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U2 to tour The Joshua Tree this summer for 30th anniversary - BBC News
2017-01-09
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
Rock band U2 will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their seminal Joshua Tree album by playing the album in full.
Entertainment & Arts
The band recreated Anton Corbijn's famous cover shoot to announce the tour Rock band U2 will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their seminal Joshua Tree album this summer by playing the album in full around the world. The 25 shows include dates in London and at Dublin's Croke Park, where the band played a triumphant homecoming show on the original Joshua Tree tour. Released in 1987, the album included hits such as Where the Streets Have No Name and With or Without You. It sold 25 million copies, turning the band into stadium-filling superstars. In an interview with Rolling Stone, U2 guitarist The Edge said the band had not yet decided how to structure the concerts. "The show might not necessarily start with track one, side one - Where the Streets Have No Name - because we feel like maybe we need to build up to that moment," he said. "So we're still in the middle of figuring out exactly how the running order will go." Alongside the hits, fans will be looking forward to hearing some rarely-performed album tracks, including Trip Through Your Wires and In God's Country. The Joshua Tree tour began in arenas but had to upgrade to stadiums to meet demand The band will perform throughout Europe and North America The song Red Hill Mining Town, a response to the 1980s miners' strike, will also receive its first live performance, having never featured in the band's setlists - although they rehearsed it during soundchecks in 1987. "Recently I listened back to The Joshua Tree for the first time in nearly 30 years," said U2 frontman Bono, "It's quite an opera. "A lot of emotions which feel strangely current, love, loss, broken dreams, seeking oblivion, polarisation… all the greats. "I've sung some of these songs a lot but never all of them. I'm up for it, if our audience is as excited as we are… it's gonna be a great night." "It seems like we have come full circle from when The Joshua Tree songs were originally written, with global upheaval, extreme right wing politics and some fundamental human rights at risk," added guitarist The Edge. "To celebrate the album - as the songs seem so relevant and prescient of these times too - we decided to do these shows, it feels right for now. We're looking forward to it." Support acts confirmed for the tour include OneRepublic, The Lumineers and, in the UK and Europe, Noel Gallagher. "It will be both a pleasure and an honour to play my part in what still remains the greatest show on earth," said Gallagher. U2 also plan to release a new album, Songs of Experience, later this year. 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-38554035
Golden Globes: Musical La La Land dominates with seven awards - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Hollywood musical La La Land has broken the record for the most Golden Globe Awards, winning seven prizes.
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Hollywood musical La La Land has broken the record for the most Golden Globe Awards, winning seven prizes. It won every award it was nominated for - including best musical or comedy film, best director, screenplay, score and song. Its stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling also won in the acting categories. British actors also enjoyed a golden night in the TV categories, with prizes for The Night Manager and The Crown.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38553331
The US Air Force's commuter drone warriors - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Once soldiers left their families and went off to war. But drone pilots commute to work - and war - each day. They speak to Vin Ray about their strange double life.
Magazine
Drone pilot Lt Col Matt Martin says his role is "surreal" In the past, soldiers went off to war and left their families behind. But drone pilots commute to work - and to war - each day. Vin Ray was given rare access to the only US Air Force base devoted entirely to flying drones, where he discovered the pilots' strange double life. If you're a drone pilot, there's a strong possibility you live in Las Vegas. And your commute to work is against the traffic. We were told to drive northwest out of the city on US Route 95. The road stretches out through the barren, inhospitable scrub of the Nevada desert. Pay attention, we were told, because the signpost is small. In fact, it's very small. But we eventually arrived at our destination: Creech US Air Force Base, a small, flat, city in the desert. And the only air base devoted to flying drones. Inside the base, comparisons with science fiction are hard to avoid. A drone looks like a conflation of a giant insect and a light aircraft. It's unmanned. Standing by a runway, we watch a drone land and pass right in front of us. The camera underneath its chin, swivels quickly sideways and looks right at us - someone, somewhere on the base, is watching us. I'm escorted through a non-descript door in the side of what looks like a beige metal shipping container. It's cramped inside. At the far end there's a pilot seated on the left, who flies the drone and fires the missiles. The sensor operator sits on the right - they operate the camera and fix the laser on the target for the missile to hit. They're focused on a bank of screens, switches and buttons. This is today's kind of cockpit. But it doesn't feel like a battleground. For a start, there's a sensory deficiency. From my experience on the ground, you can taste war - you can smell it and you can certainly hear it. In here there's a just a mute video. But that's not the only difference. Traditionally, soldiers in a war zone are based together. They have each others' camaraderie, and they're separated from their families. But it's not the same if you're commuting to work every day. Obviously, the drive itself is simple. But the psychological journey is altogether different. Imagine. Between six in the evening and six in the morning you might collect your kids from school, pick up some groceries on the way home and help make dinner. But between 6am and 6pm you have a licence to kill. This commute is familiar to Lt Col Matt Martin. He's a hugely experienced former drone pilot. He exudes a quiet strength and a ready charm. But he talks about his schizophrenic existence, his inability to have a normal life and the strain it took on his family. "It's a surreal enterprise," he says. "You only have the drive to work and then you're flying. So for me, I would take that drive to switch gears. I would step into my cockpit and be totally immersed in flying the drone. Then a few hours later I would step out and be back in Las Vegas, in a totally different time zone, different time of day." Here's what the base commander Col Case Cunningham told me: "When they walk through the gate, they're in a war. Although physically they are at home, mentally they're at war. So in effect we're asking them to redeploy every single day, to go back home and be parents and be loved ones - and then come back to war again". Such are the new frontiers of the modern battlefield. These drone pilots can sit in Nevada and watch a potential target 8,000 miles (12,000km) away for months on end, building up what they call "patterns of life" - building what's been called a "remote intimacy" with their prey - all in the knowledge that, one day, they may kill them. A conventional fighter pilot will fire missiles and then head back to base. But drone pilots are required to circle for some hours afterwards, to assess the damage. The picture they're looking at is extraordinarily clear - and the damage is often in the form of body parts. Small wonder that Creech now employs a psychologist for drone pilots suffering stress. Drones are globalising the battlefield, blurring the boundaries between war and home. As we get ready to leave the base, the moon rises over the mountains and darkness falls quickly. There's a long traffic jam as some of the 3,500 air staff wait at the gates to leave the base - a snake of red tail lights heading back to Vegas and the warmth of their families. And when they get home? Well, friction can stem from one simple question: "How was your day?" Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38506932
India divorce: How 'triple talaq' destroys lives - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Opposition mounts to the practice of "triple talaq" - instant divorce - in India.
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A practice in India that allows Muslim men to divorce their wives in an instant is facing fierce opposition. "Triple talaq" - divorcing by saying the word talaq three times - is legal for Muslims in India but controversial. It is banned across much of the Islamic world. India’s Supreme Court is deciding whether triple talaq is unconstitutional, a move that could help thousands of women. Filmed and Edited by Jaltson A.C. Produced by Yogita Limaye.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38528507
The Donald Trump tweets that say so much and reveal so little - BBC News
2017-01-09
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James Naughtie reflects on the tweets of Donald Trump ahead of his inauguration as US president.
US & Canada
It is as if the campaign is still going on. Two weeks away from his inauguration, Donald Trump seems to prefer the role of "candidate" - flaying his opponents and aiming arrows at the federal government from the enemy camp. It is almost as if he does not want to accept fully that he is the new chief executive who will be dealing with official Washington from the moment he drives back from the Capitol as the president on 20 January. And his weapon of choice, forged for him like a legendary warrior's sword in the furnace of the new technology, is Twitter. No president-elect has battled like this. Most of them go to ground, secluded with the staff who will take over the West Wing, and make their plans. Dream their dreams, you might say. They have followed the golden rule: do not give too much away, because it will make life more difficult when the inauguration is over and the business of power begins. The Trump Twitter account is not just a break with that pattern, but a challenge to the very idea. His New Year tweet (one of them, I should say) wished love to everyone "including my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do". Mr Trump wished love to everyone via Twitter at the turn of the year The implication, of course, is that he does know what he is going to do. The trouble with his Twitter account is that it makes you wonder. More than 34,000 tweets to nearly 19 million followers (many "enemies" among them, no doubt) and a narrative that has become a kind of stream of consciousness. They read like the unfiltered, disconnected thoughts of someone for whom patience is an ugly word. You always have to say something, even if you say the opposite the next day. On Twitter, who cares? Yet, the messages are powerful. One contemptuous tweet about the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives winding down the Office of Congressional Ethics led them to beat a humiliating retreat and cancel the plan. Mr Trump's choice as White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said the other day: "Whatever he tweets, he is going to drive the news." And, bizarre though it may seem, the South Korean government is poring over them. The JoongAng Daily reported that a Twitter-watching position had been set up in the foreign ministry in Seoul "because we don't yet have an insight into his foreign policies". What insight will they get from tweets which have criticised the Central Intelligence Agency, praised Julian Assange - the Whistleblower of WikiLeaks and a bete noire to most Republicans - and praised President Putin, who gets more friendly treatment than all Democrats and some Republicans at home? And remarkably the tweets take aim at the entire intelligence community in Washington. What precisely are the South Koreans meant to make of that? Not too much, you may think, because who can tell how this mercurial candidate is going to be moulded into a president? We still do not know and what his Twitter account tells us - colourfully, astonishingly, sometimes hilariously - is that he is refusing to let us know. Far from revealing what a Trump presidency is going to be like - as he says his tweets do - they have the effect of enveloping him in a thick fog. Yes we know he will "make America great again", cut immigration, build his wall, cut taxes, be Israel's greatest ally and so on. But how he is going to build a White House team on foreign affairs and security, conduct relations with Capitol Hill, deal with allies in Nato and the rolling chaos in the Middle East, we have very little idea. And when the first crisis arrives - as it will before long - will he be able to find the calm that he needs? Where it all began: Trump's Twitter page in April 2009 No president-elect in modern times has said so much and revealed so little. We know how Mr Trump feels about almost everything, but about priorities, his approach to the compromises of power, the way he will deal with the bureaucracy - in practice we know very little. A week or two before election day in November, one of his close associates told me that, if he won, Mr Trump had agreed that in office he would relinquish control of that Twitter account, because it would be inappropriate in the White House. The satirists' loss, certainly. But, if it happens, a step into reality, at last. Some day he has to stop being the candidate and playing that game, even though he enjoys it so much. So the first great test for the Trump White House team is surely getting his finger off that keyboard.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38534308
Reality Check: Was 27 December the busiest NHS day? - BBC News
2017-01-09
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says 27 December was the busiest day in NHS history. Is he right?
