs and raising her two youngest daughters, as well as the daughter of a sister who died in a car wreck. Relapses and run-ins with the law, however, kept stalling her progress, and here she was again, accused of making unsanctioned trips to the grocery store and allowing the batteries on her ankle monitor to die.
She faced the possibility of another stay in the local jail.
"I'm a single mother of three beautiful girls and a brand new grandson. My mother is disabled. My sister is disabled," Tollison pleaded on the stand. "Each and every one of them depend on me because I'm the only one with a [driver's] license. I love my family very dearly...the last four years I've done everything in my power to get my life back."
The hearing did not go well for Tollison. Judge Benningfield ruled that her continued missteps and her lack of employment made her unfit for home arrest. He ordered her to serve out the rest of her sentence in the county jail.
Shortly afterward, Benningfield made a surprising announcement to the entire courtroom: a new programme would allow inmates like Tollison to shave time off her sentence - 30 days - if she agreed to sign up for a free long-lasting form of birth control. For the male inmates, Benningfield's new order would offer free vasectomies.
Not long after Tollison arrived to the jail, sign-up sheets started going around to have an implant called Nexplanon inserted, which prevents pregnancy for up to four years. Tollison signed up, along with at least 30 other women. Over on the men's side, 38 men signed up for vasectomies. With an average daily population of 221 inmates, that represented a sizeable portion of the jail.
Tollison first had to attend a neonatal health class which focused on the effects of drug abuse during pregnancy can have on foetuses. Then, a nurse used a special, needle-like device to puncture her upper left arm, and slide the matchstick-sized vinyl implant under the skin. The male inmates were scheduled for appointments with a local urologist.
About two months later, after the local media caught wind of the programme, tiny Sparta, Tennessee, became the subject of national and international interest.
"The unspeakable evil of the Tennessee eugenics program," one headline read.
"Judge Benningfield's eugenics program is an outrage," opined one blogger. "He need not serve on the bench any longer, and he need not keep his law degree any longer."
The US has a long history of forced sterilisations on the poor, the mentally ill, and on minorities. In surprisingly recent history, Native Americans, Mexican Americans and African Americans have faced sterilisation by force or under deceptive practices by members of US state and local governments.
Though the US eugenics movement - which was admired by Adolf Hitler and replicated by the Nazis - reached the zenith of its popularity in the 1920s, states forced sterilisations into the 1980s.
At one time or another, thirty-two states had a federally funded sterilisation programme in their prisons or asylums. Gay men were compelled into sterilisation if mental institutions deemed them to be "sexual deviants", as were mothers receiving welfare. In some places, sterilisation was a condition of release from prison.
Individual cases continue to crop up around the country. In 2014, the governor of California signed a ban on sterilisation in prisons, after dozens of women underwent tubal ligations while behind bars, without giving the proper consent.
Officials in Tennessee argued no-one was forced. All of the inmates signed up, and the programme was cancelled before any of the men could receive their vasectomies.
But questions of whether or not an inmate can make informed consent to such a procedure if it is in exchange for a lesser sentence could be the crux of the forthcoming federal lawsuits over what occurred in White County.
"It doesn't meet the bar for autonomous decision-making. You have built into it a hierarchical relationship," says Alexandra Minna Stern, a historian at the University of Michigan and author of Eugenic Nation.
"You can say people made a choice but that's why sterilisations are not allowed in federal prisons - the asymmetry of the relationship."
The arguments could lead all the way to the US Supreme Court, where the 1927 decision approving the forced sterilisation of "mental defectives" is still on the books, and has been cited in cases as recently as 2001.
Adam Cohen, author of Imbeciles, a book on the 1927 Buck v Bell case, stopped short of calling the judge in Tennessee an eugenicist, but said the programme itself comes dangerously close.
"It may be that this judge really thinks he's doing something helpful," says Cohen. "That said, I am sure that a lot of people who do support eugenics like what he is doing."
When Tollison made the decision to get the implant, she wasn't thinking about her reproductive health, or the health of any prospective children. She was thinking about the little house on a winding road in the rural countryside of White County, Tennessee, filled with ailing family members and her three young daughters.
Seated on the cement patio behind that house, the yard around her busy with butterflies and winged ants, Tollison says her only reason for getting the implant was so she could go home. Even though she is free, it is a decision she now regrets.
"I feel like we were guinea pigs," she says. "People will do anything to get out of there."
Sparta sits in the bull's-eye of circular-shaped White County, a bucolic part of central Tennessee populated by cattle farmers and factory workers. Over 90% of the population is white, with a politically conservative, church-going majority.
"Salt of the earth kind of people," says Brandon Griffin, a local defence lawyer with two former clients who got an implant. "They're not necessarily the most fond of outsiders getting involved in their stuff as a general rule."
The local newspaper publishes every White County arrestees' mugshot in the paper on Thursdays, and around town it's not difficult to find supporters of Judge Benningfield, who took the bench in 1998 and has won re-election twice.
Christopher Sapp, the owner of a computer repair shop in Sparta, said he lost his wife to an opiate addiction. A woman he considers a daughter to him is currently behind bars in White County over drugs. He heard she opted into Benningfield's programme and got the implant.
"I thought that was pretty responsible of her," says Sapp. "[Opiate addiction] is terrible in this area. There's not a family in this area that hasn't been touched by it in some way."
Down the street from Sapp's computer shop, Mike Gilbert, the owner of a local antiques store disagrees slightly. He doesn't approve of inmates getting an early release or government getting involved in reproductive rights.
"I think a lot of times the judges in this world, they go overboard with things," he says. "They step above what they're supposed to be doing."
In his office one morning before court began, Sam Benningfield expressed bafflement by the amount of attention and condemnation he's received.
"It was a real, total surprise to me," he says. "No-one lifted even an eyebrow until cameras got stuck in their face."
Judge Sam Benningfield says he was shocked by response to the programme
The people who end up in Benningfield's courtroom are there for misdemeanour crimes - everything from drug possession and driving while intoxicated, to thefts of under $1,000 or failing to pay child support.
The maximum sentence he can hand down is 11 months and 29 days.
According to Benningfield, the programme began when the state health department approached him about a two-day class on effects of drug use on foetuses. To entice inmate participation, anyone who signed up received two days off of his or her sentence.
(A spokeswoman for the department of health said its employees had partnered with White County for the classes, but denied involvement in developing any policy. The department declined to comment when asked if their employees administered the implants).
Believing that the next logical step would be to incentivise inmates to get reproductive services, Benningfield says he decided to write the order. He compared it to getting time off for picking up litter on the side of the highway, or agreeing to become a confidential informant for law enforcement.
"It occurred to me that many of the same women I had incarcerated were the very same from whom I was having to remove their children in my role as the juvenile judge because they were born addicted to drugs," he wrote in a statement.
When the story began blowing up, Benningfield says he was shocked by the thought that an inmate would have a vasectomy for the sole purpose to get 30 days off a jail sentence.
He drafted a new document for the inmates to sign certifying they were not signing up solely for the reduced sentence.
But by then the condemnation had grown to include the ACLU of Tennessee, other local judges, the district attorney and state legislators.
Six weeks in, the judge cancelled the order altogether. According to county officials, none of the vasectomies took place.
He insists that his intent was not to control who is reproducing in White County, but to prevent babies being born sick.
"My number one concern was about children," he says. "To me a lot of controversy got started when everybody used the word sterilisation. Because it was never about that - it was never forced."
At one point, he crossed over to his desk and picked up a small stack of letters he received about the programme, "all but one positive".
"You are my hero!" wrote one person. "We need more freebie contraception in this country. Help these poor kids get on the right track. Most of all saving these unwanted babies."
"Rest assured that the majority of White Countians appreciate your effort but many are forced to wear a gag - ironic isn't it, we are the oppressed?" wrote another.
And another: "Your very considerate practice of offering a reduced sentence to criminals is brilliant and ahead of its time. Criminals are the last people on earth that should be multiplying."
Kristi Seibers has neither children nor a long rap sheet of drugs charges. When she went to the White County jail in February on a probation violation, it was the first time she'd been locked up.
She usually got a free shot of Depo-Provera at the county health department every six months as her means of birth control, but when she heard she could go home a month early if she got the implant, she jumped at the opportunity.
The side effects, she said, started almost immediately. A two month-long period. A vaginal infection. Cramping and weight gain. And Seibers said she never got her 30-day credit.
"The only reason I did it was they promised me days off so I could go home," she said. "I don't think it's right."
Of the six inmates BBC News spoke to who signed up for the programme, only one expressed some interest in the potential health and family planning benefits of the free services - in her case, to help with her endometriosis, a painful uterine condition that can cause infertility.
The rest said their only concern was getting out as soon as possible. The facility is on the brink of being decertified by the state for its chronic overcrowding, and multiple people described it as a dirty and unpleasant place.
"Voluntary consent is no consent at all if it's tainted with coercion from the government," said Mario Williams, a civil rights lawyer for the former inmates. "You're really preying on vulnerable people."
David Stoll signed up to have a vasectomy, but ultimately decided against it. He believed that "99%" of the men he spoke to in the jail were motivated only by the time off their sentences.
"I don't want to say play God but they was trying to control something that wasn't none of their business really," said Stoll.
Three women told BBC News that they wanted their implants removed, but were told either they had to wait 60 days or that removal would cost $250. There were other problems, including women too old to get pregnant signing up. Judge Benningfield confirmed that he heard one account of an inmate who'd had a hysterectomy getting the implant.
Inmates also signed up for services even if they had no history of drug abuse, which Williams says proves the county was interested in preventing former inmates from procreating, not just protecting babies from neonatal conditions.
Seibers was also not the only former inmate to say she did not receive her reduced sentence.
Lawyers for former inmate Christel Ward wrote she also was not given her 30-day credit because her case originated in criminal court, not Judge Benningfield's general sessions court. Regardless of the fact Ward and Seibers were ineligible for early release, the lawsuit alleges, the programme - which the complaint calls out as "eugenics" - was offered anyway.
In front of the Nashville federal courthouse building on Thursday, Williams and Ward appeared for a short press conference.
The view from the White County Justice Center
"We're not going to stop until a judge declares this unconstitutional," Williams said.
He said he currently represents 16 former inmates, and that the total number could double.
There is a twist to Ward's lawsuit - she showed BBC News a copy of a wallet-sized card she said was given to the inmates after the Nexplanon implant was inserted, showing the date of insertion: 5 May, a full ten days before Judge Benningfield's order dated the 15th of May.
It isn't clear if county employees were running some type of ad hoc version of the programme before the judge's order, and if so, for how long.
The suit claims that White County Sheriff Oddie Shoupe, not Judge Benningfield, is the true creator of the programme, and that Benningfield created his order at Shoupe's request.
Sheriff Shoupe did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The judge declined to comment further after the lawsuit was filed.
Ward's case is just the first in what lawyer Williams said will be a string of lawsuits against the county, including those who were "punished" by not signing up for birth control.
Williams argued that bringing down the legal hammer on White County is the only way to prevent a slippery-slope effect where the programme expands to other jails and prisons.
"People just have a negative perception of incarcerated people, regardless of the reason. 'These are bad people for society - who cares about these people?'" says Williams. "With all the racial tension going on in the country, those are real thoughts in people. If you don't kill it as soon as it raises its head, then it just festers and grows into something much larger."
Seibers wants her implant out as soon as possible, though it's not clear how she'll pay for it. As soon as she does, she should theoretically be able to have children, barring other medical issues.
Since coming home, the 30-year-old got a job as a home healthcare worker, and was able to again help her boyfriend make the rent on their home and pay bills.
But she feels different - she said her sex drive is gone. Her relationship with her boyfriend has suffered. She feels tricked by the county.
"I'm just depressed," she said. "I don't want nothing to do with my old man."
Still, she holds hope the media spotlight on "little bitty" White County will bring about changes to the way the inmates are treated.
"I got high hopes that it will. I feel like it's going to be something big," she said. "I think things will be done differently after this."
Seibers at her mother's house, after work | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40955288 | news_world-us-canada-40955288 |
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'The devil's rope': How barbed wire changed America - BBC News | 2017-08-08 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | How the spread of barbed wire helped redraw the map of the USA. | Business | Late in 1876, so the story goes, a young man named John Warne Gates built a wire-fence pen in the middle of San Antonio, Texas.
He rounded up some of the toughest and wildest longhorns in all of Texas. That's how he described them.
Others say the cattle were a docile bunch. And there are those who wonder whether this particular story is true at all. But never mind.
John Warne Gates - who would become known as "Bet A Million Gates" - took bets from onlookers as to whether the powerful beasts could break through the fragile-seeming wire. They couldn't.
John Warne Gates was quick to see the potential of barbed wire in redefining the US landscape
Even when Gates's sidekick, a Mexican cowboy, charged at the cattle howling Spanish curses and waving a burning brand in each hand, the wire held.
Bet-A-Million Gates was selling a new kind of fence, and the orders soon came rolling in.
The advertisements of the time touted it as "The Greatest Discovery Of The Age", patented by Joseph Glidden, of De Kalb Illinois. Gates described it more poetically: "lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, cheaper than dust".
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world.
Calling it the greatest discovery of the age might seem hyperbolic, even allowing for the fact that the advertisers didn't know Alexander Graham Bell was about to be awarded a patent for the telephone.
But while we accept the telephone as transformative, barbed wire wrought huge changes on the American West, and much more quickly.
Joseph Glidden's design for barbed wire wasn't the first, but it was the best.
The wicked barb is twisted around a strand of smooth wire, then a second strand of smooth wire is twisted together with the first to stop the barbs from sliding around. American farmers snapped it up.
There was a reason they were so hungry for it.
A few years earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Homestead Act of 1862.
The act specified that any honest citizen - including women, and freed slaves - could lay claim to up to 160 acres (0.6 sq km) of land in America's western territories. All they had to do was build a home there and work the land for five years.
The 1862 Homestead Act set out the rules on who could own land in the western territories
But the prairie was a vast and uncharted expanse of tall, tough grasses, a land suitable for nomads, not settlers. It had long been the territory of the Native Americans.
After Europeans arrived and pushed west, the cowboys roamed free, herding cattle over the boundless plains.
But settlers needed fences, not least to keep those free-roaming cattle from trampling their crops. And there wasn't a lot of wood - certainly none to spare for fencing in mile after mile of what was often called "The American Desert".
Farmers tried growing thorn-bush hedges, but they were slow-growing and inflexible. Smooth wire fences didn't work either - the cattle simply pushed through them.
Barbed wire changed what the Homestead Act could not.
By the end of the Civil War, in 1865, 15,000 homestead claims had been established
Until it was developed, the prairie was an unbounded space, more like an ocean than a stretch of arable land.
Private ownership of land wasn't common because it wasn't feasible.
The homesteading farmers were trying to stake out their property - property that had once been the territory of various Native American tribes. No wonder those tribes called barbed wire "the devil's rope".
The old-time cowboys also lived on the principle that cattle could graze freely across the plains - this was the law of the open range. The cowboys hated the wire: cattle would get nasty wounds and infections.
When the blizzards came, the cattle would try to head south. Sometimes they got stuck against the wire and died in their thousands.
Other cowmen adopted barbed wire, using it to fence off private ranches. And while barbed wire could enforce legal boundaries, many fences were illegal - attempts to commandeer common land for private purposes.
As the wire's dominion spread, fights started to break out.
In the "fence-cutting wars", masked gangs such as the Blue Devils and the Javelinas cut the wires and left dire threats warning fence-owners not to rebuild. There were shootouts and some deaths.
Eventually, the authorities clamped down. The fence-cutting wars ended, The barbed wire remained.
"It makes me sick," said one trail driver in 1883, "when I think of onions and Irish potatoes growing where mustang ponies should be exercising and where four-year-old steers should be getting ripe for market."
And if the cowboys were outraged, the Native Americans suffered much more.
These ferocious arguments on the frontier were reflected in a philosophical debate.
The English 17th Century philosopher John Locke - a great influence on the founding fathers of the United States - puzzled over the problem of how anybody might legally come to own land. Once upon a time, nobody owned anything.
Philosopher John Locke had a great influence on the founding fathers of the United States
Locke argued that we all own our own labour. And if you mix your labour with the land that nature provides - for example, by ploughing the soil - then you've blended something you definitely own with something that nobody owns. By working the land, you've come to own it.
Nonsense, said Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th Century philosopher from Geneva who protested against the evils of enclosure.
In his Discourse on Inequality, he lamented "the first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him." This man, said Rousseau, "was the real founder of civil society".
He did not intend that as a compliment.
But it's certainly true that modern economies are built on the legal fact that most things - including land and property - have an owner, usually a person or a corporation.
The ability to own private property also gives people an incentive to invest in and improve what they own - whether that's a patch of land in the American Midwest, or an apartment in the Indian city of Kolkata (Calcutta), or even a piece of intellectual property such as the rights to Mickey Mouse.
It's a powerful argument - and it was ruthlessly and cynically deployed by those who wanted to argue that Native Americans didn't really have a right to their own territory, because they weren't actively developing it in the style that Europeans saw fit.
So the story of how barbed wire changed the West is also the story of how property rights changed the world.
And it's also the story of how, even in a sophisticated economy, what the law says sometimes matters less than matters of simple practicality.
The 1862 Homestead Act laid out the rules on who owned what in the western territories. But those rules didn't mean much before they were reinforced by barbed wire.
Meanwhile, the barbed wire barons Gates and Glidden became rich - as did many others.
The year that Glidden secured his barbed wire patent, 32 miles (51km) of wire were produced.
Six years later, in 1880, the factory in De Kalb turned out 263,000 miles (423,000km) of wire, enough to circle the world 10 times over. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40448594 | news_business-40448594 |
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Extreme weather 'could kill up to 152,000 a year' in Europe by 2100 - BBC News | 2017-08-05 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Weather-related deaths could surge by 2100 if nothing is done to curb climate change, scientists say. | Europe | Heat waves will cause most weather-related deaths if measures are not taken, the study says
Extreme weather could kill up to 152,000 people yearly in Europe by 2100 if nothing is done to curb the effects of climate change, scientists say.
The number is 50 times more deaths than reported now, the study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal said.
Heat waves would cause 99% of all weather-related deaths, it added, with southern Europe being worst affected.
Experts said the findings were worrying but some warned the projections could be overestimated.
If nothing is done to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to improve policies to reduce the impact against extreme weather events, the study by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre says:
The research analysed the effects of the seven most dangerous types of weather-related events - heat waves, cold snaps, wildfires, droughts, river and coastal floods and windstorms - in the 28 EU countries as well as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
The team looked at disaster records from 1981 to 2010 to estimate population vulnerability, and combined this information with predictions of how climate change might progress and how populations might increase and migrate.
They assumed a rate of greenhouse gas emissions that would lead to average global warming of 3C (5.4F) by the end of the century from levels in 1990, a pessimistic forecast well above targets set by the Paris Agreement on tackling climate change.
Low levels of the Po River near Pavia in northern Italy
"Climate change is one of the biggest global threats to human health of the 21st century, and its peril to society will be increasingly connected to weather-driven hazards," said Giovanni Forzieri, one of the authors of the study.
"Unless global warming is curbed as a matter of urgency and appropriate measures are taken, about 350 million Europeans could be exposed to harmful climate extremes on an annual basis by the end of the century."
Flooding near the Bavarian village of Deggendorf in southern Germany in 2013
Fire rages through an area of woodland in Artigues in south-eastern France
On Friday, the United States issued its first written notification to the UN of its intention to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
US President Donald Trump drew international condemnation in June when he first announced his decision, saying the deal would cost millions of American jobs.
The Paris Agreement saw nearly 200 countries agree to keep warming "well below" the level of 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times and "endeavour to limit" them even more, to 1.5C
Experts from South Korea's Seoul National University warned that the study's results "could be overestimated".
"People are known to adapt and become less vulnerable than previously to extreme weather conditions because of advances in medical technology, air conditioning, and thermal insulation in houses," they wrote in a comment piece published in the same journal.
Paul Wilkinson, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was not involved in the study, said the findings were "yet another reminder of the exposures to extreme weather and possible human impacts that might occur if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated.
"It adds further weight to the powerful argument for accelerating mitigation actions to protect population health." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40835663 | news_world-europe-40835663 |
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World Championships 2017: Why athletics is still worth fighting for - BBC Sport | 2017-08-15 | [] | Disappointments but great excitement and record-breaking crowds, the London World Championships were a success, says Tom Fordyce. | null | So this was a disappointing World Championships. Justin Gatlin beat Usain Bolt. Seven days later, cramp beat Bolt again. Wayde van Niekerk couldn't win his 200m/400m double. Isaac Makwala couldn't even start both.
Mo Farah, after 10 global golds on the bounce, finished with silver. Britain went fourth rather than conquered. Only one new championship record was set. On most days it was grey and on several nights it was as cold and wet as autumn.
It was also a Worlds where the old guard was superseded by the new in electrifying fashion. Upsets were everywhere: double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson out of the medals in the 100m, world record holder Keni Harrison off the podium in the sprint hurdles, Olympic 400m hurdles champion Kerron Clement overshadowed by charismatic young Norwegian Karsten Warholm.
There were comeback stories - Sally Pearson from a shattered wrist that almost led to amputation, South African long jump champion Luvo Manyonga from an addiction to crystal meth. Ding-dongs were everywhere - in the women's triple jump, in the long jump where six centimetres covered the first four athletes, in the women's 1500m and the men's 800m. Both steeplechases were thrillers.
So it was disappointing for Great Britain. Going into the final weekend, the largest squad they had assembled for a Worlds had just one medal to show for it, and that was Mo Farah's 10,000m title in the first night. £27m in funding over the four-year Olympic cycle, went the prevailing argument, should be bringing home so much more.
And then the relays happened. Gold for the men's sprint quartet, silver for the women. Silver for the women's 4x400m team, bronze for the men. Along with Mo Farah's 5,000m silver it meant Britain finished with six medals - on its target, the same number as after the last two Olympics, at the Worlds of 2013 and 2009.
Disappointments and great excitement, a struggle but a success. This is where athletics is, and the Worlds of 2017 brought both old doubts and fresh hope.
Britain wanted more. Maybe, in a Worlds without Russia, in a sport which is possibly cleaner than it used to be, it should have taken them.
Those relay medals were wonderful, each achieved through hours of drills and a tightness between the constituent parts that cannot be faked. They are also the lower hanging fruit on the track tree; only 16 teams invited for each. There is a reason they are targeted by British Athletics.
But athletics medals are hard to win. There are 208 member nations of the IAAF. It is a more truly global championships than that of track cycling or rowing, the two great engines of the British medal machine across the past three Olympics.
Last summer on Rio's Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, British rowers dominated the regatta, winning three gold medals and two silvers. With 43 athletes they also had the biggest team of any nation there. Forty-nine of the nations there qualified teams of fewer than 10 athletes - 32 of them had a team of just one or two rowers.
Only nine nations apart from Britain won a gold. At London 2017, 43 different nations won medals, 27 different nations gold.
Then there is the spread of the past 10 days. Five fourth-place finishes might sound like five failures, yet each was a stretch achievement for the individual who took it.
The IAAF produces something called a placings table, which aims to give a broader indication of each nation's strength. Eight points are awarded for a first place, seven for a second, down to one for eighth.
At the 2005 Worlds, Britain came 12th on this ranking with 35 points. Across the five Worlds since then they have hovered between fifth and seventh, their biggest total the 94 points of two years ago in Beijing.
Here in London they ended third, racking up 105 points. Maybe it means nothing compared to medals. Maybe that strength in depth won't convert to medals over the next four years. Maybe too it suggests encouragement, even as issues remain with the quality of coaching available, with the development of promising juniors into successful seniors, with the glaring gaps in several key disciplines.
There were an almost overwhelming number of reasons to be pessimistic about track and field coming to London. The end of Bolt, the ongoing struggle against doping, only the start of the complete rebuild the sport's governance and image requires.
All those issues were here right in front of you. There were several performances that wise insiders struggled to make sense of, the sight of returning cheats taking titles, athletes who have switched nationality for purely economic reasons winning medals for nations where they have never lived.
Eleven individuals and five relay teams were reallocated medals denied them by cheats in the recent past. If that was both welcome and dispiriting, so too was the warning from IAAF president Seb Coe that other nations may yet join Russia in mass exclusion from the biggest stage.
And yet impossible to ignore too were the great strengths of this beleaguered sport, the spells of magic that set it apart from others, the allure that still shines through when circumstances are right.
Over its 10 days, 705,000 people came to watch these championships. Never before has a Worlds brought in so many.
If that won't happen in Qatar in two years' time, neither does it happen in the same way at other great events in this sport-mad nation. An athletics crowd is untouchable in its diversity: families, kids, a blend of ethnicities that reflected this host city but was light years away from the far narrower demographics at Wimbledon, or Twickenham, or Lord's.
Then there is what they see: more nations brought together than at any other sporting championship, a wider range of skills and sizes, the action on those big nights happening all around the stadium at a dizzying lick.
It is both a simple sport, in that even a newcomer can work out how an event is run and won, and one with depth - running at astounding speed, throwing an astonishing distance, jumping longer and higher than we could ever imagine.
It can be easy to let the cynicism win. Everyone is at it. Too many of these results won't last. When the Worlds leave London's embrace the magic will dissipate and with it the crowds and energy. The troubles are still right there.
So too is the allure. There are clean athletes, and there are great champions. There are nights, like Saturday, when the thrill can still be pure and unrivalled.
It can be a beautiful sport. It is worth fighting for. Don't give up on it, even when it can feel so easy to do so. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/40920004 | rt_athletics_40920004 |
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Parliament defends silencing Big Ben to protect workers - BBC News | 2017-08-15 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Brexit Secretary David Davis and national newspapers have criticised the decision to silence the famous bell. | UK Politics | The bells will still sound to mark New Year celebrations
Parliament has defended silencing the chimes of Big Ben for four years to protect workers' hearing during restoration works.
Cabinet minister David Davis described the move as "mad" and newspapers also criticised the decision.
But a UK Parliament spokesman said that "prolonged exposure to the chimes would pose a serious risk to the hearing" of those working on the project.
The TUC said silencing the chimes was "common sense".
The bongs will sound for the final time at 12:00 BST on Monday 21 August before being disconnected to allow the clock and surrounding tower to be restored - a project that is expected to last until 2021.
The UK Parliament spokesman said the Palace of Westminster had "a duty of care to those on site".
Earlier, Brexit Secretary Mr Davis had said there was "hardly a health and safety argument" for silencing the bells.
"I think it's mad," he told LBC radio.
"I'd forgotten of course, I've been out of government for a lot of years, and I've forgotten how long it takes to get the approvals for this and the approvals for that.
"There's a sort of rude phrase which I will shorten to 'just get on with it'.
"When I was in business, it was my standard line, just get on, just do it, don't faff."
The Telegraph reported on a "backlash" from other MPs and columnist Frances Wilson wrote: "Silencing Big Ben is like stopping the heartbeat of our democracy."
The Daily Mail said that where the Luftwaffe failed during World War Two, "health and safety is about to succeed"
An article in the Daily Mail said: "Not even Nazi bombs could silence the famous symbol of Britishness.
"But having marked the hour with almost unbroken service since 1859, the Great Bell's bongs will soon cease for four years - because of health and safety."
TUC health and safety officer Hugh Robertson said: "Protecting workers' hearing is far from 'health and safety gone mad.'"
He added: "When all 14 tonnes of Big Ben bongs near you, you'll know it.
"At nearly 120 decibels, it's like putting your ear next to a police siren."
Alongside conservation work to the Elizabeth Tower which houses the Great Bell, the Great Clock will be dismantled piece-by-piece and its four dials will be cleaned and repaired.
A spokesman for Parliament said: "Constant proximity and prolonged exposure to the chimes would pose a serious risk to the hearing of those working on the scaffolding or in the Tower.
"Whilst hearing protection provides a suitable short term solution to the 118 decibel chiming and striking of the bells, it is not acceptable for those working for long periods in the vicinity of Big Ben.
"In addition, it is vital for workers to be able to communicate with one another on site, or to raise an alarm should the necessity arise. This would not be possible were the bells to continue to sound throughout the works.
"Workers on the scaffolding could also be startled by the loud sudden noise, with consequences for their own safety and those of other people in and around the tower. The only way to ensure people's safety is to temporarily stop the bell."
The Great Bell, which has sounded on the hour for 157 years, last fell silent in 2007 and before that, for major refurbishments between 1983 and 1985.
It will still sound for important events including New Year and Remembrance Sunday, while one working clock face will remain visible during the works. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40937841 | news_uk-politics-40937841 |
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Brexit: What is the government's customs union plan? - BBC News | 2017-08-15 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Reality Check examines the key parts of the government's paper on its future relationship with the customs union. | UK Politics | The Department for Exiting the European Union has released what it calls a future partnership paper, laying out the government's plans for the UK's relationship with the EU after it leaves.
The Reality Check team looks at some of the key parts of the document.
"The government believes that there are two broad approaches the UK could adopt."
The key part of the government's paper is the choice of two different destinations as it tries to negotiate a long-term solution.
The first is "a highly streamlined customs arrangement", in which the UK leaves the customs union, but comes up with ways of simplifying the future customs regime between the UK and EU countries.
That could include developing technology and negotiating other systems to speed things up at ports. But implementing such a complex scheme would take years of preparation.
The other option proposed is a new customs partnership with the EU, which would do away with a customs border altogether.
Agreeing to such a partnership, which doesn't really exist anywhere in the world, would be quite a concession for the EU as it would give the UK the benefits of being in the customs union while still allowing it to forge trade agreements with non-EU countries, which EU members are not allowed to do.
"People and businesses in both the UK and the EU would benefit from an interim period."
The government wants an interim or transition period between the UK leaving the EU and the new permanent customs regime coming into effect.
The paper suggests a time-limited period during which the UK leaves the customs union only to move straight into another temporary customs union with the EU that would operate in pretty much the same way - except, the UK wants to be able to negotiate and sign (but not implement) free trade deals with other countries outside the EU at the same time.
"The UK would aim to negotiate trade facilitations with the EU and implement unilateral improvements to our domestic regime."
"The promotion of the free flow of trade in both directions between the UK and the EU would also require the EU to implement equivalent arrangements at its borders with the UK."
It is not clear which aspects of the streamlined arrangement would be unilateral and which would need agreement.
The paper says, in paragraph 29, that the government would make unilateral improvements to its systems, to speed things up at ports.
But then, in paragraph 30, it says that the EU would have to implement equivalent arrangements.
"Through membership of the Common Transit Convention (CTC), which simplifies border crossing for goods in transit."
The CTC is the set of rules for moving goods between EU member states and other countries, including Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Macedonia and Serbia.
It is supposed to make it easier to move products from one country to another via a third country that is not necessarily an EU member.
For the UK, the benefit would be that goods could be imported from Asia via the port of Rotterdam, for example, without having to pay EU duties.
"Negotiating mutual recognition of Authorised Economic Operators (AEOs), enabling faster clearance of AEOs' goods at the border."
AEOs are an international kitemark that recognises businesses as regular international traders that are solvent and have a good record of paying customs fees and taxes and keeping proper records.
Companies holding the designation are allowed to use certain fast-track systems when going through customs.
The government estimates that 60% of UK imports and 74% of UK exports involve companies with AEO status.
"Ensure that individuals travelling to the UK from the EU and vice versa can continue to travel with goods for personal use as freely and as smoothly as they do now."
The amount of alcohol and cigarettes that can be brought into the UK from non-EU countries without paying duty is limited - up to four litres of wine and 200 cigarettes.
After Brexit, such limits could return for trips to and from the EU.
But the government is keen to strike an agreement that ensures that does not happen.
"We acknowledge this is an innovative and untested approach that would take time to develop and implement."
The government says it wants to look into the "practical complexities" involved in a customs partnership, but the EU has already repeated its argument that frictionless trade outside the Customs Union and the Single Market is impossible.
Would ministers be happier being "innovative and untested" than being courageous?
"We will continue to discuss these proposals with stakeholders over the summer and will publish a Customs White Paper in advance of the Customs Bill in the autumn."
If negotiations on the future partnership with the EU have not yet begun by the autumn, there may be a few blank spaces in the Customs White Paper that will have to be filled in later.
And this week's paper also emphasises that the government will be ready for a "no deal" scenario that would necessitate "standalone customs and excise systems".
"This is not the government's preferred outcome," the paper says, "but it is essential that the UK is prepared for all possible outcomes."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40938826 | news_uk-politics-40938826 |
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Manchester firearms police: A unit in turmoil? - BBC News | 2017-08-01 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The force is being investigated over three fatal incidents. One ex-officer criticised its "aggressive" tactics. | UK | Anthony Grainger, PC Ian Terry and Jordan Begley were all killed in separate incidents
Greater Manchester Police is facing new investigations by the police watchdog over three separate fatal firearms incidents, the Victoria Derbyshire programme has learned.
It raises questions about the conduct of one of the UK's biggest firearms unit at a time when Manchester has recently been hit by a terror attack.
A public inquiry into one of the deaths has heard about flawed intelligence, a senior officer destroying notes and employment of an officer disciplined for assault.
Its former head of training, John Foxcroft, said he left the firearms unit due to its "aggressive" tactics.
Many of the officers in the cases are still serving.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said its firearms officers "volunteer for the role and do a very difficult job, quite rightly under the highest levels of scrutiny".
Here is the story of the three fatal incidents, with new findings uncovered by the Victoria Derbyshire programme's investigation.
"He was a beautiful person inside and out," Anthony Grainger's partner Gail says.
The couple lived together with their two young children.
"I remember thinking, 'My life's perfect.' Then he nipped out - and he didn't come home."
Anthony Grainger was unarmed in a car when he was shot by police in Cheshire, in March 2012.
Police intelligence had suggested he was going to carry out an armed robbery with two associates, also in the car.
Mr Grainger had previously been found guilty of handling stolen cars, but had no convictions for violence.
The two other men did have convictions for violence. Police saw one as very dangerous.
Mr Grainger was killed in a car park on a busy Saturday evening in the village of Culcheth.
Armed officers said they saw him drop his hands in a move interpreted as him going to grab a gun - he was shot once, fatally.
But another man in the car, David Totton, told the inquiry no warning was given before the shot was fired.
All three men in the car were unarmed.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Gail Hadfield-Grainger explains how she first heard her partner had been shot
On the day of the operation, the firearms team had been on duty for 14 hours when it was told to move in.
There were 16 firearms officers. Several had failed training courses and it was argued during the public inquiry they should not have been on the operation, which Greater Manchester Police disputed.
One officer, known as X7 - who had directed the operation on the ground - had failed a firearms course with the Met Police, who removed him early as his performance was "adversely affecting other students."
Another, known as Z15, had failed a safety course shortly before the operation after three extreme safety breaches in potentially life-threatening situations.
A firearms expert told the inquiry these were so "fundamental and inherently dangerous" that it should have led to Z15's "immediate suspension".
Martin Harding, a former superintendent and firearms officer with Greater Manchester Police, told the BBC: "A force such as Manchester has got resilience, so there shouldn't be a reason why you would have someone on a job who wasn't trained to carry out their role."
It emerged during the public inquiry that the officer who fired the gun - referred to as Q9 - had seriously injured a suspect during a previous arrest.
He had also been disciplined for assaulting two people. He was cleared of 10 other separate assault allegations - and remained a firearms officer.
This was not the last serious case Q9 was involved in, we have discovered there was another incident where his conduct was called into question.
All the firearms officers in the Grainger case were granted anonymity so will not talk about this other incident in detail.
Questions over Mr Grainger's death go right to the top of Greater Manchester Police.
During the public inquiry, an assistant chief constable apologised for changing his record of the operation leading up to Anthony Grainger's death, and it was discovered the head of the firearms unit had destroyed his notes when he retired - a year after the shooting.
The police watchdog has launched a new investigation into the case.
It is the second time the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has looked into the case - which is extremely rare. It told us it is examining evidence given at the public inquiry.
In 2008, during a practice exercise at a disused factory, he volunteered to play the role of a criminal fleeing in a car.
Unusually, the decision - made just that morning - had been taken to use live rounds to make the exercise more realistic.
Mr Terry was shot by an officer using a shotgun loaded with a so-called Rip round cartridge - deadly at close range. He died within minutes.
The father-of-two was not wearing body armour.
His father, Roy Terry, said the family were told "he had been involved in an accident at work".
"We were allowed to believe it was some horrendous accident initially, which in the end it transpired it wasn't really."