Health
The claim: Tuesday 27 December was the busiest day in the history of the National Health Service. Reality Check verdict: In relation to attendance at type-one accident and emergency departments (the general A&E departments at big hospitals), Mr Hunt is correct. That's a reasonable measure of how busy the NHS is, but other measures suggest different days were busier. Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt made the claim on BBC Radio 4's Today programme as he thanked staff for their work over Christmas. NHS England publishes daily statistics during the winter for several metrics to do with NHS services, so we can look into whether it is the case. We can assume he was talking about the NHS in England only, because health is devolved, so he is not in charge of the NHS in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. The number of people attending accident and emergency departments is an important indicator of demand for hospital services. On 27 December, there were 60,215 attendances at A&E departments. That is a high level, but it's not the highest for the month, which was set at 60,692 on 5 December. But it turns out that Mr Hunt was talking about only type-one A&E departments, which is what most people would think of as an A&E department. Type-two are specialist units, such as Moorfields Eye Unit, while type-three are GP-led walk-in centres. There were 46,315 attendances at type-one A&E departments, which is the highest of the month. Comparisons with previous years are difficult due to changes in coverage and figures not being broken down in the same way. Another important measure is the number of emergency admissions, which was 13,715 on 27 December. That is a high figure, but the number was higher on each of the following three days - it was 14,649 on 28 December. Looking at the proportion of beds occupied: on 27 December, 90.5% of the total number of available beds were occupied. That's actually quite low by the standards of last month - there were higher figures on 24 days in December. NHS England says that the week ending 1 January 2017 was the busiest week for the NHS 111 24-hour non-emergency service since it began in August 2010, but we do not get that figure broken down by day so cannot say whether the Tuesday was the busiest day. We also do not have daily figures for how busy other parts of the NHS were, such as GPs. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38561247
Golden Globes: Meryl Streep attacks Donald Trump in speech - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Meryl Streep strongly criticises Donald Trump as she receives a Golden Globes lifetime award.
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Actress Meryl Streep strongly criticised US President-elect Donald Trump as she received a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes. While Streep did not name Mr Trump, the three-time Oscar-winning actress used almost the entire speech to say his actions legitimised bullying. The president-elect, who is due to be inaugurated in less than two weeks, dismissed the actress as "a Hillary lover" in a telephone interview with the New York Times.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38551963
Starving to death on NHS wards? - BBC News
2017-01-09
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How big a problem is malnutrition on hospital wards?
Health
The Sun newspaper on Monday carries the headline "Kill by mouth: Two die in NHS each day of thirst or starvation". A shocking claim, based on figures from the Office of National Statistics. The data for England and Wales shows that in 2015, hunger and/or dehydration were a factor in 828 patient deaths in hospitals and care homes. But that doesn't mean all of these patients starved to death or died of thirst, experts at the ONS were quick to point out when I spoke with them about it. Malnutrition may be recorded on the death certificate as a factor contributing directly to a death when it was a complication of a different underlying cause, such as cancer of the stomach, for example. If you are very sick, it might not be feasible or desirable to eat and drink. Having a disease such as advanced cancer can cause malnutrition. That's not to say that patients who are terminally ill should have fluid and nutrients withheld. On the contrary, guidelines make it clear that even if a patient can't eat or drink they should still be provided for. They were drawn up after reports revealed some patients at the end of life were being denied this basic right when they were put on a care protocol called the Liverpool Care Pathway. The LCP was scrapped in 2015 after relatives complained that their loved ones had been put on it without their knowledge and denied fluids, which hastened their deaths. Another dark period in history for the NHS was the Stafford Hospital Scandal, where hundreds of patients died amid appalling levels of care between 2005 and 2009. An inquiry identified terrible and unnecessary suffering, including examples where patients had been provided with food and drink, but it had been left out of their reach. Joan Morris suffered a heart attack and died four weeks after being admitted to Stafford General Hospital Joan Morris, 83, was admitted to Stafford Hospital in December 2006 with a chest infection. Her family said that food and water had been left on a table instead of being given to her. Another patient, Tom Wilhelms, resorted to drinking from a vase. In response to the Francis Inquiry into the failings at the Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, the government published new hospital standards including around nutritional and hydration care. And it asked the Care Quality Commission to make sure that the hospitals and care homes it inspected were following these standards. The CQC's first dedicated review was in 2012. It inspected 500 care homes and 50 hospitals in England and found 83% of care homes and 88% of hospitals it inspected met people's nutritional needs, which means patients were provided a suitable choice of food and drink and given help to eat and drink when they needed it. It says this shows things have improved. Prof Sir Mike Richards, CQC Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: "We expect the food provided to be nutritious, to meet people's dietary requirements, and for this to be included as part of patients care planning while in hospital, and we look closely at this on our inspections. Where we find this is not happening or identify concerns that people's nutritional needs are not being met we take action and have a range of enforcement powers at our disposal where required." Age UK agrees that there's been progress, but says malnutrition in the NHS is still a big issue. Lesley Carter, who works of the charity and is programme manager of the Malnutrition Task Force, says a third of people going into hospitals and care homes are already malnourished or at risk of malnutrition when they are admitted. "That means they are already vulnerable to start with." She said that on busy wards, mealtimes might get rushed or overlooked without the right staffing. "Older people in particular might need help to eat and drink, and they aren't always getting this. Food can still be left out of reach. "Some hospitals have employed nutrition nurses to spot those patients that need help, and nutrition assistants to help with the feeding, which is good. "But it is time consuming to feed someone properly." She says friends and families have a responsibility to keep a check on elderly loved ones too. "We all need to realise that it's not natural to lose weight as we age." Although elderly people should be encouraged to eat a healthy diet, she says this can backfire. A salad might be worse than cake in terms of nutrition for someone who is old and frail and has a poor appetite, for example. "Some residents in care homes are being given low fat yoghurt and semi-skimmed milk when instead they should get full fat milk."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38554077
Pioneer Cabin Tree in California felled by storms - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Storms in California fell a popular tree with a hole cut in the trunk that cars could drive through.
US & Canada
The giant sequoia, which was carved into a living tunnel over a century ago, has fallen Storms in California have toppled one of America's most famous trees - the Pioneer Cabin Tree. The giant sequoia was known for having a hole cut through its trunk - big enough for a car to drive through. The tree, estimated to be more than 1,000-years-old, was felled by the strongest storm to have hit the area in more than a decade. California and Nevada have been hit by unusually high rainfall levels, leading to flooding and falling trees. The Calaveras Big Trees Association first reported that the drive-through Pioneer Cabin Tree - carved 137 years ago - was no more. The storm was "just too much for it", the group wrote in a Facebook post that has drawn nearly 2,000 comments. "Many memories were created under this tree," one read. "They will remain good memories." Others pointed out that the tree might have survived for longer if a tunnel had not been carved into it. "You can't cut a hole in a tree like this and expect it to live," said one comment. "This hole always bothered me so much. Why not just drive around it?" Park volunteer Jim Allday said the sequoia, also known as the Tunnel Tree, shattered as it hit the ground. "We lost an old friend today," he wrote in a social media post. Giant sequoia are closely related to the redwood tree, which is considered the tallest tree species on earth, reaching 250ft (76 metres). They can only grow naturally in the groves of California's Sierra Nevada mountains. The tree fell as parts of California and Nevada were drenched by a seasonal weather system known as the Pineapple Express. Not to be confused with the Seth Rogen movie of the same name, the Pineapple Express is an "atmospheric river" that extends across the Pacific from Hawaii to the US West Coast, meteorologists say. "This is a serious flood situation," the National Weather Service said in a special flood statement late Sunday night after the Russian River in California and the Truckee River in Nevada burst their banks. Hundreds of people have been forced to flee their homes in Northern California and Nevada as water levels rise, and avalanches and mudslides close roads.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38561877
Kirsty Gilmour: Funding cut threatens future of badminton - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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Badminton may struggle to attract young players after funding cut, worries Scottish Olympian Kirsty Gilmour.
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Commonwealth Games and European silver medallist Kirsty Gilmour is worried badminton will no longer be able to attract future stars if proposed funding cuts go ahead. An appeal against UK Sport's decision to end all backing ahead of the 2020 Olympics will be submitted this month. "It's hard to motivate kids and tell them they'll be OK if they really want to go for it without that top tier to aim for," Gilmour told BBC Scotland. "If I ever do school talks I can't go in there and say 'if badminton is your dream and if you reach a certain level you are going to be funded'. "I can no longer preach that message." Glasgow-based Gilmour, 23, made her second Olympic appearance in Rio last summer and is determined to keep going towards Tokyo 2020 and beyond. And her plans for the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast 2018 are unaffected by UK Sport policy, with funding coming from Badminton Scotland, who are supported by Sportscotland. "For the most part, GB and UK sport took care of most of my tournaments, so that's a full programme, as well as expenses while away, plus the coaching input from GB," said the Scot, who is recovering from knee surgery in October. "Going forward, I will have to rely solely on Badminton Scotland to provide that same level of care and support but that link I had with the GB system and the next Olympic cycle goes away. "It makes things tougher and more uncertain. If you are worrying about anything other than performance then it's a bad sign. You want everything settled in the background, no stresses. "After [the 2018 Games] we will have to regroup and reassess where we go from there. "I will do everything in my power possible to keep going. I'm hoping to continue for many, many years. It will just be a lot more difficult getting to all of these tournaments around the world." UK Sport made its announcement in December despite Great Britain winning its first Olympic badminton medal since 2004 in Rio. "Seeing the boys [Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge] get that men's doubles bronze medal, just thinking about it gives me goosebumps," recalls Gilmour, who exited the singles in the group stage as the 11th seed. "Everyone was thinking 'yes, we've done it, medal - check. This is amazing'. We showed we could compete on the world stage. "I don't think any other sport has overachieved on their set target and then had their funding withdrawn. It's still a shock."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/badminton/38547499
Your pictures: My own bed - BBC News
2017-01-09
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
Each week, we publish a gallery of readers' pictures on a set theme. This week it is "My own bed".
In Pictures
Anna Grayson: "This is a scene I had been thinking of shooting anyway, in honour of Tracey Emin. The aftermath of the Christmas hols seems to have given my bed the right feel. I bumped into Tracey Emin a few years ago, and she kindly agreed to let me photograph her (it is in the frame on the right above the bed). She was very encouraging about the importance of doing art, and not long after that I chucked in work and went to art college. One of the things I enjoy doing is recreating famous works of art as photographs. So this is an homage and thank you to Tracey."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-38510863
Fort Lauderdale airport shooting: Shooter on CCTV - BBC News
2017-01-09
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CCTV has revealed the moment a man opened fire at Fort Lauderdale airport on Friday, as a suspect appears in court charged with killing five people and injuring six others.
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CCTV has revealed the moment a man opened fire at Fort Lauderdale airport on Friday. Suspect Esteban Santiago, 26, is appearing in court charged with killing five people and injuring six others.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38564017
CES 2017: Clothes-folding Laundroid robot readies for launch - BBC News
2017-01-09
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A clothes-folding robot that has been in development for more than a decade is at the CES tech show to promote its imminent launch.
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A clothes-folding robot that has been in development for more than a decade is about to go on sale. Chris Foxx caught up with the project's founder at the CES tech show in Las Vegas. Follow all our CES coverage at bbc.co.uk/ces2017
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38541533
Corrie Mckeague: Missing serviceman 'to become father' - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Missing RAF serviceman Corrie Mckeague is due to become a father, his girlfriend has said.
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Missing RAF serviceman Corrie Mckeague is due to become a father, his girlfriend has said. Mr Mckeague has been missing since 24 September after a night out in Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk. April Oliver, 21, said she had become pregnant after a relationship with the 23-year-old who is based at RAF Honington, Suffolk. She said their baby is due in late spring/early summer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-38555646
McGuinness - 'No return to status quo' - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Martin McGuinness says there will be "no return to the status quo" as he quits as Northern Ireland's deputy first minister over the handling of a botched heating scheme.
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Martin McGuinness has resigned as Northern Ireland's deputy first minister in protest against the handling of a botched heating scheme that could cost taxpayers £490m. He spoke to reporters at Stormont Castle on Monday afternoon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38564067
My fear of dating as someone with dwarfism - BBC News
2017-01-09
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
Paralympic hopeful Pani has never had a girlfriend and faces his fear of dating by appearing on The Undateables.
Disability
Athlete and law student Pani Mamuneas has never had a girlfriend and says he suspects the only women who approach him want to tick "dwarf" off their bucket list. The 19-year-old decided to do something about it and applied for a TV dating show. You always hear girls say 'ooh what's your type? Oh tall, you know tall and handsome' and I'm the total opposite of that. At 4ft 7in people have always asked me 'would you have wanted to be born taller?' But now, I can't imagine life any other way. When I was younger I never saw myself as having a disability. I wasn't even aware of it until my teenage years when growth spurts happened to others and I started to see that I was different and school became very difficult. My fellow students at school in Leicester would ask 'Pani why are you so small? Were you born the size of a pea?' Thinking back, all those things that hurt me could have easily been avoided by realising people were just curious - they were kids asking silly questions. I have what's known as Achondroplasia - a form of dwarfism. Apparently I'm taller than average for my condition but still quite tiny and it definitely affected potential relationships and how I have viewed myself over the years. My male friends and I would always talk about girls and celebrities, the ones we would dream of marrying and how we would ask them out. But this is when things went very wrong for me. At the age of 12 I asked a girl out. We went to the cinema and seemed to have a good time, but the next day the gossip began. I secretly told a friend in the school library that I liked her but he wrote it in big letters on the whiteboard for everyone to see - when I saw it I wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. Myself and the girl both ended up in tears and she felt too embarrassed to talk to me again. That was when I lost all of my confidence and thought I was not good enough because of my height. I stopped talking to girls and I certainly wouldn't reveal if I fancied someone. I was afraid of what girls would think of me, always worrying they might ignore or tease me, or treat me like a nobody, because I was different. It was a very difficult time of my life. When I reached college, however, things started to look up. Everyone seemed to have matured and the general bullying stopped. It became a time for me to discover who I was, and what I wanted to do with my future. Sadly, this new way of thinking didn't mean my love life improved and I had other challenges to overcome including going to nightclubs with friends. I wouldn't have the confidence to go up to girls, chat to them or ask them to dance. I always felt that because I was different if a woman approached me it was so she could tick it off her bucket list. It was at this point, having never had a girlfriend, I decided to contact Channel 4's The Undateables - a reality show which tries to match disabled people with a partner - and so face my fear of dating with the hope of potentially finding somebody. It was a drastic thing to do but I thought if I could successfully go on a date on a television show I wouldn't have any confidence problems in the future. Facing my fears worked and I now feel able to approach a woman and have a conversation with her because I have learned there isn't anything to be afraid of. If the girl doesn't like me fair enough, but some open-minded people will like me. I had been competing internationally in shot put and javelin and hoped to compete in the Paralympic Games in Rio last year but injury forced me to take time out. Participating in The Undateables helped me to focus on a different aspect of life and took my mind off the injury although I've now returned to training with my sights set on the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo as well as taking a degree in law. This process has further boosted my confidence and I've realised that being short isn't a barrier it's a feature. All this time I shouldn't have thought of myself as less of a person. Being me is the best thing I can do better than anyone else. The Undateables transmits on Monday nights at 21:00 GMT on Channel 4 and is also available on All 4. For more Disability News, follow on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to the weekly podcast.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-38528816
Jurgen Klopp: Liverpool manager defends team selection for Plymouth FA Cup tie - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp defends playing the club's youngest ever starting line-up after a 0-0 draw with Plymouth in the FA Cup.
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Last updated on .From the section Football Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp defended selecting the youngest starting XI in the club's history for the 0-0 FA Cup draw against Plymouth. The Reds - with an average age of of 21 years and 296 days - went close through Sheyi Ojo and Daniel Sturridge but the League Two side held out at Anfield. Yippee. I don't know if at home they can play the same defensive style Liverpool now face a trip to Devon for the third-round replay and have six remaining games in January. The German boss said: "I don't think the line-up was a mistake." Klopp's side also face Southampton in a two-legged EFL Cup semi-final and Premier League games against Manchester United, Swansea and Chelsea this month. • None Watch all of the latest FA Cup highlights and reaction here • None All the FA Cup third-round reports in one place Asked about the long midweek trip for the FA Cup replay, which is set to be played on 17 January, Klopp added: "Yippee. I don't know if at home they can play the same defensive style. We are looking forward to it." Forward Ben Woodburn, 17, is the club's youngest goalscorer after his strike against Leeds in the EFL Cup earlier this season and he was given his first start. Trent Alexander-Arnold, 18, and 19-year-olds Joe Gomez - making his first appearance since suffering a knee ligament injury in October 2015 - Ovie Ejaria and Ojo were also in the side. At 29, Lucas was the oldest Liverpool player. "I am responsible if you want to see it in a bad way," added Klopp. "I always choose line-ups to win the game. We didn't think about the age. They are important players in our squad." First-team regulars Daniel Sturridge, Adam Lallana and Roberto Firmino were brought on during the second half, but the hosts - who had enjoyed 80.3% possession in the first period - continued to be frustrated. "We could have done better, 100%," said the Reds boss. "In the first half we lost patience too early - crossing at the wrong moment, making the wrong pass. "We had the ball all the time. It was boring, not the most exciting game." 'Welcome to the real world' Plymouth, who are second and challenging for promotion from League Two, limited Liverpool to four shots on target. "It is probably one of the best defensive performances Anfield has seen," said Plymouth boss Derek Adams. "We allowed them time but didn't allow them space. "This was about a team performance. We had 13 players and they all deserve a huge amount of credit." Asked what Liverpool could expect in the replay at Home Park, he added: "Welcome to the real world." • None READ MORE: Liverpool replay worth £1m to Plymouth, says chairman
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38549885
Women Who Draw website reveals world's 'hidden' female illustrators - BBC News
2017-01-09
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New website Women Who Draw has been overwhelmed by support for its bid to promote female illustrators.
US & Canada
Applicants for the Women Who Draw website were asked to submit an illustrated portrait of a woman A website designed to showcase the work of female illustrators and promote diversity has got off to a flying start, after receiving submissions from around the world. The Women Who Draw website, which had its "soft launch" in December, crashed under the weight of more than six million page views in its first three days, according to its US founders, Wendy MacNaughton and Julia Rothman. "We had to close submissions because we were overwhelmed. We received 1,200 submissions in 24 hours," said Ms Rothman, citing contributions from Iran, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa, among others. The site's mission statement is to "increase the visibility of female illustrators, female illustrators of colour, LBTQ+, and other minority groups". On Monday, it is relaunching, backed by a new server and showcasing 700 new members, whose work organisers have collated within three weeks. They also have more than 300 artists on the waiting list. Ms MacNaughton and Ms Rothman, who are both successful illustrators, said they were motivated to create the project after noticing certain publications were dominated by male artists. "We counted a certain magazine that often has illustrated covers, and noticed that in the past 55 covers, only four were by women," said Ms Rothman. Something seemed to be amiss, considering that the arts field within education is often dominated by women. In the UK, data from higher-education admissions service Ucas shows that in 2016 the number of women enrolled in design studies courses (including illustration) was more than double the number of men. So, do the women behind Women Who Draw think sexism in the industry is an enduring problem? "When I see who wins the awards, who are on the juries and who speaks at conferences, it is clear that there is a bias. Although no-one has specifically said to me that you are a woman so I am not going to hire you," said Ms Rothman. Sabrina Scott, an artist, illustration lecturer, and PhD student at Toronto's York University, has conducted a study of seven years of images within the American Illustration (AI) annual, a collection of award-winning images, chosen by a jury. She looked at how people - male and female - were represented in nearly 3,000 images. Ms Scott said: "Over seven years from 2008 to 2015, white men appear in 55% of AI award-winning illustrations, on average. The representation of white women has remained fairly steady at an average of 32%, as has the representation of men and women of colour, whose seven-year averages are 8% and 4%, respectively." She also found that while men were drawn as nude or nearly nude 3% of the time, that figure rose to 30% for female figures. "The only dead bodies depicted during the timeframe of my analysis are those that belong to men of colour," she added. The site allows artists to highlight different aspects of their identity. Artists can be tagged according to their sexuality, religion, and location. Trans women are also encouraged to join, and are not differentiated from other women. Artist Kaylani Juanita lists herself on the site under the categories African American/black, LBTQ+, west coast (US), multiracial, and native Hawaiian/Pacific islander. Did she worry that she might get pigeonholed? "I'm far more worried about invisibility or erasure of identity rather than being pigeonholed for making my identity visible," she said. "I joined because it's an inclusive list that's well needed within publishing and illustration," she added. "For women artists, it provides solidarity, visibility, and community. I would have loved a list like this when I was in college and high school." Bryan Gee, an art director at Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail, says he has already commissioned three artists he found on the site. One was themed on female sexuality. He also finds the categorisation of artists based on location useful, as part of his job involves showcasing Canadian talent. "The biggest challenge to Women Who Draw as they to continue to add to their roster will be how to balance inclusivity with the quality of the work that I currently find there," he said. However, some of the features he is less convinced about. "It seems a bit odd, for example, to see 'atheist' pop up so frequently as a primary defining quality of some of the illustrators." "I don't think it is about tokenism," adds Lizzy Stewart, an artist from London, who has joined the site. "I think work will still be commissioned based on talent, after all no-one wants to pay for bad work. It'd just be great if that work could come from a wider range of sources." Women Who Draw has decided not to include tags to denote writers who are white or straight. "That was a big decision that we debated a lot," said Ms MacNaughton. "We decided we didn't want to support art directors in search of more white women." But Ms MacNaughton adds that it is an evolving project and they are open to feedback. "Ultimately it is the work that matters," she said. "The site creates a signpost. It is up to the art director to choose the work and the people."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38524131
India v England: Eoin Morgan's family affected by criticism - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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England one-day captain Eoin Morgan says his family were affected by the criticism he received for missing the Bangladesh tour.