Roy Terry said the exercise in which his son died had been made "too dangerous"
The IPCC was scathing, calling the case "a shocking wake-up call for Greater Manchester Police firearms unit".
An inquest jury in 2010 ruled Ian Terry had been unlawfully killed and that he "would have been saved" if the training had been properly prepared.
His father Roy Terry said the exercise had been made "too dangerous".
"We got the impression that the firearms officers were more or less allowed just to get on and do their own thing," he added.
John Foxcroft, who ran the firearms training unit at Greater Manchester Police until 2006, before retiring in 2008, told the programme he left the position believing that the force was "getting a little bit too much into the aggressive tactics".
"The more aggressive you get, the more likely you are to have people shot."
The Crown Prosecution Service said there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges against any officers but Greater Manchester Police was fined for health and safety offences.
John Foxcroft, ex-head of training at the firearms unit, claims tactics were becoming too "aggressive"
In 2014, one of the officers who organised the training was fired from the force.
The man who shot Ian Terry was disciplined but still works for the police.
Roy Terry said this was "not totally satisfactory, but all we were going to get".
The BBC has now discovered there is a new investigation by the IPCC into the case, nine years after Ian Terry was killed.
The police watchdog said it has started an investigation looking at evidence given by a number of officers to the IPCC, to the inquest into PC Terry's death, and to a subsequent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) crown court trial.
GMP's Det Ch Supt Paul Rumney said the force "will consider any recommendations made" by the the public inquiry.
Jordan Begley was 23. He worked in an ice-cream factory near his home in Gorton in Manchester.
On the night of his death, in July 2013, he had been involved in a drunken argument with his neighbours, and was threatening to attack them with a knife. His mother called the police.
"I need the police here. You need to get the police here. Jordan stay here, you're not going out," she can be heard saying in the recorded 999 call.
A patrol officer calmed him down - then other officers arrived, 11 in total, including armed police.
Mr Begley was Tasered and restrained by armed officers. He was punched while he was on the ground and died from heart failure.
"It was a shock. They didn't need that many officers for one person. He was harmless," his cousin Conor Turner explained.
At a 2015 inquest the jury found police failings played a part in his death and said he had been unlawfully killed.
It said the force "inappropriately and unreasonably" used the Taser for longer than was necessary, once he was on the floor,+ the firearms officers did not try to establish whether he was conscious, and that during restraint Mr Begley "offered minimal resistance" with "no need" to punch him twice.
The police were initially cleared of any blame but after the inquest the police watchdog quashed its first report and started a new investigation - which had never been done before.
Watch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40727842 | news_uk-40727842 |
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World leaders asked how UK would 'get round' Brexit, says Hague - BBC News | 2017-08-01 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | "Business leaders and politicians asked how we would get round the result," says former foreign secretary. | UK Politics | Business leaders and politicians asked former Foreign Secretary William Hague how the UK would "get round" the EU referendum result, he has revealed.
In the Daily Telegraph, Lord Hague said he was asked the question "for months... everywhere I went abroad" if "we would lose heart" about leaving.
He said he explained to them that "this really is a democracy".
Lord Hague also backed a "transitional" withdrawal from the EU saying it had "immense" attractions.
Lord Hague - who campaigned to remain in the EU - stood down as foreign secretary in 2014, and left the House of Commons in 2015.
He wrote in Tuesday's Telegraph: "The electorate voted to leave the EU, and therefore we leave.
"What is more, the number of people who voted to do so was higher than the number of votes cast for any government in our history.
"To me and many of my former colleagues in government who preferred to remain, the argument was over.
"In the recent general election, both main parties were clear that they were committed to the referendum outcome.
"Globally, the message has now got through."
But Lord Hague added that "just as the message was accepted, the voters pulled off another surprise and refused to give a majority to the ministers negotiating the exit" [in the general election].
He said there was the clear potential for Brexit to become the "greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK, with unknowable consequences for the country, the government and the Brexit project itself".
And he said the Chancellor Philip Hammond deserved "great credit" for putting forward a possible solution.
Lord Hague said: "He has evidently been trying to persuade his cabinet colleagues that we should be seeking to stay in the EU single market and customs union during a transition and 'implementation' phase lasting to 2022, followed by a free trade deal with our former partners after that.
"This is seen by longstanding advocates of leaving as a 'soft' position or a climbdown.
"But in reality it is a plan to rescue Brexit from an approaching disaster."
Mr Hammond has said any transitional deal in the period after Brexit must end by June 2022, the time of the next general election.
But the chancellor said there must be "business as usual, life as normal" for Britons as the UK left the EU. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40785322 | news_uk-politics-40785322 |
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'The devil's rope': How barbed wire changed America - BBC News | 2017-08-09 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | How the spread of barbed wire helped redraw the map of the USA. | Business | Late in 1876, so the story goes, a young man named John Warne Gates built a wire-fence pen in the middle of San Antonio, Texas.
He rounded up some of the toughest and wildest longhorns in all of Texas. That's how he described them.
Others say the cattle were a docile bunch. And there are those who wonder whether this particular story is true at all. But never mind.
John Warne Gates - who would become known as "Bet A Million Gates" - took bets from onlookers as to whether the powerful beasts could break through the fragile-seeming wire. They couldn't.
John Warne Gates was quick to see the potential of barbed wire in redefining the US landscape
Even when Gates's sidekick, a Mexican cowboy, charged at the cattle howling Spanish curses and waving a burning brand in each hand, the wire held.
Bet-A-Million Gates was selling a new kind of fence, and the orders soon came rolling in.
The advertisements of the time touted it as "The Greatest Discovery Of The Age", patented by Joseph Glidden, of De Kalb Illinois. Gates described it more poetically: "lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, cheaper than dust".
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world.
Calling it the greatest discovery of the age might seem hyperbolic, even allowing for the fact that the advertisers didn't know Alexander Graham Bell was about to be awarded a patent for the telephone.
But while we accept the telephone as transformative, barbed wire wrought huge changes on the American West, and much more quickly.
Joseph Glidden's design for barbed wire wasn't the first, but it was the best.
The wicked barb is twisted around a strand of smooth wire, then a second strand of smooth wire is twisted together with the first to stop the barbs from sliding around. American farmers snapped it up.
There was a reason they were so hungry for it.
A few years earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Homestead Act of 1862.
The act specified that any honest citizen - including women, and freed slaves - could lay claim to up to 160 acres (0.6 sq km) of land in America's western territories. All they had to do was build a home there and work the land for five years.
The 1862 Homestead Act set out the rules on who could own land in the western territories
But the prairie was a vast and uncharted expanse of tall, tough grasses, a land suitable for nomads, not settlers. It had long been the territory of the Native Americans.
After Europeans arrived and pushed west, the cowboys roamed free, herding cattle over the boundless plains.
But settlers needed fences, not least to keep those free-roaming cattle from trampling their crops. And there wasn't a lot of wood - certainly none to spare for fencing in mile after mile of what was often called "The American Desert".
Farmers tried growing thorn-bush hedges, but they were slow-growing and inflexible. Smooth wire fences didn't work either - the cattle simply pushed through them.
Barbed wire changed what the Homestead Act could not.
By the end of the Civil War, in 1865, 15,000 homestead claims had been established
Until it was developed, the prairie was an unbounded space, more like an ocean than a stretch of arable land.
Private ownership of land wasn't common because it wasn't feasible.
The homesteading farmers were trying to stake out their property - property that had once been the territory of various Native American tribes. No wonder those tribes called barbed wire "the devil's rope".
The old-time cowboys also lived on the principle that cattle could graze freely across the plains - this was the law of the open range. The cowboys hated the wire: cattle would get nasty wounds and infections.
When the blizzards came, the cattle would try to head south. Sometimes they got stuck against the wire and died in their thousands.
Other cowmen adopted barbed wire, using it to fence off private ranches. And while barbed wire could enforce legal boundaries, many fences were illegal - attempts to commandeer common land for private purposes.
As the wire's dominion spread, fights started to break out.
In the "fence-cutting wars", masked gangs such as the Blue Devils and the Javelinas cut the wires and left dire threats warning fence-owners not to rebuild. There were shootouts and some deaths.
Eventually, the authorities clamped down. The fence-cutting wars ended, The barbed wire remained.
"It makes me sick," said one trail driver in 1883, "when I think of onions and Irish potatoes growing where mustang ponies should be exercising and where four-year-old steers should be getting ripe for market."
And if the cowboys were outraged, the Native Americans suffered much more.
These ferocious arguments on the frontier were reflected in a philosophical debate.
The English 17th Century philosopher John Locke - a great influence on the founding fathers of the United States - puzzled over the problem of how anybody might legally come to own land. Once upon a time, nobody owned anything.
Philosopher John Locke had a great influence on the founding fathers of the United States
Locke argued that we all own our own labour. And if you mix your labour with the land that nature provides - for example, by ploughing the soil - then you've blended something you definitely own with something that nobody owns. By working the land, you've come to own it.
Nonsense, said Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th Century philosopher from Geneva who protested against the evils of enclosure.
In his Discourse on Inequality, he lamented "the first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him." This man, said Rousseau, "was the real founder of civil society".
He did not intend that as a compliment.
But it's certainly true that modern economies are built on the legal fact that most things - including land and property - have an owner, usually a person or a corporation.
The ability to own private property also gives people an incentive to invest in and improve what they own - whether that's a patch of land in the American Midwest, or an apartment in the Indian city of Kolkata (Calcutta), or even a piece of intellectual property such as the rights to Mickey Mouse.
It's a powerful argument - and it was ruthlessly and cynically deployed by those who wanted to argue that Native Americans didn't really have a right to their own territory, because they weren't actively developing it in the style that Europeans saw fit.
So the story of how barbed wire changed the West is also the story of how property rights changed the world.
And it's also the story of how, even in a sophisticated economy, what the law says sometimes matters less than matters of simple practicality.
The 1862 Homestead Act laid out the rules on who owned what in the western territories. But those rules didn't mean much before they were reinforced by barbed wire.
Meanwhile, the barbed wire barons Gates and Glidden became rich - as did many others.
The year that Glidden secured his barbed wire patent, 32 miles (51km) of wire were produced.
Six years later, in 1880, the factory in De Kalb turned out 263,000 miles (423,000km) of wire, enough to circle the world 10 times over. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40448594 | news_business-40448594 |
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Cars for cheese - why a free trade deal may not be free - BBC News | 2017-08-09 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A free trade agreement does not normally mean the removal of all taxes, quotas and barriers. | Business | The proposed free trade deal between the EU and Japan has been described as a "cars for cheese" deal
Ahead of its exit from the European Union, the UK is currently negotiating to secure free trade agreements with several countries, but what does this kind of deal actually mean?
When two countries agree to a free trade agreement, that does not normally mean the complete free movement of goods and services between their economies, with no taxes, quotas or barriers of any kind.
If you think about it that is pretty obvious, for instance in agriculture countries have subsidies for farmers, environmental rules, food standards and a dozen other policies.
To ensure free trade of agricultural products all those policies would have to be coordinated, if not exactly the same.
The issue of chlorinated chicken is currently proving a sticking point between the US and the UK
This is why the issue of chlorinated chicken is suddenly in the headlines; we don't allow it, the Americans do.
It is a barrier to free trade and if we cannot agree on a compromise then any free trade deal between the US and UK will not fully cover trade in chickens.
The same can be said about genetically-modified (GM) crops, where America thinks the EU approvals process is far too complicated.
Economic arguments over free trade date back to the 19th Century
And what about agricultural subsidies for farmers?
You can be pretty sure farmers on both sides of any free trade deal will argue about whether the other side subsidises its farmers unfairly, well, until the cows come home.
It is not just agriculture that is affected, removing tariffs on manufactured goods is normally considered the easy part of any trade deal, but what about chemical regulations, car safety and drug testing, to name just three examples?
The reason that free trade deals involve years of talks, dozens of expert negotiators, and endless meetings on technical details is because such issues are very complicated and involve a host of issues.
In the end they tend to come down to a trade off.
The proposed free trade deal between the EU and Japan has, for example, been described as a "cars for cheese" deal.
It's an over simplification, but the fact is a major part of the deal is that the EU will allow cars made in Japan to be sold in the EU more easily, and the Japanese will reduce tariffs on European cheeses (and other dairy products).
That doesn't sound like much but it is important. Many Japanese carmakers have plants in Europe precisely because it used to be difficult for them to sell Japanese built cars there, as they had to pay a 10% tariff.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government has had some of the highest agricultural subsides, tariffs and other barriers, because it has long sought to protect its inefficient farmers.
Both sides will win easier access to each others markets, but it is still not totally free trade.
For instance some cheeses will be covered by quotas (a limit on how much can be exported to Japan), and car tariffs will take years to totally come down.
Free trade has been a cornerstone of the post-war world
More from the BBC's series taking an international perspective on trade:
Also non-tariff barriers are still an important factor in limiting trade.
So Japan and the UK, for instance, have different legal systems, educational qualifications, insurance rules, banking regulation and a thousand other differences.
As you will have spotted, many of the differences are not to do with manufactured goods, which can be relatively easy to sell in other markets and changed if necessary to comply with local rules, but they do hinder free trade in services.
Financial services such as share trading often take place across borders
In the UK services make up 80% of the economy so agreeing a free trade deal on services is very important.
It is however rather difficult for it to be total.
British lawyers are just not going to be allowed to work in Brazilian courts if they haven't passed local exams and speak Portuguese, for example. Things such as insurance contracts have to abide by local laws and rules, while British plumbers may not get much work in China if their qualifications are not recognised.
But on top of that there are nearly always politically important sectors which can lobby national governments to continue to protect them.
India has protections in place to safeguard small retailers from overseas competitors
India's army of small retailers are well protected by politicians from foreign competition, or governments can demand the politically impossible.
As part of a future free trade deal, India would probably want the UK to open up immigration from India especially for students; something the government is unlikely to do as reducing immigration is one of its principle post Brexit policies.
It all means that free trade agreements do not necessarily cover everything.
Also although many economists believe such agreements encourage and increase trade between countries, improve efficiency and investment and help economies grow; others think they have serious downsides including driving out smaller local companies, reducing tax revenue and undercutting working conditions.
Whoever is right free trade agreements do not do what they say on the tin.
They do not make all trade free and frictionless; maybe they should be called "freer trade agreements"? | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40792654 | news_business-40792654 |
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Should Washington and Jefferson monuments come down? - BBC News | 2017-08-19 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Trump's argument that the removal of Confederate statues is a slippery slope to changing history has recharged the perennial debate about America's tormented racial legacy. | US & Canada | This article contains language that some readers may find offensive.
President Donald Trump's argument that the removal of Confederate statues is a slippery slope to changing history has recharged the perennial debate about America's tormented racial legacy.
"So this week it's Robert E Lee," he said on Tuesday of the rebel general's monument that was a flashpoint for last Saturday's violent rally in Virginia.
"I wonder, is it George Washington next week?" he asked journalists at Trump Tower. "And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?"
Let's put aside for a moment the irony that Lee may well have supported Charlottesville's plans to remove his bronze likeness, given that he urged the country to "obliterate the marks of civil strife" and refrain from erecting such monuments.
As President Trump pointed out, George Washington was a slaveholder.
So might the stone obelisk dedicated to the father of the nation, looming over the heart of his eponymous capital city, be the next battleground in the US culture wars?
Washington conceded the system of human bondage that underpinned the economy of 18th Century Virginia was a "wicked, cruel and unnatural trade".
He was the only founding father and commander-in-chief to liberate his slaves - he owned more than 300 - when he died.
But as Ron Chernow's magisterial biography Washington: A Life makes clear, while he lived, the nation's first president extracted his pound of flesh from those whom he preferred to call his "servants", or "family".
Washington saw himself as a benevolent master, but he did not tolerate suspected shirkers on his farm, even when they were pregnant, elderly or crippled.
He once scolded a slave who pleaded that he could not work because his arm was in a sling.
As Chernow writes, Washington picked up a rake and demonstrated how to use it with one arm.
"If you use your hand to eat," he said, "why can't you use it to work?"
He was not averse to shipping refractory slaves to the West Indies, such as one man named Waggoner Jack, where the tropical climate and relentless toil in sugarcane brakes tended to abbreviate life expectancy.
"There are few Negroes who will work unless there be a constant eye on them," Washington advised one overseer, warning of their "idleness and deceit" unless treated firmly.
Washington, Chernow notes, wholly approved in 1793 when one of his estate managers, Anthony Whitting, whipped a slave named Charlotte.
Martha, the president's wife, had deemed her to be "indolent".
"Your treatment of Charlotte was very proper," Washington wrote, "and if she or any other of the servants will not do their duty by fair means, or are impertinent, correction (as the only alternative) must be administered."
Washington badgered Whitting to keep another slave named Gunner hard at work to "continue throwing up brick earth". Gunner was 83 years old.
With his Mount Vernon plantation creaking under financial pressure owing to his long absences serving the country, Washington would fire off angry letters to his overseers insisting on greater crop productivity.
Given these reprimands it is perhaps hardly surprising that another of his estate managers, Hiland Crow, was notorious for brutally flogging slaves.
In early 1788 the Potomac river froze over for five weeks, but even with nine inches of snow on the ground, Washington did not spare them from gruelling outdoor labour.
He sent the female slaves to dig up tree stumps from a frozen swamp.
During this Arctic snap, Washington ventured to ride out and inspect his farms, but noted in his diary that, "finding the cold disagreeable I returned".
When some of his slaves absconded during the Revolutionary War to find protection - humiliatingly, for him - with the enemy, Washington did not let up in his efforts to reclaim what he saw as his property.
One internal British memo portrayed him after victory as demanding the runaways be returned "with all the grossness and ferocity of a captain of banditti". The British refused.
Whenever George and Martha's bondmen and women did flee, the first couple seemed to regard them as disloyal ingrates.
In one runaway notice Washington posted in a newspaper, he wrote that a slave named Caesar had escaped "without any cause whatever".
That these enslaved human beings might thirst for freedom, or even the opportunity to learn to read and write, did not seem to occur to him.
Professor Joseph Ellis, author of American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, says of the founding fathers: "They could imagine a nation-sized republic, which nobody else had ever done before.
"They could imagine the separation of church and state, which nobody else had ever done before.
"They could imagine a government based on checks and balances that prohibit any form of dictatorship at the presidential level. Nobody had ever done that before.
The Jefferson Memorial is one Washington DC's main landmarks
"They could imagine power flowing from the people upwards, rather than from God downward.
"All those unbelievable acts of imagination. The most creative political group in American history. We'll never replicate that.
"But they could not imagine a biracial society."
Jefferson, as every American schoolchild knows, is the nation's third president, and a genius political theoretician who penned arguably the five most important words in modern history - "all men are created equal" - in the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
He also owned up to 140 slaves.
A bon vivant who lived in luxury at a palatial Virginia estate, Jefferson knew America's original sin was a "depravity", as he described it.
But his statements about black people are rarely taught in classrooms today.
Here are some Jefferson quotes that visitors will not find on his memorial, a Roman pantheon-style temple to liberty where the Sage of Monticello's graven image keeps vigil over the Tidal Basin in Washington DC.
To his friend, French social reformer the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Jefferson confided that he envisaged eventual manumission to entail "exporting to a distance the whole black race".
The duke wrote: "He [Jefferson] bases his opinion on the certain danger… of seeing blood mixed without means of preventing it".
And yet Jefferson, historians say, fathered up to six children by one of his mixed-race slaves, Sally Hemings.
In his book Notes on the State of Virginia, he prophesied a race war in America and "convulsions which will probably never end but on the extermination of the one or the other race".
Jefferson also opined in this work that black people's "unfortunate difference of color" made them less beautiful than whites.
"They are more ardent after their female," he continued, "but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.
"Their griefs are transient… in reason much inferior."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Trump said versus what I saw - by the BBC's Joel Gunter
Professor Ellis believes a plaque should be put up at the Jefferson Memorial to correct the record and admit some of the Declaration author's less savoury statements.
"Jefferson embodies the inherent contradictions, a kind of self-deception, that co-exists in us, too," the biographer said.
"Given the relationship with Hemings, the fact that he refused to take a leadership position on ending slavery because of his fear of miscegenation, it makes his hypocrisy even more dramatic.
"He's got slaves who are his children serving him at dinner. But he doesn't seem to find that troubling. It's mind-boggling."
"Racism is a chromosome in the DNA of the United States," Professor Ellis added. "It's like cancer. It ain't never gonna be cured."
Should Americans therefore disavow these founding fathers as scoundrels and national embarrassments, or accept them as men of their time, demigods with feet of clay, who bore their imperfections even as they sought to steer their country beyond them?
What actually is the difference between monuments to the founding fathers and Confederate leaders?
Dr Clarence Jones - the African-American speechwriter who helped civil rights legend Dr Martin Luther King Jr craft his 1963 "I Have a Dream" address, four words that shaped modern America - explains.
He says: "Sure, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.
"There was no question they were morally compromised in their effort to fashion together this new country, a republic, based on the principles and precepts enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
"But neither of those two persons led the nation in treasonous insurrection to overthrow the government they had formed in order to preserve the institution of slavery. Period.
"On the contrary, they devoted their life to saving and founding this country."
He says that commemorating the valour of the Confederacy is just as wrong as celebrating the soldiers of the Third Reich.
"What Charlottesville tells us is, it's no longer possible for the United States to ignore this unresolved issue of reconciliation over slavery," said Dr Jones.
"Trump missed an extraordinary opportunity - and he still has it - of exercising the leadership of reconciler and healer-in-chief for the nation today."
Washington and Jefferson are not the only American historical titans who can seem diminished when viewed through the lens of present-day values.
Take Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator and Civil War leader who destroyed the South's slavocracy.
He is immortalised in another neo-classical shrine on the National Mall.
But as Hofstra University history professor Alan Singer points out, the nation's 16th president espoused racist opinions as his political persona evolved.
He is quoted as saying to applause at a debate at Charleston, Illinois, during an 1858 Senate election campaign: "There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
Donald Trump and wife Melania at the Lincoln Memorial in January
The Republican leader is also recorded as having tried to persuade a black delegation in 1862 that African-Americans should self-deport and colonise somewhere like Central America, arguing that it would be "extremely selfish" if they refused.
"The United States needs to have a general evaluation of who we are as a nation, so we can come to terms with our present by understanding our past," says Professor Singer.
"Nations need heroes to define who we are, to help us see ourselves in a better light.
"And the United States has heroes. But we tend not to see the warts.
"We tend to try to erase the parts we don't want to see. And this is a time when we have to look."
Sometimes, though, it can be hard to look.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson is lionised as the signer of the 1964 Civil Rights Act - one of the greatest legislative accomplishments of any US administration - which outlawed discrimination.
However, LBJ is also known to have frequently tossed racial slurs around the cloakrooms of the US Senate, according to his biographer Robert Caro.
Johnson nicknamed an earlier iteration of the landmark act for which he is known as "the n***** bill".
In his memoir, Capitol Hill in Black and White, African-American chauffeur Robert Parker relates a disturbing interaction while he was driving for the Texan.
Johnson, he recalls, asked him whether he objected to being called "n*****".
When Parker replied that he would rather be addressed by his own name, Johnson allegedly retorted: "As long as you are black, and you're gonna be black till the day you die, no one's gonna call you by your goddamn name.
"So no matter what you are called, n*****, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you'll make it. Just pretend you're a goddamn piece of furniture."
But Dr Jones believes that LBJ, for all his flaws, understood that his duty as chief magistrate of the United States was to lead his country towards sunlit uplands of a more perfect union, to achieve the unfulfilled promise of its founding.
The University of San Francisco professor is in little doubt what his old friend, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, would say to the current White House incumbent.
"I have no question," says Dr Jones, "that the pre-eminent apostle of love and non-violence in the 20th Century would remind President Trump he has a responsibility to indicate to the nation what is right and what is wrong.
"This is not a time to engage in moral relativity.
"I really believe that President Trump is not beyond redemption, that he still has an opportunity to rise to the majesty of the office." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40978515 | news_world-us-canada-40978515 |
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How can GCSEs get harder and results stay the same? - BBC News | 2017-08-24 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | This year's GCSEs are made more difficult, so why are there not more people getting lower results? | Education & Family | The more things change... the more things stay the same.
A revolution has been announced for GCSEs in England, with tougher exams, a more stretching syllabus, no hiding behind coursework and standards that are higher than anything since the demise of the O-levels in the 1980s.
But the results - give or take a fraction of a percentage point - are uncannily similar to last year.
Of course, the most important thing about GCSE results is the individual pupils, their families and teachers.
It's about hard work, long nights of revision and youngsters making the most of their opportunities, sometimes in tough circumstances.
It's not about the statistical snowstorm that GCSE results coverage can too easily become.
But how does the exam system deliver greater rigour and more difficult exams - and at the same time not see any significant change in grades?
Pupils found out their GCSE results after the long wait
The balancing act, if not a conjuring trick, is pulled off by changing the grade boundaries.
The upper-tier maths paper might be pencil-chewingly difficult, but a grade-4 pass required a mark of only 18%.
To get a grade 7, equivalent to an A grade, required a mark of 52%.
The new ultra-high grade 9, for the very brightest students and meant to be much tougher than the old A*, required 79%.
So, by adjusting the grade boundaries, the proportions getting the different grades can be kept constant with previous years.
It's a bit like intellectual limbo, changing the height of the stick to decide how many get through.
Professor Alan Smithers, from the University of Buckingham's Centre for Education and Employment Research, said this meant "more or less giving away the grade".
Head teachers' leader Geoff Barton says there is something "Alice in Wonderland" about this pursuit of exams being much harder, but results being pegged as more or less the same.
Mr Barton, head of the ASCL head teachers' union, questions whether this will remain sustainable - and asks how schools are able to show authentic progress, if year after year the grading system keeps holding everyone to the same level.
He says he is no "apologist" for some of the weaknesses in the former content of GCSEs.
But he says there needs to be a change in the "mindset" of what is expected from the exam system - and more transparency about how the final outcomes are constructed.
"We need to open up the rather surreal nature of what we're doing to make sure that results are consistent."
Lawrence Schofield got a top grade 9 in three subjects
But in defence of the exam boards, the other side of the argument is that in a qualifications system that seems to face constant change, it would be very unfair if individual year groups suddenly faced a cliff-edge collapse in results.
They need to be protected from the sudden changes in direction and shifting expectations.
The exam regulator Ofqual says the "boundaries were set using a combination of statistics and examiner judgment. We are confident that they reflect an appropriate standard of performance".
Exam boards and schools are also caught between a rock and a hard place with results.
If results were to suddenly improve, there would be accusations of grade inflation and dumbing down.
If results went sharply down, there would be claims of a collapse in standards and that schools were letting down their pupils.
So, instead, the "comparable outcome" system keeps things in more or less the same place - constructing the results accordingly, so that they bob up each year in the same place, like a self-righting mechanism on a lifeboat.
What does this mean for overall objective standards? What does it mean for international competition? How much is the exam system bent out of shape by political pressure?
Even when it's about a maths exam, this is a day that's about more than such calculations. Families will have been sharing their own news headlines. There are congratulations and commiserations.
And next year, it will start all over again, and we'll watch exam results nudge slightly upwards or downwards, as if of their own accord. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41041595 | news_education-41041595 |
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Brexit: What is the government's customs union plan? - BBC News | 2017-08-16 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Reality Check examines the key parts of the government's paper on its future relationship with the customs union. | UK Politics | The Department for Exiting the European Union has released what it calls a future partnership paper, laying out the government's plans for the UK's relationship with the EU after it leaves.
The Reality Check team looks at some of the key parts of the document.
"The government believes that there are two broad approaches the UK could adopt."
The key part of the government's paper is the choice of two different destinations as it tries to negotiate a long-term solution.
The first is "a highly streamlined customs arrangement", in which the UK leaves the customs union, but comes up with ways of simplifying the future customs regime between the UK and EU countries.
That could include developing technology and negotiating other systems to speed things up at ports. But implementing such a complex scheme would take years of preparation.
The other option proposed is a new customs partnership with the EU, which would do away with a customs border altogether.
Agreeing to such a partnership, which doesn't really exist anywhere in the world, would be quite a concession for the EU as it would give the UK the benefits of being in the customs union while still allowing it to forge trade agreements with non-EU countries, which EU members are not allowed to do.
"People and businesses in both the UK and the EU would benefit from an interim period."
The government wants an interim or transition period between the UK leaving the EU and the new permanent customs regime coming into effect.
The paper suggests a time-limited period during which the UK leaves the customs union only to move straight into another temporary customs union with the EU that would operate in pretty much the same way - except, the UK wants to be able to negotiate and sign (but not implement) free trade deals with other countries outside the EU at the same time.
"The UK would aim to negotiate trade facilitations with the EU and implement unilateral improvements to our domestic regime."
"The promotion of the free flow of trade in both directions between the UK and the EU would also require the EU to implement equivalent arrangements at its borders with the UK."
It is not clear which aspects of the streamlined arrangement would be unilateral and which would need agreement.
The paper says, in paragraph 29, that the government would make unilateral improvements to its systems, to speed things up at ports.
But then, in paragraph 30, it says that the EU would have to implement equivalent arrangements.
"Through membership of the Common Transit Convention (CTC), which simplifies border crossing for goods in transit."
The CTC is the set of rules for moving goods between EU member states and other countries, including Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Macedonia and Serbia.
It is supposed to make it easier to move products from one country to another via a third country that is not necessarily an EU member.
For the UK, the benefit would be that goods could be imported from Asia via the port of Rotterdam, for example, without having to pay EU duties.
"Negotiating mutual recognition of Authorised Economic Operators (AEOs), enabling faster clearance of AEOs' goods at the border."
AEOs are an international kitemark that recognises businesses as regular international traders that are solvent and have a good record of paying customs fees and taxes and keeping proper records.
Companies holding the designation are allowed to use certain fast-track systems when going through customs.
The government estimates that 60% of UK imports and 74% of UK exports involve companies with AEO status.
"Ensure that individuals travelling to the UK from the EU and vice versa can continue to travel with goods for personal use as freely and as smoothly as they do now."
The amount of alcohol and cigarettes that can be brought into the UK from non-EU countries without paying duty is limited - up to four litres of wine and 200 cigarettes.
After Brexit, such limits could return for trips to and from the EU.
But the government is keen to strike an agreement that ensures that does not happen.
"We acknowledge this is an innovative and untested approach that would take time to develop and implement."
The government says it wants to look into the "practical complexities" involved in a customs partnership, but the EU has already repeated its argument that frictionless trade outside the Customs Union and the Single Market is impossible.
Would ministers be happier being "innovative and untested" than being courageous?
"We will continue to discuss these proposals with stakeholders over the summer and will publish a Customs White Paper in advance of the Customs Bill in the autumn."
If negotiations on the future partnership with the EU have not yet begun by the autumn, there may be a few blank spaces in the Customs White Paper that will have to be filled in later.
And this week's paper also emphasises that the government will be ready for a "no deal" scenario that would necessitate "standalone customs and excise systems".
"This is not the government's preferred outcome," the paper says, "but it is essential that the UK is prepared for all possible outcomes."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40938826 | news_uk-politics-40938826 |
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'Frankenstein dinosaur' mystery solved - BBC News | 2017-08-16 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A dinosaur that seemed to be an evolutionary mishmash turns out to have a key place in history. | Science & Environment | About the size of a large dog: Chilesaurus was unearthed in South America
Scientists have solved the puzzle of the so-called "Frankenstein dinosaur", which seems to consist of body parts from unrelated species.
A new study suggests that it is in fact the missing link between plant-eating dinosaurs, such as Stegosaurus, and carnivorous dinosaurs, like T. rex.
The finding provides fresh insight on the evolution of the group of dinos known as the ornithischians.
The study is published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Cambridge University's Matt Baron tells Today that the new dinosaur fills a family tree gap
Matthew Baron, a PhD student at Cambridge University, told BBC News that his assessment indicated that the Frankenstein dinosaur was one of the very first ornithischians, a group that included familiar beasts such as the horned Triceratops, and Stegosaurus which sported an array of bony plates along its back.
"We had absolutely no idea how the ornithischian body plan started to develop because they look so different to all the other dinosaurs. They have so many unusual features," the Cambridge scientist said.
"In the 130 years since the ornithischian group was first recognised, we have never had any concept of how the first ones could have looked until now."
Chilesaurus lived at the end of the Jurassic Period, approximately 145 million years ago
The Frankenstein dinosaur, more properly called Chilesaurus, puzzled experts when it was first discovered two years ago.
It had the legs of an animal like a Brontosaurus, the hips of a Stegosaurus, and the arms and body of an animal like Tyrannosaurus rex. Scientists simply did not know where it fitted in the dino family tree.
In the currently accepted family tree, the ornithischian group was always thought to be completely unrelated to all of the other dinosaurs.
Palaeontologists regarded these creatures as an odd-ball group. But a reassessment by Mr Baron published in March in the journal Nature indicated that ornithischians were more closely related to the meat-eaters, such as T.rex, than previously thought.
And it is in re-configuring the dinosaur family tree that Mr Baron transforms the Frankenstein dinosaur from an enigma into a missing link.
"Now that we think ornithischians and meat-eating dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus are related, Chilesaurus slots exactly in between the two groups. It is a perfect half-and-half mix. So, suddenly in the new tree it makes a whole lot of sense."
The alternative version of the dinosaur family tree, now called the "Baron tree", is more than just a rearrangement, however.
It sheds new light on how different groups of dinosaurs split from one another and evolved along different paths, adds co-author Prof Paul Barrett from London's Natural History Museum.
"Chilesaurus is there at the beginning of one of these big splits and hopefully by understanding more about its biology it will tell us what the driving factors might have been."
The horned Triceratops is a classic example of an ornithischian
Prof Barrett and Mr Baron both believe that their re-configured tree could well replace the current dinosaur family tree which has stood the test of time for more than 130 years.
The Baron tree is controversial and has its critics. But if it provides further instances where it can smooth the relationships between different dinosaur groups then its supporters will grow. Mr Baron thinks the rescuing of Chilesaurus from its Frankenstein status could be just the first of a series reappraisals.
"We've landed a good punch against the counter argument here. This is a very good step towards my main objective which is to try to really nail down the ornithischian lineage because I think we've been completely misunderstanding and ignoring this very important group for far too long.
"Eventually, we'll arrive at a consensus. I think this is a step toward the right model."
Prof Sarah Gabbott, from Leicester University, was not involved in the study. She described the new analysis as "incredibly important"
"This is one of those rare fossil discoveries that provides much more evidence to unravel dinosaur relationships than your average skeleton," she said.
"This is because Chilesaurus preserves an unusual suite of characteristics that are a mix between between the ornithischians and theropods. In particular, its melange of features helps to reveal the sequence of events during the critical early stages of ornithischian evolution."
• None Dinosaurs may have 'originated in UK' | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40890714 | news_science-environment-40890714 |
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Sky Sports football pundit Peter Beagrie sacked over assault conviction - BBC News | 2017-08-16 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Peter Beagrie says he is innocent and will appeal against his conviction for attacking Zarah Blake. | York & North Yorkshire | Peter Beagrie was said to be angry and drunk when he attacked his partner
Ex-Premier League footballer Peter Beagrie has been sacked as a Sky Sports pundit after being convicted of an assault on his partner.
The 51-year-old ex-Everton, Manchester City and Bradford City winger punched Zarah Blake while angry and drunk, his trial heard.
Beagrie, of Killinghall, North Yorkshire, was sentenced to a 12-month community order on Tuesday.
He said he intended to appeal against his conviction.
In a statement following the hearing at Skipton Magistrates Court, Beagrie said: "I am innocent, something I have maintained from the outset; that is why the verdict was so devastating.
Beagrie (right) played for several clubs including Bradford City, Everton, Manchester City and Scunthorpe United
He said he was still with Ms Blake, adding: "This has been an upsetting and traumatic time for us and we both feel there is no other alternative but to appeal."
The court heard he punched his partner during an argument in Harrogate in April.
A Sky Sports spokesman said: "When we first became aware of the charge, we removed Peter from our coverage pending his case.
"Following the outcome we have terminated his contract with immediate effect."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-40953098 | news_uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-40953098 |
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Should Washington and Jefferson monuments come down? - BBC News | 2017-08-20 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Trump's argument that the removal of Confederate statues is a slippery slope to changing history has recharged the perennial debate about America's tormented racial legacy. | US & Canada | This article contains language that some readers may find offensive.
President Donald Trump's argument that the removal of Confederate statues is a slippery slope to changing history has recharged the perennial debate about America's tormented racial legacy.
"So this week it's Robert E Lee," he said on Tuesday of the rebel general's monument that was a flashpoint for last Saturday's violent rally in Virginia.
"I wonder, is it George Washington next week?" he asked journalists at Trump Tower. "And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?"
Let's put aside for a moment the irony that Lee may well have supported Charlottesville's plans to remove his bronze likeness, given that he urged the country to "obliterate the marks of civil strife" and refrain from erecting such monuments.
As President Trump pointed out, George Washington was a slaveholder.
So might the stone obelisk dedicated to the father of the nation, looming over the heart of his eponymous capital city, be the next battleground in the US culture wars?
Washington conceded the system of human bondage that underpinned the economy of 18th Century Virginia was a "wicked, cruel and unnatural trade".
He was the only founding father and commander-in-chief to liberate his slaves - he owned more than 300 - when he died.
But as Ron Chernow's magisterial biography Washington: A Life makes clear, while he lived, the nation's first president extracted his pound of flesh from those whom he preferred to call his "servants", or "family".
Washington saw himself as a benevolent master, but he did not tolerate suspected shirkers on his farm, even when they were pregnant, elderly or crippled.
He once scolded a slave who pleaded that he could not work because his arm was in a sling.
As Chernow writes, Washington picked up a rake and demonstrated how to use it with one arm.
"If you use your hand to eat," he said, "why can't you use it to work?"
He was not averse to shipping refractory slaves to the West Indies, such as one man named Waggoner Jack, where the tropical climate and relentless toil in sugarcane brakes tended to abbreviate life expectancy.
"There are few Negroes who will work unless there be a constant eye on them," Washington advised one overseer, warning of their "idleness and deceit" unless treated firmly.
Washington, Chernow notes, wholly approved in 1793 when one of his estate managers, Anthony Whitting, whipped a slave named Charlotte.
Martha, the president's wife, had deemed her to be "indolent".
"Your treatment of Charlotte was very proper," Washington wrote, "and if she or any other of the servants will not do their duty by fair means, or are impertinent, correction (as the only alternative) must be administered."
Washington badgered Whitting to keep another slave named Gunner hard at work to "continue throwing up brick earth". Gunner was 83 years old.
With his Mount Vernon plantation creaking under financial pressure owing to his long absences serving the country, Washington would fire off angry letters to his overseers insisting on greater crop productivity.
Given these reprimands it is perhaps hardly surprising that another of his estate managers, Hiland Crow, was notorious for brutally flogging slaves.
In early 1788 the Potomac river froze over for five weeks, but even with nine inches of snow on the ground, Washington did not spare them from gruelling outdoor labour.
He sent the female slaves to dig up tree stumps from a frozen swamp.
During this Arctic snap, Washington ventured to ride out and inspect his farms, but noted in his diary that, "finding the cold disagreeable I returned".
When some of his slaves absconded during the Revolutionary War to find protection - humiliatingly, for him - with the enemy, Washington did not let up in his efforts to reclaim what he saw as his property.
One internal British memo portrayed him after victory as demanding the runaways be returned "with all the grossness and ferocity of a captain of banditti". The British refused.
Whenever George and Martha's bondmen and women did flee, the first couple seemed to regard them as disloyal ingrates.
In one runaway notice Washington posted in a newspaper, he wrote that a slave named Caesar had escaped "without any cause whatever".
That these enslaved human beings might thirst for freedom, or even the opportunity to learn to read and write, did not seem to occur to him.
Professor Joseph Ellis, author of American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, says of the founding fathers: "They could imagine a nation-sized republic, which nobody else had ever done before.
"They could imagine the separation of church and state, which nobody else had ever done before.
"They could imagine a government based on checks and balances that prohibit any form of dictatorship at the presidential level. Nobody had ever done that before.
The Jefferson Memorial is one Washington DC's main landmarks
"They could imagine power flowing from the people upwards, rather than from God downward.
"All those unbelievable acts of imagination. The most creative political group in American history. We'll never replicate that.
"But they could not imagine a biracial society."
Jefferson, as every American schoolchild knows, is the nation's third president, and a genius political theoretician who penned arguably the five most important words in modern history - "all men are created equal" - in the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
He also owned up to 140 slaves.
A bon vivant who lived in luxury at a palatial Virginia estate, Jefferson knew America's original sin was a "depravity", as he described it.
But his statements about black people are rarely taught in classrooms today.
Here are some Jefferson quotes that visitors will not find on his memorial, a Roman pantheon-style temple to liberty where the Sage of Monticello's graven image keeps vigil over the Tidal Basin in Washington DC.
To his friend, French social reformer the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Jefferson confided that he envisaged eventual manumission to entail "exporting to a distance the whole black race".
The duke wrote: "He [Jefferson] bases his opinion on the certain danger… of seeing blood mixed without means of preventing it".
And yet Jefferson, historians say, fathered up to six children by one of his mixed-race slaves, Sally Hemings.
In his book Notes on the State of Virginia, he prophesied a race war in America and "convulsions which will probably never end but on the extermination of the one or the other race".
Jefferson also opined in this work that black people's "unfortunate difference of color" made them less beautiful than whites.
"They are more ardent after their female," he continued, "but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.
"Their griefs are transient… in reason much inferior."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Trump said versus what I saw - by the BBC's Joel Gunter
Professor Ellis believes a plaque should be put up at the Jefferson Memorial to correct the record and admit some of the Declaration author's less savoury statements.
"Jefferson embodies the inherent contradictions, a kind of self-deception, that co-exists in us, too," the biographer said.
"Given the relationship with Hemings, the fact that he refused to take a leadership position on ending slavery because of his fear of miscegenation, it makes his hypocrisy even more dramatic.
"He's got slaves who are his children serving him at dinner. But he doesn't seem to find that troubling. It's mind-boggling."
"Racism is a chromosome in the DNA of the United States," Professor Ellis added. "It's like cancer. It ain't never gonna be cured."
Should Americans therefore disavow these founding fathers as scoundrels and national embarrassments, or accept them as men of their time, demigods with feet of clay, who bore their imperfections even as they sought to steer their country beyond them?
What actually is the difference between monuments to the founding fathers and Confederate leaders?
Dr Clarence Jones - the African-American speechwriter who helped civil rights legend Dr Martin Luther King Jr craft his 1963 "I Have a Dream" address, four words that shaped modern America - explains.
He says: "Sure, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.
"There was no question they were morally compromised in their effort to fashion together this new country, a republic, based on the principles and precepts enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
"But neither of those two persons led the nation in treasonous insurrection to overthrow the government they had formed in order to preserve the institution of slavery. Period.
"On the contrary, they devoted their life to saving and founding this country."
He says that commemorating the valour of the Confederacy is just as wrong as celebrating the soldiers of the Third Reich.
"What Charlottesville tells us is, it's no longer possible for the United States to ignore this unresolved issue of reconciliation over slavery," said Dr Jones.
"Trump missed an extraordinary opportunity - and he still has it - of exercising the leadership of reconciler and healer-in-chief for the nation today."
Washington and Jefferson are not the only American historical titans who can seem diminished when viewed through the lens of present-day values.
Take Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator and Civil War leader who destroyed the South's slavocracy.
He is immortalised in another neo-classical shrine on the National Mall.
But as Hofstra University history professor Alan Singer points out, the nation's 16th president espoused racist opinions as his political persona evolved.
He is quoted as saying to applause at a debate at Charleston, Illinois, during an 1858 Senate election campaign: "There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
Donald Trump and wife Melania at the Lincoln Memorial in January
The Republican leader is also recorded as having tried to persuade a black delegation in 1862 that African-Americans should self-deport and colonise somewhere like Central America, arguing that it would be "extremely selfish" if they refused.
"The United States needs to have a general evaluation of who we are as a nation, so we can come to terms with our present by understanding our past," says Professor Singer.
"Nations need heroes to define who we are, to help us see ourselves in a better light.
"And the United States has heroes. But we tend not to see the warts.
"We tend to try to erase the parts we don't want to see. And this is a time when we have to look."
Sometimes, though, it can be hard to look.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson is lionised as the signer of the 1964 Civil Rights Act - one of the greatest legislative accomplishments of any US administration - which outlawed discrimination.
However, LBJ is also known to have frequently tossed racial slurs around the cloakrooms of the US Senate, according to his biographer Robert Caro.
Johnson nicknamed an earlier iteration of the landmark act for which he is known as "the n***** bill".
In his memoir, Capitol Hill in Black and White, African-American chauffeur Robert Parker relates a disturbing interaction while he was driving for the Texan.
Johnson, he recalls, asked him whether he objected to being called "n*****".
When Parker replied that he would rather be addressed by his own name, Johnson allegedly retorted: "As long as you are black, and you're gonna be black till the day you die, no one's gonna call you by your goddamn name.
"So no matter what you are called, n*****, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you'll make it. Just pretend you're a goddamn piece of furniture."
But Dr Jones believes that LBJ, for all his flaws, understood that his duty as chief magistrate of the United States was to lead his country towards sunlit uplands of a more perfect union, to achieve the unfulfilled promise of its founding.
The University of San Francisco professor is in little doubt what his old friend, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, would say to the current White House incumbent.
"I have no question," says Dr Jones, "that the pre-eminent apostle of love and non-violence in the 20th Century would remind President Trump he has a responsibility to indicate to the nation what is right and what is wrong.
"This is not a time to engage in moral relativity.
"I really believe that President Trump is not beyond redemption, that he still has an opportunity to rise to the majesty of the office." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40978515 | news_world-us-canada-40978515 |
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Neymar: Was this the moment PSG target decided to leave Barcelona? - BBC Sport | 2017-08-02 | [] | With Barcelona on the brink of crisis, why did Neymar decide to leave for PSG, who could replace him and what are the ramifications? | null | In March, Barcelona achieved one of the most remarkable comebacks in Champions League history as three goals in the final seven minutes secured a sensational 6-5 aggregate victory over Paris St-Germain.
The chief inspiration on that historic night, without any doubt, was Neymar, who capped a brilliant performance by scoring the first two of those late goals before assisting Sergi Roberto's winner with a perfectly placed chipped cross.
The following day, the high emotions of the unforgettable occasion were encapsulated by the publication of a dramatic image which quickly went viral: Lionel Messi in a Messiah-like pose, standing on the advertising boards to celebrate the victory as awestruck fans hailed his glory.
• None How do you feel about a 222m euros footballer? Vote & reaction
• None How can PSG afford to pay so much for Neymar?
At that precise moment, Neymar decided enough was enough: he had just delivered the best performance of his career to inspire an amazing victory, and still everyone was talking about Messi.
That, at least, is an intriguing theory proposed by journalist Ramon Besa in Spanish newspaper El Pais, attempting to understand why Neymar is packing his bags from Barcelona for Paris.
Although Neymar and his entourage have not yet revealed their precise motives, the general belief is that he is no longer content to play second fiddle to Messi.
At the prime age of 25, with a potentially career-defining World Cup on the horizon, he has opted to join a club who will make him the centre of attention, both on and off the pitch.
And in doing so, he has left Barca on the brink of a full-blown crisis.
Whatever the reasons for Neymar's departure, it is merely the latest in a long line of serious setbacks to have hit the Catalan club in recent years.
Neymar was also at the centre of the biggest, with allegations of tax evasion during the Brazilian's transfer from Santos eventually forcing the resignation of then president Sandro Rosell, who is now facing a long prison sentence in a separate money-laundering case.
After assuming office in 2014, Rosell's long-time associate and successor Josep Maria Bartomeu soon saw the club handed a transfer ban from Fifa after breaking regulations on the signing of youth players from overseas.
That's not all. Many fans believed that Barca's 'More Than A Club' motto was sacrificed for commercial reasons in a recently expired shirt sponsorship with Qatar Airways, and there is ongoing concern that the supply of youth talent from the famed 'La Masia' academy system has dried up.
Another cause for complaint has been a loss of the club's playing identity, with the departure of Xavi leading to the emphasis on midfield dominance being jettisoned for a more direct approach by manager Luis Enrique, who was consequently unpopular with many fans before his departure at the end of last season.
There has also been great sadness at the death of the club's most influential figure, Johan Cruyff, who fell victim to cancer last year - as did ex-manager Tito Vilanova, Pep Guardiola's former assistant, two years previously.
So it has been a rough ride for Barca fans, but throughout those travails they could always console themselves that their club remained untouchable in their position at the pinnacle of world football: scandals came and went, but Barca's power and influence remained undimmed and unmatched.
Now, though, they have suffered the rare shock of losing their second most important player entirely against their will, and the club's previously impregnable confidence has been shaken to the core.
Neymar's departure: nobody saw it coming
From Barcelona's point of view, this summer was supposed to be about three things: extending Messi's contract (finally achieved last month), strengthening the midfield (ironically, PSG's Marco Verratti was the chief target), and easing in new manager Ernesto Valverde.
The prospect of Neymar leaving was never considered as a real possibility, and even when the initial reports of PSG's interest first surfaced they were dismissed as the usual silly season inconsequential rumours.
With the player himself remaining silent, it took a long time for anyone in Barcelona to actually believe that Neymar might go.
The uncertainty and confusion around his future was perhaps best illustrated by Gerard Pique's infamous "he stays" tweet - if even one of Neymar's most senior and influential team-mates didn't know what was going on, how on earth could anyone else?
Since it became clear that the Brazilian really does intend to leave, he has predictably become the target of much bitterness - on Monday, homemade signs denouncing him as a 'traitor' and 'mercenary' appeared on lampposts around the Nou Camp, and social media is full of similar smears from furious Barca fans.
Interestingly, the dressing room appears to have moved in a similar direction. A couple of weeks ago, Barca's players were reported to be pleading with him to stay and expressing those sentiments in news conferences.
But the last few days, perhaps accepting the inevitable, have been met with a deafening silence amid widespread reports in the Spanish media that senior players, including Messi, have been angry with the way Neymar has treated them and the club.
Considering Neymar's ability to influence a game and the on-pitch chemistry he enjoyed with Messi and Luis Suarez, replacing him will be a major task.
For the past three seasons Barca's 'MSN' forward line have enjoyed unprecedented success, scoring an outrageous combined total of 364 goals - enough to overcome the team's structural weaknesses and claim eight trophies, including a La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League treble in 2015.
On the plus side, Neymar's departure does open up the possibility for new boss Valverde to move away from the overwhelming reliance on just three players and instil a more team-focused approach.
But Neymar's contribution has been pivotal, scoring 105 goals and providing 59 assists during his time with the club, and the idea that somebody else - whoever it is - will be able to step into his shoes is unrealistic.
The most heavily touted potential signing is Liverpool star Philippe Coutinho, who continues to be linked with Barca despite Jurgen Klopp's repeated insistence that his star player is not for sale.
But in tactical terms Coutinho would not be the most obvious recruitment, because Neymar's departure leaves Barca in need of a player who can provide pace and penetration from the left wing - and the same argument counts against highly rated Juventus star Paulo Dybala.
In that context, Kylian Mbappe of Monaco, Chelsea ace Eden Hazard and Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezmann would be better options, but they will all be very difficult to obtain with Mbappe likely to join Real Madrid while Hazard and Griezmann will be tough to prise away from their current clubs.
So perhaps Barca's best bet would be Borussia Dortmund's 20-year-old France international Ousmane Dembele, while a partial swap deal with PSG for Angel di Maria would also be intriguing.
One thing is for sure: after selling Neymar for 222m euros, Barca will not be short of funds.
The loss of Neymar could prove to be highly significant off the pitch, with the controversial transfer set to contribute heavily to an ongoing battle in the Nou Camp's corridors of power which could well see Bartomeu voted out of office.
The current president's biggest critic is Agusti Benedito, who was among the losing candidates at the last elections in 2015 but has since continued his quest to unseat Bartomeu.
Speaking to BBC Sport, Benedito believes the current board bears a "very evident responsibility" for the loss of Neymar, explaining: "The player has the final word, but the board is responsible for creating the circumstances in which that decision is taken.
"Ultimately, what Bartomeu has achieved is earning 220 million euros. And if you look at it economically, we have made an extraordinary sale - nobody has ever sold a player for that much money.
"But I'm with [Barca captain] Andres Iniesta, who said last week that he'd prefer to have Neymar than the money."
Like many fans, Benedito is downcast at the prospect of losing Neymar, believing it will be impossible to replace him with a player of equal standing.
"I use the analogy of chess," he said. "At Barca, Messi is the king but Neymar was the queen, and in chess you are never interested in sacrificing your queen.
"If you sacrifice your queen for a knight or a bishop, it's always a bad deal. And that's what we're talking about here. We have sold our second most important piece and it is disastrous for the team."
Even before Neymar's departure, Benedito had already announced a motion of censure against Bartomeu in an ongoing bid to force early presidential elections.
With ex-president Rosell facing a long jail sentence and the club still haunted by all the controversies of recent years, Benedito was eager to emphasise that his unhappiness with the running of the club stems from much more than just football.
"Rosell and Bartomeu are two sides of the same coin," he claimed. "And we are in an extremely grave situation institutionally - I repeat, institutionally. Not only in sporting terms.
"There have never been so many reasons to introduce a motion of censure, and I think it's completely fair that the club's members should decide whether the board continues or not. It's a matter of democracy."
Neymar might finally be going, but the aftermath is only just beginning to unravel. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40804584 | rt_football_40804584 |
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Theresa May to make 'open and generous' offer to EU - BBC News | 2017-09-21 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Some expect Theresa May to attempt to break the Brexit talks log jam on Friday with a cash offer. | UK Politics | Number 10 has been as tight-lipped as ever as the days tick down to the PM's Italian adventure.
The whole Cabinet is yet to see her entire Florence speech, there may well be a few edges that get smoothed off this morning. Political speeches do tend to be drafted, drafted, redrafted, and then redrafted again, often right up until the genuinely last minute.
But one Cabinet minister who is familiar with its contents told me it will certainly "not be an empty speech", it won't be flavourless fudge.
It will represent instead an "open and generous offer" to the EU that the government hopes can unlock the Brussels talks.
That seems to be code for a promise that no other country will lose out before we leave - in other words Britain will fill the cash black hole in the current EU budget that our departure will create.
We are one of the biggest contributors to the EU pot, so leaving dents the planned financial arrangements if we just go and take our cheque book with us.
If that is the promise that is roughly to the tune of £20bn, although it would be surprising if Theresa May named a figure herself - it's not her style and any actual numbers will be subject to far-off negotiations.
But in terms of the bill, that could just be the start of it. Plugging the hole in the current budget doesn't deal with what the EU sees as our long-term obligations - whether that's diplomats' pensions or our share of money that's been loaned to other countries.
It might, however, be the beginning of something - it would assure other EU leaders their voters won't have to pay more or lose out in the short-term.
But some ministers are still nervous and believe the UK has to be cautious about giving up any cash without strict guarantees of what we get in return.
One told me we can't give it up easily because, in reality, "it's our only leverage".
That's why in the beginning, the UK had hoped for parallel talks about the financial arrangements and how we work together in the future.
Proper nerds may remember the thrilling title of that argument - "parallelism versus sequentialism" - which David Davis promised would be the argument of the summer.
But the talks didn't go that way and are stuck with a political problem - as one official said "we won't pay up until they talk the future and they won't talk the future until we pay up".
Theresa May hopes to poke a crack in that brick wall tomorrow.
But despite all the furore around this speech, it is the EU side which will decide if it is enough. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41346057 | news_uk-politics-41346057 |
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Court ruling not needed to withdraw care, judge says - BBC News | 2017-09-21 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Court consent will not be needed to remove nutrition from patients in a permanent vegetative state. | UK | Legal permission will no longer be required to end care for patients in a permanent vegetative state, a judge has ruled.
Until now a judge must also consent, even if medics and relatives agree to withdraw nutrition from a patient.
But in what been described as a landmark decision, those cases will no longer have to come to court.
The Official Solicitor, appointed by the state to act for such patients, is likely to appeal against the ruling.
Doctors are able to withdraw treatment from a patient - if relatives consent - under various circumstances without needing court approval.
Mr Justice Jackson, who sits in the Court of Protection, made his ruling in a case concerning a 50-year-old woman who suffered from a degenerative illness for 14 years.
The patient, known in court as M, had Huntington's disease and was bed-ridden in hospital and fed by a tube.
She had shown no sign of awareness for 18 months, the court heard, and Mr Justice Jackson agreed with her family and doctors that withdrawing nutrition from her would be in her best interests.
The tube was removed and she died in August.
Mr Justice Jackson said in his view the case should not have come to court.
"The decision about what was in M's best interests is one that could lawfully have been taken by her treating doctors, having fully consulted her family and having acted in accordance with the MCA (Mental Capacity Act) and with recognised medical standards," the judgement said.
So long as relatives agree, and it's in the best interests of a patient in a minimally conscious or vegetative state, doctors can withdraw all sorts of treatment that will result in the end of someone's life.
These include, for instance, the withdrawal of life-saving dialysis. Doctors do not need the permission of a court to be able to do this.
However, withdrawing food and water - the most basic requirements for life - has been handled differently, and for many years has needed the approval of a court.
It's been treated as an exception, in part, perhaps, because of the emotional and psychological significance of the decision to remove sustenance from a person.
This has resulted, some experts believe, in individuals spending longer on life support in a vegetative state than was necessary because hospitals have shied away from going to court due to the expense and bureaucracy involved.
Today's ruling makes clear that as things stand, courts need not be involved in these sorts of cases, so long as doctors and families are in agreement, and the removal of food and water are in the best interests of the patient.
Mr Justice Jackson said that even in M's case - when family and doctors agreed - legal costs reached £30,000.
Law firm Irwin Mitchell, which represented M, described Mr Justice Jackson's ruling as a "landmark" decision for a "previously unclear" law.
A spokesman said: "The family argued that major life and death decisions happen every day in hospital and do not always need to come before the court. NHS doctors supported this argument."
For nearly 25 years, these decisions have been referred to the Court of Protection, even where doctors and families agree.
This followed a House of Lords ruling that Tony Bland, who was left in a persistent vegetative state after suffering severe brain damage in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, should be allowed to die.
Wednesday's ruling removes this exception and paves the way for a change in the way such cases are handled by hospitals.
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of the campaign group Compassion in Dying, said the ruling was "a helpful step towards a clearer, more person-centred view of end-of-life care".
"When all parties - family, the hospital and treating doctors - are agreed on what someone would have wanted for their care, it seems absurd to require a costly court process to confirm this."
Research by the BBC established last year that there were more than 100 patients in England and Wales in permanent vegetative or minimally conscious states.
One patient had been in this condition for more than 20 years. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41341482 | news_uk-41341482 |
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Bespoke or off-the-peg: How might the Brexit transition look? - BBC News | 2017-09-21 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | There's more and more talk about a Brexit transition period - but no agreement what it might look like. | UK Politics | The idea of a transition period after Brexit is being talked about more and more often. But there's very little consensus on what it might look like.
Bespoke or off-the-peg? In the frustratingly fuzzy terminology of Brexit, this tailoring choice, between something made to measure and ready-to-wear, is often used to describe the options for stitching together a relationship between the UK and the EU immediately after Brexit in March 2019.
This is not to be confused with the long-term "deep and special partnership" Theresa May promises.
Rather, it is what the prime minister describes as an "implementation period" but many others call "the transition" - the adjustment phase between Britain leaving the EU and arriving at some future and final destination.
When Mrs May talks about a "smooth" Brexit that avoids a "cliff edge", it is the arrangements for a transition phase she is referring to, covering customs systems, immigration controls, aviation regulation, criminal justice cooperation and more.
But 15 months on from the EU referendum, and with negotiations in Brussels apparently stuck, the UK government is under pressure (not least from business) to spell out what this transition phase might look like - to replace hazy rhetoric with specific proposals.
This is what cabinet ministers have been scrapping about, both in private and public through the summer, and it may be a focus of Theresa May's speech in Florence on Friday.
Cabinet ministers have varying ideas on what a "transition phase" might look like
The Article 50 process allows only two years of negotiations to hammer out a withdrawal agreement (the terms of divorce), which should take into account "the framework for [the UK's] future relationship with the union".
With six months already gone, it's clear that neither side believes there's any chance of wrapping up and ratifying a new trade deal in that time.
In fact legally, the EU can conclude a new trade relationship with the UK only after Britain has left. That's why the government now believes a transition period will be necessary. It will have to be negotiated with the EU, of course, but what do we know about Theresa May's thinking?
Even though there is no formally stated government position, her ministers were very loquacious on the subject over the summer, and splits have been clear.
On 20 June, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, pressed the need to negotiate "mutually beneficial transitional arrangements". A month later, the Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, (a leading Leave campaigner) said any transition period had to end by the date of the next election, due in 2022.
In mid-August, the two cabinet ministers wrote a joint article stating a "time-limited interim period will be important to further our national interest and give business greater certainty - but it cannot be a back door to staying in the EU". They also said the UK would be outside the customs union during this transition period.
Then on 12 September, Philip Hammond told a House of Lords committee the government was looking for a transition deal that looked "a lot like the status quo".
It's a fair guess that the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, does not. His 4,300-word rumination in the Daily Telegraph on Britain's post-Brexit future made no mention of a transitional period.
Speaking afterwards in New York, Mr Johnson said the UK should not make any "extortionate" payments to the EU for access to the single market after Brexit, and insisted any transition period should not be "too long".
The argument goes on, and soon Theresa May will have to choose. Although the cabinet does seem to broadly agree a transitional period is needed, it is a political minefield for the prime minister.
The government has been adamant that Britain will no longer be a member of the single market on Brexit day, and will leave the customs union.
Instead, it wants continued access to the single market and customs arrangements as frictionless as they are now, while having the freedom to strike trade deals with non-EU countries. That's the "sweet spot" status quo Philip Hammond has talked about.
The Tories' opponents say this is a fantasy.
Over the summer, the Labour Party arrived at the view that the only way to minimise economic disruption during a transition period was to keep Britain in the single market (through membership of the European Free Trade Association and the European Economic Area) and the customs union.
It is one obvious "off the shelf" option. But for many Eurosceptic Conservatives, it is a non-starter. It would mean the continued free movement of people to Britain, a continued role for the European Court of Justice and a hefty price tag.
But Henry Newman, director of the think tank Open Europe, thinks a "pay-to-play" arrangement is what the UK is likely to seek.
"I think the UK is going to have to say it will voluntarily impose ECJ judgements, and voluntarily pay as if we were EU members during that period," Mr Newman says.
Furthermore, putting money on the negotiating table now to pay for a transition deal could be a way for the UK to unblock the stalled talks.
Brexit talks in Brussels are currently focused on UK payments to the EU, rather than trade arrangements
How much? The figure of 10bn euros a year for three years is often heard around Whitehall. So long as payments do not continue beyond the transition period, Boris Johnson may be kept on board.
Apart from the cost, the big concern among Brexit-supporting Tories is that a transition deal that looks a lot like the status quo could harden into something permanent.
Prof Kenneth Armstrong is the author of Brexit Time: Leaving the EU - Why, How and When? He believes that if the UK negotiates its way into the single market, the aim of then negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU might be put off indefinitely. The result? "A UK that finds itself lost in transition," Prof Armstrong warns.
Complicating matters further for the UK is the fact the EU shows no inclination to sew together a bespoke transitional deal.
The EU's own negotiating mandate is clear that any transitional arrangements must be in the interests of the European Union, "limited in time, and subject to effective enforcement mechanisms".
EU leaders will not want the UK to have the benefits of the economic status quo without the obligations of membership. "No cherry picking," is the mantra in Brussels.
The remaining 27 members of the EU are (so far) united in aims and tactics. Even if Theresa May manages to bind her cabinet around a transition position that satisfies all wings of her party, it will still need the consent of the EU.
Negotiations with the EU are likely to move forward only if the UK is much more explicit about the price it is willing to pay and can map out where a transition will eventually lead. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41338227 | news_uk-politics-41338227 |
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The adventure that didn't quite go to plan - BBC News | 2017-09-21 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Mary Russell, a black woman with dwarfism, set off on a 900-mile journey through Vietnam with five other disabled people but quickly learned they were far from like-minded. | Disability | Mary Russell, a black woman with dwarfism, set off on a 21-day, 900-mile trip down the Ho Chi Minh trail with five other disabled people. She imagined it would be a unifying experience, but in fact she felt isolated among people she thought would be more like her.
"What made it for me was the beautiful scenic views," she says. "How can you be miserable when you're looking at mountains?"
But in fact, for some of the time at least, Russell would feel more isolated and different than she had done before as she filmed for the BBC One programme, Without Limits: Vietnam.
Russell is used to her difference. She grew up as one of nine children, but the only one with achondroplasia - a common cause of dwarfism - and her skin-colour could also cause issue in 1970s Yorkshire when "awareness just wasn't there".
For the journey through Vietnam, Russell, 48, travelled in a vehicle with Vicky Balch, who lost her leg in the Alton Towers rollercoaster accident and Steve Brown, a Paralympic wheelchair rugby player who's paralysed from the chest down.
Louise Halvey, who has progressive hearing loss, travelled on a motorbike alongside Charlie Lewis, who opted for a right leg amputation after a snowboard accident, and Andy Slade who lost an arm in an industrial accident.
But there was a new kind of difference here - Russell was the only one of the six to have always had a disability rather than having acquired it later in life.
"The group had all gone through something quite traumatic and I had to try to figure out where I fit in with that," she says.
The rest of the group were able to talk together about how they became disabled by accident or illness and how it made them feel but Mary felt left out because she had never had that experience.
"It was hard because they weren't born this way, they lived most of their life mingling with society, and at times I felt like I needed a limb missing so I could feel part of the group."
The team travelled from the north to the south of the country and spent up to seven hours a day in the car, which she describes as "really rough".
As the others bonded over coming to terms with a new impairment, Russell became affected by what she acknowledges as her main disability - depression.
"My mood dipped almost immediately," she says.
The atmosphere in the car soured at times and arguments broke out. The group were often short on sleep and the travelling could be uncomfortable.
"I've struggled with depression, which nobody really understands because they automatically think it's the dwarfism that holds me back, but at times, mental health is my biggest challenge."
Russell says she identified the slump in her mood early on in the journey when she "felt like I was going out of control".
She became fractious and tearful and with no one to confide in she told the whole group how she felt.
"I didn't want people to think this was how I usually am," she says. "They said they were completely unaware I felt isolated but were grateful I had spoken and they became more inclusive."
At home in London, Russell uses cycling as a "remedy" for her depression and when the group visited a village they spotted a boy with a bike. He was persuaded to lend it to her and she free-wheeled down the hill which gave her some relief.
Russell says the group provoked intrigue wherever they went, but she felt she received a "double stare".
"I stood out for sure," she says. "I have the condition and I'm of colour."
Mary's short stature often prompted laughter from Vietnamese locals which she found overwhelming at times.
"For some reason dwarfism as a disability always seems to be the butt of jokes and when they saw me they wanted to laugh, which is the battle we always have.
"They wouldn't touch me ... but people were fascinated by the others and wanted to touch their prosthetic legs."
But there was an unexpected moment of joy one day which made Russell confront her own judgements.
"I met a guy, a dwarf, when we went shopping. He was stood outside his shop and at first I walked on by.
"For a moment I slipped into 'old Mary' where I wasn't comfortable with seeing someone like myself, but I made myself go back and say 'hello' to him.
"I immediately connected with him, we shook hands and hugged. It was the highlight of my trip."
The group all completed the journey, weary but fulfilled. Russell remains close to Halvey and Slade who made her see her own prejudices.
"They helped me and gave me support," she says. "They're both bikers so I didn't think I'd get on with them, but we hit it off and it made me realise you really can't judge anyone."
Russell has taken part in reality TV before - in 2014 she appeared on the disability dating show, The Undateables.
The positive response she got from that boosted her confidence and she was signed to model agency, Models of Diversity, which has led to numerous photo-shoots and a fashion runway in Japan.
"From The Undateables onwards I started to find out things about myself - positive and negative," she says. "Even if it upsets me I'm emptying out all the hurt and developing as a person."
Though the Vietnam trip brought unwanted attention to her differences, Russell says it has made her accept herself in a new way.
"It made me realise that my limbs might be shorter, but they're functional and I can use them and should be grateful.
"I want to go to more places where there are less people like me. Everyone needs to see that this is what's in the world."
Mary Russell's roadtrip story is told on Without Limits: Vietnam. The second episode will be broadcast Thursday 21 September at 20:00 on BBC One, and will be available to watch via BBC iPlayer for 30 days afterwards.
For more Disability News, follow on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to the weekly podcast. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-41273439 | news_disability-41273439 |
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Newspaper headlines: 'Secret' Brexit bill, and Tory rebels warned - BBC News | 2017-09-03 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The Sunday Times says Theresa May has "secretly agreed" a £50bn sum to settle the UK's Brexit bill. | The Papers | According to The Sunday Times, the outcome of the general election may have cost the country about £20bn. A source, described as a close ally of of Theresa May's, explains that meeting the UK's obligations to the EU had been estimated at up to £30bn. But, it says, the weakening of our negotiating position because the Conservative government lost a majority means the cost will rise.
The Mail on Sunday says the Prime Minister is hoping to keep the details of the likely "divorce bill" a secret until after the Conservative conference. Otherwise, it says, there could a furious backlash from Conservatives opposed to the EU.
The slow pace of the Brexit talks doesn't impress The Sunday Mirror. It calls on the EU to come up with a figure so Brexit Secretary David Davis can make the arguments for reducing it.
The Sunday People, among others, reports that government whips are at work trying to persuade "wavering Tory MPs" to support Mrs May's approach to Brexit. The Sun on Sunday says some have complained of "bullying". And The Observer believes the attempt to promote unity has left her facing "a growing Tory revolt over her leadership."
The Sunday Telegraph warns the rebels that blocking Brexit would undermine democracy and respect for our political class. Rather than do that, it urges anti-Brexit MPs to "put country before conceit".
Thousands of children going back to school this week could face an epidemic of bullying online, according to The Sun. It welcomes the training of more teachers to support pupils and combat the threat of cyber abuse. But the paper calls for more to be done - if the 8m children at risk are to be protected from a torment that doesn't stop at the school gates.
For several of the papers the main news is the ructions that have followed the arrest on suspicion of drinking and driving of the former England captain, Wayne Rooney. The People believes he is fighting to save his marriage. The views of his wife Coleen are forcefully delivered elsewhere. The Sun calls her "furious". The headline in The Mirror is "how could you do this to me when I'm pregnant?".
This autumn, says The Sunday Express, could turn out to be warmer than the summer. It says forecasters think hot air from Europe, and balmy air from the Atlantic, could combine to produce temperatures of 32C (89.6F). "How typical," says the paper, "that the sun should start shining as soon as the school holidays are over."
Britain must prepare itself for "invasions of growing numbers of foreign sea creatures" due to climate change, The Observer says. The paper says the experts believe that warming waters will drive some of our currently native species of mussels, fish and oysters further north. Their places may be taken by red mullet, john dory and pacific oysters, forcing us to change our seafood diet. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-41138635 | news_blogs-the-papers-41138635 |
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Rebel Wilson awarded A$4.5m in magazine defamation case - BBC News | 2017-09-13 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The "unprecedented" payout follows the actress's claim her career was stifled by untrue articles. | Australia | Rebel Wilson celebrating in June after a jury found in her favour
Actress Rebel Wilson has been awarded A$4.5m (£2.7m; $3.6m) in Australia's largest payout for a defamation case.
Wilson successfully argued that a series of magazine articles had wrongly portrayed her as a serial liar.
In June a jury unanimously sided with the star, who had claimed the articles stifled her career in Hollywood. She has said she will give the money away.
Bauer Media has always denied the articles were defamatory. A lawyer said it would consider the judgement.
Wilson sought A$7m during the trial but had offered to settle for A$200,000 before it went to court.
Justice John Dixon told the Supreme Court of Victoria that the defamation case was "unprecedented in this country" because of its international reach.
"Substantial vindication can only be achieved by an award of damages that underscores that Ms Wilson's reputation as an actress of integrity was wrongly damaged in a manner that affected her marketability in a huge worldwide marketplace," he said on Wednesday.
The Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect actress was not in court on Wednesday, but she later tweeted that Bauer Media "viciously tried to take [her] down with a series of false articles" and "subjected [her] to a sustained and malicious attack".
"The judge accepted without qualification that I had an extremely high reputation and that the damage inflicted on me was substantial," she wrote.
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She added that the case "wasn't about the money" and that she would donate the damages to "some great Australian charities" and the Australian film industry.
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Wilson sat in court for every day of the three-week trial and spent six days in the witness box.