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Last updated on .From the section Cricket England one-day captain Eoin Morgan says his family were affected by the criticism he received for missing the tour of Bangladesh over security fears. The 30-year-old has returned to lead England in three one-day internationals in India, starting in Pune on Sunday. "My way of dealing with it was to get away from things, which I did," Morgan told BBC Sport. "My family saw a lot of it and were very offended, but that is part and parcel of being in the limelight." Morgan and fellow batsman Alex Hales made themselves unavailable for the trip to Bangladesh in October, the first tour by an international side since 20 people were killed in a siege at a cafe in Dhaka in July. Before confirming his decision not to travel, Morgan said he would never again take part in a tour where security concerns may affect his game. "I don't have any regrets," the Middlesex man said on Monday. "When I made the decision I considered all consequences. I felt very comfortable with the decision." In his absence, a side led by wicketkeeper Jos Buttler won a three-match series 2-1, with Morgan and Hales now returning as England seek a first ODI series win in India since 1984-85. Ireland-born Morgan, though, drew optimism from England's excellent recent ODI form and their run to the final of the World Twenty20 in India last year. "The side that we'd had over the past two years have done some very special things and they have not played ODI cricket in India together," said the left-hander. "Beating India would be a great achievement and it's a huge challenge, but I wouldn't write us off. "They are not unbeatable, but we will have to play very, very well in order to beat them." Batsman Joe Root will join up with the rest of the squad on Thursday following the birth of his first child and will be available for the first ODI.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/38557963
CES 2017: Searching for the sounds of tech - BBC News
2017-01-09
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CES is an overwhelming visual feast - but can this year's gadgets delight the ear as well as the eye?
Technology
Can CES delight the ear as well as the eye? CES is a visual feast of lights, colour, people, costumes - and of course endless gadgets. There are plenty of striking pictures from the show floor. But are any of the exhibitors interested in delighting your ears? Rather like the city of Las Vegas itself, it has its own distinctive beat. There's the hubbub of chatter. The hiss of vending cart coffee machines. The thumping bass and discord of various sound systems vying for attention. The amplified echo of a hundred demonstrations. The ringtones and message alerts from thousands of mobile phones. And also - this being a tech fair - the whizzes and ticks and buzzes and bings of robots and drones. Robots make quite a racket - just what you'd expect at a football match After hours of stalking the vast halls of CES besieged by visuals, I decided to try and find beguiling sounds instead. Things did not get off to a good start. The first robot I encountered - a service machine designed to guide people around museums - responded to my greeting by asking me whether I was "fickle after kissing". Its mortified owner told me it was confused. It wasn't the only one. Next, I asked one of the show guides where I could find some interesting noises, and was promptly escorted to a section of the show floor dedicated to in-car speakers. I had to explain that as much as I admire Lady Gaga, the strains of her hit Bad Romance blasting out of the back of a Jeep rammed floor-to-ceiling with sub woofers wasn't what I had in mind either. It was in a start-up zone called Eureka Park that I struck audio gold. Some gadgets, like the cuddly Talkies, can't wait to speak up I was drawn in by the sound of crickets - very incongruous in a giant exhibition hall with no natural light, let alone greenery. It was coming from an air purifier called Clair with a built-in Bluetooth speaker nestling at a tiny stand towards the back. "When people sleep they need fresh air and also this kind of sound can help people sleep better," said a spokesman who introduced himself as Bono from South Korea. "So, we put them both together." It's the sort of stuff that's perfect for radio, in fact. After that, I captured the warm American male tones of a virtual assistant designed for cars and the staccato gunfire of a man who was evidently immersed in a VR game of mortal combat that only he could see. Next came machine-like marching sounds from a team of forearm-sized Aelos robots playing miniature football, and a delegate attempting to play Let It Be by The Beatles on a Magic Instruments digital guitar. It's supposed to be easy to learn. Perhaps he tried the wrong tune. The Emys robot has a natural sounding voice - and looks like a cross between ET and a Ninja Turtle I bonded with natural-voiced Emys, a Kickstarter-funded desktop robot that looked like a cross between ET and a Ninja Turtle. It has been designed to teach young children foreign languages (did you know that castle in Spanish is castillo?). I also hugged a gurgling Talkie - a cuddly little monster with wi-fi that you can use to exchange voice messages with your children. Olly, a robot that claims to adapt to the personality of its owner, told me about feeling both happy and sad in a mournfully child-like voice. "By the end of the day I'll be dead," complained an uncomfortable promotions girl, fidgeting in a pair of towering stilettos. "And if I'm not - just kill me." Meanwhile, a little bat-shaped speaker chimed like a casino slot machine, as it tried to re-establish a connection with the smartphone it was supposed to be streaming music from. What's the sound of CES? It's all of those things. All at the same time. All day long. And it's music to my ears. Listen to Zoe's radio report on The World This Weekend, on Radio 4 at 13:00 GMT
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38540739
Joint bank accounts: For better or worse? - BBC News
2017-01-09
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The convenience of a joint bank account is popular among couples with shared household bills - but there are pitfalls too.
Business
A barnacle removal bill is an unlikely inspiration to set up a joint bank account. Yet, for two keen sailors, opening an account together was the most efficient way to organise the costs of running their boat. Fees for maintenance, mooring, and fuel all needed to be paid, so the yacht-owning duo stepped into their local bank branch on the south coast of England and signed up. The manager that day was Eric Leenders, now the managing director of retail banking at the British Bankers' Association. "Typically joint accounts are used by couples for pooled income and expenditure, the trigger is often when they move in together and start paying the bills," he says. "But, on occasions, they are used to share funding for a particular project." It is the mundane reality of keeping heads above water financially - rather than keeping a vessel shipshape - that prompts most people to open a joint bank account. Any couple or group of people can open an account together, generally a regular current account with some added terms and conditions. Yet, experts stress there are benefits and pitfalls to sharing a bank account with anyone - even within an intimate relationship. Today, couples are living together and marrying later in life. Having increasingly led independent financial lives, the relevance of joint accounts may be questioned. While the vast majority of banks and building societies offer them, they do not collect and share any data so we can only speculate that the popularity of these accounts is fading. Fiona Cullinan, a 48-year-old digital editor, says she never had a joint bank account, even during more than two years of marriage - until last month. "This is probably a legacy of not wanting to argue about money and also being independent, as once bills and standing orders are set up, it is hard to shift everything over - or so I thought," she says. "In September I lost one of my jobs and so a joint account started to make more sense to help with cash flow. It was really simple and took about 30 minutes at the bank to set up. "Now that everything doesn't go out from my account, it is a lot less stressful. A secondary bonus is that the burden feels more shared as my husband is now more involved in household finances - he set up a household budget spreadsheet to check things are on track each month. I now feel we are more of a team." Applying for a joint account is much the same as opening a current account individually. Applicants often tick a box to make the account a joint version, then fill in their individual section of the form and provide the normal proof of address and identity. Many banks allow customers to add a second name to an existing account, following the normal checks. Convenience is generally the main benefit, with the account used to pay household bills, although wages are often still paid into an individual's own current account. "Two people with two accounts often become two people with three accounts," says Eric Leenders, of the BBA. There is no limit on the number of people who can sign up, but primarily they are used by couples who are married, in civil partnerships or who live together, or by friends who share a home. Banks says that couples separated by work postings are also among those who are keen. Mr Leenders says that reward or packaged current accounts can lend themselves to joint opening owing to household benefits, such as insurance, that may be included. He stressed that anyone signing up should read the terms and conditions to check the extent of this cover. The Money Advice Service, a government-funded, independent organisation, points out there are limitations for anyone who needs longer term access to someone else's finances. "If, for example, you have an elderly relative who is having trouble keeping on top of their money - a joint account is not your best bet," it says. Couples' finances have been used in comedy turns such as the Joint Account TV series The key decision when setting up the account is whether one individual can withdraw money, sign cheques and make payments or whether both, or all, need to sign. This is made official under what is known as the mandate. This should also cover the rules over who must give permission for changes in the terms of the account or close it. Whatever the decision, all parties usually get a payment card and a cheque book, if it is available with the account. Digitally, each person will have their own log-in details, with their own password, so this needs to be set up individually. In reality, this means each remembering another password, although mobile banking now uses encrypted password saving and fingerprint logins. Joint accounts allow people to share the rewards and convenience, but they also share the risk. Opening a joint account means a couple will be co-scored by credit reference agencies, so if one has a poor credit history it can affect the other. Getting out of debt also falls to both, or all, of those signed up - as a group and individually. Typically, each account holder is responsible for paying back all the money owed, so one could become liable for repaying the other person's debt. A bank might take money from that person's sole account to cover the overdraft in the joint account - but only if both accounts are with the same bank. "Banks are not in the business of making good customers bad customers," says Mr Leenders, pointing out that banks' lending code requires them to treat customers sympathetically. He stresses that people should inform their bank about a relationship breakdown, or any sign of transactions that have not been agreed, to freeze the account - otherwise it can be difficult to retrieve this money. Cases that have gone to the financial ombudsman include: At its worst, extravagant spending by one partner from the joint account, or sole control of a joint account can be a sign of financial abuse. Spending jointly earned money, taking out loans in a partner's name, demanding payment for utility bills from their own savings, or scrutinising every penny that a partner spends are all signs of such bullying, charities and the TUC say. Worse, it can be the forerunner of even more serious emotional, or physical, abuse. Women are often the victims, but men - particularly those with disabilities - can also be vulnerable. Under the Serious Crime Act - implemented in 2015 - coercive and controlling behaviour between partners, which could include financial abuse, became illegal for the first time. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38508810
Fighting for survival on the streets of North Korea - BBC News
2017-01-09
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As a young child, Sungju Lee dreamed of becoming an officer in the North Korean army. But by the time he was a teenager, he was fighting for survival in a street gang.
Magazine
As a young child in the capital of North Korea, Sungju Lee lived a pampered life. But by the time he was a teenager, he was starving and fighting for survival in a street gang. It was one of many twists of fate on a journey that has led him to postgraduate studies at a British university. In the early 1990s, Sungju Lee was living comfortably with his parents in a three-bedroom apartment in Pyongyang. He attended school and Taekwondo classes, visited parks and rode on Ferris wheels. He assumed that, like his father, he would grow up to become an officer in the North Korean army. But in 1994, this life came to an abrupt end with the death of North Korea's founding father, Kim Il-Sung. Although Sungju did not know it at the time, his own father, who had been working as a bodyguard, had fallen out of favour with the new regime. The family was forced to flee the capital. To hide from their child the danger they were in, his parents told him they were taking a holiday. Sungju wanted to believe his father, but when he boarded a dirty, damaged train he had doubts. "I saw beggars - kids my age - and I was shocked," he says. "I asked my father, 'Are we in North Korea?' Because when I was in Pyongyang, I was taught that North Korea was one of the richest countries in the world." Their destination was the north-western town of Gyeong-seong, where they moved into a tiny, unheated house. At school Sungju found the other students malnourished and behind in their classes. One morning his teachers marched the children to an outside arena where they were told to sit and watch. Three police officers with guns appeared and a man and woman were led out and tied to wooden poles. The crowd was told the man had been caught stealing and the woman had tried to escape into China. They had both been convicted of high treason, and this was a public execution. "Each of the police officers shot three bullets for each person. Bang, bang, bang," Sungju says. "Blood came out. There was a hole in their forehead, and at the back of their head there was nothing left." As the months passed, Sungju struggled to adapt to his new harsh circumstances. Food was becoming more scarce as North Korea descended into a crippling famine and many of his classmates had dropped out of school to forage for squirrels or to steal from the local market. Then suddenly Sungju's father announced he was leaving. He told his son he was going to China to look for food, and would come back in a week with rice cakes. The week passed, but Sungju's father did not return. Soon afterwards, his mother told him she was going to travel to his aunt's house to find food. Fearing she would also not return, Sungju refused to leave her side. But eventually he fell asleep and she slipped away, leaving a note telling him to eat salt with water if he was hungry. He never saw her again. "I started hating my parents," he says. "They were so irresponsible. They just left me and I completely lost everything." This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sungju Lee fought other children and stole food to survive the streets of North Korea At that point Sungju realised the only way he would survive was to form a street gang. He banded together with six other boys and they studied how to pick pockets and distract merchants so they could grab produce from their market stalls. "We trusted each other. We could die for each other and we were all bound to each other and that's how we survived," he says. Every few months, when the merchants began to recognise them, the gang had to move to another town. Finding new territory also meant fighting the gang that was already working there. "I was picked as a leader by my brothers because I knew how to do Taekwando," says Sungju. "They thought I was really good at fighting, but it was different from street fighting. I lost many times, but my brothers believed in me. Their trust made me stronger," he says. Although, as time went on, Sungju began to win his fights the boys in his gang were still only young teenagers. When they came up against older teens armed with weapons, the fights became more dangerous. In one such encounter, one of his gang members was hit on the head and died. Then Sungju's closest friend was killed by a farm guard for trying to steal a potato. Sungju was devastated. After more than three years fighting on the streets, the gang began to drift apart and Sungju turned to opium for solace. With few options left open to them, the boys decided to return to Gyeong-seong. It was there that Sungju was approached by an elderly man, whom he recognised as his grandfather. After Sungju's family had left Pyongyang, his grandparents had never given up searching for them and had eventually moved to a farm a few hours' walk from Gyeong-seong. Every Sunday the old man would travel into the town in the hope of finding his grandson. Now rescued from the streets, Sungju spent a few happy months living on his grandparents' farm. Once a week he walked to the market, carrying with him a backpack of food to share with his gang members, who had now found jobs helping the merchants. Then a stranger arrived with an important message. "The messenger passed me a letter that said: 'Son, I'm living in China. Come to China to visit me,'" Sungju says. The stranger was a broker - a person who helped North Koreans escape from the country. He had arrived to smuggle Sungju over the border. "I had two emotions in my heart," says Sungju. "The first one was anger, I just wanted to punch my father. And the second emotion was that I missed him so much. I told my grandparents that I wanted to go to China to see my father and to punch him and then to come back," he says. With the broker's help, Sungju crossed into China by foot and then, after he was given fake documents, he boarded a plane to South Korea. It was here that he was finally reunited with his father. "My father hugged me and we cried together," he says. "I had tons of questions, but I just said, 'I've missed you dad.' He said, 'Where is your mother?' and I cried again because I didn't know." Despite years of searching, Sungju and his father still do not know where his mother is. In 2009, a broker told them about a woman living in China who was similar to her in appearance and background. It turned out not to be Sungju's mother, but his father helped her leave China anyway. Sungju has also lost touch with the other boys in his gang, despite paying brokers to find them. He suspects they have been drafted into the North Korean army. For a while, Sungju struggled with his identity in South Korea. When he first arrived he felt isolated. His accent marked him out as someone from the North, and many South Koreans believe North Koreans are brainwashed, he says. "South Koreans keep saying that North Koreans are their brothers and sisters, but many times they treated me as a foreigner. Sometimes worse than that," he says. He also struggled with the concept of freedom, saying he was told constantly that he now had it, but he wasn't sure what it meant. It was only when he was standing in a shop deciding what brand of pen to buy that he understood. "I tried every pen, it took two hours," he said. "I suddenly thought that this must be freedom, because I can choose a pen that I like." Sungju says he came to terms with his new life by defining himself as someone from the Korean peninsula. Since then, he has decided to devote his life to the reunification of both Koreas, which he believes could happen within a generation. "Those born after the 1990s don't have any respect for the government," he says. "They only care about their private lives." He believes that the markets where he once stole food are where change will begin, as North Koreans will realise they can make money from buying and selling goods without government control. "In time, these people will become the core power of North Korea. The country will not collapse but one day the government will evolve, based on the market," he says. Sungju's studies have taken him out of South Korea to the US and the UK. He now hopes to complete a PhD on Korean reunification. Initially he was reluctant to speak out about his own painful journey from privilege to poverty, and finally escape. But over time he came to realise that by telling his story he could overcome his own personal trauma and give others insight into the struggles that many North Korean children face. He has now turned his story into a book for young adults, Every Falling Star, which was released in September. "I have had so much encouragement and thanks from my readers," he says. His dearest dream is to one day return to the North Korea of his childhood. To see the Ferris wheels and parks of Pyongyang, but also to find the friends who helped him through the darkest time of his life. "I dream of my brothers," he says. "Sometimes we're swimming in a river and catching fish, laughing and wrestling together. "Going home means seeing the people I love." Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37914493
Swim team swaps pool for snow - BBC News
2017-01-09
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The swim team at US university Georgia Tech couldn't make it to their event, so they did the relay in the snow outside their hotel.
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The swim team at US university Georgia Tech couldn't make it to their event, so they did the relay in the snow outside their hotel.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38547477
The Black Dahlia: Los Angeles' most famous unsolved murder - BBC News
2017-01-09
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As the 70th anniversary of the Black Dahlia murder approaches, the public fascination with Elizabeth Short and her grisly death hasn't dimmed.
US & Canada
As the 70th anniversary of the Black Dahlia murder approaches the public fascination with Elizabeth Short and her grisly unsolved death hasn't dimmed. James Bartlett takes a look at how Los Angeles remembers the famous murder. Few people noticed the dark-haired woman when she was dropped off at the swanky Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, but when her torso was found nearly a week later, Elizabeth Short became a household name. On the morning of 15 January 1947, Betty Bersinger was walking with her young daughter along a barely developed street in the planned neighbourhood of Leimert Park when she saw what she thought was two halves of a tailor's mannequin. Short had been cut in two, neatly at the waist, and drained of blood. She had been mutilated, her intestines removed, and her mouth slashed from ear to ear - a gruesome cut known as a Glasgow Smile. Her body had then been washed clean before being dumped in an empty field. An ensuing media frenzy followed, thanks to the "brutal, misogynistic and ritual nature" of the killing, says Glynn Martin, former Los Angeles police sergeant and historian. More than 50 suspects were interviewed, both male and female - some of whom confessed to the crime. But the murder was never solved, only adding to the crime's mystique. There was also the connection to the glamour of the area. "She lived in Hollywood, had aspirations to be an actress," Martin says. The murder became "a sad cliche - the ultimate warning tale". "A starry-eyed young girl comes to Hollywood, and things go very bad for her," he says. Then, of course, there was the memorable nickname, a twist on the previous year's Veronica Lake-Alan Ladd film The Blue Dahlia, and reference to Short's striking dark hair. In the decades since, the Black Dahlia case has inspired university theses, art projects and the name of a death metal band, as well as references in video games and television shows. In 2006, it even got the major motion picture treatment, an adaptation of James Ellroy's best-selling novel inspired by the case. Ellroy himself says he doesn't have any hope the culprit will be found. "It's never going to be solved because it was not meant to be solved," he says. Kim Cooper and her husband Richard Schave run Esotouric's literary, crime and culture bus tours of Los Angeles, and Cooper says that many people who come on their Black Dahlia tour "have their heads full of misinformation". "While we debunk the many theories about possible killers, we try to focus on the story of Elizabeth Short as a person." But even the tour operators can be surprised, like when an older man joined one of their true crime tours, claiming a connection to the Black Dahlia. "He told us that he had been a paper boy at the time, and had rushed to be one of the first at the crime scene. It was the first naked woman he ever saw," Cooper says. "I think it affected the rest of his life." Like the 19th Century killings by Jack the Ripper in London, Short's murder continues to bring forth new theories. Most recently, Steve Hodel, a former homicide detective, claimed his physician father George was the killer, and also responsible for other notable murders. A cadaver dog searched Hodel's former home in 2013 and seemingly "alerted" for human remains - though, of course, Short's body had long been found. During my research for Gourmet Ghosts, a series of true crime books, I found that many talkative Los Angeles bartenders claim their joint was actually the last place Short was seen alive, not the Biltmore. Some theorised her murder was the result of a date turned violent, or that the perennially-broke Short left to hitchhike home, a common practice at the time, and got into the wrong car. "I was regularly asked about the Black Dahlia on the reference desk," says Christina Rice, senior librarian of the photo collection at the Los Angeles Public Library. One woman came in looking for maps from 1947 because "she was going to use her psychic abilities to solve the murder". The only copy of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner's microfiche for the second half of January was stolen years ago, Rice says, adding Short was just one of many women brutally killed in the post-war years in California. The Biltmore, where you can buy a Black Dahlia cocktail As soon as the corpse was discovered, the Los Angeles Herald-Express and the sensationalist Los Angeles Examiner made full use of the cosy relationship that all newspapers had with the Los Angeles police department. At the time it was common to see suicide notes and bloodstained bodies - albeit sometimes airbrushed or altered, like Short's naked body, onto which photo editors superimposed a blanket - on the front page. Suicide photographs even added arrows showing how victims had taken their final fall. The Examiner also added complete fabrications to the Black Dahlia story, exchanging in their reporting the suit Short had been seen wearing for a tight skirt and blouse and implying sexual misadventures. The newspaper also deceived Short's mother about her daughter's death, using a ruse about "Beth" winning a beauty contest, then flying her to Los Angeles before telling her the real news - ensuring the scoop of a mother responding to the tragedy. Officially the case remains open, and today, the Biltmore Hotel serves a Black Dahlia cocktail of vodka, Chambord black raspberry liqueur and Kahlua. The drink, perhaps appropriately, tastes bitter. James Bartlett is a writer and author of Gourmet Ghosts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38513320
Referee Mike Dean one of Premier League's best - Mark Halsey - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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Mike Dean remains one of the Premier League's best referees despite an "indifferent" festive period, says ex-colleague Mark Halsey.