She claimed that eight articles published by Bauer magazines in 2015 had portrayed her as a serial liar, and that this resulted in her being sacked from two feature films.
A six-woman jury rejected Bauer Media's arguments that the articles were substantially true, trivial and did not affect Wilson's acting career. A 12-person jury is not required for civil cases in Victoria.
Wilson said the verdict had exposed the "disgusting and disgraceful" conduct of some tabloid media. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-41249861 | news_world-australia-41249861 |
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Public pay: What will unions do next? - BBC News | 2017-09-13 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A behind-the-scenes look at the TUC conference where talk of illegal strike action loomed large. | UK Politics | As this year's TUC conference draws to a close, counter-intuitively the government has forged a high degree of unity within the union movement.
Expectations on the lifting of the pay cap were raised, then dashed, when the awards to police officers were above the pay cap but palpably below inflation. The unions feel they are winning the argument on pay after seven years of restraint.
But there is less unity over how to respond if the government fails to use its new flexibility to award bigger increases next year or if any increases come at the expense of existing departmental budgets rather than from the Treasury.
So the unions will be poring over the small print of the November Budget.
They agreed this week to push for a 5% increase for public service workers and to co-ordinate strike action if necessary. But scratch beneath the surface and there are significant tactical differences.
First there is Len McCluskey's oft-repeated call for illegal industrial action. He first advanced the case for this in 2015 when the then majority Conservative government pushed ahead with plans to increase the threshold for strike action.
But there was, to put it mildly, huge frustration from other union leaders when he reminded shop stewards at a meeting open to the public and the press on Sunday that he had changed his union rule book to allow members to strike outside the law.
Both the BBC and Sky reported this. But the story, Lazarus-like, rose again when Len McCluskey warmed to his theme in a pre-recorded interview for the Today programme two days later.
The reaction in Brighton from senior union officials ranged from groans - "he plays into the stereotype of a union leader" to frustration - "talk of this is a diversion from our agenda" - and to anger "he was just worried he wasn't getting enough media... I'm extremely angry". ("extremely" is a polite form of the word that was used).
But however unwelcome his intervention, the question is whether there is a realistic prospect of illegal action.
TUC sources put the likelihood between "zero and nothing".
What's significant is that other union leaders every bit as left-wing as Len McCluskey - and maybe even more so - are not singing from the same hymn sheet. Sure, they want the union laws scrapped. But they believe the level of frustration amongst their members over pay restraint would mean the government's higher thresholds for industrial action would be exceeded.
The left-led civil service union the PCS will hold a consultative ballot next month to test the water. And some union leaders fear their funds could be sequestered if the McCluskey rhetoric ever became reality. So it fails the cost/benefit test.
They want the focus to remain on the pay issue, not illegality. Indeed one union leader refused all media bids for interviews yesterday in case his appearances were dominated by questions about illegal strikes rather than public sector pay.
Frances O'Grady said co-ordinated strike action was a "last resort"
However, the second option - co-ordinated legal action, last carried out in 2011 - is real.
The PCS, GMB, and the Fire Brigades Union, amongst others, met to discuss this privately here at the TUC yesterday.
There is anger that the 55% of public service workers not covered by Pay Review Bodies might get left behind.
Co-ordinated action is unlikely to begin until early next year - once the unions have assessed the generosity or otherwise of the budget and further tested the mood of their members.
But while co-ordinated action is the official policy of the TUC, its general secretary Frances O'Grady stressed to me that this was very much "a last resort".
And a long-standing official in one of the big public service unions was cautious about co-ordinating action with other unions and extremely sceptical it would happen at all.
Indeed some unions - and one big public sector union in particular - favour a more subtle option. Pleased as they are with the Corbyn-led Labour Party's willingness to support co-ordinated strikes, the focus of their lobbying efforts are Conservative MPs.
They see Tories who heard voters' frustration with pay restraint on the doorstep at the election as potential allies. The unions were delighted when some Conservatives who had worked in the public services or the military before entering Parliament spoke out in favour of lifting the pay cap and they feel they can pile more pressure on backbenchers to in turn pressure the government to make further concessions.
Combined with a public campaign, they feel this might be more effective than asking already hard-pressed workers to lose pay by going on strike.
But it's easy to overdo the differences. The unions do stand united in their message that pay restraint has run its course and this week's announcements seem only to have strengthened their resolve. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41252658 | news_uk-politics-41252658 |
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Why are wages so weak? - BBC News | 2017-09-13 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Despite record levels of employment, pay is lagging, and economists can't decide why, writes Simon Jack. | Business | Unions have threatened strikes if the public sector pay cap remains in place
In August 2013, the Bank of England Governor said he would consider raising interest rates when the unemployment rate came down to 7%.
At the time, it was 7.8% - today it is at a 42 year low of 4.3% and rather than raising rates, the only adjustment the bank has made is to cut rates further in the aftermath of the referendum result.
He thought, along with most economists, that as unemployment came down, wages would start to rise and that would be the sensible time to consider returning interest rates to normal levels rather than levels associated with economic intensive care.
What happened? And more importantly what should the Bank of England do now?
Usually, as the unemployment rate falls, competition for available workers increases and, therefore, so do wages.
This relationship is called the Phillips Curve but it has become increasingly apparent that someone, or something, has taken a Phillips screwdriver to this mechanism. We have the lowest unemployment since 1975 and yet wage growth is weak.
There are several competing theories as to what has happened to alter this relationship. The most hotly debated of these explanations is that we have an inexhaustible supply of cheap labour from the EU which is holding down wages.
A Bank of England research paper found that in low skilled occupations, every 10% increase in the ratio of migrant to native worker created a 1.88% fall in wages.
There was no evidence it affected higher skilled jobs at all and so the impact on overall UK wages would be, in the words of the author Stephen Nickell, "infinitesimally small".
It's also worth noting that stagnant wage growth is a global phenomenon to be found in the US and also Japan where net migration is negligible.
The business lobby points out that an array of additional burdens on them such as the introduction of the apprenticeship levy (affecting big businesses), the introduction of the living wage, and the roll out of auto-enrolment (affects smaller businesses more) means they simply can't afford to offer higher wages.
It makes intuitive sense that an increase in overall labour costs would make it harder to raise basic pay.
Pay growth did indeed fall around the time of auto-enrolments introduction in 2013 but in the years since, wage growth has fluctuated from 1% to 3% so there doesn't appear to be any lasting impact.
Some argue Uber does not pay its drivers enough
Also, it would presumably act as an equally powerful disincentive to hiring people in the first place which it clearly hasn't.
The changing nature of work is also a suspect in this mystery.
The economist Martin Beck has made powerful arguments that companies which offer less secure forms of employment, like Uber, can switch their demand for labour on and off based on its cost - meaning pay rates no longer move upward as unemployment moves downward.
This has the important knock-on effect, argues Beck, that workers become so cheap that companies are tempted to use them rather than invest in more productive machines and processes so worker productivity (and the ability to pay them more per hour) declines.
One of the least discussed explanations is the decline in power of labour organisations. Unions experienced their biggest fall in membership since records began last year losing 275,000 members.
Unite boss Len McCluskey wields influence, but union membership has been falling
Union membership has halved since the late 1970s and both the rise in self employment and the fall in public sector roles could make it hard to reverse that decline.
There are probably elements of all of these factors at work. What really matters it not so much whether your pay is going up 1% or 3% but more, what your wages are doing compared to inflation.
Right now more of us are working than ever before and yet on average we are getting a bit poorer every day as inflation devours any income growth.
The question is when will it change - and why?
The Bank of England expects wage growth to exceed inflation next year for two reasons.
The first one is a pretty solid bet. Inflation will fall as the effect of sterling's post-referendum drop works its way through the system. Comparing prices of imports now to the same time last year will stop showing such a big rise.
The second reason is that it's convinced we must now be near the threshold when low unemployment begins to push wages higher.
It's been wrong on this before of course, but there is increasing evidence from recruitment firms that scarcity of available workers is beginning to force employers to offer higher salaries in some sectors.
The Bank of England's chief economist, Andy Haldane, could vote for a rate rise
Presiding over an economy in which working people are getting poorer every day is not a very comfortable political position to be in. We have seen the cap on public sector workers' pay loosened this week, under pressure from a TUC threatening strike action and a rejuvenated Jeremy Corbyn.
The government will be dearly hoping the Bank is right this time.
We will get an inkling of how confident the Bank is in this prediction when it votes on interest rates tomorrow.
Last time only two out of the nine rate setters thought the time was right to nudge rates higher. Previously one other, Chief Economist Andy Haldane, has said he might join them later this year.
It will be worth keeping an eye out for how he votes. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41259803 | news_business-41259803 |
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The refugee doctors learning to speak Glaswegian - BBC News | 2017-09-07 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | For doctors who fled to the UK, training to work in the NHS means having to learn the local dialect. | Health | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Doctors who have travelled to Scotland as refugees are being given the chance to start working for the NHS through a training scheme. The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme has been to meet those involved.
"When people say, 'I had a couple of beers', they don't mean two," jokes instructor Dr Patrick Grant, a retired A&E doctor training refugees to work for NHS Scotland - including in how to overcome cultural barriers.
One of his students is Fatema, who previously worked as a surgeon in the Middle East until she was forced to flee.
Having treated anti-government protesters in her home country, she herself had become a government target.
"I wish one day this country will be proud of me," she says.
Fatema is one of 38 refugees and asylum seekers on the course - a £160,000 programme funded by the Scottish government.
Based in Glasgow, it provides the doctors with advanced English lessons, medical classes and placements with GPs or hospitals.
The aim is to give the refugee doctors - who commit to working for NHS Scotland - the skills to get their UK medical registration approved.
Fatema says coming to the UK and not being able to work as a surgeon had felt like being "handcuffed".
"I'm a qualified medical doctor. It's hard to start again from zero," she explains.
Maggie Lennon, founder of the Bridges Programmes which runs the scheme, says it is important for the UK to utilise its high-skilled refugees.
Maggie Lennon says the refugee doctors' clinical skills are very similar to those of doctors trained in the UK
"I always say to people, 'I imagine taking out an appendix in Peshawar is not that different to taking out an appendix in Paisley'.
"I don't think there's actually any difference in the clinical skills, I think where there is a huge difference is attitudes to patients and how medicine is performed," she explains.
The scheme is designed to overcome such hurdles, including the case of one surgeon who, Ms Lennon says, was unaware he would have to speak to patients, having previously only encountered them in his home country after they had been put to sleep.
Watch Catrin Nye's full film on refugee doctors on the Victoria Derbyshire programme's website.
Laeth Al-Sadi, also on the course, used to be a doctor in the Iraqi army.
He came to Scotland to study but his life was threatened in Iraq and he was never able to go back.
One of the ways he has learned to work with patients in the UK is to use informal terms that might put them at ease - "How are the waterworks down there?" being one example.
Laeth Al-Sadi says being part of the scheme allows him to feel like he "belongs somewhere"
Language classes are an important part of the course, and placements with GPs and hospitals also allow the refugees to take note of local dialects.
Another doctor says he was confused by a patient who said they had a headache because of a "swally" - a term for an alcoholic drink.
Before refugees can even take their medical exams, they must pass tests to ensure they speak English at a high level.
They must pass a test called IELTS with a level of 7.5 - which even some doctors from the US and Australia have failed in the past.
All classes are taught in English. In one "situational judgement" lesson, the refugees are taught to assess what is wrong with a dummy patient based on its "symptoms".
Laeth says he feels lucky to be offered the possibility of a job in NHS Scotland.
"Lots of colleagues, or people who are doctors, are living here, and they are working other jobs.
"Some of them are even taxi drivers, which has [led to a loss of] hope for a lot of people."
Ms Lennon says this issue of under-employment among the refugee population "is as serious as unemployment".
"If someone's a qualified accountant and they're working pushing trolleys [in a supermarket], then there is an argument that they're taking a job from a poorly qualified person in this country," she adds.
Language classes are an important part of the scheme
Fatema says that despite having to leave the Middle East, she is glad she took the decision to treat anti-government protesters.
"My promise at medical graduation [was to] treat people equally, and try to do whatever is possible to help people. So I would do it again."
Dr Greg Jones, clinical lead at NHS Education Scotland, defended the use of government money on the scheme.
"As well as getting people back to their careers as doctors being the right thing to do from a humanitarian standpoint," he explains, "it's also the right thing to do financially.
"It would be a hugely wasted resource if people who'd already gone through medical training were not used as doctors."
Laeth says being part of the scheme allows him to feel like he "belongs somewhere".
"It means the world," he adds. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41160013 | news_health-41160013 |
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Crime calculator: Find your personal risk of being a victim - BBC News | 2017-09-07 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Try the BBC's crime calculator tool to find out more about your personal risk of being a victim. | UK | Are you scared of being a victim of crime?
Today, for the first time, BBC News, working with the Office for National Statistics, is providing you with a way of understanding your risk of being a victim of crime in England and Wales. If you are interested in Scotland, you can find out more about the Scottish Crime Survey on its official website.
The tool below uses national crime statistics, your address and your personal characteristics to tell you what's happened to people similar to you in the last year - and therefore something approaching a personal estimate of how likely you are to be a victim.
It only takes a moment to fill in, and the BBC does not keep the data, so punch in your details and have a look at the results:
Sorry, your browser cannot display this content
Week in, week out, journalists like myself report on the big crime trends across the nation. And you will almost certainly notice the tool tells a different story - a personal one.
Now, it's worth pointing out that it has some limitations. The Crime Survey of England and Wales, which provides most of the data in the calculator, captures a wide range of real experiences of crime, but some things are very difficult to measure, such as risky lifestyles and behaviour.
Be that as it may, the tool does tell us a lot. And if you try changing your age - and even your gender - you learn a lot more about how crime affects us depending on who we are and our stage in life.
So, for instance, the tool shows that people like me, living in an area like mine, have a very low risk of being a victim of violence. If I were aged between 16 and 29 (sadly those days are gone) and living in the same area, my risk of being assaulted is five times greater.
If I were a woman in my 60s, I'd be even less likely to be a victim.
Put most simply, young men in areas of higher deprivation are the most likely victims of crime. Old ladies living in the same areas - among those who are most likely to fear crime - have a lower risk. There is a dividend for living in a posher area - but age and gender remain key factors too.
Now, there are a lot of nuances in here - and you can drill into the ONS's data tables for the full facts - or read this highly digestible analysis from Victim Support.
But many of these differences come down to how we live our lives.
Younger people spend more time out at night. They're more likely to come into contact with people who become violent after they have had one too many drinks.
How many parents have had to console a teenager who's had their bike or mobile phone stolen?
When kids move out of home, start work or become a student, they're likely to be living in cheaper, less-secure, rented accommodation.
But as they get older, the security of stable employment leads to security at home and family life. And you're less likely to be burgled if you've sunk into the sofa watching a box set, rather than if you've gone to the pub.
Every time a home is renovated, it's harder to break in to than before. Each new car we buy tends to be more secure than its predecessors.
That's not actually how we perceive crime and our personal risk. In fact, what we think is happening can be at complete odds with what is actually going on.
According to the most recent data from the ONS, people generally have a pretty good idea about how much crime is close to them. Their perceptions seem to match the reality. But 60% also thought that crime is rising across the country as a whole - even though the long-term trend is down.
The people with the highest risk of being a victim - the young - were less likely to be worried than older generations, even though the older you become, the safer things generally become.
Dr Jane Wood, a forensic psychologist at the University of Kent, says a range of factors influence this perception gap. Women for instance fear crime because they know they cannot fight off a younger man. But our perceptions are also influenced by what we see around us - and how we hear about.
When the ONS asked interviewees to choose from a list of what most influenced their perceptions of national crime levels, people talked about television, radio, newspapers (tabloid and broadsheet), the internet and word of mouth. And, Dr Wood says, the more we read or watch about crime, the more we think about it.
All of which may be an argument for not listening to a word that journalists like me tell you.
But while I wait for the hue and cry to drag me from the newsroom, please share a link to the crime risk calculator. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41178903 | news_uk-41178903 |
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US expands travel ban to include N Korea - BBC News | 2017-09-25 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | People from Venezuela and Chad will also now face restrictions on travel to the United States. | US & Canada | Passengers arrive at Washington's international airport in July after the Supreme Court
US President Donald Trump has expanded his controversial travel ban to include people from North Korea, Venezuela and Chad, citing security concerns.
The new, open-ended restrictions follow a review of information sharing by other countries, the White House said.
Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia remain under the travel ban. Sanctions previously placed on Sudan were lifted.
In a presidential proclamation, Mr Trump said the countries in the list had "inadequate" security protocols.
"I must act to protect the security and interests of the United States and its people," he said in the document, issued late on Sunday.
According to data available from the US State Department, 109 visas were issued to North Korean citizens in 2016, however, it is unclear how many actually travelled to the United States.
Mr Trump's original ban in March was highly controversial, as it affected six majority-Muslim countries, and was widely labelled a "Muslim ban".
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It was subject to a range of legal challenges and several large-scale protests, and was due to be considered by the US Supreme Court on 10 October, having been partly reinstated in July.
But on Monday the Supreme Court postponed the October oral arguments, and instead called upon all parties challenging the White House to resubmit briefs to the court on whether the case should be dismissed.
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The American Civil Liberties Union rights group said the addition of the new countries did not "obfuscate the real fact that the administration's order is still a Muslim ban".
The addition of North Korea and Venezuela now means not all nations on the list are majority-Muslim. The restrictions on Venezuelans apply only to government officials and their family members.
The Venezuelan foreign ministry on Monday described the new restriction as "a form of psychological and political terrorism".
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The criteria for the new ban list are now based on vetting procedures and co-operation, and the restrictions have been "tailored" on a country-by-country basis:
Most of the restrictions come in the form of suspension of B-1 and B-2 business and tourist visas, and are not time-limited in the way that Mr Trump's former executive order was.
In a fact sheet accompanying Mr Trump's proclamation, the White House said that while Iraq also fell short of the required criteria, the country was not included in the new restrictions "because of the close co-operative relationship between the United States" and their part in fighting so-called Islamic State.
The restrictions come into effect on 18 October, but will not apply to those already in possession of a valid visa, the White House said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41382585 | news_world-us-canada-41382585 |
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The Maze Escape: the biggest jailbreak in UK history - BBC News | 2017-09-22 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A key organiser of the Maze Escape, now a born-again Christian, speaks out for the first time. | Northern Ireland | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Thirty-four years ago, a team of IRA inmates escaped from what was supposed to be the most secure prison in Europe. It was, and remains, the biggest jailbreak in UK history.
Despite being on the wrong side of 60, Brendan Mead is still a physically intimidating man. Shaven headed, lean and muscular, he has the air of someone who has known violence up close and personally.
He was chosen as the "tip of the spear" for one of the most dramatic operations in Northern Ireland's decades of violence.
He struck the first blow to start the 1983 breakout from the Maze Prison.
Thirty-eight hardened paramilitaries used smuggled guns and knives to take over their block before escaping across the crop-filled fields surrounding the jail, some 12 miles from Belfast.
The entrance to H-6 inside the former maximum security prison
Republicans, with a sense of pride, hold it up as their Great Escape; Unionists recall how one prison officer was killed and others were so seriously injured or traumatised that their lives were effectively ruined.
With its warders backed up by armed soldiers and its distinctively-shaped 'H' blocks, purpose built to house Northern Ireland's feared paramilitaries, HMP Maze became an instantly recognisable feature on the violent landscape of the Troubles.
It stood as another reminder of how things in Northern Ireland were not the same as in the rest of the UK.
Prison officer James Ferris died of a heart attack after being stabbed while attempting to stop the breakout.
Sixteen escapees were later acquitted of his murder after the trial failed to prove the heart attack was caused by the stabbing.
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Brendan Mead is now a born-again Christian. A key organiser of the biggest prison breakout in UK history, he has spoken for the first time about what remains one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
A huge security operation was launched after the escape
Mead was chosen to be the first prisoner to overpower a guard. This was because he was regarded by his fellow inmates as "the fittest man in H7".
This is the first time in 34 years that Mead has spoken on the record about his role in the events.
He revealed that the getaway vehicle used in the Maze breakout, a food delivery lorry, was delayed because IRA "intelligence officers" were rifling through drawers and boxes of papers after taking control of the wing.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brendan Mead speaks for the first time about his role in the 1983 Maze Escape
"The IRA volunteers, particularly the IOs [information officers] preferred to find out who had been an informer or who was working for the prison staff, or who was working for whomever.
"They needed to get that documentation, but they became more focused on that, going through the information trying to find out if there were informers in the ranks."
Mead says that five-minute delay caused problems for the escapees as their vehicle was still in the yard when prison officers began arriving for the next shift.
Some of the Maze escapees
He revealed, for the first time, details of a 'sister' escape plan which targeted the Crumlin Road jail.
It was to have been put into operation after any Maze escape prisoners, who had been recaptured, had been sent there ahead of a trial.
Brendan Mead said: "It was already set up. This is the escape trial we're talking about. Everything we needed was packed into the mortar tubes and they were to be shot over at an exact time when we were in 'A' wing yard.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brendan Mead says a second jail escape was planned
"We were to open the mortar tubes, take out the equipment, and then breach the Crumlin Road as well.
"But that didn't happen because, the people who were on the mortar tubes, they were caught inside a garage at the back of the prison from where they were going to shoot them over. "
Mead accepts that "people's lives were destroyed by what happened" on the day of the Maze escape.
People like John Adams, the prison officer shot in the head during the jailbreak.
Visitors arriving at the Maze Prison in the 1980s
BBC News NI has obtained documents from the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) relating to the subsequent trial of two leading escapees, Brendan 'Bic' McFarlane and Gerry Kelly.
They offer a fascinating insight into what went on in the Maze that day.
Among those documents, John Adams' account of what happened.
In his statement Mr Adams claims Gerry Kelly shot him in the control room. It reads:
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prison officer John Adams' statement to the trial of two Maze escapees
"At 2:20 PM prisoner 58, Kelly, appeared at the grille with a gun pointed at me. He told me not to touch any of the controls or warnings.
"He then told me to open the gate which I did do. He said, "I have nothing to lose; you know what I'm in for."
"He then told me to lie down on the ground, put my hands behind my head. This was inside the control room.
"Kelly was distracted by something and turned away from me. I jumped up and slammed the door and tried to lock it, but it was forced open.
"Kelly then came back into the control room and fired two shots. The first one missed me and the second hit me above the left eye, entering my head. I collapsed to the floor."
Gerry Kelly had been jailed for life in 1973 - after the Maze Escape he was eventually captured in Holland
In a conversation with BBC News NI in 2013, Mr Adams repeated the version of events outlined in his original statement, once again naming the Sinn Féin man as his attacker.
Gerry Kelly has never admitted shooting Mr Adams and was found not guilty after his trial in 1987.
In his own book about the escape, Kelly refers to the person who shot John Adams only as 'the prisoner.'
Some years after the shooting, John Adams was convicted of sexually assaulting a young girl. Mr Adams died on August 16 last year.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'No one was to be hurt,' says Brendan Mead
He was buried on August 31, the arrangements having been made by the hospital in which he died. His grave is as yet unmarked.
Brendan Mead maintains that, while he was nearby, he didn't see the actual shooting incident.
Addressing any allegations that still exist, is, he insists, something that only Gerry Kelly can do.
"John Adams said it was Gerry Kelly who shot him. If that's where Gerry was, then that's his thing. He's to address that, not me.
Army at the scene of the Maze escape
"Apparently Gerry was at the control room and, whatever happened between him and John, the shots then went off."
Other documents in the bundle released by PRONI include a handwritten note which was to be read to IRA members who were chosen to take part in the escape.
It suggests that the IRA leadership feared the rank and file members would not go along with the plan. It makes it clear that any prisoners told to join the escape would have no option but to go along with it.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A note to be read to IRA members who were chosen to take part in the breakout
"To all POWs (Prisoners of War) chosen by camp staff to go on escape.
"Very few of you are aware of what is now taking place. This is due to security and the possible refusal of some of you to go on this escape. Since it is the duty of all POWs to escape I now instruct you to go to this yard to board the feed lorry. Regardless of your feelings we are taking you with us, we have no time for arguments. Just do as instructed. Any refusals will be met with force."
Another note was apparently intended for prison staff taken hostage:
Among the papers held at the Public Records Office is a note apparently intended for prison staff taken hostage
"To all prison staff who have been arrested by Republican POWs on Sunday, September 25.
"What has taken place here today was a carefully planned exercise to secure the release of a substantial number of POWs. The block is now under our control.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jailbreak delayed as 'IRA tried to find out if there were informers'
"If anyone has been assaulted or injured, this has been a result of his refusal to cooperate with us. It is not our intention to settle old scores, ill-treat nor degrade any of you regardless of your past. Though should anyone try to underestimate or wish to challenge our position, he or they will be dealt with severely.
"Anyone who refuses to comply with our instructions now or in the future will feel the wrath of the Republican movement. Should any members of the prison administration ill-treat, victimise or commit any acts of perjury against Republican POWs in any follow-up enquiries, judicial or otherwise, they will forfeit their lives for what we will see as a further act of repression against the nationalist people.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A note from IRA members to prison staff taken hostage
"To conclude, we give you our word as Republicans that none of you will come to any harm providing you cooperate fully with us.
"Anyone who refuses to do so will suffer the ultimate consequence - death!
"Let common sense prevail, do not be used as cannon fodder by the prison administration nor the faceless bureaucrats at Stormont and Whitehall."
A film about the escape, entitled simply Maze, goes on general release today. As with all interpretation of our past, whether through drama or documentary, controversy seems inevitable.
Asked if it was too soon for a movie about the escape, Mead said he worried that the film makers would glorify it to some extent, but that for him it was just history. "What do I think about the escape? I don't really think anything of the escape," he said.
Will he go and see the film?
The premiere of the new film MAZE took place in Belfast
"It would be hard to match the reality," he said. "I don't even know if I would watch it, it's not something that drives me. That's not my life anymore.
"It's part of my past. It's something that I participated in. I don't try to glorify that past; it's a reality and I have to acknowledge that I was a full, consenting, participant in it all.
"It's not like I'm saying: 'Oh look at me, look at what we done'. I could have played for Manchester United. That's part of my history that didn't happen.
"I believed in my mindset at that time that it was a necessary thing to do. There was only one negative thing about it and that's that some people were badly injured and their lives were destroyed by it."
Lives were destroyed by the events of that day; that is not in dispute.
Thirty-four years may have passed but it's clear that many of the officers taken hostage, hooded and terrorised, are still struggling to come to terms with what they experienced.
BBC News NI approached several officers who were working in the Maze at, or around, the time of the breakout.
Only one agreed to an interview. As the time to meet neared, though, the now-retired officer pulled out.
The enforced reflection had been just too much for him. "The trauma is incredible," he explained.
None of his colleagues felt willing or able to contribute to this article. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41271598 | news_uk-northern-ireland-41271598 |
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What's life like on the border with North Korea? - BBC News | 2017-09-14 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | What do people living near South Korea's Demilitarised Zone feel about the stand-off with the North? | Asia | It's one in the morning and, under the neon lights of Seoul's shining skyscrapers, people are laughing and chatting, heading to eat barbecue or drink tiny glasses of soju, the country's national alcoholic drink.
Being just 35 miles from one of the world's most dangerous borders isn't playing on the mind of anyone here tonight.
For me, that's one of the most striking things about the mood in South Korea right now. The swirling fear that's enveloping other parts of the globe isn't in evidence here. People know this threat, they recognise it, but they've lived with it for a long time already.
The conflict between North and South Korea is nothing new. Technically the two countries are still at war, and simply living in a state of armistice. So why has world attention - and fear - grown so fast in the past few months?
In Seoul, people's response to the North Korean threat tends to fall along generational lines. For those who are too young to remember the Korean War, it feels like more of an abstract threat. While they can't see it, and it has no effect on their daily lives, they spend little time worrying about it.
The Korean peninsula is a place of contrast. In just a few decades, the South has clawed its way back from almost complete destruction to become the fourth-largest economy in Asia.
One of the colourful statues gracing Seoul's bustling Gangnam district
I wandered through the Gangnam district packed with colourful statues celebrating the booming K-pop music scene. Even after midnight half the floors in Samsung's towering glass headquarters had lights on and people at their desks. This prosperity is born of hard graft.
There's no outward show of wealth in the North. Driving along the border, hearing the heavy thumps of South Korean army target practice and the return of clattering gunfire from the North, two worlds are colliding.
A quick check of my smartphone map app shows a featureless expanse. No roads, no towns. What goes on here is shadowy and secretive.
I travelled to the closest village to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), just three miles from the barbed wire. Its men have special permission to farm inside the DMZ, and one of them, sprightly 77-year-old Mr Ong, showed me where he'd lost every toe on his right foot standing on a landmine.
He described the day he heard a bang and looked down to see his leg mangled and twisted. Even then he felt lucky, nine men in his village had stood on mines and he was the only one of them to survive.
Unlike in Seoul, where underground stations and housing block basements double-up as emergency shelters, this place has a clean, new, purpose-built bunker sunk two storeys below ground behind an 8in (20cm) thick door.
Mr Ong lost all the toes on his right foot after treading on a landmine
In one corner, stands a row of shelves, neatly stacked with clear plastic boxes. Inside, lie pristine escape hoods, hammers, first aid supplies, a torch, a whistle - all lined up and ready to be used in case of an emergency.
They're so untouched that I ask if they've ever even been practised with. "We haven't had a real emergency yet," says Mr Lee, the village elder in charge of the shelter. "If we need them, there are directions on the wall."
Does this lack of urgency suggest the threat of imminent war has been overblown? "I am worried," he replies, "just last week someone from the city came to check on us."
Many analysts, though, believe Pyongyang has its eye on prizes far bigger and further away than its southern border.
The Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, used the BBC's Andrew Marr programme to highlight the fact that London was closer to Pyongyang than to Los Angeles.
"This involves us," he said, which is true - but perhaps more in a diplomatic sense than as a target.
The entrance to a South Korean public shelter in the village closest to the North Korean border
When I put his comments to South Korean journalist Jungeun Kim, she was taken aback. "Does he understand what he's talking about? I can't remember a time when Kim Jong-un has threatened the UK. His argument is with America." Of that, there is no doubt.
In Itaewon, I asked a uniformed US solder, one of more than 20,000 stationed on the Korean peninsula, what he thought of the current threat. Did he feel safe? "Yes I do, I've even brought my family here."
When I pushed him on US President Donald Trump's response to the crisis, his answer was brief, but damning. "He's dealt with it like a chump."
It's not hard to find others who agree. But any disdain felt towards the president is of course as nothing compared with the reputation of his North Korean counterpart.
And most here believe it will be the actions of the latter that will determine how this unedifying stand-off ultimately plays out. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41266764 | news_world-asia-41266764 |
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The Liverpool app that sidesteps the banks - BBC News | 2017-09-14 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Israeli company Colu has launched a digital currency in Liverpool, which is only open to locally-owned and run businesses. | Magazine | An Israeli company called Colu has launched a local digital currency in Liverpool, which aims to revitalise the local economy by cutting out the banks. Will it achieve more than paper local currencies have? To find out, Dougal Shaw followed the money trail.
Large chains like Starbucks, Costa or McDonald's, need not apply. This new digital currency, known both as Colu and Local Pound Liverpool, is only open to locally owned and run businesses. The idea is to encourage people to support the local economy.
Local currencies are common around the world - there are more than 10 in the UK. The idea behind them is that if you spend your money with a locally based company instead of a big chain, more of that money will continue to circulate locally. It won't be sucked out of your community into a company's foreign headquarters, or be paid out to shareholders.
But these currencies rarely attract enough users to have a real economic impact. Could Colu be different?
As well as being purely digital - running on a smartphone app - it is operated by a well-funded tech company that specialises in cryptocurrencies. In many other cases, local currencies are run by a small resource-starved team of enthusiasts and volunteers.
I went to see who is actually using this new currency, from a man buying his weekly sausages to the assistant mayor of Liverpool.
Foodie Ian Rasmussen is one of 17,000 Liverpudlians who have signed up to use Colu. I meet him at a deli called Delifonseca, where he is buying some sausages.
"I believe in local businesses, so I like to promote what they are doing through my consumption. One makes ethical decisions every day in the shops and I choose to buy locally because they tend to be more particular about where they get their food from. They tend to be better employers and re-invest in the community."
The app is easy to use, he says, which is one of the things that makes it appealing.
But local currencies appeal to Ian for another reason.
"Since the financial crash of 2008, businesses have completely fallen out of love with the banking system and realised how ruinous it can be. It's nice if local businesses can get round the inconvenience of banks that don't understand them."
When Ian pays for his sausages at the till, the transaction is made purely through the app, with no bank involved.
Ian has to buy his Colu pounds with normal UK pounds from his bank account. They are worth exactly the same.
At the moment, a complimentary £5 is offered to new joiners and 10% is added every time money is paid in. This is funded by Colu, in a bid to get more people like Ian to join.
Colu has a lot of venture capital behind it and investors are keen to see it grab market share, like Uber or Deliveroo.
Candice Fonseca runs the deli where Ian purchased his sausages. It is one of more than 100 businesses accepting the local digital currency.
"Liverpool has a very strong sense of identity and in this globalised time people are more conscious of their localities," she says.
"We have customers who don't carry wallets, it's inevitable that currency will become phone-based.
"It's also cheaper for us. Customers can't really get their head around how much we pay for banking. Even to put cash into the bank as a business, we have to pay. The idea [with Colu] is to keep the money flowing locally. We'd like to give staff the option of taking Colu as part of their wages eventually."
Normally businesses pay a charge every time a customer uses a debit card (about 0.5-1%) or credit card (about 1-2%).
A transaction in Colu incurs zero charge for the business.
However, whenever anyone converts Colu back to normal UK pounds - cashing out, as it is known - they pay 1.5% commission. This is how Colu makes its money.
"If you pay another business [in Colu], then you don't pay anything, it's the cheapest way of taking money in that case. We're not cashing anything out. So we pay suppliers like Sugar & Lime, who we get our hire equipment from for outside catering, in Colu. We spend thousands with them."
More than a quarter of a million local pounds have circulated so far in Liverpool. But somebody needs to cash out at some stage and take the hit of 1.5%.
One of them is Anthony O'Leary, who runs the catering equipment firm Sugar & Lime, which supplies Candice's deli.
His warehouse contains supplies from around the world, which can't be bought with local currency.
"We cash out our local currency because we're the end of the line. There's nobody for us to spend the local pound with at present.
"But there is scope for products that we buy to be manufactured more locally, in which case we could continue the chain," he says.
Although Anthony would prefer to be paid in cash, he says it's not a clear-cut decision.
"I've still got banking charges one way or another. Cash is expensive, credit card fees, it's all at a cost."
Colu also brings him new customers, he says, so in that sense it's a good investment.
Anthony can also see another way for him to pass on the Colu currency and avoid the 1.5% charge - he could pay business rates in the local currency. This is what happens in Brixton and Bristol.
But first the council has to agree to it.
Gary Millar is assistant mayor of Liverpool and a technology enthusiast.
He is a user of the app and a fan of local digital currencies in general.
"A council like Liverpool could use this to ensure money stays local. We know when people spend money locally with an independent, 65p in the pound stays local. If they spend it with a big global organisation, it will be about 30p instead," he says.
"I think it's wonderful if a small business can pay its business rates using a digital currency - I'd love that to happen."
He says this would only be a logical extension of what is happening at the moment, and hints that discussions are taking place about the possibility of allowing business rates, planning fees and even parking fine to be paid in the new currency.
Millar says he could also imagine the council paying people with it, as long as this was done on an opt-in basis. The council pays some benefits on behalf of the government and of course it pays wages to its workforce - these could in theory be paid in Colu.
Millar is at pains to make clear that if such a payment system were adopted, Colu would have to take part in an open selection process.
Duncan McCann is an economist with New Economics Foundation who researches local digital currencies.
He thinks local digital currencies like Colu are a good idea, but he has some serious reservations.
"Local currencies seek to stop money escaping, the 'leaky bucket' argument we call it. They try to keep it circulating in your own community to do more good.
"Most local currency designs maximise the potential for the money to stick. There is some irony that this model that Colu is offering at its core extracts money to the mother company, which in this case is Colu [in Israel]."
Most other local currencies in the UK and Europe are run on a not-for-profit basis, he says.
The incentives Colu offers to new joiners can only last so long, he suggests.
"The big danger is that if no profit is being made, or worse they start making a loss, that they will just cancel the app and all the hard work is lost in an instant.