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Last updated on .From the section Football Mike Dean remains one of the Premier League's best referees despite an "indifferent" festive period, says former official Mark Halsey. Dean has received criticism for some of his recent performances and the number of red cards he has shown - five in 15 matches this season. Ex-Premier League referee Halsey thinks Dean can come across as "arrogant". He also believes only a handful of referees are "trusted" for the league's most important games. Dean, who has been a Premier League referee for 16 years, controversially sent off West Ham's Sofiane Feghouli during the Hammers' defeat by Manchester United on 2 January, while the red card was later rescinded by the Football Association. That dismissal was the official's 26th since the start of the 2013-14 season - the highest number by any current Premier League referee in that period. "If you look back over the December period, he has had an indifferent period," Halsey, 55, told BBC Radio 5 live. "I have disagreed with some of his decision-making, especially the sendings-off. "It is not an easy job to do. He is one of the most experienced and is a very good referee - one of the best of the bunch we have got. "He does come across as a little bit arrogant. I would like to see that taken out of his game and perhaps he would get a lot more respect from the paying public and the media. "But that is not the way he is off the pitch - if truth be told, the players like him." • None Listen to more from Halsey on BBC Radio 5 live Halsey, who retired in 2013, says the standard of officiating has "got steadily worse" since Keith Hackett retired as general manager of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) in 2010. "Mark Clattenburg is by far our best referee, then there is Martin Atkinson, Michael Oliver, Andre Marriner, Anthony Taylor and Mike Dean. The top games, the big derbies, can only be refereed by four or five referees. The PGMOL do not trust the others to take control of those games," he said. Halsey also criticised the new way referees are assessed. There is now an "evaluation system" that can take up to 10 days to issue feedback rather than an assessor at the ground. He added: "It could be 10 days before you get closure on a game on a Saturday. You can go into your next game without any closure on a previous game. "Look at the top referees, they are confused. There is no leadership or direction coming from within." 'Clattenburg could go to China' Clattenburg, 41, has said he would consider officiating in the Chinese Super League. He refereed the finals of the FA Cup, the Champions League and the European Championship in 2016. Asked if he would be surprised if Clattenburg went to China, Halsey added: "No I wouldn't. There is no love lost between Clattenburg, the FA, and PGMOL. "There is a lot to sort out. It needs a massive overhaul. We have got excellent referees not being coached correctly - people involved in referring who have never been involved in referring at that level." Take part in our Premier League Predictor game, which allows you to create leagues with friends.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38549470
Brazil prison riots: What's the cause? - BBC News
2017-01-09
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A spike in violence violence in Brazil's prisons has cast a spotlight on failures its penal system.
Latin America & Caribbean
A spate of violence in Brazil's prisons has cast a spotlight on a system which appears to be near a state of collapse. Almost 100 inmates lost their lives in the first week of January alone - brutally murdered, the guards apparently unable to stop the bloodshed. But how has it come to this? A crackdown on violent and drug-related offences in recent years has seen Brazil's prison population soar since the turn of the century. The prison in Roraima state where 33 inmates were killed on 6 January held 1,400 inmates when a deadly riot started. That is double its capacity. Overcrowding makes it hard for prison authorities to keep rival factions separate. It also raises tensions inside the cells, with inmates competing for limited resources such as mattresses and food. In the relatively wealthy state of Sao Paulo, a single guard oversees 300 to 400 prisoners in some prisons, Camila Dias, a sociologist at the Federal University of ABC in Sao Paulo and expert on Brazil's prison system, told Reuters. That means it is relatively easy for prisoners - and gangs - to take control of the facilities. As a result, "when the prisoners want to have an uprising, they have an uprising," Ms Dias said. Killings are already common within the walls of Brazil's prisons - 372 inmates lost their lives in this way in 2016, according to Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper - but this recent surge has been linked to the breakdown in a two-decade truce of sorts between the country's two most powerful gangs. A lack of guards means prisoners can take control, experts say. Pictured: A riot in 2014 Up until recently, the Sao Paulo-based First Capital Command (PCC) drug gang and Rio de Janeiro's Red Command had a working relationship, supposedly to ensure the flow of marijuana, cocaine and guns over Brazil's porous borders and into its cities. But recently they have fallen out - although the exact reasons why remain unclear. And following the government crackdown on criminal gangs, there are thousands of members of both gangs locked up inside Brazilian prisons. Rafael Alcadipani, a public security expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank in Sao Paulo, told Reuters it means any feud between the two sides on the streets will almost certainly spill over into the largely "self-regulated" jails. "We see that as soon as we have a gang war, these killings are inevitably going to happen because the state has no control over the prisons," he said. The army patrols outside a prison in northern Brazil where more than 30 inmates died Following the deadly riots in Amazonas, state governor Jose Melo asked the federal government for equipment such as scanners, electronic tags and devices which block mobile phone signals inside prisons. His request illustrates the lack of basic equipment in prisons which house large numbers of prisoners. He also said that the state police force was struggling to cope and requested that federal forces be sent. Poorly-trained and badly-paid prison guards often face inmates who not only outnumber them but who also feel they have little to lose as they face long sentences already. Following the 1 January riot, which left 56 inmates dead in a prison in Manaus, the Brazilian government announced a plan to modernise the prison system. But with Brazil going through its worst recession in two decades and a 20-year cap on public spending in place, it is hard to see how the government plans to fund it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38534769
iPhone - a moment in history - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Rory Cellan-Jones recalls being criticised for reporting on the iPhone's unveiling a decade ago.
Technology
Not the greatest shot - but a landmark moment Ten years ago I was running from San Francisco’s Moscone Centre to a nearby hotel to edit a piece for the Ten O’Clock News when my phone rang. Those were the days, by the way, when phones were for making calls but all that was about to change. “Have you got your hands on this new Apple phone for a piece to camera?” shouted a producer in London. “If not, why not?” This appeared to be an impossible demand. Steve Jobs had just unveiled the iPhone before an adoring crowd but it was not available for grubby hacks to manhandle. Then I remembered that we had been offered - and turned down for lack of time - an interview with Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller. I turned around and headed back to the Moscone Centre. Having located Mr Schiller I asked whether before our interview I might just have a look at the iPhone. He graciously handed his over - and rather than trying to ring Jony Ive or order 5,000 lattes as Steve Jobs had on stage, I brandished it at the camera for my Ten O’Clock News piece. The following weekend a Sunday newspaper columnist described me as having clutched the phone as if it were “a fragment of the true cross”, and some viewers complained that the BBC had given undue prominence to a product launch. I appeared on the Newswatch programme to defend our reporting and said that some products did merit coverage because they promised a step change in the way we lived - and I mused on whether the Model T Ford would have been a story if we’d had a TV news bulletin back then. Afterwards, I rather regretted saying that - who knew whether the iPhone would really prove as revolutionary as the arrival of mass car ownership? But today that comparison does not look so outlandish. The smartphone has been the key transformative technology of the last decade, putting powerful computers in the hands of more than two billion people and disrupting all sorts of industries. We have become accustomed to having a quality camera a hand's reach away One example is in the photograph at the top of this article. It’s not very good - but then again it was taken by me on a digital SLR camera. In difficult lighting conditions, I struggled to get Steve Jobs in focus on stage. Compare and contrast with a photo taken 10 years later in Las Vegas last week - it was shot on an iPhone but could just as well been captured on any high-end smartphone such as a Google Pixel, and was the work of the same incompetent photographer. This 2017 photo could be instantly shared on social media - the Steve Jobs one stayed in my SLR for days. My point is that the iPhone radically changed the way we thought about photography and a whole range of other activities we could now do on the move. Of course, there were cameras on phones before 2007, just as there were mobile devices that allowed you to roam the internet or send an email. But the genius of Steve Jobs was to realise that without an attractive user interface many people just couldn’t be bothered to do more with their phones than talk and text. So, despite my rather British distaste for the hyperbole surrounding the iPhone launch - expressed at the time in a blog - I now look back and feel grateful to have witnessed a moment in history. Other firms, notably Amazon and Google, are now taking us forward with innovative products imbued with artificial intelligence. But it was on a sunny January morning in San Francisco that the mobile connected era began.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38550016
Huge rotor blade artwork installed in Hull for City of Culture 2017 - BBC News
2017-01-09
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A 250ft-long rotor blade forming a new art installation is lifted into position in Hull.
Humberside
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A 250ft-long rotor blade forming a major new art installation is lifted into position. A 250ft-long (75m) rotor blade forming a new art installation has been lifted into position in Hull. "The Blade" is the first in a series of temporary commissions marking Hull's year as UK City of Culture. The 28-tonne structure will remain on display in Queen Victoria Square until 18 March. The artwork was transported from the Siemens factory on Alexandra Dock, where it was made, through the city overnight in a complex operation. More than 50 items of street furniture had to be removed to allow it to reach the square. It arrived on Sunday morning and large crowds gathered to watch it slowly lifted into its final position by late-afternoon. Large numbers of people gathered to watch the blade being lifted into place It runs across the whole length of the square, rising to 16ft (5m) at one end allowing traffic to pass beneath it Project director Richard Bickers said it had been a demanding effort. "Blade is not only a dramatic artistic installation, but in terms of its transportation and exhibition, a significant engineering feat. "A major challenge we encountered was manoeuvring the structure through Hull's narrow city centre streets." The artwork has been designed by Nayan Kulkarni who said he was impressed by the smooth operation to install it. "They did a study, they did a drawing, they planned the route meticulously. "The drawings looked difficult, the movements through the city were graceful, I mean it looked effortless." The huge structure was made by workers at Siemens' new Alexandra Dock factory It was transported from the factory to the city centre overnight More than 50 items of street furniture, including traffic lights and lamp posts, had to be temporarily removed B75 rotor blades - which would normally form the top of a wind turbine - are the world's largest handmade fibreglass components to be cast as a single object, organisers said. Martin Green, CEO and director Hull 2017, said: "It's a structure we would normally expect out at sea and in a way it might remind you of a giant sea creature, which seems appropriate with Hull's maritime history. "It's a magnificent start to our Look Up programme, which will see artists creating site specific work throughout 2017 for locations around the city."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-38547052
Amazon Echos activated by TV comment - BBC News
2017-01-09
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A comment on a US TV news show activates Amazon Echo gadgets in viewers' homes.