"Then it becomes very hard to start another local currency because there is so much bad feeling."
Colu has been up and running in Liverpool since December. It also runs similar currencies in Tel Aviv and Haifa, both under two years old.
It is free of the financial overheads that come with a paper currency and its deep pockets allow it to provide incentives to users, at least for now, and to employ someone to recruit new businesses into the scheme.
Its backers think it can mount a challenge to global capitalism and multinational corporations.
Its fate depends on how many people vote with their digital wallets.
Watch the video and radio reports by Dougal Shaw on Liverpool's local digital currency for BBC World Hacks | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40728550 | news_magazine-40728550 |
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Murdoch bid for Sky faces plurality and standards probe - BBC News | 2017-09-14 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | 21st Century Fox-Sky deal will be examined over media plurality and broadcast standards. | Business | James Murdoch urged the government to give the deal the go-ahead
The bid by 21st Century Fox to buy Sky will be referred to competition regulators in the "coming days", Culture Secretary Karen Bradley has confirmed.
The deal is facing a much fuller examination than initially expected.
It will be assessed "on media plurality and genuine commitment to broadcasting standards grounds," Ms Bradley said.
The Competition and Markets Authority will provide its response within 24 weeks of the referral.
James Murdoch, chief executive of 21st Century Fox, urged the government to approve the deal.
"Remove the noise and get to the facts," he said, speaking to the Royal Television Society Convention in Cambridge.
Giving it the go ahead would send a signal that the UK is "open for business post-Brexit", he said. James Murdoch is also chairman of Sky which is currently 39% owned by 21st Century Fox.
Culture Secretary Karen Bradley informed Parliament of her decision on Thursday
The culture secretary had already indicated earlier this week that she was "minded" to ask the competition regulator to look at the deal on two counts: the level of influence it would give media companies controlled by the Murdoch family within the UK media landscape, and over 21st Century Fox's commitment to broadcasting standards.
James Murdoch said: "We owned 100% of [Sky] for many many years, there were no issues. When I was chief executive - no issues. And when I was chairman - and I'm chairman again - no issues. So the record has to count for something."
Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said: "I am glad that Karen Bradley has shown courage in the face of pressure from the Murdochs.
"This referral is completely justified on grounds both of plurality and broadcasting standards.
"It is now over to the Competition and Markets Authority to properly scrutinise this bid and stand up for a plural and independent media.
Earlier this year, Ms Bradley said she had received evidence casting doubt on Fox News's "commitment to accuracy and fairness in broadcasting" and supporting accusations of "false reporting" at the US channel.
A series of damaging allegations of sexual harassment at the Fox News Channel have become another hurdle in the Murdoch-backed bid for full ownership of Sky.
Last month, the media regulator, Ofcom, noted the "alleged behaviours amounting to significant corporate failures" at Fox, but concluded that as they didn't take place in a broadcasting standards context they "were not relevant to the decision over the takeover bid".
However, Ms Bradley said broadcasting standards and corporate governance questions would be included in the CMA's assessment of whether or not the deal should be approved, and if so, under what conditions.
Several women have alleged they were harassed by former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, who died in May this year. He was removed from his post following the allegations, but critics argue Fox had inadequate systems in place to deal with claims of this kind.
The expanded agenda for the CMA referral has raised the prospect that the deal - the Murdochs' second attempt to acquire the rest of Sky - could fail.
An initial bid in 2010 was abandoned in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.
New governance systems were then introduced at Murdoch-owned media companies, and the broadcasting and film businesses were separated from Mr Murdoch's newspaper interests, which include the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times.
Late last year, 21st Century Fox launched its new bid for Sky.
On Tuesday, Ms Bradley gave both broadcasters involved in the £11.7bn deal 10 days in which to submit further arguments. They declined the opportunity to make further representations.
• None What are the issues in Fox's Sky deal? | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41266542 | news_business-41266542 |
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'Pharma bro' Martin Shkreli jailed over Hillary hair post - BBC News | 2017-09-14 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Ex-pharmaceutical boss Martin Shkreli is ordered jailed as he awaits his sentence for fraud. | US & Canada | Shkreli (R) has frequently clashed with critics on social media
A judge has ordered the jailing of ex-pharmaceutical chief executive Martin "Pharma Bro" Shkreli while he awaits sentencing for securities fraud.
Judge Kiyo Matsumoto said a Facebook post in which Shkreli offered $5,000 for a strand of Hillary Clinton's hair showed he was a danger to the public.
The former CEO, 34, had been free on $5m (£4m) bail since his 2015 arrest.
Shkreli was branded "the most hated man in America" when his firm hiked the price of medication for Aids patients.
In August 2017 he was found guilty of three counts of securities fraud by a New York City jury, which cleared him on five other counts.
Shkreli was on trial in relation to a drug company he previously headed, Retrophin, and a hedge fund he managed.
On Wednesday, Judge Matsumoto ruled that Shkreli's post on 4 September - made shortly before Mrs Clinton began a book tour - showed he posed a danger, rejecting arguments his words were protected by US free speech laws.
Shkreli - who has clashed frequently with critics on social media - had argued that the since-deleted post amounted to satire, and had been a reference to DNA sequencing.
"This is a solicitation of assault in exchange for money," the judge said. "That is not protected by the First Amendment."
Shkreli's lawyer Benjamin Brafman said: "We are obviously disappointed.
"We believed that the court arrived at the wrong decision. But she's the judge, and right now we will have to live with this decision."
Shkreli, who is facing up to 20 years in prison following his fraud conviction last month, will now be placed in custody ahead of his sentencing hearing, which has been scheduled for January.
Shkreli rocketed to notoriety in 2015 - and earned the nickname "Pharma Bro" - after raising the price of a lifesaving anti-parasite drug called Daraprim by 5,000% upon acquiring rights to the medication.
Overnight, the price of the drug soared from $13.50 to $750 (£570) per dose.
Hillary Clinton has been on tour promoting her book about the 2016 election | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41262249 | news_world-us-canada-41262249 |
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Why are wages so weak? - BBC News | 2017-09-14 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Despite record levels of employment, pay is lagging, and economists can't decide why, writes Simon Jack. | Business | Unions have threatened strikes if the public sector pay cap remains in place
In August 2013, the Bank of England Governor said he would consider raising interest rates when the unemployment rate came down to 7%.
At the time, it was 7.8% - today it is at a 42 year low of 4.3% and rather than raising rates, the only adjustment the bank has made is to cut rates further in the aftermath of the referendum result.
He thought, along with most economists, that as unemployment came down, wages would start to rise and that would be the sensible time to consider returning interest rates to normal levels rather than levels associated with economic intensive care.
What happened? And more importantly what should the Bank of England do now?
Usually, as the unemployment rate falls, competition for available workers increases and, therefore, so do wages.
This relationship is called the Phillips Curve but it has become increasingly apparent that someone, or something, has taken a Phillips screwdriver to this mechanism. We have the lowest unemployment since 1975 and yet wage growth is weak.
There are several competing theories as to what has happened to alter this relationship. The most hotly debated of these explanations is that we have an inexhaustible supply of cheap labour from the EU which is holding down wages.
A Bank of England research paper found that in low skilled occupations, every 10% increase in the ratio of migrant to native worker created a 1.88% fall in wages.
There was no evidence it affected higher skilled jobs at all and so the impact on overall UK wages would be, in the words of the author Stephen Nickell, "infinitesimally small".
It's also worth noting that stagnant wage growth is a global phenomenon to be found in the US and also Japan where net migration is negligible.
The business lobby points out that an array of additional burdens on them such as the introduction of the apprenticeship levy (affecting big businesses), the introduction of the living wage, and the roll out of auto-enrolment (affects smaller businesses more) means they simply can't afford to offer higher wages.
It makes intuitive sense that an increase in overall labour costs would make it harder to raise basic pay.
Pay growth did indeed fall around the time of auto-enrolments introduction in 2013 but in the years since, wage growth has fluctuated from 1% to 3% so there doesn't appear to be any lasting impact.
Some argue Uber does not pay its drivers enough
Also, it would presumably act as an equally powerful disincentive to hiring people in the first place which it clearly hasn't.
The changing nature of work is also a suspect in this mystery.
The economist Martin Beck has made powerful arguments that companies which offer less secure forms of employment, like Uber, can switch their demand for labour on and off based on its cost - meaning pay rates no longer move upward as unemployment moves downward.
This has the important knock-on effect, argues Beck, that workers become so cheap that companies are tempted to use them rather than invest in more productive machines and processes so worker productivity (and the ability to pay them more per hour) declines.
One of the least discussed explanations is the decline in power of labour organisations. Unions experienced their biggest fall in membership since records began last year losing 275,000 members.
Unite boss Len McCluskey wields influence, but union membership has been falling
Union membership has halved since the late 1970s and both the rise in self employment and the fall in public sector roles could make it hard to reverse that decline.
There are probably elements of all of these factors at work. What really matters it not so much whether your pay is going up 1% or 3% but more, what your wages are doing compared to inflation.
Right now more of us are working than ever before and yet on average we are getting a bit poorer every day as inflation devours any income growth.
The question is when will it change - and why?
The Bank of England expects wage growth to exceed inflation next year for two reasons.
The first one is a pretty solid bet. Inflation will fall as the effect of sterling's post-referendum drop works its way through the system. Comparing prices of imports now to the same time last year will stop showing such a big rise.
The second reason is that it's convinced we must now be near the threshold when low unemployment begins to push wages higher.
It's been wrong on this before of course, but there is increasing evidence from recruitment firms that scarcity of available workers is beginning to force employers to offer higher salaries in some sectors.
The Bank of England's chief economist, Andy Haldane, could vote for a rate rise
Presiding over an economy in which working people are getting poorer every day is not a very comfortable political position to be in. We have seen the cap on public sector workers' pay loosened this week, under pressure from a TUC threatening strike action and a rejuvenated Jeremy Corbyn.
The government will be dearly hoping the Bank is right this time.
We will get an inkling of how confident the Bank is in this prediction when it votes on interest rates tomorrow.
Last time only two out of the nine rate setters thought the time was right to nudge rates higher. Previously one other, Chief Economist Andy Haldane, has said he might join them later this year.
It will be worth keeping an eye out for how he votes. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41259803 | news_business-41259803 |
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Barnier: EU's Brexit negotiator seeks to clarify remarks - BBC News | 2017-09-04 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | EU official says it is not time to "teach lessons" but to "explain" benefits of EU to all its members. | UK Politics | Michel Barnier has clarified remarks he is reported to have made about Brexit.
The EU negotiator was quoted as saying he saw the process as an opportunity to "teach" the British people and others what leaving the single market means.
Mr Barnier said he actually told a meeting it "was an occasion of great explanation for everyone in the EU".
The BBC understands he was talking in Italy about explaining the benefits of the single market to a broad European audience, not just specifically the UK.
The latest round of negotiations over the UK's exit from the EU concluded last week, with the two sides due to officially meet again later this month.
The UK, which is keen to move on from issues directly related to its withdrawal to talk about its future relationship with the EU, has said it would like to "intensify" the pace of talks, with Downing Street saying it is open to holding negotiations on a rolling basis.
There has been unconfirmed speculation that Prime Minister Theresa May is to make a major speech on Brexit later this month in the run-up to the Conservative Party conference.
Speaking at a conference in Italy on Saturday, Mr Barnier said he did not want to punish the UK for voting to leave the EU in last year's referendum.
But he reportedly warned that "there are extremely serious consequences of leaving the single market and it hasn't been explained to the British people".
"We intend to teach people… what leaving the single market means," he reportedly told the Ambrosetti forum.
Responding to the remarks, a No 10 spokesman said "the British people have heard those arguments."
Mr Barnier tweeted on Monday that what he had said was that Brexit was an "occasion to explain single market benefits in all countries, including my own".
He added "we do not want to "educate" or "teach lessons".
The former French minister, who met the Irish Republic's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney for talks on Monday, later reiterated these comments when speaking to a BBC reporter outside the European Parliament.
Amid growing tensions between the two sides about the progress of talks and the priority given to different issues, a senior EU official has said talks about the UK's financial obligations after Brexit are going backwards.
Gunther Oettinger, the European Commissioner responsible for the EU budget, said "the Brits have to accept that their obligations are going beyond March 2019".
"In July we had been thinking 'yes, they are on the way to accept it'. Now in the last few days they are coming back," he told a technology conference in Brussels.
BBC Brussels reporter Adam Fleming said Mr Oettinger had told him he believed that progress made on the issue in the July round of talks had been reversed during last week's session.
A source at the Department for Exiting the EU said it did not recognise this description and that there had been a robust debate about money.
Last week British officials gave a three-hour long presentation on the legal basis of the EU's request for a Brexit financial settlement. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41151962 | news_uk-politics-41151962 |
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'Husband-proof' shopping list goes viral - BBC News | 2017-09-26 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Indian woman's illustrated shopping list to her husband inspires laughter on social media. | BBC Trending | An Indian woman left little to chance by creating an illustrated 'dummy-proof' shopping list to aid her husband for their weekly food shop - and it struck a chord with thousands of social media users on LinkedIn and Twitter.
29-year-old IT specialist Era Golwalkar told BBC Trending that the list was created to "solve a weekly problem."
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Era Londhe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
"After Gaurav and I got married three years ago we decided to split the household chores," she says, "Gaurav was very supportive and was ready to learn cooking (which is not common for a lot of men in India). But there was one problem. I wasn't aware of back then - he had no experience with anything related to cooking."
"When I first sent him to purchase vegetables, it was an epic fail and an argument ensued between us. The second time was no better. Nor was the third."
Era says vegetable vendors soon picked up on her husband's naivety and began selling him substandard and spoiled products. The confusion led to the task becoming increasingly cumbersome when it was her husband's turn to visit the supermarket.
"He would keep sending photos on Whatsapp to get my approval. So I had to get to the bottom of the problem," she says.
Era and Gaurav would have "epic arguments" over the spoiled fruit and vegetables he would purchase.
Era did so by writing a meticulous list with detailed drawings of each item, so as to eliminate any potential confusion. She even explained how to pick the right veggies - by illustrating what she meant by a medium-sized potato and told him not to opt for palak (spinach) with holes in.
It worked. Gaurav returned with the right shopping and the arguments stopped. So Era decided to share her list on social media.
"Looking at the reactions on social media. I've noticed that most married women globally are able to relate to this," Era says. "Even kids can relate to when their mothers tell them to go and get something from the market and gives similar instructions."
She adds that men on social media generally "had a good laugh over the list, although a few found it to be a bit condescending." But she is keen to point out that she knows that not all men would need a "husband-proof" list like this.
"But mine did, so we found a solution," she says.
But what does Era's husband, 31-year-old Guarav, a video lecturing executive at BuyTestSeries in the west Indian city of Pune, think about the list?
"It did reduce our arguments is what I can definitely say," he tells BBC Trending. "Now, if I get something wrong, I have proof that it wasn't in the specification and she can't deny it."
"Earlier, I used to lose all arguments hands down where veggie/fruit shopping was concerned, now I can put up a fight."
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-41403964 | news_blogs-trending-41403964 |
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Newspaper headlines: Corbyn 'ready to be PM' and Liz Dawn tributes - BBC News | 2017-09-26 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Jeremy Corbyn's speech at the Labour Party conference and the death of Liz Dawn make the front pages of Wednesday's papers. | The Papers | Events at the Labour Party conference in Brighton continue to dominate many of Wednesday's newspapers.
The impression gained by the Financial Times was of "big talk" and radical attitudes - "if it moves... nationalise it".
While the Sun says Labour has shown that the party is "mad, bad, and dangerous".
Rafael Behr in the Guardian argues that it was "the Brexit revolution" which has given the Corbynites an opportunity to indulge in some "unworldly" utopian views.
The task of negotiating Britain's withdrawal from the EU also features in the papers.
The Daily Express says it is "ludicrous" that the EU has refused to move on to "meaningful discussion of a trade deal".
The Daily Mail did not like the "patronising air" of the European Council president, Donald Tusk, when he met Prime Minister Theresa May. It tells him to "stop sneering, and get down to business".
The expansion of the Tate St Ives gallery is praised by the Guardian as "a deft feat of engineering".
The paper thinks the extension is "great" but regrets that, seen from the beach, it's less visible than the block of flats behind it.
The Telegraph too gives the building a thumbs up, calling it "polite, self-effacing and one of the most beautiful galleries in the country".
Liz Dawn received an MBE for her charity work in 2000
Tributes are paid to Liz Dawn, who played Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street, in the newspapers following her death aged 77.
The Daily Star calls her "our lass" while the Daily Mirror says she was "a true legend" - and in real life "a human hurricane".
The Sun says her acting genius made the "brash and argumentative Vera" into a warm and witty character.
She was the "resident nagging loudmouth" in the soap, says the Daily Telegraph. Liz Dawn gave her "the tongue of a viper and the cry of a corncrake," it adds.
"You're havin' a caff" is the headline on one story in the Sun which reports that a builder was refused service in a café - because he was wearing his work clothes.
It says the incident happened in Islington, north London. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-41408620 | news_blogs-the-papers-41408620 |
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10 charts showing Wales since the devolution vote - BBC News | 2017-09-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | So how have we changed - or not - since 1997? | Wales | The landscape stays as beautiful as ever but how has Wales changed in 20 years since the devolution referendum?
How has Wales changed since 1997? That's a big subject. But here are 10 charts giving you a snapshot of how things might be a bit different - or in some cases, pretty much the same.
1 How is the economy performing?
This measure looks at how much money is generated per person per year through goods produced and services delivered.
The most recent regional gross value added (GVA) figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show Wales had the lowest GVA per head of UK nations and regions at £18,002.
Poorer areas like west Wales and Valleys - which stretch from Anglesey, down to Pembrokeshire and across to the old Gwent valleys - are even further behind.
When you look at incomes, back in 1997, the gross disposable household income in Wales was 86.3% of the UK figure. The most recent figure, for 2015, shows the gap has widened slightly and it is 85.5% of the UK figure.
Some experts say we also need to look at levels of debt and personal borrowing, which suggest that people are struggling.
Tackling poverty in Wales has been a constant theme over the last 20 years from both ministers and charities. There has been a target to eradicate child poverty by 2020 but ministers have said they do not have the powers to make enough in-roads.
Latest figures show around 400,000 working-age adults in Wales are in households with less than 60% of median household income in the UK - the yardstick for measuring poverty.
This chart shows that the proportion of people living in this category - after housing costs are taken into account - has dropped but remains at 23%.
Heart and circulatory diseases - grouped together as cardiovascular disease (CVD) - are responsible for more than 9,000 deaths in Wales a year.
Within that, coronary heart disease is Wales' biggest killer - responsible for 11 deaths a day. It is responsible for nearly three times as many deaths among women as breast cancer.
A fall in the death rate from CVD since the 1960s - accompanied by the healthier lifestyle message hitting home - has included a steady decline over the last 20 years.
But there are still worries about inequalities and people dying too early. In Wales, for those under 75 there are 78.4 deaths per 100,000 from CVD - worse than any region of England, apart from the north west. A study for the British Heart Foundation found in parts of the south Wales valleys the death rate is higher than 100.
The life expectancy in Wales, although still trailing that in England, has risen between three and four years. It was just under 74 for men and 79 for women in 1997; the most recent figures are just over 78.5 for men and just over 82 for women.
4: We smoke and drink a bit less
The smoking ban in public places came into force in Wales in April 2007 a few months ahead of England - with hopes it would encourage more smokers to stub it out.
The ban has changed the environment of pubs, restaurants, sports stadiums, public transport and workplaces.
When it was introduced, it was claimed that 25,000 smokers in Wales wanted to quit and we can see the proportion who smoke has now fallen to less than a fifth. There are now an estimated 65,000 fewer regular smokers since the restrictions came into force.
As for alcohol, it is suggested there is still an issue with binge drinking in Wales - but there has been a fall in recent years in the number of people who drink more than three or four units in one day.
Self-employed people and micro-enterprises - which employ between one and nine people - already made up a high proportion of Welsh businesses.
But the numbers have swelled, rising from just under 159,000 in 2003 to 237,215 micro businesses in 2016. This is now 95% of all businesses in Wales. Merthyr has the lowest and Powys the highest proportion.
The image of Wales as one of heavy industry is long gone although numbers working for large companies - those with a workforce of more than 250 - have risen by 12%. And there was also a bigger growth in employment with foreign-owned firms than UK-owned companies.
Despite cutbacks, the proportion of people working in the public sector has actually risen to 27.3%, slightly more than in 2001.
There are more motorists on the roads of Wales than there were 20 years ago - but fewer serious crashes.
Just over 1,000 people were badly injured on Wales' roads last year, with more than 100 killed.
This is however half way towards a target of cutting serious casualties by 40% from the average between 2004 and 2008.
This is also despite the numbers of cars on the roads in Wales rising by 427,000 since 1997. Traffic volume has also risen from 24.18 billion km to 28.40 billion km.
There is a target of cutting serious motorcycle casualties by 25% by 2020, although little progress has been made on this.
If you enjoy statistics, then education in Wales has plenty. You could even take an exam in them. It offers a mixed bag. Most notably perhaps there have now been four lots of Pisa results - which compare 15-year-olds internationally in reading, maths and science, none too favourably.
On the other hand, teenagers' performance in GCSE results has been one of continual improvement since 1997.
The gender gap has been a feature of the last 20 years. Although it has narrowed a little in recent years, those in education admit it is a stubborn feature with boys taking 10 years to reach where the girls were in 1997.
Wales is responsible for 9% of carbon emissions in the UK but although emissions are lower than 20 years ago, it is expected that Wales will miss its target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2020.
It has currently achieved a 20% reduction, according to latest figures. The target is set to get tougher with an 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.
Wales is doing better in other areas of environmental policy, for example it met its recycling target four years early.
Devolution is as old as, well, the internet. The BBC news website itself was only properly launched in December 1997, after a few trial pages like the one below to cover the new Labour government under Tony Blair. Future digital archaeologists will have a virtual museum to this period.
How a very early BBC webpage looked before the launch of its full online service in late 1997
Technology has changed rapidly. Internet connection was little more than a man and his mouse 20 years ago. Does anyone else miss the sound of a modem dialling up? This is for you kids. Just looking at how quickly people hooked up to the web is only a snapshot of how transformative it has been to how we work, rest and play.
It has not been without its challenges in rural areas but most of Wales is now pretty much online. The latest figures show 84% of households are connected to the internet.
As for mobile phones, they've got smaller - some would say smarter - and practically every home in Wales has someone with one. Back in 1998, only 16% of us had one. Now it's 94% who have a mobile.
Keeping them turned on is another thing. According to the ONS's latest survey, 10% of us say we haven't switched our phone on in the last three months.
4G coverage is also improving, according to Ofcom, but Wales still lags behind the whole of the UK when you are outside, with less than half the country having a service. And Wales also comes off worst in the UK with the slower 3G networks.
The peak weight was for the Six Nations opener in February 2015
10: The Welsh rugby team has bulked up
Professionalism in rugby was in its infancy back in 1997. But how big has the physical change in the game been in the last 20 years? How much bigger are Welsh rugby players? The combined weight of the team that lined up against England 20 years ago was 1,383kg - that's an average of 92.2kg (14.5st).
But if we take that fixture in particular to weigh up the differences, there has been a definite increase - peaking in 2015 with a total weight of 1,625 kg in the starting line-up. That combined heft is a bit more than a family-sized car or an average 108.3kg (17st).
This has not been a phenomenon unique to Wales but there is a suggestion it has reached a plateau as the game is getting faster. Last year's Six Nations starting line-up was the lightest in a decade.
Rugby might have the biggest players - but which is the biggest sport in Wales? Football might stake a claim, especially after Wales' semi-final placing in Euro 2016. But it will take more than a single chart to settle that argument. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-40818597 | news_uk-wales-40818597 |
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Germans fined over man, 83, left to die in bank branch - BBC News | 2017-09-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Three people get heavy fines in Essen for not helping a critically ill man at a bank branch. | Europe | A judge has imposed heavy fines on three people in the western German city of Essen for ignoring an elderly man who collapsed next to bank cash machines.
The 83-year-old man hit his head on the tiles and died a week later.
A fourth person had also ignored him, but was not ruled fit to stand trial. Medics were only alerted by the fifth customer at the scene.
The customers were identified in CCTV footage, which showed them stepping round the critically ill pensioner.
It took 20 minutes for the man to receive first aid.
Under German law, failure to respond to a medical emergency is punishable by a fine or up to a year in jail. People are required at least to alert emergency services, if they lack first aid skills.
The other two fines were: €2,800 for a man aged 61 and €2,400 for a man aged 55
In similar cases a fine is often agreed out of court between defence lawyers and prosecutors, the German news website Süddeutsche Zeitung reports.
The incident - at a Deutsche Bank branch in Essen, in the western, industrial Ruhr region - triggered anguished debate in Germany.
Some argued that it symbolised a coarsening of society, with many people indifferent to their fellow citizens' welfare.
The judge justified the fines by saying "nobody wanted to help".
Prosecutor Nina Rezai was quoted as saying the fines must be heavy because "the duty to help a fellow human being was blatantly violated".
She said the fines would send a signal that "we're not going in the direction of a society that looks away".
A medical report into the death found that the man's head injury was so severe that he would have died even if a medic had reached him earlier.
Two of the defendants told the court they had believed the pensioner to be homeless.
Some homeless people did use the area with cash machines as a shelter at the time, as it was accessible without a bank card, and the 39-year-old woman who was fined said she had been harassed by them previously.
However, another prosecutor was sceptical about that argument, saying the customers would have seen that the man was well dressed, lying in the middle of the room and had no bags carrying belongings or a sleeping bag.
The Essen prosecutor, Birgit Jürgens, said she had "never experienced anything like this". She has been working in the state prosecutor's office since 1991. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41305575 | news_world-europe-41305575 |
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Germany's AfD: How right-wing is nationalist Alternative for Germany? - BBC News | 2017-09-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | What does Germany's controversial third-biggest party actually stand for? | Europe | An AfD election poster in Berlin says "Stop Islamisation"
The nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) has grown rapidly since it was formed in 2013 and is now the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag (national parliament), with 89 seats.
Founded in 2013 as an anti-euro party, it has shifted its focus to immigration and Islam and is increasingly seen as far-right in tone.
Yes. It may not have started out as a far-right party but it soon embraced far-right policies and many of its leaders have espoused far-right rhetoric.
AfD co-chairman Alexander Alexander Gauland has talked of fighting an "invasion of foreigners" and the party openly focuses on Islam and migration, seeing Islam as alien to German society. Some of the party's rhetoric has been tinged with Nazi overtones.
The AfD sits in the same political family as France's far-right National Front and Austria's far-right Freedom Party - as well as the populist, anti-Islam Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders. Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK's anti-EU party Ukip, took part in their 2017 election campaign.
The party's leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, Björn Höcke, once described Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame" and called for a "180-degree turnaround" in Germany's handling of its Nazi past. Picking up the same theme, Alexander Gauland trivialised the Nazi era as "just a speck of bird's muck in more than 1,000 years of successful Germany history".
The AfD has managed to attract voters from the centre right and even the centre left but in the words of Verena Hartmann, a moderate MP who left the party in January 2020 because it was becoming to extreme: "Those who resist this extreme right-wing movement are mercilessly pushed out of the party."
In the words of Matthias Quent, a German expert on the far right based in Thuringia: "Not everyone in the AfD is ideologically far right, but anyone in the party or even voting for the party is supporting a party that has a far-right objective."
The AfD has only existed for seven years and its leadership has gone through regular, turbulent changes. Its best-known figures are co-leader Alexander Gauland, parliament group leader Alice Weidel and Björn Höcke, the party's most significant figure in its eastern heartland.
Alice Weidel and lawyer Alexander Gauland are among AfD's best-known national figures
Alice Weidel is a 41-year-old economist who divides her time between Berlin and Switzerland, where she lives with a woman adopted as a child from Sri Lanka and their two children.
She is one of a small number of women in prominent positions in the AfD and argues that her presence as one of its top candidates proves the party is not homophobic.
Alexander Gauland, a 78-year old lawyer, has been with AfD from its Eurosceptic start and his political career began decades earlier with the centre right.
As AfD moved to the right so did he, making a number of remarks condemned as racist. In 2016 he talked about footballer Jérôme Boateng, who was born in Berlin to a Ghanaian father. "[Germans] like him as a football player. But they don't want to have a Boateng as their neighbour."
There was shock as the man elected Thuringia's state premier, Thomas Kemmerich (left), shook hands with Björn Höcke
Björn Höcke, AfD's party leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, has been behind some of its biggest controversies. He is also seen as an inspiration to many of the MPs elected to the Bundestag in 2017 and heads a stridently nationalist group called Flügel. He helped AfD in Thuringia push the centre right into third place in state elections in October 2019.
When he criticised the idea of a Holocaust memorial in the heart of German capital, the party moved to expel him but apparently changed its mind.
Mr Höcke helped trigger a national crisis in February 2020 by helping a liberal candidate become state premier in Thuringia. Not since World War Two had the far right played kingmaker in German politics.
Jörg Meuthen, co-leader of the party with Alexander Gauland, is seen as a relative moderate. After the election result he insisted the AfD did not accept racism or xenophobia, but in the same breath complained that "in some German cities, I struggle to find Germans on the streets".
The AfD's big success came in challenging Angela Merkel's decision to let in around 1.3 million undocumented migrants and refugees, mainly from the Middle East, from 2015.
They tapped into anxieties over the influence of Islam, calling for a commission to investigate the chancellor's "breaches of the law" in allowing them in.
The party made the influx the focus of its party platform. There were contacts with the anti-immigration Pegida movement, which staged weekly marches against what it called "the Islamisation of the West".
Pegida took hold mainly in eastern cities such as Dresden, and it is in the ex-communist east that the AfD has had its biggest successes, attracting more men than any other party. Odd perhaps, in that the biggest concentrations of immigrants are not in those areas.
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AfD adopted some of Pegida's anti-establishment rhetoric, such as the slogan "Lügenpresse" ("lying press"), which was used by the Nazis.
Germany must reintroduce permanent border controls and the EU's external borders must be "completely shut", the AfD says. That position contradicts Schengen - the EU's free movement zone, covering most of Europe, where border checks are generally minimal.
Pegida - seen here in Leipzig - fuelled opposition to Islam and the Merkel "open-door" policy on migrants
One of its former leaders, Frauke Petry, once said German police should "if necessary" shoot at migrants seeking to enter the country illegally. And she was seen as an AfD moderate.
AfD adopted an explicitly anti-Islam policy in May 2016 and its 2017 election manifesto had a section on why "Islam does not belong to Germany". "Burkas? We like bikinis," read one of its most garish posters.
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The party would ban foreign funding of mosques in Germany, ban the burka (full-body veil) and the Muslim call to prayer, and put all imams through a state vetting procedure.
"Moderate" Muslims who accepted integration were "valued members of society", its argued, while suggesting that multiculturalism did not work.
An estimated three million people of Turkish origin live in Germany, most of them Muslims.
AfD has also built its success on challenging taboos and flirting with racism.
Alexander Gauland drew criticism for declaring that Germans should be "proud" of their soldiers in both world wars. While SS units were notorious for German atrocities in World War Two, the regular armed forces also committed many war crimes.
Frauke Petry once tried to end the taboo on the Nazi-era term völkisch, which comes from the German word for people but was hijacked by the Nazis to define those they saw as belonging to the German race.
AfD has come a long way since it was launched in early 2013 to challenge eurozone bailouts in Greece and elsewhere, and reject the EU's arguments for keeping the euro.
It still promises to abandon the euro and reintroduce the Deutschmark.
But its first leader, Bernd Lucke, left the party in 2015, arguing that it was becoming increasingly xenophobic.
Its anti-euro policy echoes the Euroscepticism of other populist parties in Europe.
If the EU fails to reform and continues centralising, the AfD says, the party will seek to pull Germany out of the EU. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37274201 | news_world-europe-37274201 |
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Turkey's new school year: Jihad in, evolution out - BBC News | 2017-09-18 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | New Turkish school textbooks omit evolution but include the idea of "jihad" - provoking a row. | Europe | There is a storm of criticism over textbooks revised for children aged six to 14
Turkey's schools have begun the new academic year with a controversial curriculum that leaves out the theory of evolution and brings in the concept of jihad.
For Turkey's Islamist-rooted government, the idea is for a new "education of values".
Critics have denounced new textbooks as "sexist" and "anti-scientific", and complain of a major blow to secular education.
"By embedding a jihadist education of values, they try to plague the brains of our little children, with the same understanding that transforms the Middle East into a bloodbath," said Bulent Tezcan of the secular, opposition CHP party.
But the government has accused the opposition of creating black propaganda and trying to polarise Turkey ahead of elections in 2019.
"When we say values, they understand something else. We are proud of our conservative-democrat stand, but we don't want everyone to be like us," says Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz.
"Say no to conservative curriculum" read a protester's banner in Istanbul on the eve of the new academic year
Textbooks explaining the idea of jihad are being rolled out in Turkey's religious vocational schools, known widely as Imam-Hatip high schools. They will then be offered to children in secondary schools as optional courses in a year's time.
One book titled Life of Muhammad the Prophet has been singled out for criticism, both for alleged sexism and its explanation of jihad.
Jihad is defined as "religious war" by the dictionary of the Institute of Turkish Language. But education ministry officials say the concept of jihad has been exploited by jihadist groups such as so-called Islamic State (IS).
Critics say the textbooks define a wife's role as that of a mother, while the man is labelled "stronger"
The education minister says the concept should be introduced as part of Islam in the context of "loving a nation".
"Jihad is an element in our religion. Our duty is to teach every concept deservedly and correct things that are wrongly perceived," he says.
The same controversial textbook defines women's "obedience" to men as a form of "worship". But government officials say that is understandable as the book is about Islam and quotes Koranic verses.
"Allah says it, not me. Should I correct him, or what?" said Alpaslan Durmus, who chairs the Board of Education.
But two big protests went ahead at the weekend, with hashtags such as #NoToSexistCurriculum, #SayNoToNonScientificCurriculum and #DefendSecularEducation trending on social media in Turkey.
One union leader called for protesters to "say No to an outdated curriculum that bans science in the 21st Century".
This textbook covering the botched July 2016 coup cites the Koran, saying "courage means standing against the cruel"
Opponents have accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of replacing the secular foundations of the Turkish republic with Islamic and conservative values.
The president's own remarks on raising a "pious generation" have also caused alarm.
Protesters in Ankara accused the ruling AKP of undermining Turkey's secular education system
The education ministry also argues that critics are "utterly ignorant" for claiming that evolution has been completely excluded from the curriculum.
Subjects such as mutation, modification and adaptation are explained in biology textbooks, without citing evolution itself. This theory is "above students' level" and should be taught in universities, says the minister.
This will only confuse students, says Aysel Madra from Turkey's Education Reform Initiative, who finds it odd to posit that children can understand jihad but not evolution.
Christian and Muslim creationists reject the theory of evolution
Teachers' unions are also divided over the jihad debate.
Turkey's Egitim Sen union sees an "ideological and deliberate" step by the government, while a more conservative rival union accuses critics of using anti-Islamic arguments.
"According to the Turkish Language Institute, jihad's primary meaning is 'religious war'," says Egitim Sen leader Feray Aydogan. "What is the point of explaining second and third meanings?"
The Imam-Hatip school textbook cites Koranic verses about the Faithful (Mu'min), the Impious (Kafir) and the Hypocrite (Munafık) | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41296714 | news_world-europe-41296714 |
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Star Wars actor McDiarmid takes on immigration row role - BBC News | 2017-09-08 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Ian McDiarmid's latest role tries to uncover the true character of the controversial politician Enoch Powell. | Entertainment & Arts | Ian McDiarmid portrays Enoch Powell at the time of his "rivers of blood" speech and later towards the end of his life
A single controversial speech probably made Enoch Powell the most admired and the most detested British politician of the 1960s. In 1968 his intervention in Britain's policies on migration ended his career as a shadow minister - but it made him known around the world. Chris Hannan's play What Shadows, starring Star Wars actor Ian McDiarmid, looks at Powell's motives then and at his legacy today.
Hannan says the play What Shadows isn't really about Powell, although the politician dominates the stage.
"I knew I wanted to write about national identity and Powell is a good way of exploring that. But the inspiration was partly my own background in a working-class Irish family in Scotland. There was a huge amount of discrimination as the Irish were often seen as unwanted immigrants. So the Powell speech resonated more widely than you might think."
In April 1968 Powell made a speech which has gone down in British political history. The Conservatives were in opposition under Edward Heath - a party rival for whom Powell had little respect. Powell, the Tory defence spokesman, knew some of his white constituents in Wolverhampton South-West were unhappy at levels of immigration from the Commonwealth.
Ian McDiarmid (left) is known for playing Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in Star Wars
He made a speech at the Midland Hotel in Birmingham, using the racial language of the time, in which he quoted the Roman poet Virgil, setting out dark forebodings about growing levels of migration. "Like the Roman," he said "I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood."
The press around the world reported the so-called "rivers of blood" speech and Powell was quickly sacked from the Tory front bench. But TV news bulletins were filled with voters for whom Powell had become an unlikely populist hero.
Hannan's play shows events surrounding the Birmingham speech and then revisits Powell towards the end of his life. The play was seen last year at the Birmingham Rep and is now being restaged in Edinburgh and London. The lead role is taken by Ian McDiarmid, famous on screen as the Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars films.
The play's poster gives an inflammatory image of Enoch Powell
McDiarmid says the 1968 Britain we see portrayed isn't very different from the nation today. "I think we now have a divided Britain, almost down the middle - as it very much was when Powell made the speech.
"There are the people who have reason to be grateful and happy about multiculturalism and there are other people who are feeling rather dispossessed. And that's something which he put his finger on in 1968 - in fact he lit the blue touch-paper.
"So Chris has written about a divided nation but with Powell there's also a divided personality. He was a romantic nationalist and a passionate person: he felt he had an insight into human nature. In a public sense he had two great ambitions: he wanted to be Viceroy of India and then he wanted to be prime minister. They both came to nothing."
Political journalist Simon Heffer was Powell's official biographer. Before the politician's death in 1998 they spoke about the Birmingham speech - but he was never quite sure if Powell had been surprised at its huge impact with the public.
Ian McDiarmid (left) previously played the World War One foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey in drama 37 Days
"There's no denying that Enoch had aspirations to be his party's leader. He disliked the fact that Edward Heath was a pro-European and not a traditional Tory. He knew the Birmingham speech would aggravate Heath but he was also, I think, acting as a dedicated constituency MP. He was not a racist and I think he had no theories about race as such - but he was opposed to immigration.
"Some of the language he used in the speech undoubtedly offended people with his talk of 'charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies'. It's fair to point out that he was quoting a constituent.
"But when I wrote his biography a lot of his contemporaries at Westminster told me his speech had made it impossible to discuss immigration at all: the whole thing became so toxic. That was not what he intended."
Hannan enjoyed delving into Powell's complex personality. But he says it's contemporary Britain he had in mind writing the play. "We find this conversation so difficult: it's as if the language isn't fit for talking about it. As soon as we raise the subject of racism and immigration we can last about two minutes before we give up and shut the dialogue down.
The playwright Chris Hannan says conversation about immigration has become harder since the time of Enoch Powell
"I believe the conversation has actually got worse over the half century since the Powell speech. The play really ask, 'How do we learn to talk about this? How do we learn to talk about the things that divide us?' Because we have to get beyond all the hatred - there's no choice about that. The play is about the Birmingham speech needing to be answered. It's not a matter of agreeing with it but I want to know, with all the anger, how on earth do we talk to each other?"
McDiarmid has to make Powell tick on stage - so does he find something to like in him?
"Acting works by empathising with your character. If you fail to do that, the audience simply won't take it seriously and the whole thing will fall apart. So I admire him for sticking to his guns. But at the end of the day you have to ask if what he did advanced the argument in any productive way. I'm not sure it did.
"I suspect the audience may go away thinking he was brave but also naïve - or prejudiced but also honest. I think there are elements of all those aspects to him. But he was a significant character in British life. And - whether you like his arguments or not - the issues he raises are as relevant as they ever were."
What Shadows plays at the Lyceum theatre in Edinburgh from 7 September. From 26 September it's at the Park theatre in London.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41174659 | news_entertainment-arts-41174659 |
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Crime calculator: Find your personal risk of being a victim - BBC News | 2017-09-08 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Try the BBC's crime calculator tool to find out more about your personal risk of being a victim. | UK | Are you scared of being a victim of crime?
Today, for the first time, BBC News, working with the Office for National Statistics, is providing you with a way of understanding your risk of being a victim of crime in England and Wales. If you are interested in Scotland, you can find out more about the Scottish Crime Survey on its official website.
The tool below uses national crime statistics, your address and your personal characteristics to tell you what's happened to people similar to you in the last year - and therefore something approaching a personal estimate of how likely you are to be a victim.
It only takes a moment to fill in, and the BBC does not keep the data, so punch in your details and have a look at the results:
Sorry, your browser cannot display this content
Week in, week out, journalists like myself report on the big crime trends across the nation. And you will almost certainly notice the tool tells a different story - a personal one.
Now, it's worth pointing out that it has some limitations. The Crime Survey of England and Wales, which provides most of the data in the calculator, captures a wide range of real experiences of crime, but some things are very difficult to measure, such as risky lifestyles and behaviour.
Be that as it may, the tool does tell us a lot. And if you try changing your age - and even your gender - you learn a lot more about how crime affects us depending on who we are and our stage in life.
So, for instance, the tool shows that people like me, living in an area like mine, have a very low risk of being a victim of violence. If I were aged between 16 and 29 (sadly those days are gone) and living in the same area, my risk of being assaulted is five times greater.
If I were a woman in my 60s, I'd be even less likely to be a victim.
Put most simply, young men in areas of higher deprivation are the most likely victims of crime. Old ladies living in the same areas - among those who are most likely to fear crime - have a lower risk. There is a dividend for living in a posher area - but age and gender remain key factors too.
Now, there are a lot of nuances in here - and you can drill into the ONS's data tables for the full facts - or read this highly digestible analysis from Victim Support.
But many of these differences come down to how we live our lives.
Younger people spend more time out at night. They're more likely to come into contact with people who become violent after they have had one too many drinks.
How many parents have had to console a teenager who's had their bike or mobile phone stolen?
When kids move out of home, start work or become a student, they're likely to be living in cheaper, less-secure, rented accommodation.
But as they get older, the security of stable employment leads to security at home and family life. And you're less likely to be burgled if you've sunk into the sofa watching a box set, rather than if you've gone to the pub.
Every time a home is renovated, it's harder to break in to than before. Each new car we buy tends to be more secure than its predecessors.
That's not actually how we perceive crime and our personal risk. In fact, what we think is happening can be at complete odds with what is actually going on.
According to the most recent data from the ONS, people generally have a pretty good idea about how much crime is close to them. Their perceptions seem to match the reality. But 60% also thought that crime is rising across the country as a whole - even though the long-term trend is down.
The people with the highest risk of being a victim - the young - were less likely to be worried than older generations, even though the older you become, the safer things generally become.
Dr Jane Wood, a forensic psychologist at the University of Kent, says a range of factors influence this perception gap. Women for instance fear crime because they know they cannot fight off a younger man. But our perceptions are also influenced by what we see around us - and how we hear about.
When the ONS asked interviewees to choose from a list of what most influenced their perceptions of national crime levels, people talked about television, radio, newspapers (tabloid and broadsheet), the internet and word of mouth. And, Dr Wood says, the more we read or watch about crime, the more we think about it.
All of which may be an argument for not listening to a word that journalists like me tell you.
But while I wait for the hue and cry to drag me from the newsroom, please share a link to the crime risk calculator. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41178903 | news_uk-41178903 |
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How much leverage does China have over North Korea? - BBC News | 2017-09-05 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Beijing enjoys a close relationship to Pyongyang, formalised in a 1961 bilateral treaty. | Asia | The People's Republic of China, a country averse to binding, treaty-based commitments, has always enjoyed a particular relationship with its small, north-eastern neighbour.
North Korea is the only country with which China has a legally binding mutual aid and co-operation treaty, signed in July 1961. There are only seven articles in the document.
The second is the most important: "The contracting parties undertake jointly to adopt all measures to prevent aggression against either of the contracting parties by any state.
"In the event of one of the contracting parties being subjected to the armed attack by any state or several states jointly and thus being involved in a state of war, the other contracting party shall immediately render military and other assistance by all means at its disposal."
In essence, therefore, if there is a simple answer to the question of what China would need to do if North Korea is unilaterally attacked by another power - say the US or South Korea - this sentence supplies the answer.
It would, according to this treaty, be obliged to become involved - and on the North Koreans' side. This, more than anything else, shows the ways in which history continues to frame the relationship between the two.
We have a very powerful precedent here. Even before the treaty in 1950, China committed a million troops to the Korean War once United Nations forces were involved. In defence of the North as a client state and buffer zone, it is more than likely to commit its much more formidable military assets.
This agreement still stands, despite the immense changes to China since the period in which it was signed.
A million Chinese troops were involved on North Korea's side in the Korean War
After the death of Mao in 1976, the country shifted from its adherence to a utopian version of socialism, and undertook widespread reforms. These resulted in the hybrid, complex system the country has today. Its economy and geopolitical prominence have burgeoned.
For North Korea, things have been different. Tepid attempts at controlled reform over the past three decades have had little success.
In the early 2000s, the Chinese hosted its former leader, the late Kim Jong-Il, and showed him special economic zones in Shanghai and examples of how to create a manufacturing, export-orientated economy servicing the capitalist West but maintaining its Marxist-Leninist system.
The attempt at persuasion evidently fell on deaf ears. North Korea's unique Juche ideology - a pure form of nationalism - meant that it resisted any attempts to copy models from elsewhere.
To this day, the market, if it exists in North Korea in any shape or form, is highly circumscribed and geared towards supporting the country's military aims and regime survival.
China's great points of leverage these days are trade, aid and energy. As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, North Korea's most important patron vanished almost overnight. Since that point, the reliance on China has increased to the extent that is now almost a monopoly.
Some 80% of the country's oil comes from its neighbour. Coal exports into China were immensely important - until sanctions stopped them in July last year after provocative behaviour. China has stuck to this agreement, with precipitous collapses in the North Korean economy in the ensuing year.
Late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il with former Chinese President Hu Jintao (R) in Beijing in January 2006
Almost all of North Korea's exports are either to China, or through China to elsewhere. Some 90% of its aid comes from China. China is the only country it has air links with, and a rail line into.
It was, until the mid-2000s, the only country, too, whose banks had relations with North Korean counterparts, through accounts in Macau in particular. Monies here were frozen in a previous spate of sanctions.
Even so, one of the new targets of UN-backed measures is Chinese banks, which continue, mostly indirectly, to deal with embargoed North Korean companies or intermediaries.
The main point of Chinese leverage over North Korea is widely believed to be its oil. Stopping this would lead to an immediate, dramatic economic impact.
A few years ago, for a matter of days, the oil pipes into North Korea were closed, around the time of a previous nuclear test. China has, therefore, been willing to flex its muscles here.
But wholesale stopping of the supply, rather than temporary glitches, is a different matter. Many believe this would trigger regime crisis, or even collapse. After all, the North Koreans are already living in a subsistence economy. Taking away this final lifeline could be fatal.
There are powerful counter-arguments, however, that say things would not be so straightforward. North Korea devotes 25% of its GDP (gross domestic product) to military activity. The oil stocks there would last a few months. And that would give it time to embark on the devastating assault southwards that everyone fears, into the highly populated regions of South Korea.
It would be a suicidal mission, but as the world knows from plenty of other examples, handling those with suicide on their minds is the greatest challenge.
Nor would North Korea be compliant in other areas as it collapsed. Refugees would swarm across the border into China. A vacuum would appear. China would be faced with its worst nightmare - a space which the US and its allies might try to occupy.
For all its seeming points of leverage and influence, therefore, the most remarkable thing about China and North Korea is the ways in which, at a time when the rest of the world is agonising over how to deal with a renascent, confident, powerful-looking China, this narrative is so brutally undermined by the ways in which its small, impoverished neighbour almost daily exposes its impotence.
This analysis piece was commissioned by the BBC from an expert working for an outside organisation.
Kerry Brown is professor of Chinese studies and director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41152824 | news_world-asia-41152824 |
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'Husband-proof' shopping list goes viral - BBC News | 2017-09-27 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Indian woman's illustrated shopping list to her husband inspires laughter on social media. | BBC Trending | An Indian woman left little to chance by creating an illustrated 'dummy-proof' shopping list to aid her husband for their weekly food shop - and it struck a chord with thousands of social media users on LinkedIn and Twitter.
29-year-old IT specialist Era Golwalkar told BBC Trending that the list was created to "solve a weekly problem."
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"After Gaurav and I got married three years ago we decided to split the household chores," she says, "Gaurav was very supportive and was ready to learn cooking (which is not common for a lot of men in India). But there was one problem. I wasn't aware of back then - he had no experience with anything related to cooking."
"When I first sent him to purchase vegetables, it was an epic fail and an argument ensued between us. The second time was no better. Nor was the third."
Era says vegetable vendors soon picked up on her husband's naivety and began selling him substandard and spoiled products. The confusion led to the task becoming increasingly cumbersome when it was her husband's turn to visit the supermarket.
"He would keep sending photos on Whatsapp to get my approval. So I had to get to the bottom of the problem," she says.
Era and Gaurav would have "epic arguments" over the spoiled fruit and vegetables he would purchase.
Era did so by writing a meticulous list with detailed drawings of each item, so as to eliminate any potential confusion. She even explained how to pick the right veggies - by illustrating what she meant by a medium-sized potato and told him not to opt for palak (spinach) with holes in.
It worked. Gaurav returned with the right shopping and the arguments stopped. So Era decided to share her list on social media.
"Looking at the reactions on social media. I've noticed that most married women globally are able to relate to this," Era says. "Even kids can relate to when their mothers tell them to go and get something from the market and gives similar instructions."
She adds that men on social media generally "had a good laugh over the list, although a few found it to be a bit condescending." But she is keen to point out that she knows that not all men would need a "husband-proof" list like this.
"But mine did, so we found a solution," she says.
But what does Era's husband, 31-year-old Guarav, a video lecturing executive at BuyTestSeries in the west Indian city of Pune, think about the list?
"It did reduce our arguments is what I can definitely say," he tells BBC Trending. "Now, if I get something wrong, I have proof that it wasn't in the specification and she can't deny it."
"Earlier, I used to lose all arguments hands down where veggie/fruit shopping was concerned, now I can put up a fight."
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-41403964 | news_blogs-trending-41403964 |
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Newspaper headlines: Corbyn 'ready to be PM' and Liz Dawn tributes - BBC News | 2017-09-27 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Jeremy Corbyn's speech at the Labour Party conference and the death of Liz Dawn make the front pages of Wednesday's papers. | The Papers | Events at the Labour Party conference in Brighton continue to dominate many of Wednesday's newspapers.
The impression gained by the Financial Times was of "big talk" and radical attitudes - "if it moves... nationalise it".
While the Sun says Labour has shown that the party is "mad, bad, and dangerous".
Rafael Behr in the Guardian argues that it was "the Brexit revolution" which has given the Corbynites an opportunity to indulge in some "unworldly" utopian views.
The task of negotiating Britain's withdrawal from the EU also features in the papers.
The Daily Express says it is "ludicrous" that the EU has refused to move on to "meaningful discussion of a trade deal".
The Daily Mail did not like the "patronising air" of the European Council president, Donald Tusk, when he met Prime Minister Theresa May. It tells him to "stop sneering, and get down to business".
The expansion of the Tate St Ives gallery is praised by the Guardian as "a deft feat of engineering".
The paper thinks the extension is "great" but regrets that, seen from the beach, it's less visible than the block of flats behind it.
The Telegraph too gives the building a thumbs up, calling it "polite, self-effacing and one of the most beautiful galleries in the country".
Liz Dawn received an MBE for her charity work in 2000
Tributes are paid to Liz Dawn, who played Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street, in the newspapers following her death aged 77.
The Daily Star calls her "our lass" while the Daily Mirror says she was "a true legend" - and in real life "a human hurricane".
The Sun says her acting genius made the "brash and argumentative Vera" into a warm and witty character.
She was the "resident nagging loudmouth" in the soap, says the Daily Telegraph. Liz Dawn gave her "the tongue of a viper and the cry of a corncrake," it adds.
"You're havin' a caff" is the headline on one story in the Sun which reports that a builder was refused service in a café - because he was wearing his work clothes.
It says the incident happened in Islington, north London. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-41408620 | news_blogs-the-papers-41408620 |
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Rohingya crisis: Seeing through the official story in Myanmar - BBC News | 2017-09-11 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | On a government-sponsored trip, journalists uncovered evidence they were not supposed to see. | Asia | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Who is burning down Rohingya villages?
The 300,000 people who have fled Rakhine state to Bangladesh over the past two weeks all come from the northern districts of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung, the last areas of Myanmar with sizeable Rohingya populations not confined to displacement camps.
These districts are hard to reach. Roads are poor, and the government requires permits to go there, which journalists rarely get.
So we grabbed the opportunity to join a government-organised visit to Maungdaw, for 18 local and foreign journalists.
It would mean seeing only places and people they wanted us to see. But sometimes, even under these restrictions, you can glean valuable insights.
Besides, the government has arguments that need to be heard. It is now facing an armed insurgency, albeit one some would argue has been self-inflicted. The communal conflict in Rakhine state has a long history, and would be difficult for any government to deal with.
A Muslim man sits in a marketplace in Maungdaw, which journalists were allowed to visit only under supervision
On arrival at Sittwe, the Rakhine state capital, we were given instructions. No-one was to leave the group and try to work independently. There was a curfew at 6pm, so no wandering after dark. We could request to go to places that interested us; in practice we found such requests were rejected on grounds of security. To be fair, I believe they were genuinely concerned for our safety.
Most of the travel in this low-lying region of Myanmar is along the maze of creeks and rivers on crowded boats. The journey from Sittwe to Buthidaung takes six hours. From there we travelled for an hour on a rough road over the Mayu Hills to Maungdaw. As we drove into the town we passed our first burned village, Myo Thu Gyi. Even the palm trees were scorched.
The government's purpose in bringing us was to balance the overwhelmingly negative narrative coming from the Rohingya refugees arriving in Bangladesh, who have almost all spoken of a deliberate campaign of destruction by the Myanmar military and Rakhine mobs, and appalling human rights abuses.
But right away these efforts faltered.
We were first taken to a small school in Maungdaw, now crowded with displaced Hindu families. They all had the same story to tell of Muslims attacking, of fleeing in fear. Oddly, Hindus who have fled to Bangladesh all say they were attacked by local Rakhine Buddhists, because they resemble Rohingyas.
In the school we were accompanied by armed police and officials. Could they speak freely? One man started to tell me how soldiers had been firing at his village, and he was quickly corrected by a neighbour.
A woman in an orange, lacy blouse and distinctive grey and mauve longyi was especially animated about the abuses by Muslims.
A local monk said Muslims burned down their own homes
We were then taken to a Buddhist temple, where a monk described Muslims burning down their own homes, nearby. We were given photographs catching them in the act. They looked strange.
Men in white haji caps posed as they set light to the palm-thatch roof. Women wearing what appeared to be lacy tablecloths on their heads melodramatically waved swords and machetes. Later I found that one of the women was in fact the animated Hindu woman from the school, and I saw that one of the men had also been present in among the displaced Hindu.
They had faked the photos to make it look as though Muslims were doing the burning.
Journalists were provided with photos supposedly of Muslims "caught in the act"
But the BBC later identified the same woman in a Hindu village
We had an audience with Colonel Phone Tint, the local minister for border security. He described how Bengali terrorists, as they call the militants of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, had taken control of Rohingya villages, and forced them to offer one man per household as a fighter. Those who refused to comply have their houses burned, he said. He accused the militants of planting mines and destroying three bridges.
I asked whether he was saying that all of the dozens of burned villages had been destroyed by the militants. He confirmed that was the government's position. Responding to a question about military atrocities, he waved it away. "Where is the proof?" he asked. "Look at those women," he meant the Rohingya refugees, "who are making these claims - would anyone want to rape them?"
Colonel Phone Tint insists 100% of burned villages have been set on fire by Muslim militants
The few Muslims we were able to see in Maungdaw were mostly too scared to talk in front of a camera. Breaking away from our minders, we spoke to some who described the hardship of not being allowed to leave their neighbourhood by the security forces, of food shortages, and intense fear.
One young man said they had wanted to flee to Bangladesh, but their leaders had signed an agreement with the authorities to stay. In the now quiet Bengali market, I asked a man what he was frightened of. The government, he said.
Weeks after the violence, Alel Than Kyaw was somehow still smouldering
The main destination on our itinerary outside Maungdaw was the coastal town of Alel Than Kyaw. This was one of the places attacked by Arsa militants in the early hours of 25 August. As we approached, we passed village after village, all completely empty. We saw boats, apparently abandoned, along with goats and cattle. There were no people.
Alel Than Kyaw had been razed to the ground. Even the clinic, with a sign showing it had been run by the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, had been destroyed. To the north, in the distance we could see four columns of smoke rising, and heard bursts of automatic weapons fire. More villages being put to the torch, we guessed.
The MSF charity's clinic was just one of the levelled buildings
Police Lieutenant Aung Kyaw Moe described to us how he had been given advance warning of the attack. He had taken the non-Muslim population for protection into his barracks, and his men fought off the assailants - armed, he said, with guns, swords and home-made explosives, for three hours until they were driven off. Seventeen of the militants lay dead, and one immigration officer. The Muslim population fled shortly afterwards.
But he struggled to explain why parts of the town were still smouldering, two weeks after the attack, and in the rainy season. Perhaps a few Muslims stayed on, and then set their homes alight before leaving more recently, he suggested half-heartedly.
Then, on our way back from Alel Than Kyaw, something entirely unplanned happened.
The village of Gaw Du Thar Ya, seen burning by the group
We spotted black smoke billowing out of some trees, over the rice fields. It was another village going up, right by the road. And the fires had only just started. We all shouted at our police escort to stop the van. When they did, we just ran, leaving our bewildered government minder behind. The police came with us, but then declared it was unsafe to enter the village. So we went ahead of them.
The sound of burning and crackling was everywhere. Women's clothing, clearly Muslim, was strewn on the muddy path. And there were muscular young men, holding swords and machetes, standing on the path, baffled by the sight of 18 sweaty journalists rushing towards them. They tried to avoid being filmed, and two of them dashed further into the village, bringing out the last of their group and making a hasty exit.
The village was reduced to charred timber and ashes
They said they were Rakhine Buddhists. One of my colleagues managed a quick conversation with one of them, who admitted they had set the houses on fire, with the help of the police.
As we walked in, we could see the roof of the madrassa had just been set alight. School texts with Arabic script had been thrown outside. An empty plastic jug, reeking of petrol, had been left on the path.
The village was called Gawdu Thar Ya. It was a Muslim village. There was no sign of the inhabitants. The Rakhine men who had torched the village walked out, past our police escort, some carrying household items they had looted.
The burning took place close to a number of large police barracks. No-one did anything to stop it. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41222210 | news_world-asia-41222210 |
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What's life like on the border with North Korea? - BBC News | 2017-09-15 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | What do people living near South Korea's Demilitarised Zone feel about the stand-off with the North? | Asia | It's one in the morning and, under the neon lights of Seoul's shining skyscrapers, people are laughing and chatting, heading to eat barbecue or drink tiny glasses of soju, the country's national alcoholic drink.
Being just 35 miles from one of the world's most dangerous borders isn't playing on the mind of anyone here tonight.
For me, that's one of the most striking things about the mood in South Korea right now. The swirling fear that's enveloping other parts of the globe isn't in evidence here. People know this threat, they recognise it, but they've lived with it for a long time already.
The conflict between North and South Korea is nothing new. Technically the two countries are still at war, and simply living in a state of armistice. So why has world attention - and fear - grown so fast in the past few months?
In Seoul, people's response to the North Korean threat tends to fall along generational lines. For those who are too young to remember the Korean War, it feels like more of an abstract threat. While they can't see it, and it has no effect on their daily lives, they spend little time worrying about it.
The Korean peninsula is a place of contrast. In just a few decades, the South has clawed its way back from almost complete destruction to become the fourth-largest economy in Asia.
One of the colourful statues gracing Seoul's bustling Gangnam district
I wandered through the Gangnam district packed with colourful statues celebrating the booming K-pop music scene. Even after midnight half the floors in Samsung's towering glass headquarters had lights on and people at their desks. This prosperity is born of hard graft.
There's no outward show of wealth in the North. Driving along the border, hearing the heavy thumps of South Korean army target practice and the return of clattering gunfire from the North, two worlds are colliding.
A quick check of my smartphone map app shows a featureless expanse. No roads, no towns. What goes on here is shadowy and secretive.
I travelled to the closest village to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), just three miles from the barbed wire. Its men have special permission to farm inside the DMZ, and one of them, sprightly 77-year-old Mr Ong, showed me where he'd lost every toe on his right foot standing on a landmine.
He described the day he heard a bang and looked down to see his leg mangled and twisted. Even then he felt lucky, nine men in his village had stood on mines and he was the only one of them to survive.
Unlike in Seoul, where underground stations and housing block basements double-up as emergency shelters, this place has a clean, new, purpose-built bunker sunk two storeys below ground behind an 8in (20cm) thick door.
Mr Ong lost all the toes on his right foot after treading on a landmine
In one corner, stands a row of shelves, neatly stacked with clear plastic boxes. Inside, lie pristine escape hoods, hammers, first aid supplies, a torch, a whistle - all lined up and ready to be used in case of an emergency.
They're so untouched that I ask if they've ever even been practised with. "We haven't had a real emergency yet," says Mr Lee, the village elder in charge of the shelter. "If we need them, there are directions on the wall."
Does this lack of urgency suggest the threat of imminent war has been overblown? "I am worried," he replies, "just last week someone from the city came to check on us."
Many analysts, though, believe Pyongyang has its eye on prizes far bigger and further away than its southern border.
The Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, used the BBC's Andrew Marr programme to highlight the fact that London was closer to Pyongyang than to Los Angeles.
"This involves us," he said, which is true - but perhaps more in a diplomatic sense than as a target.
The entrance to a South Korean public shelter in the village closest to the North Korean border
When I put his comments to South Korean journalist Jungeun Kim, she was taken aback. "Does he understand what he's talking about? I can't remember a time when Kim Jong-un has threatened the UK. His argument is with America." Of that, there is no doubt.
In Itaewon, I asked a uniformed US solder, one of more than 20,000 stationed on the Korean peninsula, what he thought of the current threat. Did he feel safe? "Yes I do, I've even brought my family here."
When I pushed him on US President Donald Trump's response to the crisis, his answer was brief, but damning. "He's dealt with it like a chump."
It's not hard to find others who agree. But any disdain felt towards the president is of course as nothing compared with the reputation of his North Korean counterpart.
And most here believe it will be the actions of the latter that will determine how this unedifying stand-off ultimately plays out. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41266764 | news_world-asia-41266764 |
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Charlottesville: Trump repeats 'both sides' rhetoric - BBC News | 2017-09-15 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | He said both sides were behind violence in Charlottesville, but signed a motion condemning racism. | US & Canada | Mr Trump drew bipartisan criticism for his comments on Charlottesville
US President Donald Trump has repeated the controversial argument that "both sides" were at fault in white supremacist violence last month.
"A lot of people are saying... 'Gee, Trump may have a point'," he said.
Mr Trump made the comments hours before signing a resolution condemning white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups following the violence in Charlottesville on 12 August.
One woman was killed when a car ploughed into a crowd in the city.
That incident had followed a far-right rally which was supported by white supremacists and neo-Nazis protesting against the removal of a statue of Robert E Lee, a general who had fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the US Civil War.
Mr Trump faced bipartisan criticism when he first condemned violence - in which anti-racism protester Heather Heyer, 32, was killed - "on many sides".
On Wednesday, Mr Trump met South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who had condemned his comments in the aftermath of the violence.
Mr Trump revived controversy over the issue on Thursday, when he said, after being asked about the meeting with Mr Scott: "I think especially in light of the advent of Antifa [anti-fascists], if you look at what's going on there. You have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also and essentially that's what I said.
"Now because of what's happened since then with Antifa. When you look at really what's happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying and people have actually written, 'Gee, Trump may have a point.'
"I said there's some very bad people on the other side also."
Hours later, Mr Trump signed a resolution "rejecting white nationalists, white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups".
The resolution, which the president said he was "pleased to sign", was unanimously passed by Congress earlier this week.
"As Americans, we condemn the recent violence in Charlottesville and oppose hatred, bigotry, and racism in all forms," Mr Trump said in a statement.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Trump said versus what I saw - by the BBC's Joel Gunter
Mr Scott - the lone African American Republican Senator - was asked about Mr Trump's version of their meeting.
"I didn't go in there to change who he was," Mr Scott said. "I wanted to inform and educate a different perspective. I think we accomplished that and to assume that immediately thereafter he's going to have an epiphany is just unrealistic."
Mr Scott's office said the senator was "very, very clear about the brutal history surrounding the white supremacist movement and their horrific treatment of black and other minority groups".
"Rome wasn't built in a day, and to expect the President's rhetoric to change based on one 30-minute conversation is unrealistic," the statement added.
"Antifa is bad and should be condemned, yes, but the KKK has been killing and tormenting black Americans for centuries. There is no realistic comparison. Period." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41262866 | news_world-us-canada-41262866 |
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Six injured in east London 'acid attack' - BBC News | 2017-09-23 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A teenager is arrested after a "noxious substance" is sprayed near the Westfield shopping centre. | London | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Footage of police and other emergency services around Stratford has been shared on social media
Six people have been injured in Stratford, east London, in a reported acid attack.
Police were called to Stratford Centre, opposite Westfield, just before 20:00 BST, following an "altercation" between two groups of males where a noxious substance was thrown.
Ambulance crews treated six males at the scene for their injuries, and three of them were taken to hospital.
A 15-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm.
Those reported injured were believed to be in a number of different locations, sparking initial fears that people had been sprayed at random.
However, the Met Police said those injured were connected to the initial attack.
Ch Supt Ade Adelekan said: "I would like to be very clear concerning this incident.
"What initially may have been perceived as a number of random attacks has, on closer inspection, been found to be one incident involving two groups of males."
Witnesses at the scene said an argument had broken out among a group of people.
A man who gave his name as Hossen, an assistant manager at Burger King, said a victim had run into the fast food chain to "wash acid off his face".
One man said a victim ran into a Burger King to "wash acid off his face"
The 28-year-old added: "There were cuts around his eyes and he was trying to chuck water into them."
Tahseen Taj lives in one of the buildings just opposite the shopping centre and was disturbed by the noise.
"I could hear a lot of ambulances and police from around 20:45, but also there's a West Ham match today; I thought it must be a football brawl," she said.
"But after some time it just increased and increased, and there were a lot of fire brigades and ambulances and police, and it was quite chaotic to be honest.
A cordon remains in place around the Stratford Centre area | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41376150 | news_uk-england-london-41376150 |
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The Maze Escape: the biggest jailbreak in UK history - BBC News | 2017-09-23 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A key organiser of the Maze Escape, now a born-again Christian, speaks out for the first time. | Northern Ireland | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Thirty-four years ago, a team of IRA inmates escaped from what was supposed to be the most secure prison in Europe. It was, and remains, the biggest jailbreak in UK history.
Despite being on the wrong side of 60, Brendan Mead is still a physically intimidating man. Shaven headed, lean and muscular, he has the air of someone who has known violence up close and personally.
He was chosen as the "tip of the spear" for one of the most dramatic operations in Northern Ireland's decades of violence.
He struck the first blow to start the 1983 breakout from the Maze Prison.
Thirty-eight hardened paramilitaries used smuggled guns and knives to take over their block before escaping across the crop-filled fields surrounding the jail, some 12 miles from Belfast.
The entrance to H-6 inside the former maximum security prison
Republicans, with a sense of pride, hold it up as their Great Escape; Unionists recall how one prison officer was killed and others were so seriously injured or traumatised that their lives were effectively ruined.
With its warders backed up by armed soldiers and its distinctively-shaped 'H' blocks, purpose built to house Northern Ireland's feared paramilitaries, HMP Maze became an instantly recognisable feature on the violent landscape of the Troubles.
It stood as another reminder of how things in Northern Ireland were not the same as in the rest of the UK.
Prison officer James Ferris died of a heart attack after being stabbed while attempting to stop the breakout.
Sixteen escapees were later acquitted of his murder after the trial failed to prove the heart attack was caused by the stabbing.
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Brendan Mead is now a born-again Christian. A key organiser of the biggest prison breakout in UK history, he has spoken for the first time about what remains one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
A huge security operation was launched after the escape
Mead was chosen to be the first prisoner to overpower a guard. This was because he was regarded by his fellow inmates as "the fittest man in H7".
This is the first time in 34 years that Mead has spoken on the record about his role in the events.
He revealed that the getaway vehicle used in the Maze breakout, a food delivery lorry, was delayed because IRA "intelligence officers" were rifling through drawers and boxes of papers after taking control of the wing.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brendan Mead speaks for the first time about his role in the 1983 Maze Escape
"The IRA volunteers, particularly the IOs [information officers] preferred to find out who had been an informer or who was working for the prison staff, or who was working for whomever.
"They needed to get that documentation, but they became more focused on that, going through the information trying to find out if there were informers in the ranks."
Mead says that five-minute delay caused problems for the escapees as their vehicle was still in the yard when prison officers began arriving for the next shift.
Some of the Maze escapees
He revealed, for the first time, details of a 'sister' escape plan which targeted the Crumlin Road jail.
It was to have been put into operation after any Maze escape prisoners, who had been recaptured, had been sent there ahead of a trial.
Brendan Mead said: "It was already set up. This is the escape trial we're talking about. Everything we needed was packed into the mortar tubes and they were to be shot over at an exact time when we were in 'A' wing yard.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brendan Mead says a second jail escape was planned
"We were to open the mortar tubes, take out the equipment, and then breach the Crumlin Road as well.
"But that didn't happen because, the people who were on the mortar tubes, they were caught inside a garage at the back of the prison from where they were going to shoot them over. "
Mead accepts that "people's lives were destroyed by what happened" on the day of the Maze escape.
People like John Adams, the prison officer shot in the head during the jailbreak.
Visitors arriving at the Maze Prison in the 1980s
BBC News NI has obtained documents from the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) relating to the subsequent trial of two leading escapees, Brendan 'Bic' McFarlane and Gerry Kelly.
They offer a fascinating insight into what went on in the Maze that day.
Among those documents, John Adams' account of what happened.
In his statement Mr Adams claims Gerry Kelly shot him in the control room. It reads:
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prison officer John Adams' statement to the trial of two Maze escapees
"At 2:20 PM prisoner 58, Kelly, appeared at the grille with a gun pointed at me. He told me not to touch any of the controls or warnings.
"He then told me to open the gate which I did do. He said, "I have nothing to lose; you know what I'm in for."
"He then told me to lie down on the ground, put my hands behind my head. This was inside the control room.
"Kelly was distracted by something and turned away from me. I jumped up and slammed the door and tried to lock it, but it was forced open.
"Kelly then came back into the control room and fired two shots. The first one missed me and the second hit me above the left eye, entering my head. I collapsed to the floor."
Gerry Kelly had been jailed for life in 1973 - after the Maze Escape he was eventually captured in Holland
In a conversation with BBC News NI in 2013, Mr Adams repeated the version of events outlined in his original statement, once again naming the Sinn Féin man as his attacker.
Gerry Kelly has never admitted shooting Mr Adams and was found not guilty after his trial in 1987.
In his own book about the escape, Kelly refers to the person who shot John Adams only as 'the prisoner.'
Some years after the shooting, John Adams was convicted of sexually assaulting a young girl. Mr Adams died on August 16 last year.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'No one was to be hurt,' says Brendan Mead
He was buried on August 31, the arrangements having been made by the hospital in which he died. His grave is as yet unmarked.
Brendan Mead maintains that, while he was nearby, he didn't see the actual shooting incident.
Addressing any allegations that still exist, is, he insists, something that only Gerry Kelly can do.
"John Adams said it was Gerry Kelly who shot him. If that's where Gerry was, then that's his thing. He's to address that, not me.
Army at the scene of the Maze escape
"Apparently Gerry was at the control room and, whatever happened between him and John, the shots then went off."
Other documents in the bundle released by PRONI include a handwritten note which was to be read to IRA members who were chosen to take part in the escape.
It suggests that the IRA leadership feared the rank and file members would not go along with the plan. It makes it clear that any prisoners told to join the escape would have no option but to go along with it.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A note to be read to IRA members who were chosen to take part in the breakout
"To all POWs (Prisoners of War) chosen by camp staff to go on escape.