Technology
An on-air comment by a US TV presenter activated Amazon Echo gadgets in viewers' homes across San Diego. The comment was made by presenter Jim Patton after a news item on a child who accidentally ordered a doll's house via the voice-activated gadget. Reacting to the report, Mr Patton said: "I love the little girl saying 'Alexa ordered me a dollhouse'." This reportedly prompted Echo devices in some homes to wake up and try to order some of the toys. The original CW6 TV report Mr Patton reacted to was about six-year-old Brooke Neitzel from Dallas who had been talking to her family's Echo Dot while playing. Brooke asked Alexa to get her a doll's house and cookies and, because the family had not turned on any buying controls, the Echo responded by placing an order for both. The doll's house and a large tin of cookies arrived the next morning, prompting mother Megan to investigate their arrival. Soon after the news item about the accidental purchase aired on San Diego's CW6 morning show, Mr Patton mentioned Alexa and that woke up other Echos in viewers' homes, leading to complaints from their owners. Security expert Graham Cluley said owners of the Echo needed to be aware that voice-driven buying was enabled by default. "Consider disabling voice purchasing or enabling a four-digit confirmation code to prevent accidental purchases," he wrote. "There is the potential for mischief-makers to abuse the system in other ways if it can't tell the difference between the voices of authorised and unauthorised users," he warned. The Alexa incident is not the first time that TV comments have forced a reaction by voice-driven gadgets. In 2014, a TV advert for the Xbox console featuring actor Aaron Paul during which he said "Xbox On" woke up many consoles fitted with the Kinect sensor.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38553643
James Haskell: Wasps boss jokes about 35-second return by England flanker - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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Wasps boss Dai Young jokes about James Haskell's "outstanding" contribution after he lasts less than a minute on his return.
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Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union Wasps director of rugby Dai Young joked about James Haskell's "outstanding" contribution after he lasted just 35 seconds on his return from injury. Haskell, 31, made his first appearance since playing for England against Australia last summer as a replacement in Wasps' 22-16 win over Leicester. He appeared to be knocked out after tackling Freddie Burns but was then able to walk off the pitch. "The most important thing is that he is fine," said Young after the match. Speaking to BBC Coventry & Warwickshire, he added: "He would have obviously have wanted a lot more, but thankfully he is OK. "Everybody was concerned initially but once they seen he was OK, he is getting a little bit of stick in the dressing room. "It was an outstanding 35 seconds, wasn't it?" • None Match report: Wasps return to the top after holding off Leicester fightback Asked about Haskell's chances of playing against Toulouse in the European Champions Cup next week, Young said: "It all depends on what the medical team say now and after looking at him. "It will be tight and fingers crossed he will be available, but obviously player welfare is the most important thing." Young said that Haskell would have to "go through the protocols" introduced around concussion, adding: "It's a six-day protocol, so he has got to tick all the boxes." England head coach Eddie Jones will surely be relieved that Haskell's latest setback appears not to be serious, as he has several injury problems among his forwards in the build-up to the Six Nations. Billy and Mako Vunipola have already been ruled out of the tournament and former skipper Chris Robshaw is to see a specialist about a shoulder injury. Meanwhile, Joe Launchbury has a calf problem and George Kruis is out of action with a fractured cheekbone.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/38550179
Beyond 'Brogrammers': Can AI create a meritocracy? - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Can a new system of artificial intelligence mean more women are recruited into IT?
Business
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. "There's a dominant face of a programmer - young, male, they've gone to a top school" Silicon Valley is so male-dominated that there's a name for the young, brash men who populate the region's many start-ups and high-tech firms: "brogrammers". Brogrammers are not your standard, introverted computer programmers. They are a more recent stereotype: the macho, beer swilling players who went to top schools and are often hired by their friends or former fraternity brothers in the technology industry. "If there's a group of a hundred candidates and they're from multiple different backgrounds, different races, different genders, we noticed across the board there was a certain type of programmer that would still move forward in interviews," says Iba Masood, the 27-year-old chief executive and co-founder of Tara.ai, an artificial intelligence project manager that aims to change the world by combating bias. "The brogrammer," says Ms Masood when asked what type of candidate she is referring to. "It's a type that's known in the Valley." Syed Ahmed and Iba Masood created Tara so job candidates can be assessed without bias Ms Masood's company created Tara, which stands for Talent Acquisition and Recruiting Automation. Tara analyses and ranks programmers' code, removing biographical information such as age, race, gender or where you have worked in the past or where you went to university. The algorithm means that people are judged on the work they have produced rather than who they are or who they know. "We're very passionate about creating a meritocracy," says Ms Masood, who along with her co-founder Syed Ahmed, were born and raised in the United Arab Emirates. They wanted to create opportunities for people like themselves: smart and entrepreneurial, but not graduates of brand-name schools. Tara is a project manager that recruits and manages the best programmers for a variety of projects for businesses, from building simple websites to creating advanced applications. To create Tara the two used publicly available code and graded programmers on a 1-10 scale. None of the programmers are a perfect 10 and Tara doesn't tell a candidate their rank, though it does set a minimum standard for recommending work. Their highest-ranking member is a nine - he's a young, US-based programmer who never went to university. The people creating Tara hope it will help those who find it tough to break into the tech industry Mr Ahmed, 28, is the chief technology officer behind Tara. He says the system is much more than a recruiter - it is capable of finding the best people for the job and carrying out the entire recruitment process. He says Tara will increasingly offer opportunities for people working in the freelance economy, and will create more opportunities for women and minorities who have historically had a tough time breaking in to cutting edge start-ups and staying in the tech industry. In the US, women held just 25% of professional computing occupations in 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And more than 90% of those women were white. Just 5% were Asian, 3% African American and 1% Hispanic. Women in computing fields in the US have declined since a peak of 36% in 1991. A 2016 report from the National Center for Women in Information Technology says that women quit the tech industry in numbers more than double their male counterparts. "Evidence suggests that workplace conditions, a lack of access to key creative roles, and a sense of feeling stalled in one's career are some of the most significant factors contributing to female attrition from the tech field," the report says. Shaherose Charania believes a more diverse workforce will help companies avoid making cultural mistakes that cause offence to customers Shaherose Charania, a board member and also the co-founder of Women 2.0, which advocates for women in technology, says that companies lacking diversity are more prone to make mistakes that offend their users. "There are so many mistakes that companies like Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter have made to exclude some of their most engaged user groups," Ms Charania says, referring to Facebook's "poke" which annoyed many women and more recently Snapchat's Bob Marley filter, which was criticised as promoting a racist digital version of blackface. While "bro culture" might be blamed for failing to retain the few women who do work in tech fields, the reality is there aren't many trained female computer scientists to recruit in the first place. Although women earn 57% of all undergraduate university degrees in the US, they account for just 18% of computer science degrees. Using artificial intelligence may level the playing field when it comes to hiring on merit but it won't solve the recruiting "pipeline problem" of having too few women applicants. Ms Charania says bias in hiring is typically not conscious, but a result of people hiring people they feel comfortable with, often from similar backgrounds and universities. If there are no women candidates or just one token female, their likelihood of getting the job is very slim. Whether or not AI changes "bro culture" remains to be seen. Some of those "bros" are likely to be very talented programmers. But until more women study computer science, gender parity in technology will remain science fiction. But Ms Masood predicts more and more women will enter the field in the future. "I believe the next 20 to 30 years is going to be transformative for women," says Ms Masood. "There's going to be people from multiple different backgrounds, races, perspectives coming into the field of programming. And I think that's why Tara is so important in this field in particular."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38393802
FA Cup: Cambridge Utd 1-2 Leeds Utd highlights - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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Championship side Leeds United avoid an FA Cup third-round upset as they fight back to win 2-1 at League Two opponents Cambridge United.
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Championship side Leeds United avoid an FA Cup third-round upset as they fight back to win 2-1 at League Two opponents Cambridge United. Watch all the best action from the FA Cup third round here. Available to UK users only.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38564153
Orphaned baby otter in roadside rescue - BBC News
2017-01-09
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An "almost lifeless" baby otter is rescued from the side of a busy main road after being initially mistaken for a discarded "old mail sack".
Cambridgeshire
The baby female otter was "lifeless and unresponsive" when she was found at the side of the road An "almost lifeless" baby otter was rescued from the side of a busy main road after being initially mistaken for a discarded "old mail sack". Cyclist Robert Spooner spotted her in the dim light near Peterborough. "I couldn't just leave it there," he said, so he carried the otter to his mother's house, who looked after it until rescue centre volunteers arrived. They said the otter had made a "great recovery" but would not have survived in the wild without his help. Mr Spooner said it took him a "few seconds" to realise what he had come across at the side of the road a few days before Christmas. The otter responded well to treatment and was able to go for a swim at the rescue centre A passing motorist did not have time to help, but a pedestrian offered to push his bicycle while he scooped up the otter and carried it to his mother's house. "She was a little surprised when I arrived with it," he said. She called Fenland Animal Rescue and kept the otter hydrated, and warm in a box. The otter was "lifeless and unresponsive" when it was first found, but "soon responded and recovered well", Joshua Flanagan, from rescue organisation, said. He then had to find a new home for the creature. Otters are social creatures and ideally should be with others of a similar age "Otter pups are entirely dependent on their mothers for the first year of their lives. "Coupled with them being a social species, it is best that they are recovering in an environment with other otters of a similar age," he said. After contacting sanctuaries across the country they eventually found a new home for the otter - more than 500 miles (800km) away on the Isle of Skye. The International Otter Survival Fund has agreed to take her in. The otter pup is being transferred to a centre where there are otters of a similar age But transferring her there has not been simple for the volunteers. So far they have managed to get her to a "half-way house" near Manchester. She will then be driven to the Scottish border where she will be handed over to a member of the otter charity for the final leg to the Isle of Skye. "When she is of age and independent, she will be released back into the wild in a suitable area," Mr Flanagan added. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-38467791
Cristiano Ronaldo beats Lionel Messi to win Fifa best player award - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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Cristiano Ronaldo is named the world's best player at the inaugural Best Fifa Football Awards in Zurich.