"Very few of you are aware of what is now taking place. This is due to security and the possible refusal of some of you to go on this escape. Since it is the duty of all POWs to escape I now instruct you to go to this yard to board the feed lorry. Regardless of your feelings we are taking you with us, we have no time for arguments. Just do as instructed. Any refusals will be met with force."
Another note was apparently intended for prison staff taken hostage:
Among the papers held at the Public Records Office is a note apparently intended for prison staff taken hostage
"To all prison staff who have been arrested by Republican POWs on Sunday, September 25.
"What has taken place here today was a carefully planned exercise to secure the release of a substantial number of POWs. The block is now under our control.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jailbreak delayed as 'IRA tried to find out if there were informers'
"If anyone has been assaulted or injured, this has been a result of his refusal to cooperate with us. It is not our intention to settle old scores, ill-treat nor degrade any of you regardless of your past. Though should anyone try to underestimate or wish to challenge our position, he or they will be dealt with severely.
"Anyone who refuses to comply with our instructions now or in the future will feel the wrath of the Republican movement. Should any members of the prison administration ill-treat, victimise or commit any acts of perjury against Republican POWs in any follow-up enquiries, judicial or otherwise, they will forfeit their lives for what we will see as a further act of repression against the nationalist people.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A note from IRA members to prison staff taken hostage
"To conclude, we give you our word as Republicans that none of you will come to any harm providing you cooperate fully with us.
"Anyone who refuses to do so will suffer the ultimate consequence - death!
"Let common sense prevail, do not be used as cannon fodder by the prison administration nor the faceless bureaucrats at Stormont and Whitehall."
A film about the escape, entitled simply Maze, goes on general release today. As with all interpretation of our past, whether through drama or documentary, controversy seems inevitable.
Asked if it was too soon for a movie about the escape, Mead said he worried that the film makers would glorify it to some extent, but that for him it was just history. "What do I think about the escape? I don't really think anything of the escape," he said.
Will he go and see the film?
The premiere of the new film MAZE took place in Belfast
"It would be hard to match the reality," he said. "I don't even know if I would watch it, it's not something that drives me. That's not my life anymore.
"It's part of my past. It's something that I participated in. I don't try to glorify that past; it's a reality and I have to acknowledge that I was a full, consenting, participant in it all.
"It's not like I'm saying: 'Oh look at me, look at what we done'. I could have played for Manchester United. That's part of my history that didn't happen.
"I believed in my mindset at that time that it was a necessary thing to do. There was only one negative thing about it and that's that some people were badly injured and their lives were destroyed by it."
Lives were destroyed by the events of that day; that is not in dispute.
Thirty-four years may have passed but it's clear that many of the officers taken hostage, hooded and terrorised, are still struggling to come to terms with what they experienced.
BBC News NI approached several officers who were working in the Maze at, or around, the time of the breakout.
Only one agreed to an interview. As the time to meet neared, though, the now-retired officer pulled out.
The enforced reflection had been just too much for him. "The trauma is incredible," he explained.
None of his colleagues felt willing or able to contribute to this article. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41271598 | news_uk-northern-ireland-41271598 |
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What should be the 51st 'thing that made the modern economy'? - BBC News | 2017-09-23 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Tim Harford chose 50 essential inventions that shaped the modern economy, but what should be the 51st? | Business | But what did we miss? What should be the 51st thing that made the modern economy?
We've received hundreds of suggestions, which we've whittled down to a shortlist of six. You can vote for your favourite, and the winner will feature in a special programme and podcast on 28 October 2017.
The first option of our six traces its history to 1960, in Minnesota in the US.
Dorothea Parry was ironing when her husband, Forrest, came home from work at the computer giant IBM.
How was his day? Well, he had a problem. IBM had worked out how to encode information on magnetic strips. They wanted to fix the strips to plastic cards. But he couldn't work out how.
Dorothea could. She ironed them on.
Behavioural economists say we spend differently on plastic compared with cash
The addition of the magnetic stripe was a huge boost for credit cards, which were just a few years old and struggling for acceptance. Merchants shown a Diners Club or American Express card had to phone the bank. IBM's magnetic strip paved the way for a far less cumbersome approach.
The new credit cards were pushed aggressively. And people soon found that having a "flexible friend" could make us drop our financial guard: behavioural economists tell us that spending on plastic is psychologically much easier than spending cash.
The price of convenience has been ballooning household debt. But it's hard to imagine the modern economy without them.
Our second suggestion also requires heat to manufacture, but a household iron won't do the job. You need temperatures of 1,700C to make glass.
Who first did that is lost to history, but they probably lived in Egypt, Syria or Mesopotamia, about 5,500 years ago.
Did they look at sand and have an unlikely brainwave: "I wonder what would happen if we melted it?" Or did they discover glass by accident, perhaps while smelting bronze?
Who knows? But it's safe to bet that the early glassmakers could never have predicted how it would shape the economy.
And if you choose glass as the 51st thing, my challenge will be choosing how to tell its story.
Glass touchscreen technology has driven the development of smartphones and tablets
Perhaps you're reading this on a touchscreen device, accessing the internet via fibre-optic cables. Is that the story of glass?
Or I could focus, so to speak, on the lens - how the telescope and microscope changed our knowledge of the world.
Spectacles, windows, or fibreglass could each fill an episode of their own.
One of the real challenges when choosing my list of 50 was that so many inventions overlap, one bright idea later enabling another.
The story of clocks, for example, concluded by observing that GPS wouldn't work without extremely accurate timekeeping.
But many of you felt that GPS deserves a story of its own, and that's our third possibility.
If you've got a smartphone, it probably has a GPS receiver. There are 31 satellites flying around the Earth right now, constantly transmitting their position and the time.
If your phone can pick up signals from at least four of them, it can do some clever maths to work out where it is, and plot its position for you on a map.
Like many of our 50 things, GPS has military origins: the US Department of Defense developed it to win the Cold War.
Now, in turn, GPS is enabling bright ideas that will make the economy of the future - new business models that connect buyers and sellers, and new technologies such as self-driving vehicles, robots and drones.
The fourth item on our shortlist begins with an old story about a flood. It's not the Judaeo-Christian tale of Noah's Ark, but the Chinese story of Emperor Yu, the founder of China's first dynasty 4,000 years ago.
Noah floated on the waters, but Emperor Yu tamed them, recruiting an army of labourers - along with a dragon and a giant turtle - to assist in setting up irrigation and drainage.
The traditional irrigation system used in Bali's Jatiluwih rice fields has Unesco world heritage status
Great Yu changed China, and irrigation continues to shape our economy, from California, where arguments rage over the most valuable use of scarce water, to Bali, where the intricacy of the water-management system has astonished visiting experts.
The only woman to receive a Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, Lin Ostrom, spent much of her life studying irrigation systems.
Ostrom was fascinated by how humans cooperate to manage common resources. There are few more important questions than that - and few better case studies than how we decide who gets how much water, as it trickles - often crossing borders - from the hills down to the sea.
Paper was one of our 50 things. Should we add the pencil to the list? It does have a special place in the history of economic thought.
In 1958, the libertarian economist Leonard Read published an essay called I, Pencil, in which an ordinary pencil explained the miracle of its existence.
The humble pencil can demonstrate the sophistication of the modern globalised economy
The pencil boasted cedar from Oregon which had been milled in California, graphite from Sri Lanka, a brass ferule, a rubber made from Italian pumice and Indonesian rape-seed oil, and more besides.
Leonard Read's point was that in a modern economy, behind even the humblest of objects was a tale of international supply chains, complex manufacturing, capital investment and science.
No one person can make a pencil from scratch, yet the miracle of market forces makes pencils available for pennies. The pencil is a small enough player on the global scale - but a perfect way to understand the sophistication of the modern economy.
Time for one more idea, plucked from a list of hundreds. But where did we store that list? On a spreadsheet, of course.
Or perhaps I should say, 'On a digital spreadsheet' - because pencil-and-paper spreadsheets used to be ubiquitous.
The accountants of the 1970s would fill out row upon row of cost and revenue assumptions. A single change might require hours - or even days - with a calculator, a pencil and a rubber.
The first electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc, came in 1979. It was the brainchild of Dan Bricklin - a computer-savvy student at Harvard Business School. He fantasised about creating a spreadsheet that would recalculate itself.
His software revolutionised finance. Wall Street and the City of London started trading financial products that could hardly be said to exist - let alone be comprehended - without a spreadsheet.
It reshaped accountancy, destroying the jobs of clerks who had pored over paper spreadsheets. But it created new jobs for analysts, exploring one scenario after another.
We increasingly understand the world around us through numbers, and the digital spreadsheet deserves much of the credit for that.
You can vote for one of the six things listed above on the 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy programme website, where you can also see the full terms and conditions.
Voting closes at 12:00 GMT on Friday 6 October 2017, and the winning 51st thing will be announced in a special programme and podcast on 28 October 2017. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41332582 | news_business-41332582 |
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MPs declare sports and bookies as most common donors - BBC News | 2017-09-01 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Ladbrokes Coral companies appear 15 times for hospitality in the register of MPs' donations. | England | MPs have declared about £215,000 worth of gifts, benefits and hospitality
Sports and betting companies top the list of donors treating MPs to gifts and hospitality.
The Ladbrokes Coral group appeared 15 times in the register of members' interests, more than any other donor.
Out of 187 donations from UK sources registered by MPs, 58 were from the world of sport. A further 19 were from betting companies.
Ladbrokes Coral said it wanted MPs to take decisions "from a position of knowledge".
But campaigners for tighter rules on gambling said companies could use hospitality to lobby MPs not to change rules on fixed odds betting terminals.
MPs are required to declare any gifts, benefits and hospitality over a value of £300. The latest register was published on 29 August and most declarations date from the beginning of 2016 to July 2017.
The Ladbrokes Coral Group accounted for 15 entries including trips to Ascot, Doncaster and Cheltenham races, the Community Shield at Wembley and dinner at the Conservative Party conference.
Altogether, the group of companies donated £7,475-worth of hospitality to four MPs, Conservatives Philip Davies (eight occasions - totalling £3,685), Laurence Robertson (four occasions -£2,550) and Thérèse Coffey (twice - £890) and Labour's Conor McGinn (once - £350).
The total does not include any gifts or hospitality worth less than £300 as MPs do not have to declare this.
ITV appeared eight times and Channel 4 was mentioned five times. BBC Northern Ireland appears once.
While Ladbrokes Coral appeared most often it was not the biggest donor in terms of the value of its hospitality.
The largest individual donor in the section on "gifts, benefits and hospitality from UK sources" was the Road Haulage Association, which the register revealed funds a researcher in the office of Dover's Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke at a cost of £22,577.
Mr Elphicke said: "The researcher is looking at how we can be ready on day one for Brexit - particularly at the Dover front line.
"This is vital work for both my constituency and the haulage industry. No-one wants to see long queues of lorries at Dover.
"In this work the interests of the haulage industry and my constituency are strongly aligned. That's why we decided to join forces."
Matt Zarb-Cousin, spokesman for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, accused Ladbrokes Coral of being "desperate" to keep fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) at £100 a spin.
He said: "They will throw as much money as they can. It shows a lot about the strength of their argument that they need to wine and dine MPs."
The organisation wants to see the maximum stake on the terminals cut from £100 to £2 amid concerns vulnerable people can lose a lot of money very quickly.
Its founder Derek Webb has funded the Liberal Democrats and also appeared in previous registers of members' interests as a donor to Labour deputy leader Tom Watson.
The government is conducting a review into FOBTs.
A spokesman for Ladbrokes Coral said: "We employ over 25,000 people, we have a high street presence in nearly every constituency in the land and pay UK taxes of circa £55m per annum.
"Of course we engage with politicians, we want to make sure that when decisions are taken that affect our 25,000 people, they are done from a position of knowledge."
Mr Davies, MP for Shipley and one of the recipients of Ladbrokes' hospitality, said: "I am the elected chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Betting and Gaming - and a former bookmaker - so of course I meet with bookmakers.
"It would be rather extraordinary if I didn't."
Tewkesbury MP Mr Robertson said he did discuss FOBTs with Ladbrokes, but also other issues such as taxation and their relationship with horse racing.
He said: "Very many companies (including the BBC) provide hospitality as a means of lobbying MPs pretty well every day of the week, inside and outside the Palace of Westminster, at various sporting and other events, at party conferences and so on.
"Charities do similar. Some of it is declarable, if it is over the threshold, and some of it isn't.
"I represent the Cheltenham racecourse and am also joint chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Racing and Bloodstock, so have responsibilities in this area.
"Similar to most countries in the world, UK horse racing is very largely financially supported by bookmakers and there is a fear that curtailing their income by reducing the stakes on FOBTs could cause many shops to close which would, in turn, lead to a dramatic reduction in the funding of horse racing, which, contrary to popular belief, is a very poorly funded sport in the first place."
Dr Coffey and Mr McGinn have been approached for comment.
• None Fifth of MPs still employ family member | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41027964 | news_uk-england-41027964 |
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Star Wars actor McDiarmid takes on immigration row role - BBC News | 2017-09-09 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Ian McDiarmid's latest role tries to uncover the true character of the controversial politician Enoch Powell. | Entertainment & Arts | Ian McDiarmid portrays Enoch Powell at the time of his "rivers of blood" speech and later towards the end of his life
A single controversial speech probably made Enoch Powell the most admired and the most detested British politician of the 1960s. In 1968 his intervention in Britain's policies on migration ended his career as a shadow minister - but it made him known around the world. Chris Hannan's play What Shadows, starring Star Wars actor Ian McDiarmid, looks at Powell's motives then and at his legacy today.
Hannan says the play What Shadows isn't really about Powell, although the politician dominates the stage.
"I knew I wanted to write about national identity and Powell is a good way of exploring that. But the inspiration was partly my own background in a working-class Irish family in Scotland. There was a huge amount of discrimination as the Irish were often seen as unwanted immigrants. So the Powell speech resonated more widely than you might think."
In April 1968 Powell made a speech which has gone down in British political history. The Conservatives were in opposition under Edward Heath - a party rival for whom Powell had little respect. Powell, the Tory defence spokesman, knew some of his white constituents in Wolverhampton South-West were unhappy at levels of immigration from the Commonwealth.
Ian McDiarmid (left) is known for playing Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in Star Wars
He made a speech at the Midland Hotel in Birmingham, using the racial language of the time, in which he quoted the Roman poet Virgil, setting out dark forebodings about growing levels of migration. "Like the Roman," he said "I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood."
The press around the world reported the so-called "rivers of blood" speech and Powell was quickly sacked from the Tory front bench. But TV news bulletins were filled with voters for whom Powell had become an unlikely populist hero.
Hannan's play shows events surrounding the Birmingham speech and then revisits Powell towards the end of his life. The play was seen last year at the Birmingham Rep and is now being restaged in Edinburgh and London. The lead role is taken by Ian McDiarmid, famous on screen as the Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars films.
The play's poster gives an inflammatory image of Enoch Powell
McDiarmid says the 1968 Britain we see portrayed isn't very different from the nation today. "I think we now have a divided Britain, almost down the middle - as it very much was when Powell made the speech.
"There are the people who have reason to be grateful and happy about multiculturalism and there are other people who are feeling rather dispossessed. And that's something which he put his finger on in 1968 - in fact he lit the blue touch-paper.
"So Chris has written about a divided nation but with Powell there's also a divided personality. He was a romantic nationalist and a passionate person: he felt he had an insight into human nature. In a public sense he had two great ambitions: he wanted to be Viceroy of India and then he wanted to be prime minister. They both came to nothing."
Political journalist Simon Heffer was Powell's official biographer. Before the politician's death in 1998 they spoke about the Birmingham speech - but he was never quite sure if Powell had been surprised at its huge impact with the public.
Ian McDiarmid (left) previously played the World War One foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey in drama 37 Days
"There's no denying that Enoch had aspirations to be his party's leader. He disliked the fact that Edward Heath was a pro-European and not a traditional Tory. He knew the Birmingham speech would aggravate Heath but he was also, I think, acting as a dedicated constituency MP. He was not a racist and I think he had no theories about race as such - but he was opposed to immigration.
"Some of the language he used in the speech undoubtedly offended people with his talk of 'charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies'. It's fair to point out that he was quoting a constituent.
"But when I wrote his biography a lot of his contemporaries at Westminster told me his speech had made it impossible to discuss immigration at all: the whole thing became so toxic. That was not what he intended."
Hannan enjoyed delving into Powell's complex personality. But he says it's contemporary Britain he had in mind writing the play. "We find this conversation so difficult: it's as if the language isn't fit for talking about it. As soon as we raise the subject of racism and immigration we can last about two minutes before we give up and shut the dialogue down.
The playwright Chris Hannan says conversation about immigration has become harder since the time of Enoch Powell
"I believe the conversation has actually got worse over the half century since the Powell speech. The play really ask, 'How do we learn to talk about this? How do we learn to talk about the things that divide us?' Because we have to get beyond all the hatred - there's no choice about that. The play is about the Birmingham speech needing to be answered. It's not a matter of agreeing with it but I want to know, with all the anger, how on earth do we talk to each other?"
McDiarmid has to make Powell tick on stage - so does he find something to like in him?
"Acting works by empathising with your character. If you fail to do that, the audience simply won't take it seriously and the whole thing will fall apart. So I admire him for sticking to his guns. But at the end of the day you have to ask if what he did advanced the argument in any productive way. I'm not sure it did.
"I suspect the audience may go away thinking he was brave but also naïve - or prejudiced but also honest. I think there are elements of all those aspects to him. But he was a significant character in British life. And - whether you like his arguments or not - the issues he raises are as relevant as they ever were."
What Shadows plays at the Lyceum theatre in Edinburgh from 7 September. From 26 September it's at the Park theatre in London.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41174659 | news_entertainment-arts-41174659 |
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Boris Johnson denies cabinet Brexit split - BBC News | 2017-09-19 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The foreign secretary says he will not be quitting and that the government is "working together". | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Boris Johnson says the government is "working together" and that he will not be resigning after criticism of his intervention on Brexit.
The foreign secretary has been accused of undermining Theresa May with a 4,000-word article setting out his own post-EU vision.
But he told journalists the government was "a nest of singing birds".
Mr Johnson - along with other ministers - is due to attend the PM's Brexit speech in Florence on Friday.
Asked about his article, Mrs May said she was "getting on with the job" of delivering Brexit.
Earlier the foreign secretary was accused by ex-chancellor Ken Clarke of making a pitch for a future Tory leadership election with his article.
Mr Clarke said that "in normal circumstances" Mr Johnson would have been sacked. Some reports have claimed Mr Johnson will resign if his blueprint for Brexit is not followed.
But speaking in New York, the foreign secretary said "of course not" when asked whether he was going to quit, and predicted the government would "deliver a fantastic Brexit".
Asked whether there was a cabinet split on Europe, Mr Johnson said: "No, we are a government working together.
"We are a nest of singing birds."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May asked about Johnson's intervention on Brexit
Mr Johnson and Mrs May are both attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Asked repeatedly about Mr Johnson and reports of cabinet disunity over Brexit, the PM stressed that the government was united in trying to get the best possible deal.
"What I think the majority of the British public want to see is what we're doing, which is getting on with the job of those negotiations with the European Union and getting on with the job of the best deal for the UK," she told the BBC.
Responding to questions about the so-called divorce bill for the UK to pay on leaving the EU, she said the UK was a "law-abiding nation" and would "stand by our obligations" as well as carrying on contributing to programmes it wants to be a part of after Brexit.
Mr Johnson's article said the UK should not pay for access to the EU single market.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
The continuing fallout from the article - published in Saturday's Telegraph - led, on Monday, to Mrs May having to rebut claims that Mr Johnson was trying to become a "back-seat driver" in her cabinet.
The PM, who is due to set out her vision for Brexit in a speech in Florence on Friday, declared: "This government is driven from the front."
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Clarke said that in her speech Mrs May had to set out "for the first time, really" what the UK can "can realistically achieve in negotiations".
That must include "free access to the European market and no new barriers for our trade," he argued, and how best "to avoid economic damage to the country".
"Alongside that, personal publicity and campaigning by the foreign secretary is actually just an irrelevant nuisance."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May is making a big Brexit speech in Florence. But why do it there?
Mr Clarke said: "Sounding off personally in this way is totally unhelpful and he shouldn't exploit the fact she hasn't got a majority in Parliament.
"He knows perfectly well that normally the foreign secretary would be sacked for doing that - and she, unfortunately, after the general election, is not in the position easily to sack him - which he should stop exploiting."
He also attacked Mr Johnson for repeating "one of the more simplistic and dishonest arguments of the hardline Leavers" in his article - a reference to "taking back control" of £350m a week after Brexit.
Mr Johnson met US President Donald Trump at the UN on Monday
The foreign secretary said on Monday that his article was meant to be an "opening drum roll" for the PM's speech.
"Because I was involved in that Brexit campaign, people want to know where we are going," he added.
Mrs May attempted to avoid a public row with her foreign secretary, telling reporters travelling with her on a trade mission to Canada: "Boris is Boris."
Lord Hague is concerned about cabinet disunity over Brexit
Former foreign secretary, Lord Hague, writing in the Daily Telegraph, warned that disunity over Brexit could hand power to Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party.
He wrote: "It is putting it a bit too politely to say, in the wake of Boris Johnson's article in this newspaper on Saturday, that the approach of senior ministers to the Brexit negotiations appears to lack co-ordination.
"More bluntly, it is now 15 months since the referendum, and high time that all members of the government were able to express themselves on this subject in the same way as each other, putting forward the same points, as part of an agreed plan."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41316089 | news_uk-politics-41316089 |
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Turkey's new school year: Jihad in, evolution out - BBC News | 2017-09-19 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | New Turkish school textbooks omit evolution but include the idea of "jihad" - provoking a row. | Europe | There is a storm of criticism over textbooks revised for children aged six to 14
Turkey's schools have begun the new academic year with a controversial curriculum that leaves out the theory of evolution and brings in the concept of jihad.
For Turkey's Islamist-rooted government, the idea is for a new "education of values".
Critics have denounced new textbooks as "sexist" and "anti-scientific", and complain of a major blow to secular education.
"By embedding a jihadist education of values, they try to plague the brains of our little children, with the same understanding that transforms the Middle East into a bloodbath," said Bulent Tezcan of the secular, opposition CHP party.
But the government has accused the opposition of creating black propaganda and trying to polarise Turkey ahead of elections in 2019.
"When we say values, they understand something else. We are proud of our conservative-democrat stand, but we don't want everyone to be like us," says Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz.
"Say no to conservative curriculum" read a protester's banner in Istanbul on the eve of the new academic year
Textbooks explaining the idea of jihad are being rolled out in Turkey's religious vocational schools, known widely as Imam-Hatip high schools. They will then be offered to children in secondary schools as optional courses in a year's time.
One book titled Life of Muhammad the Prophet has been singled out for criticism, both for alleged sexism and its explanation of jihad.
Jihad is defined as "religious war" by the dictionary of the Institute of Turkish Language. But education ministry officials say the concept of jihad has been exploited by jihadist groups such as so-called Islamic State (IS).
Critics say the textbooks define a wife's role as that of a mother, while the man is labelled "stronger"
The education minister says the concept should be introduced as part of Islam in the context of "loving a nation".
"Jihad is an element in our religion. Our duty is to teach every concept deservedly and correct things that are wrongly perceived," he says.
The same controversial textbook defines women's "obedience" to men as a form of "worship". But government officials say that is understandable as the book is about Islam and quotes Koranic verses.
"Allah says it, not me. Should I correct him, or what?" said Alpaslan Durmus, who chairs the Board of Education.
But two big protests went ahead at the weekend, with hashtags such as #NoToSexistCurriculum, #SayNoToNonScientificCurriculum and #DefendSecularEducation trending on social media in Turkey.
One union leader called for protesters to "say No to an outdated curriculum that bans science in the 21st Century".
This textbook covering the botched July 2016 coup cites the Koran, saying "courage means standing against the cruel"
Opponents have accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of replacing the secular foundations of the Turkish republic with Islamic and conservative values.
The president's own remarks on raising a "pious generation" have also caused alarm.
Protesters in Ankara accused the ruling AKP of undermining Turkey's secular education system
The education ministry also argues that critics are "utterly ignorant" for claiming that evolution has been completely excluded from the curriculum.
Subjects such as mutation, modification and adaptation are explained in biology textbooks, without citing evolution itself. This theory is "above students' level" and should be taught in universities, says the minister.
This will only confuse students, says Aysel Madra from Turkey's Education Reform Initiative, who finds it odd to posit that children can understand jihad but not evolution.
Christian and Muslim creationists reject the theory of evolution
Teachers' unions are also divided over the jihad debate.
Turkey's Egitim Sen union sees an "ideological and deliberate" step by the government, while a more conservative rival union accuses critics of using anti-Islamic arguments.
"According to the Turkish Language Institute, jihad's primary meaning is 'religious war'," says Egitim Sen leader Feray Aydogan. "What is the point of explaining second and third meanings?"
The Imam-Hatip school textbook cites Koranic verses about the Faithful (Mu'min), the Impious (Kafir) and the Hypocrite (Munafık) | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41296714 | news_world-europe-41296714 |
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How much leverage does China have over North Korea? - BBC News | 2017-09-06 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Beijing enjoys a close relationship to Pyongyang, formalised in a 1961 bilateral treaty. | Asia | The People's Republic of China, a country averse to binding, treaty-based commitments, has always enjoyed a particular relationship with its small, north-eastern neighbour.
North Korea is the only country with which China has a legally binding mutual aid and co-operation treaty, signed in July 1961. There are only seven articles in the document.
The second is the most important: "The contracting parties undertake jointly to adopt all measures to prevent aggression against either of the contracting parties by any state.
"In the event of one of the contracting parties being subjected to the armed attack by any state or several states jointly and thus being involved in a state of war, the other contracting party shall immediately render military and other assistance by all means at its disposal."
In essence, therefore, if there is a simple answer to the question of what China would need to do if North Korea is unilaterally attacked by another power - say the US or South Korea - this sentence supplies the answer.
It would, according to this treaty, be obliged to become involved - and on the North Koreans' side. This, more than anything else, shows the ways in which history continues to frame the relationship between the two.
We have a very powerful precedent here. Even before the treaty in 1950, China committed a million troops to the Korean War once United Nations forces were involved. In defence of the North as a client state and buffer zone, it is more than likely to commit its much more formidable military assets.
This agreement still stands, despite the immense changes to China since the period in which it was signed.
A million Chinese troops were involved on North Korea's side in the Korean War
After the death of Mao in 1976, the country shifted from its adherence to a utopian version of socialism, and undertook widespread reforms. These resulted in the hybrid, complex system the country has today. Its economy and geopolitical prominence have burgeoned.
For North Korea, things have been different. Tepid attempts at controlled reform over the past three decades have had little success.
In the early 2000s, the Chinese hosted its former leader, the late Kim Jong-Il, and showed him special economic zones in Shanghai and examples of how to create a manufacturing, export-orientated economy servicing the capitalist West but maintaining its Marxist-Leninist system.
The attempt at persuasion evidently fell on deaf ears. North Korea's unique Juche ideology - a pure form of nationalism - meant that it resisted any attempts to copy models from elsewhere.
To this day, the market, if it exists in North Korea in any shape or form, is highly circumscribed and geared towards supporting the country's military aims and regime survival.
China's great points of leverage these days are trade, aid and energy. As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, North Korea's most important patron vanished almost overnight. Since that point, the reliance on China has increased to the extent that is now almost a monopoly.
Some 80% of the country's oil comes from its neighbour. Coal exports into China were immensely important - until sanctions stopped them in July last year after provocative behaviour. China has stuck to this agreement, with precipitous collapses in the North Korean economy in the ensuing year.
Late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il with former Chinese President Hu Jintao (R) in Beijing in January 2006
Almost all of North Korea's exports are either to China, or through China to elsewhere. Some 90% of its aid comes from China. China is the only country it has air links with, and a rail line into.
It was, until the mid-2000s, the only country, too, whose banks had relations with North Korean counterparts, through accounts in Macau in particular. Monies here were frozen in a previous spate of sanctions.
Even so, one of the new targets of UN-backed measures is Chinese banks, which continue, mostly indirectly, to deal with embargoed North Korean companies or intermediaries.
The main point of Chinese leverage over North Korea is widely believed to be its oil. Stopping this would lead to an immediate, dramatic economic impact.
A few years ago, for a matter of days, the oil pipes into North Korea were closed, around the time of a previous nuclear test. China has, therefore, been willing to flex its muscles here.
But wholesale stopping of the supply, rather than temporary glitches, is a different matter. Many believe this would trigger regime crisis, or even collapse. After all, the North Koreans are already living in a subsistence economy. Taking away this final lifeline could be fatal.
There are powerful counter-arguments, however, that say things would not be so straightforward. North Korea devotes 25% of its GDP (gross domestic product) to military activity. The oil stocks there would last a few months. And that would give it time to embark on the devastating assault southwards that everyone fears, into the highly populated regions of South Korea.
It would be a suicidal mission, but as the world knows from plenty of other examples, handling those with suicide on their minds is the greatest challenge.
Nor would North Korea be compliant in other areas as it collapsed. Refugees would swarm across the border into China. A vacuum would appear. China would be faced with its worst nightmare - a space which the US and its allies might try to occupy.
For all its seeming points of leverage and influence, therefore, the most remarkable thing about China and North Korea is the ways in which, at a time when the rest of the world is agonising over how to deal with a renascent, confident, powerful-looking China, this narrative is so brutally undermined by the ways in which its small, impoverished neighbour almost daily exposes its impotence.
This analysis piece was commissioned by the BBC from an expert working for an outside organisation.
Kerry Brown is professor of Chinese studies and director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41152824 | news_world-asia-41152824 |
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The refugee doctors learning to speak Glaswegian - BBC News | 2017-09-06 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | For doctors who fled to the UK, training to work in the NHS means having to learn the local dialect. | Health | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Doctors who have travelled to Scotland as refugees are being given the chance to start working for the NHS through a training scheme. The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme has been to meet those involved.
"When people say, 'I had a couple of beers', they don't mean two," jokes instructor Dr Patrick Grant, a retired A&E doctor training refugees to work for NHS Scotland - including in how to overcome cultural barriers.
One of his students is Fatema, who previously worked as a surgeon in the Middle East until she was forced to flee.
Having treated anti-government protesters in her home country, she herself had become a government target.
"I wish one day this country will be proud of me," she says.
Fatema is one of 38 refugees and asylum seekers on the course - a £160,000 programme funded by the Scottish government.
Based in Glasgow, it provides the doctors with advanced English lessons, medical classes and placements with GPs or hospitals.
The aim is to give the refugee doctors - who commit to working for NHS Scotland - the skills to get their UK medical registration approved.
Fatema says coming to the UK and not being able to work as a surgeon had felt like being "handcuffed".
"I'm a qualified medical doctor. It's hard to start again from zero," she explains.
Maggie Lennon, founder of the Bridges Programmes which runs the scheme, says it is important for the UK to utilise its high-skilled refugees.
Maggie Lennon says the refugee doctors' clinical skills are very similar to those of doctors trained in the UK
"I always say to people, 'I imagine taking out an appendix in Peshawar is not that different to taking out an appendix in Paisley'.
"I don't think there's actually any difference in the clinical skills, I think where there is a huge difference is attitudes to patients and how medicine is performed," she explains.
The scheme is designed to overcome such hurdles, including the case of one surgeon who, Ms Lennon says, was unaware he would have to speak to patients, having previously only encountered them in his home country after they had been put to sleep.
Watch Catrin Nye's full film on refugee doctors on the Victoria Derbyshire programme's website.
Laeth Al-Sadi, also on the course, used to be a doctor in the Iraqi army.
He came to Scotland to study but his life was threatened in Iraq and he was never able to go back.
One of the ways he has learned to work with patients in the UK is to use informal terms that might put them at ease - "How are the waterworks down there?" being one example.
Laeth Al-Sadi says being part of the scheme allows him to feel like he "belongs somewhere"
Language classes are an important part of the course, and placements with GPs and hospitals also allow the refugees to take note of local dialects.
Another doctor says he was confused by a patient who said they had a headache because of a "swally" - a term for an alcoholic drink.
Before refugees can even take their medical exams, they must pass tests to ensure they speak English at a high level.
They must pass a test called IELTS with a level of 7.5 - which even some doctors from the US and Australia have failed in the past.
All classes are taught in English. In one "situational judgement" lesson, the refugees are taught to assess what is wrong with a dummy patient based on its "symptoms".
Laeth says he feels lucky to be offered the possibility of a job in NHS Scotland.
"Lots of colleagues, or people who are doctors, are living here, and they are working other jobs.
"Some of them are even taxi drivers, which has [led to a loss of] hope for a lot of people."
Ms Lennon says this issue of under-employment among the refugee population "is as serious as unemployment".
"If someone's a qualified accountant and they're working pushing trolleys [in a supermarket], then there is an argument that they're taking a job from a poorly qualified person in this country," she adds.
Language classes are an important part of the scheme
Fatema says that despite having to leave the Middle East, she is glad she took the decision to treat anti-government protesters.
"My promise at medical graduation [was to] treat people equally, and try to do whatever is possible to help people. So I would do it again."
Dr Greg Jones, clinical lead at NHS Education Scotland, defended the use of government money on the scheme.
"As well as getting people back to their careers as doctors being the right thing to do from a humanitarian standpoint," he explains, "it's also the right thing to do financially.
"It would be a hugely wasted resource if people who'd already gone through medical training were not used as doctors."
Laeth says being part of the scheme allows him to feel like he "belongs somewhere".
"It means the world," he adds. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41160013 | news_health-41160013 |
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Trump's Daca dilemma - and dodge - BBC News | 2017-09-06 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Donald Trump ended Obama-era protections for undocumented immigrants. Now it's Congress's challenge. | US & Canada | The Trump administration has confirmed it's ending the Obama-era programme called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca). Now the president - and Congress - must grapple with the political fallout.
It won't be a hard break. Current enrolees will be allowed to maintain their normalised residency status until the expiration of their current two-year permits, and renewals for those whose status ends within the next six months will be processed until the end of September.
Nevertheless, the move is a significant change for the more than 840,000 long-time US residents who entered the nation without documentation when they were under the age of 16 and accepted Barack Obama's offer to emerge from the legal shadows.
It also represents a new challenge for the politicians in Washington.
For once, Mr Trump avoided the spotlight following a major presidential decision. Instead, the administration provided an off-the record briefing for reporters, followed by an on-camera statement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions - after which he took no questions.
The former Alabama senator said the administration was doing the "compassionate" move by ending the programme over the course of two years, rather than risk having a court rule Daca illegal and instantly end protections for formerly covered immigrants.
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He - and other administration officials - overstated the unanimity of the opinion in the legal world as to the validity of Mr Obama's order, but there was a very real possibility that a federal judge would have suspended the programme if a group of Republican-controlled states followed through with their threat to file a lawsuit.
The president perhaps took a back seat on Tuesday because Daca protections are generally popular with Americans, who have sympathy for young adults in the programme, many of whom have no recollection of their previous home countries. This is a presidential decision that will have a very human face and very real consequences.
The president would eventually issue a statement of his own, largely echoing Mr Sessions' legal arguments and putting the onus on Congress to work on "responsible immigration reform".
Would that include Daca-like protections? Mr Trump wasn't clear - but, as always, his Twitter feed might offer some suggestions.
"Congress get ready to do your job," he wrote. "Daca!"
By Tuesday evening he had cast the finality of his decision into question, writing: "Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!"
The journey from telling Congress to "do its job" and actually getting legislation on the president's desk is a long one, even with the president raising questions about whether he plans to follow through with his decision. Despite Republican control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, significant legislative achievements have been few and far between during the Trump presidency.
What's more, Congress has been grappling with this particular issue for more than 15 years to no avail. The closest they came was during the Democratic-controlled Congress in 2010, when the House passed a Daca-like bill, but it failed to get the 60 votes in the Senate necessary to break a Republican filibuster.
Conservatives were largely united in opposition, joined by a handful of Democrats. That prompted Mr Obama's unilateral executive action, which he framed as an exercise in presidential "prosecutorial discretion", buttressed by a process that granted legal status only to those who had come to the US as children, lived on America soil for at least 10 years, had a clean criminal record and had completed high school or served in the military.
Now Congress must act if it wants to preserve the programme. Legislators haven't always responded well to the threat of doomsday deadlines, however. Back in 2013 they faced severe across-the-board budget cuts unless they reached a compromise to trim the federal deficit. They didn't, and the so-called "sequestration" budget rules have hamstrung legislators ever since.
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina announced on Tuesday they were introducing a bill to codify Daca similar to previous efforts, but a stand-alone measure isn't what the Trump administration has in mind.
According to the White House, any Daca reinstatement should be part of comprehensive immigration reform that includes strengthened border security, a change to merit-based immigration and cuts to overall legal immigration numbers. The legislative process for such a measure - even under favourable circumstances - could drag on for months.
The circumstances, however, are less than favourable. Democrats are likely not interested in anything other than straight-up Daca re-instatement. Funding for Mr Trump's Mexican border wall, for instance, would be a non-starter.
As for Republicans? Similar to other recent big-ticket items on the legislative agenda, there's far from unanimity on how to proceed.
In announcing the administration's decision to "wind down" Daca, Mr Sessions didn't just argue that the Obama-era policy was presidential overreach of questionable legality. While much of his statement was about upholding "the rule of law", he also made clear he thought Daca was bad policy.
"The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences," the attorney general said. "It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens."
In his press statement, Mr Trump was equally explicit, drawing the line between Daca recipients - many of whom have lived in the US for most of their lives - and "Americans".
"We must remember that young Americans have dreams too," Mr Trump said. "Being in government means setting priorities. Our first and highest priority in advancing immigration reform must be to improve jobs, wages and security for American workers and their families."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'America is the only country I've known'
Many Republicans in Congress - even those who have in the past criticised Obama's executive action - have offered a more supportive tone in backing legislation that provides Daca recipients with legal status.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he hopes Congress can ensure that "those who have done nothing wrong can still contribute as a valued part of this great country".
Senator John McCain was more blunt, calling Mr Trump's decision the "wrong approach".
"I believe that rescinding Daca at this time is an unacceptable reversal of the promises and opportunities that have been conferred on these individuals," he said in a press release.
Meanwhile, battle lines are forming on the other side of the debate, as well. Ann Coulter, a conservative columnist who was an early supporter of candidate Trump's tough immigration rhetoric, had a warning to congressional Republicans.
"Millions of voters not only won't vote for Donald Trump again, but will never vote Republican again if they pass this Daca amnesty," she tweeted.
A bit of executive leadership on this issue would likely go a long way toward helping unite the Republican Party, but that doesn't seem to be forthcoming. The president himself, at times, has appeared as divided as his party.
While he campaigned on the immediate termination of all Mr Obama's "illegal" executive orders - including Daca - he's since been much more equivocal, saying that deciding what to do about these so-called DREAMers has been "very tough".
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This isn't the first time the president, who likes to fashion himself as a decisive executive, has played Hamlet on the national stage. There was similarly professed soul-searching prior to his announcement that he was increasing US forces in Afghanistan and withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accord.
The Afghanistan move ran counter to candidate Trump's campaign pledge to reduce US exposure there and exposed a rift between his military aides and the more nativist leanings of some of his political advisers.
The other moments of doubt and reflection revealed tension between White House hard-liners and moderates in the White House, including daughter Ivanka Trump, who serves as a presidential close adviser and confidante.
And with both the climate agreement and Daca, Ivanka and other White House, moderates were on the losing side.
In a White House that has been wracked at times by palace intrigue, it's interesting to note where the president has seemed the most torn. On military matters, the generals tend to prevail. But when it comes to domestic issues, the president usually tilts towards the promises he made to his base, even if the establishment - and his daughter - advise otherwise.
Over the coming days and weeks Washington may be obsessed with the political implications of this decision. What does it mean for the president's popularity? What are the risks for moderate Republicans in Congress already facing tough re-elections next year? Which party can gain the upper hand in the coming battles?
Outside of the nation's capital, the president's decision will have very real consequences for Daca beneficiaries. In six months, individuals who had emerged from the legal shadows - who had provided their names and pertinent information to the US government in exchange for normalised immigration status - will start to be plunged back into darkness.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'We won't go back into the shadows', says this undocumented immigrant
Even though the Trump administration has said that they will not be prioritised for deportation, the sense of security and benefits these long-time US residents enjoyed will be gone.
For some Americans, this is a cold but hard truth for those who violated the law, even if they did so as children. For others, it is an avoidable tragedy - one of the president's making.
For Daca recipients, the countdown clock is now ticking. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41153609 | news_world-us-canada-41153609 |
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Six injured in east London 'acid attack' - BBC News | 2017-09-24 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A teenager is arrested after a "noxious substance" is sprayed near the Westfield shopping centre. | London | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Footage of police and other emergency services around Stratford has been shared on social media
Six people have been injured in Stratford, east London, in a reported acid attack.
Police were called to Stratford Centre, opposite Westfield, just before 20:00 BST, following an "altercation" between two groups of males where a noxious substance was thrown.
Ambulance crews treated six males at the scene for their injuries, and three of them were taken to hospital.
A 15-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm.
Those reported injured were believed to be in a number of different locations, sparking initial fears that people had been sprayed at random.
However, the Met Police said those injured were connected to the initial attack.
Ch Supt Ade Adelekan said: "I would like to be very clear concerning this incident.
"What initially may have been perceived as a number of random attacks has, on closer inspection, been found to be one incident involving two groups of males."
Witnesses at the scene said an argument had broken out among a group of people.
A man who gave his name as Hossen, an assistant manager at Burger King, said a victim had run into the fast food chain to "wash acid off his face".
One man said a victim ran into a Burger King to "wash acid off his face"
The 28-year-old added: "There were cuts around his eyes and he was trying to chuck water into them."
Tahseen Taj lives in one of the buildings just opposite the shopping centre and was disturbed by the noise.
"I could hear a lot of ambulances and police from around 20:45, but also there's a West Ham match today; I thought it must be a football brawl," she said.
"But after some time it just increased and increased, and there were a lot of fire brigades and ambulances and police, and it was quite chaotic to be honest.
A cordon remains in place around the Stratford Centre area | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41376150 | news_uk-england-london-41376150 |
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What should be the 51st 'thing that made the modern economy'? - BBC News | 2017-09-24 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Tim Harford chose 50 essential inventions that shaped the modern economy, but what should be the 51st? | Business | But what did we miss? What should be the 51st thing that made the modern economy?
We've received hundreds of suggestions, which we've whittled down to a shortlist of six. You can vote for your favourite, and the winner will feature in a special programme and podcast on 28 October 2017.
The first option of our six traces its history to 1960, in Minnesota in the US.
Dorothea Parry was ironing when her husband, Forrest, came home from work at the computer giant IBM.
How was his day? Well, he had a problem. IBM had worked out how to encode information on magnetic strips. They wanted to fix the strips to plastic cards. But he couldn't work out how.
Dorothea could. She ironed them on.
Behavioural economists say we spend differently on plastic compared with cash
The addition of the magnetic stripe was a huge boost for credit cards, which were just a few years old and struggling for acceptance. Merchants shown a Diners Club or American Express card had to phone the bank. IBM's magnetic strip paved the way for a far less cumbersome approach.
The new credit cards were pushed aggressively. And people soon found that having a "flexible friend" could make us drop our financial guard: behavioural economists tell us that spending on plastic is psychologically much easier than spending cash.
The price of convenience has been ballooning household debt. But it's hard to imagine the modern economy without them.
Our second suggestion also requires heat to manufacture, but a household iron won't do the job. You need temperatures of 1,700C to make glass.
Who first did that is lost to history, but they probably lived in Egypt, Syria or Mesopotamia, about 5,500 years ago.
Did they look at sand and have an unlikely brainwave: "I wonder what would happen if we melted it?" Or did they discover glass by accident, perhaps while smelting bronze?
Who knows? But it's safe to bet that the early glassmakers could never have predicted how it would shape the economy.
And if you choose glass as the 51st thing, my challenge will be choosing how to tell its story.
Glass touchscreen technology has driven the development of smartphones and tablets
Perhaps you're reading this on a touchscreen device, accessing the internet via fibre-optic cables. Is that the story of glass?
Or I could focus, so to speak, on the lens - how the telescope and microscope changed our knowledge of the world.
Spectacles, windows, or fibreglass could each fill an episode of their own.
One of the real challenges when choosing my list of 50 was that so many inventions overlap, one bright idea later enabling another.
The story of clocks, for example, concluded by observing that GPS wouldn't work without extremely accurate timekeeping.
But many of you felt that GPS deserves a story of its own, and that's our third possibility.
If you've got a smartphone, it probably has a GPS receiver. There are 31 satellites flying around the Earth right now, constantly transmitting their position and the time.
If your phone can pick up signals from at least four of them, it can do some clever maths to work out where it is, and plot its position for you on a map.
Like many of our 50 things, GPS has military origins: the US Department of Defense developed it to win the Cold War.
Now, in turn, GPS is enabling bright ideas that will make the economy of the future - new business models that connect buyers and sellers, and new technologies such as self-driving vehicles, robots and drones.
The fourth item on our shortlist begins with an old story about a flood. It's not the Judaeo-Christian tale of Noah's Ark, but the Chinese story of Emperor Yu, the founder of China's first dynasty 4,000 years ago.
Noah floated on the waters, but Emperor Yu tamed them, recruiting an army of labourers - along with a dragon and a giant turtle - to assist in setting up irrigation and drainage.
The traditional irrigation system used in Bali's Jatiluwih rice fields has Unesco world heritage status
Great Yu changed China, and irrigation continues to shape our economy, from California, where arguments rage over the most valuable use of scarce water, to Bali, where the intricacy of the water-management system has astonished visiting experts.
The only woman to receive a Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, Lin Ostrom, spent much of her life studying irrigation systems.
Ostrom was fascinated by how humans cooperate to manage common resources. There are few more important questions than that - and few better case studies than how we decide who gets how much water, as it trickles - often crossing borders - from the hills down to the sea.
Paper was one of our 50 things. Should we add the pencil to the list? It does have a special place in the history of economic thought.
In 1958, the libertarian economist Leonard Read published an essay called I, Pencil, in which an ordinary pencil explained the miracle of its existence.
The humble pencil can demonstrate the sophistication of the modern globalised economy
The pencil boasted cedar from Oregon which had been milled in California, graphite from Sri Lanka, a brass ferule, a rubber made from Italian pumice and Indonesian rape-seed oil, and more besides.
Leonard Read's point was that in a modern economy, behind even the humblest of objects was a tale of international supply chains, complex manufacturing, capital investment and science.
No one person can make a pencil from scratch, yet the miracle of market forces makes pencils available for pennies. The pencil is a small enough player on the global scale - but a perfect way to understand the sophistication of the modern economy.
Time for one more idea, plucked from a list of hundreds. But where did we store that list? On a spreadsheet, of course.
Or perhaps I should say, 'On a digital spreadsheet' - because pencil-and-paper spreadsheets used to be ubiquitous.
The accountants of the 1970s would fill out row upon row of cost and revenue assumptions. A single change might require hours - or even days - with a calculator, a pencil and a rubber.
The first electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc, came in 1979. It was the brainchild of Dan Bricklin - a computer-savvy student at Harvard Business School. He fantasised about creating a spreadsheet that would recalculate itself.
His software revolutionised finance. Wall Street and the City of London started trading financial products that could hardly be said to exist - let alone be comprehended - without a spreadsheet.
It reshaped accountancy, destroying the jobs of clerks who had pored over paper spreadsheets. But it created new jobs for analysts, exploring one scenario after another.
We increasingly understand the world around us through numbers, and the digital spreadsheet deserves much of the credit for that.
You can vote for one of the six things listed above on the 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy programme website, where you can also see the full terms and conditions.
Voting closes at 12:00 GMT on Friday 6 October 2017, and the winning 51st thing will be announced in a special programme and podcast on 28 October 2017. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41332582 | news_business-41332582 |
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Why Sweden is close to becoming a cashless economy - BBC News | 2017-09-12 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Card and phone payments may be replacing coins and notes, but are Swedes ready to get rid of cash altogether? | Business | Senobar Johnsen says it's "visibly noticeable" that Swedes prefer cards to cash these days
Sweden is the most cashless society on the planet, with barely 1% of the value of all payments made using coins or notes last year. So how did the Nordic nation get so far ahead of the rest of us?
Warm cinnamon buns are stacked next to mounds of freshly-baked sourdough bread at a neighbourhood coffee shop in Kungsholmen, just west of Stockholm city centre.
Amongst the other typically Scandinavian touches - minimalist white tiles and exposed filament light bulbs - is another increasingly common sight in the Swedish capital: a "We don't accept cash" sign.
"We wanted to minimise the risk of robberies and it's quicker with the customers when they pay by card," says Victoria Nilsson, who manages two of the bakery chain's 16 stores across the city.
"It's been mainly positive reactions. We love to use our cards here in Stockholm."
Across the country, cash is now used in less than 20% of transactions in stores - half the number five years ago, according to the Riksbank, Sweden's central bank.
Coins and banknotes have been banned on buses for several years after unions raised concerns over drivers' safety.
Even tourist attractions have started to gamble on taking plastic-only payments, including Stockholm's Pop House Hotel and The Abba Museum.
Bjorn Ulvaeus (left) back in his Abba heyday. Now he's a keen supporter of a cashless Sweden.
The iconic band's Bjorn Ulvaeus is, in fact, one of the nation's most vocal supporters of Sweden's cash-free trend, after his son lost cash in an apartment burglary.
Smaller retailers are jumping on the bandwagon, too, making use of home-grown technologies such as iZettle, the Swedish start-up behind Europe's first mobile credit card reader.
Such portable technologies have enabled market traders - and even homeless people promoting charity magazines - to take card payments easily.
"I took my kids to the funfair and there was a guy selling balloons and he had a card machine with him," remarks Senobar Johnsen, one of the Swedish customers back at the bakery.
Currently living in Portsmouth in southern England, she's visiting Sweden for the first time in a year and says it's "visibly noticeable" that people are paying more with cards.
"It's not like the UK where there's often a minimum spend when you go to a kiosk or you're in the middle of nowhere. I think it's great".
Swish, a smartphone payment system, is another popular Swedish innovation used by more than half the country's 10 million strong population.
Signs like this are becoming increasingly common in Sweden
Backed by the major banks, it allows customers to send money securely to anyone else with the app, just by using their mobile number.
A staple at flea markets and school fetes, it's also a popular way to transfer money instantly between friends: Swedes can no longer get away with delaying their share of a restaurant bill using the excuse that they're short on cash.
"In general, consumers are very interested in new technologies, so we're quite early to adopt [them]," explains Niklas Arvidsson, a professor at Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology.
This is partly down to infrastructure (Sweden is among the most connected countries in the EU); a relatively small population that is an ideal test-bed for innovations; and the country's historically low corruption levels, he argues.
"Swedes tend to trust banks, we trust institutions... people are not afraid of the sort-of 'Big Brother' issues or fraud connected to electronic payment."
Somewhat paradoxically, Sweden's decision to update its coins and banknotes, a move announced by the Riksbank in 2010 and fully implemented this year, actually boosted cashless transactions, explains Prof Arvidsson.
"You would have thought that a new kind of cash would have created an interest, but the reaction seems to have been the opposite," he says.
"Some retailers thought it's easier not to accept these new forms of cash because there's learning to be done, maybe investment in cash registration machines and so-on."
There has also been a "ripple effect", he says, with more shops signing up to the cashless idea as it becomes increasingly socially acceptable.
Former Interpol president Bjorn Eriksson is worried about a cashless future
Riksbank figures reveal that the average value of Swedish krona in circulation fell from around 106 billion (£10bn) in 2009 to 65 billion (£6bn) in 2016.
Barely 1% of the value of all payments were made using coins or notes last year, compared to around 7% across the EU and in the US.
Prof Arvidsson predicts that the use of cash will most likely be reduced to "a very marginal payment form" by 2020.
Retailers seem to agree. A survey - not yet published - of almost 800 small retailers carried out by his research team found that two thirds of respondents said they anticipated phasing out cash payments completely by 2030.
But the trend is not to everyone's liking, as Bjorn Eriksson, formerly national police commissioner and president of Interpol, explains from the suburb of Alvik.
Here, his local coffee shop still accepts old-fashioned money, but several of the banks no longer offer cash deposits or over-the-counter withdrawals.
"I like cards. I'm just angry because about a million people can't cope with cards: the elderly, former convicts, tourists, immigrants. The banks don't care because [these groups] are not profitable," he argues.
The 71-year-old is the face of a national movement called Kontantupproret (Cash Rebellion), which is also concerned about identity theft, rising consumer debt and cyber-attacks.
"This system could easily be disturbed or manipulated. Why invade us when it's so easy? Just cut off the payment system and we're completely helpless," says Mr Eriksson.
His arguments haven't escaped the notice of politicians in Sweden, where debates about security are increasingly making their way onto the agenda in the wake of a government agency data leak that almost brought down the ruling coalition in July.
Meanwhile, the backdrop of an increasingly divided electorate suggests that rural and elderly voters could prove crucial in the Nordic country's next general election, scheduled for September 2018.
Back at Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology, Prof Arvidsson points out that while most Swedes have embraced the nation's cash-free innovations, two thirds don't want to get rid of notes and coins completely.
"There's a very strong emotional connection to cash among Swedes, even though they do not use it," he says.
Sweden may leading the global trend towards a cashless future, but its tech-savvy population also appears to be guided by another, more traditional Swedish trait: caution. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41095004 | news_business-41095004 |
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Rohingya crisis: Seeing through the official story in Myanmar - BBC News | 2017-09-12 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | On a government-sponsored trip, journalists uncovered evidence they were not supposed to see. | Asia | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Who is burning down Rohingya villages?
The 300,000 people who have fled Rakhine state to Bangladesh over the past two weeks all come from the northern districts of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung, the last areas of Myanmar with sizeable Rohingya populations not confined to displacement camps.
These districts are hard to reach. Roads are poor, and the government requires permits to go there, which journalists rarely get.
So we grabbed the opportunity to join a government-organised visit to Maungdaw, for 18 local and foreign journalists.
It would mean seeing only places and people they wanted us to see. But sometimes, even under these restrictions, you can glean valuable insights.
Besides, the government has arguments that need to be heard. It is now facing an armed insurgency, albeit one some would argue has been self-inflicted. The communal conflict in Rakhine state has a long history, and would be difficult for any government to deal with.
A Muslim man sits in a marketplace in Maungdaw, which journalists were allowed to visit only under supervision
On arrival at Sittwe, the Rakhine state capital, we were given instructions. No-one was to leave the group and try to work independently. There was a curfew at 6pm, so no wandering after dark. We could request to go to places that interested us; in practice we found such requests were rejected on grounds of security. To be fair, I believe they were genuinely concerned for our safety.
Most of the travel in this low-lying region of Myanmar is along the maze of creeks and rivers on crowded boats. The journey from Sittwe to Buthidaung takes six hours. From there we travelled for an hour on a rough road over the Mayu Hills to Maungdaw. As we drove into the town we passed our first burned village, Myo Thu Gyi. Even the palm trees were scorched.
The government's purpose in bringing us was to balance the overwhelmingly negative narrative coming from the Rohingya refugees arriving in Bangladesh, who have almost all spoken of a deliberate campaign of destruction by the Myanmar military and Rakhine mobs, and appalling human rights abuses.
But right away these efforts faltered.
We were first taken to a small school in Maungdaw, now crowded with displaced Hindu families. They all had the same story to tell of Muslims attacking, of fleeing in fear. Oddly, Hindus who have fled to Bangladesh all say they were attacked by local Rakhine Buddhists, because they resemble Rohingyas.
In the school we were accompanied by armed police and officials. Could they speak freely? One man started to tell me how soldiers had been firing at his village, and he was quickly corrected by a neighbour.
A woman in an orange, lacy blouse and distinctive grey and mauve longyi was especially animated about the abuses by Muslims.
A local monk said Muslims burned down their own homes
We were then taken to a Buddhist temple, where a monk described Muslims burning down their own homes, nearby. We were given photographs catching them in the act. They looked strange.
Men in white haji caps posed as they set light to the palm-thatch roof. Women wearing what appeared to be lacy tablecloths on their heads melodramatically waved swords and machetes. Later I found that one of the women was in fact the animated Hindu woman from the school, and I saw that one of the men had also been present in among the displaced Hindu.
They had faked the photos to make it look as though Muslims were doing the burning.
Journalists were provided with photos supposedly of Muslims "caught in the act"
But the BBC later identified the same woman in a Hindu village
We had an audience with Colonel Phone Tint, the local minister for border security. He described how Bengali terrorists, as they call the militants of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, had taken control of Rohingya villages, and forced them to offer one man per household as a fighter. Those who refused to comply have their houses burned, he said. He accused the militants of planting mines and destroying three bridges.
I asked whether he was saying that all of the dozens of burned villages had been destroyed by the militants. He confirmed that was the government's position. Responding to a question about military atrocities, he waved it away. "Where is the proof?" he asked. "Look at those women," he meant the Rohingya refugees, "who are making these claims - would anyone want to rape them?"
Colonel Phone Tint insists 100% of burned villages have been set on fire by Muslim militants
The few Muslims we were able to see in Maungdaw were mostly too scared to talk in front of a camera. Breaking away from our minders, we spoke to some who described the hardship of not being allowed to leave their neighbourhood by the security forces, of food shortages, and intense fear.
One young man said they had wanted to flee to Bangladesh, but their leaders had signed an agreement with the authorities to stay. In the now quiet Bengali market, I asked a man what he was frightened of. The government, he said.
Weeks after the violence, Alel Than Kyaw was somehow still smouldering
The main destination on our itinerary outside Maungdaw was the coastal town of Alel Than Kyaw. This was one of the places attacked by Arsa militants in the early hours of 25 August. As we approached, we passed village after village, all completely empty. We saw boats, apparently abandoned, along with goats and cattle. There were no people.
Alel Than Kyaw had been razed to the ground. Even the clinic, with a sign showing it had been run by the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, had been destroyed. To the north, in the distance we could see four columns of smoke rising, and heard bursts of automatic weapons fire. More villages being put to the torch, we guessed.
The MSF charity's clinic was just one of the levelled buildings
Police Lieutenant Aung Kyaw Moe described to us how he had been given advance warning of the attack. He had taken the non-Muslim population for protection into his barracks, and his men fought off the assailants - armed, he said, with guns, swords and home-made explosives, for three hours until they were driven off. Seventeen of the militants lay dead, and one immigration officer. The Muslim population fled shortly afterwards.
But he struggled to explain why parts of the town were still smouldering, two weeks after the attack, and in the rainy season. Perhaps a few Muslims stayed on, and then set their homes alight before leaving more recently, he suggested half-heartedly.
Then, on our way back from Alel Than Kyaw, something entirely unplanned happened.
The village of Gaw Du Thar Ya, seen burning by the group
We spotted black smoke billowing out of some trees, over the rice fields. It was another village going up, right by the road. And the fires had only just started. We all shouted at our police escort to stop the van. When they did, we just ran, leaving our bewildered government minder behind. The police came with us, but then declared it was unsafe to enter the village. So we went ahead of them.
The sound of burning and crackling was everywhere. Women's clothing, clearly Muslim, was strewn on the muddy path. And there were muscular young men, holding swords and machetes, standing on the path, baffled by the sight of 18 sweaty journalists rushing towards them. They tried to avoid being filmed, and two of them dashed further into the village, bringing out the last of their group and making a hasty exit.
The village was reduced to charred timber and ashes
They said they were Rakhine Buddhists. One of my colleagues managed a quick conversation with one of them, who admitted they had set the houses on fire, with the help of the police.
As we walked in, we could see the roof of the madrassa had just been set alight. School texts with Arabic script had been thrown outside. An empty plastic jug, reeking of petrol, had been left on the path.
The village was called Gawdu Thar Ya. It was a Muslim village. There was no sign of the inhabitants. The Rakhine men who had torched the village walked out, past our police escort, some carrying household items they had looted.
The burning took place close to a number of large police barracks. No-one did anything to stop it. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41222210 | news_world-asia-41222210 |
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The 'Hillary safe space' that divided the American left - BBC News | 2017-09-16 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A website endorsed by former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been a divisive topic amongst America's left | BBC Trending | Verrit describes itself as "media for the 65.8 million"
It's a website that describes itself as "media for the 65.8 million" - a reference to the number of Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election.
That's a sizeable number, and if anywhere near that many had signed up, Verrit would be a very successful outlet. Instead, it has collected relatively few followers, and has highlighted divisions in the Democratic Party.
Set up in June 2017, and endorsed earlier this month on Twitter by Clinton herself, Verrit is a website whose primary function, according to its creator and former Clinton adviser Peter Daou, is "to bring together like-minded people."
"My wife and I are quite active on social media, and the community we are most involved with are Hillary supporters and voters and people who share their mindset," Daou tells BBC Trending.
"Since the election one of the main refrains we would hear is that these voters feel intimidated and harassed when they go on social media and they also feel invisible in the mainstream media," he says. "So we thought it would be great to create a space where they could converse with each other, where their issues would be centred and highlighted."
The site displays a number of virtual message cards - known as "Verrits" - that quote a headline or short phrase. By clicking on the headline the reader is greeted either by a piece of text or links to news articles.
Examples of some recent headlines the site has hosted include "Murder is a leading cause of death for pregnant women in the United States." When clicked on, the headline leads to a Washington Post article from July. Another reads: "By 2050, water shortages will affect a quarter of the world's population."
But on the site, statements of fact backed up by legitimate news outlets freely mix with opinion and spin. Other headlines include "'Hillary Democrats' are the heart and conscience of America" and "The Republican Party is harmful to America's children."
The site seems to have flown mostly under the radar until Clinton's tweet:
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It was quickly criticised by some of Clinton's most determined opponents on the right. While that might not have been surprising, criticism of Verrit has also found root amongst those on the left.
Overall online, the negative reaction was overwhelming. Politico described Verrit as "a propaganda rag so shameless it would make Kim Jong Un blush."
Brendan James, one of the co-hosts of the leftist political comedy podcast Chapo Trap House is no fan of Clinton. But he also says he isn't convinced by the concept behind the site.
"It's not really a social media site because you can't upload anything to the site, you can't post your own material and these aren't really facts he's disseminating," he tells BBC Trending radio. "I dare say even the more rabid Hillary voters don't quite know what to do with [Verrits].
"I suppose you could pass them round like a meme, or use them in a little argument you might get in an email chain with your aunt," he says.
Although Clinton's tweet received more than 22,000 likes, Verrit has not gone hugely viral. Its Twitter account has only about 60,000 followers, and its Facebook page has about 12,000.
Hillary Clinton endorsed Verrit - but that hasn't led to millions of followers
Daou says he doesn't take the criticism personally, and argues that the reaction shows he must be doing something right - and that his critics are scared of Hillary Clinton and Verrit.
"If her voice is being reflected in Verrit then she is here to stay," he says. "I think long term, the idea of Verrit being here to stay does frighten people who don't want that view to be expressed."
Unsurprisingly, Brendan James from Chapo Trap House takes quite a different line: "Well, that's sort of the only thing you can say when you've failed miserably in doing what you set out to do... if it were true that all of these people who voted for Hillary were as adoring of her as Peter is, this venture would make sense and they would all be clamouring for this service.
"Unfortunately I think the number of people who are really dying for this number in their dozens not their millions," he says.
The incident highlights a key split in the Democratic Party - which is made up of many factions, but broadly speaking can be divided into Clinton loyalists, and supporters of the socialist Bernie Sanders, who challenged Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.
Online, Clinton supporters use hashtags such as #StillWithHer - a reference to Clinton's popular "I'm with her" slogan - and #TheResistance. Sanders supporters are more likely to tweet #FeeltheBern - and as the debate over Verrit shows, these two factions have not quite been united in their shared opposition to President Donald Trump.
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-41283202 | news_blogs-trending-41283202 |
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Court ruling not needed to withdraw care, judge says - BBC News | 2017-09-20 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | Court consent will not be needed to remove nutrition from patients in a permanent vegetative state. | UK | Legal permission will no longer be required to end care for patients in a permanent vegetative state, a judge has ruled.
Until now a judge must also consent, even if medics and relatives agree to withdraw nutrition from a patient.
But in what been described as a landmark decision, those cases will no longer have to come to court.
The Official Solicitor, appointed by the state to act for such patients, is likely to appeal against the ruling.
Doctors are able to withdraw treatment from a patient - if relatives consent - under various circumstances without needing court approval.
Mr Justice Jackson, who sits in the Court of Protection, made his ruling in a case concerning a 50-year-old woman who suffered from a degenerative illness for 14 years.
The patient, known in court as M, had Huntington's disease and was bed-ridden in hospital and fed by a tube.
She had shown no sign of awareness for 18 months, the court heard, and Mr Justice Jackson agreed with her family and doctors that withdrawing nutrition from her would be in her best interests.
The tube was removed and she died in August.
Mr Justice Jackson said in his view the case should not have come to court.
"The decision about what was in M's best interests is one that could lawfully have been taken by her treating doctors, having fully consulted her family and having acted in accordance with the MCA (Mental Capacity Act) and with recognised medical standards," the judgement said.
So long as relatives agree, and it's in the best interests of a patient in a minimally conscious or vegetative state, doctors can withdraw all sorts of treatment that will result in the end of someone's life.
These include, for instance, the withdrawal of life-saving dialysis. Doctors do not need the permission of a court to be able to do this.
However, withdrawing food and water - the most basic requirements for life - has been handled differently, and for many years has needed the approval of a court.
It's been treated as an exception, in part, perhaps, because of the emotional and psychological significance of the decision to remove sustenance from a person.
This has resulted, some experts believe, in individuals spending longer on life support in a vegetative state than was necessary because hospitals have shied away from going to court due to the expense and bureaucracy involved.
Today's ruling makes clear that as things stand, courts need not be involved in these sorts of cases, so long as doctors and families are in agreement, and the removal of food and water are in the best interests of the patient.
Mr Justice Jackson said that even in M's case - when family and doctors agreed - legal costs reached £30,000.
Law firm Irwin Mitchell, which represented M, described Mr Justice Jackson's ruling as a "landmark" decision for a "previously unclear" law.
A spokesman said: "The family argued that major life and death decisions happen every day in hospital and do not always need to come before the court. NHS doctors supported this argument."
For nearly 25 years, these decisions have been referred to the Court of Protection, even where doctors and families agree.
This followed a House of Lords ruling that Tony Bland, who was left in a persistent vegetative state after suffering severe brain damage in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, should be allowed to die.
Wednesday's ruling removes this exception and paves the way for a change in the way such cases are handled by hospitals.
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of the campaign group Compassion in Dying, said the ruling was "a helpful step towards a clearer, more person-centred view of end-of-life care".
"When all parties - family, the hospital and treating doctors - are agreed on what someone would have wanted for their care, it seems absurd to require a costly court process to confirm this."
Research by the BBC established last year that there were more than 100 patients in England and Wales in permanent vegetative or minimally conscious states.
One patient had been in this condition for more than 20 years. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41341482 | news_uk-41341482 |
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Birmingham bin strike halted after court ruling - BBC News | 2017-09-20 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | A full trial will take place to determine if council bosses acted unlawfully in issuing redundancy notices. | Birmingham & Black Country | Strike action began on 30 June in a row over job losses
Birmingham's bin strike has been suspended after the High Court granted an interim injunction against the council's bid to make workers redundant.
A trial will take place to determine if the council acted unlawfully in issuing redundancy notices.
Workers have been on strike since 30 June.
Union members asked the court to grant the order against the council's bid to lose staff and change working patterns.
In a statement the council said it accepted the ruling.
The hearing in London on Wednesday centred on former council leader John Clancy's actions after he reneged on a deal to keep workers' jobs.
He quit last week amid widespread criticism of his U-turn.
Referring to Mr Clancy and his officers, Mr Justice Fraser said: "Neither party comes out of this sorry saga with any credit at all - I could use the words remarkable, extraordinary and more."
Conciliation service Acas said on 16 August the council had accepted the workers' case and restored the jobs of grade three workers, who are responsible for safety at the back of refuse vehicles.
However, a council report said the deal struck by Unite and the council was unaffordable.
The Unite union claims restructuring plans threaten the jobs of more than 120 staff, while the council says plans will modernise the service and save £5m a year.
Refuse workers were at the High Court for the two-day hearing
Several refuse workers were at the hearing, one hailed the judge's decision as "fantastic" and a "massive victory".
The judge said Mr Clancy's "motivation was difficult to fathom".
Mr Fraser read out an email sent on 15 August from the interim chief executive Stella Manzie to ex-leader Mr Clancy saying the council could not look weak and "as if it's being walked over".
Documents make clear there was an internal rift at the council, Mr Fraser said.
A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: "The council wants to offer the best possible refuse service for citizens and wants to work with Unite and all the other unions to do this.
"We remain committed to resolving the dispute as quickly as possible and we hope Unite will support us in doing this."
Unite assistant general secretary Howard Beckett said refuse workers would now return to a full working day.
"As part of the ruling Unite will suspend its industrial action until the matter is put before a full court hearing at a later date," he said.
The trial is likely to last five days and will be scheduled for the end of November.
However, Judge Fraser urged all parties to come to an agreement before the prospect of an "expensive trial".
The union is also repeating its calls for Ms Manzie, the authority's interim chief executive, to stand down.
Make no mistake - today's High Court judgement to temporarily stop 106 binmen losing their jobs is a huge blow to Birmingham City Council.
Mr Justice Fraser couldn't have been clearer in his scathing remarks about the "sorry saga" that led to this action.
He dismissed the council's argument that Mr Clancy had no authority to make a deal at ACAS with Unite, saying he was more than satisfied there's enough evidence of what was referred to in court as the 'Clancy Agreement' to be tested at a full trial.
He also dismissed a submission by Birmingham City Council's legal team that a trial would not be in the public interest.
However, he did urge all parties to come to some kind of agreement before the prospect of an expensive five-day trial in November.
Strike action has been suspended until the "matter is put before court"
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-41330879 | news_uk-england-birmingham-41330879 |
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Newspaper headlines: 'Secret' Brexit bill, and Tory rebels warned - BBC News | 2017-09-02 | ['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews'] | The Sunday Times says Theresa May has "secretly agreed" a £50bn sum to settle the UK's Brexit bill. | The Papers | According to The Sunday Times, the outcome of the general election may have cost the country about £20bn. A source, described as a close ally of of Theresa May's, explains that meeting the UK's obligations to the EU had been estimated at up to £30bn. But, it says, the weakening of our negotiating position because the Conservative government lost a majority means the cost will rise.
The Mail on Sunday says the Prime Minister is hoping to keep the details of the likely "divorce bill" a secret until after the Conservative conference. Otherwise, it says, there could a furious backlash from Conservatives opposed to the EU.
The slow pace of the Brexit talks doesn't impress The Sunday Mirror. It calls on the EU to come up with a figure so Brexit Secretary David Davis can make the arguments for reducing it.
The Sunday People, among others, reports that government whips are at work trying to persuade "wavering Tory MPs" to support Mrs May's approach to Brexit. The Sun on Sunday says some have complained of "bullying". And The Observer believes the attempt to promote unity has left her facing "a growing Tory revolt over her leadership."
The Sunday Telegraph warns the rebels that blocking Brexit would undermine democracy and respect for our political class. Rather than do that, it urges anti-Brexit MPs to "put country before conceit".
Thousands of children going back to school this week could face an epidemic of bullying online, according to The Sun. It welcomes the training of more teachers to support pupils and combat the threat of cyber abuse. But the paper calls for more to be done - if the 8m children at risk are to be protected from a torment that doesn't stop at the school gates.
For several of the papers the main news is the ructions that have followed the arrest on suspicion of drinking and driving of the former England captain, Wayne Rooney. The People believes he is fighting to save his marriage. The views of his wife Coleen are forcefully delivered elsewhere. The Sun calls her "furious". The headline in The Mirror is "how could you do this to me when I'm pregnant?".
This autumn, says The Sunday Express, could turn out to be warmer than the summer. It says forecasters think hot air from Europe, and balmy air from the Atlantic, could combine to produce temperatures of 32C (89.6F). "How typical," says the paper, "that the sun should start shining as soon as the school holidays are over."
Britain must prepare itself for "invasions of growing numbers of foreign sea creatures" due to climate change, The Observer says. The paper says the experts believe that warming waters will drive some of our currently native species of mussels, fish and oysters further north. Their places may be taken by red mullet, john dory and pacific oysters, forcing us to change our seafood diet. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-41138635 | news_blogs-the-papers-41138635 |