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Last updated on .From the section European Football Cristiano Ronaldo was named the world's best player at the inaugural Best Fifa Football Awards in Zurich. Real Madrid and Portugal forward Ronaldo, 31, beat Barcelona's Lionel Messi and Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezmann to the prize. Ronaldo also won the Ballon d'Or in December, with both honours recognition for success in the Champions League with Real and Euro 2016 with Portugal. Carli Lloyd of the United States was named the world's best female player. Leicester's Claudio Ranieri was named best men's coach, ex-Germany boss Silvia Neid won the female coach award, while Penang's Mohd Faiz Subri received the Puskas award for the best goal of 2016. • None Quiz: World's best - but who did he vote for? Hold on... haven't we already had the Ballon d'Or? We have - but this is different. For the past six years, the world's best player has received the Fifa Ballon d'Or award. A version of that prize has been awarded by France Football magazine since 1956, but last year world football's governing body ended its association with that honour. Instead, it introduced the Best Fifa Football Awards, with Ronaldo the first recipient of its main prize. Voting for the player and coach categories was by national team captains and managers, selected journalists and, for the first time, an online poll of fans. Each counted for 25% of the points. 2016 was quite a year for Ronaldo. As well as scoring the decisive penalty in the shootout to win the Champions League, rescuing Real with a hat-trick in the final of the Club World Cup, captaining Portugal to Euro 2016 glory and being recognised with a fourth Ballon d'Or, he now has something Messi does not - the honour of being named best Fifa men's player. The former Manchester United forward had been the favourite for the award, following a year in which he continued to deliver remarkable statistics. These included: • None The third best minutes-per-goal rate (83.68) of anyone scoring a minimum of 10 goals across Europe's top five leagues during 2016, behind Luis Suarez (82.57) and Radamel Falcao (59.6). • None Finishing top scorer in the Champions League in 2015-16 with 16 goals, seven more than second-placed Robert Lewandowski. "It was my best year so far," said Ronaldo. "The trophy for Portugal was amazing. I was so happy and of course I cannot forget the Champions League and the Club World Cup. We ended the year in the best way. I'm so glad to win a lot of trophies, collective and individual. I'm so, so proud." Ronaldo and Messi have a history of not voting for each other for major awards and they continued that habit, both filling their top three with club-mates. Messi, the Argentina captain, went for Luis Suarez, Neymar and Andres Iniesta. Despite being on the shortlist for best individual player, Griezmann did not make the best XI. The line-up features five players from Real Madrid, four from Barcelona, one from Juventus (Dani Alves, who was at Barca for the first half of 2016) and one, Manuel Neuer, from Bayern Munich. That means no Premier League players were included. Despite the United States failing to finish on an Olympic podium for the first time, co-captain Carli Lloyd has continued her exceptional form both for her club, Houston Dash, and country. The 34-year-old saw off competition from Germany's Olympic gold medallist Melanie Behringer and five-time winner Marta of Brazil. "I honestly was not expecting this," said Lloyd. "I know Melanie did fantastic in the 2016 Olympics." Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri, who has also led his side to the last 16 of the Champions League this season, won the award ahead of Real Madrid's Zinedine Zidane, who lifted the Champions League in his first season in charge, and Portugal's Fernando Santos, who led his team to an unexpected success at Euro 2016. Germany's Silvia Neid retired in 2016 after capping an 11-year spell in charge of the national team by guiding them to Olympic gold for the first time. Success in Rio added to her extensive trophy collection, which includes the World Cup and two European Championships. The best goal of 2016 was, officially, scored by Penang's Mohd Faiz Subri. It came in the Malaysia Super League, the forward converting a superb, swirling free-kick from 35 yards which started out heading towards the top left corner but ended up in the top right. The fan award went to supporters of Liverpool and German club Borussia Dortmund, who together sang a moving rendition of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' - an anthem adopted by both teams - before their Europa League quarter-final in April. The match came the day before the 27th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 Liverpool fans died. Liverpool went on to produce a stirring display, coming from behind to win the match 4-3 and advance to the semi-finals 5-4 on aggregate. Colombian side Atletico Nacional were given the fair play award for their part in the aftermath of the plane crash which killed 19 players and staff of Brazilian side Chapecoense. Chapecoense were en route to play the first leg of their Copa Sudamericana final when the plane crashed, killing 71 people. Atletico Nacional said the title should be awarded to Chapecoense. Fifa recognised their "spirit of peace, understanding and fair play".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38561266
CES 2017: Roam-E drone takes flying selfies - BBC News
2017-01-09
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A new type of fold-up drone that follows its owner taking selfies is previewed at the CES tech show.
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A new type of fold-up drone that follows its owner about taking selfies is being previewed at the CES tech show in Las Vegas. Roam-E uses facial recognition software to keep on course and stays airborne with just two rotors. But could it pose a safety risk? Chris Foxx reports. Follow all our CES coverage at bbc.co.uk/ces2017
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38541534
Why RBS's recovery is lagging Lloyds' - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Lloyds Banking Group is returning to 'near normality' as the government's stake dips below 6%, but RBS's road to recovery looks set to take many, many years.
Business
Eight years ago the government rescued Lloyds by taking a 43% stake for just over £20bn. The fact that the government is no longer even the biggest shareholder marks an important return to near normality. Since 2013, the government stake has been sold off at first in a couple of big chunks and then in a gradual trickle and so this moment was bound to happen at some stage. The government still owns nearly 6%, but global investor Blackrock now eclipses that and Lloyds is on trajectory to return to full private ownership later this year when taxpayers should recoup all the money they put in. It hasn't been an easy ride. The huge compensation costs of PPI mis-selling and intermittent market turbulence have hampered and delayed the process, but Lloyds, while not risk-free, can be considered pretty much out of the woods. As a plain vanilla UK savings and lending bank, Lloyds was always going to be an easier bank to fix than RBS which is still about 71% owned by the taxpayer. As a global bank with fingers in most of the pies that got burnt during the crisis, RBS has paid out over £50bn in fines and compensation and has its biggest reckoning yet to come. It is still facing a bill from US authorities which could end up in the double digit billions for its role in the subprime mis-selling scandal that started the whole financial crisis in the first place. While those negotiations could come to a head as early as this week (watch out for separate blog on this), RBS won't reach the point Lloyds did today for many, many years to come.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38552831
The Canadian businessman who sponsored 200 refugees - BBC News
2017-01-09
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One Canadian businessman decided he could do more for desperate Syrians fleeing their war-torn country, so he bankrolled an entire town's resettlement effort.
US & Canada
Danby CEO Jim Estill put up $1.5m of his own money to bring 58 Syrian families to Canada One Canadian businessman decided he could do more for desperate Syrians fleeing their war-torn country. So he bankrolled an Ontario town's resettlement of over 200 refugees. Over the summer of 2015, the business executive from the southwestern Ontario town of Guelph watched the Syrian refugee crisis unfold a half a world away, night after night on the evening news. "I didn't think people were doing enough things fast enough," he says. He would put up CA$1.5m (US$1.1m/£910,000) of his own money to bring over 50 refugee families to Canada, and co-ordinate a community-wide effort to help settle them into their new life. It would be a volunteer-driven project, but organised like a business. Volunteer directors led multiple teams, each in charge of a different aspect of settling newcomers. Canada allows private citizens, along with authorised sponsorship groups, to directly sponsor refugees by providing newcomers with basic material needs like food, clothing, housing, and support integrating into Canadian society. But Estill was looking to make a big impact, quickly. "I know how to scale things," says Estill, who made his fortune as an entrepreneur, and previously worked as a director at Research in Motion, best known for producing the BlackBerry mobile phone. Jelil Alou, a Syrian refugee sponsored by the Canadian government, stands with Muhamad Abdo and Ibrahim Halil Dudu, who were sponsored by Jim Estill and the Muslim Society of Guelph Estill would be the money man, but he needed partners. So he brought together 10 different faith-based organisations that were already looking at ways to help those affected by the Syrian civil war. Sara Sayyed remembers the night her husband, president of the Muslim Society of Guelph, came back from that meeting and told her about Estill's plan. "I was completely floored. I said: 'Let's get involved in this.'" In November 2015, the local Guelph paper published an article about the plan. It was translated into Arabic and spread around the Middle East. "People started emailing us directly from Turkey, from Lebanon, from within Syria, saying: 'Can you help us? Can you do something?'" says Sayyed. Ibrahim Halil Dudu, who was sponsored by Jim Estill and the Muslim Society of Guelph, made international headlines when his skills as a tailor were called on to save a bride's wedding day As Estill recalls it: "At first you get one email. You get one or two and say: 'Let's see what I can do.' Then it turns into a hundred. And then it's very difficult." Sayyed's dining room table disappeared under a pile of sponsorship applications. Fifty-eight families were eventually selected. But that was just the first challenge. The sponsored families arrived at a trickle. Long delays in government processing came at a cost. Hard to find housing sat vacant. Donations languished in warehouses. "I was completely taken by surprise it would take so long for the Canadian government to let people in," says Estill. "That cost us a lot." By December 2016, 47 of 58 families had arrived in Guelph. But Estill realised that many newcomers were having difficulty finding work because they lacked experience or English language skills. So he launched a program that provides Syrian refugees with jobs at Danby, along with regular English lessons. He has also assisted others in establishing their own business. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Daad reflects on her previous life in a Syrian war zone "I don't want to bring people in and put them on welfare," he says, adding if that happens, "I've failed." Sayyed says that Estill does not come across as a typical big business executive. "You think: CEO of a company, this image based on what you see on TV and stuff right? And he is the most down to earth guy dressed in regular jeans and a shirt driving a really old car, nothing fancy or flashy about him," she says. She sees no reason other business people cannot copy his effort. "The biggest thing is just to have that financial backing. If more people from our business communities just stepped forward and said: 'We'll do this,' it can be done." Jaya James (left) with Gaziye Fettah and Rojin Haci, who were sponsored by Jim Estill and the Muslim Society of Guelph Jaya James, who worked worked closely with Sayyed and Estill, took a six-month leave from her job as a civil servant to work as a full-time volunteer director of the Guelph Refugee Sponsorship Forum. Estill contributed the big vision and the contacts, she says, while she and Sayyed took care of the details. They screened, trained and mentored 800 volunteers, co-ordinated the organisations involved in the effort, and tackled emergencies, including fielding late night calls about bug-infested donated furniture. James says Estill, who she describes as "a little bristly" but "with a really big heart", has challenged people to ask: "What can I give? What can I do?" Estill says he reads and replies to all the emails he receives from people seeking to come to Canada and is looking to sponsor more, though the focus will be on bringing in relatives of the newcomers who have already arrived. Still, the businessman remains perplexed by the praise the effort has gotten worldwide. Estill says he simply had the means to help and a vision of how to implement the plan. And he says his parents, who sponsored two Ugandan refugees when he was a child, instilled humanitarian values in him. "I guess I was raised right. That's what I tell my mom," he says with a laugh.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38473532
Golden Globes 2017: In pictures - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Hollywood rolls out the red carpet for the biggest names in film and TV at the Golden Globe Awards.
Entertainment & Arts
Evan Rachel Wood broke with tradition and wore a suit on the red carpet. "I’ve been to the Globes six times, and I’ve worn a dress every time. And I love dresses, but I wanted to make sure that young girls and women knew they aren’t a requirement," she said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38551439
The 'muesli queen' who built a $60m food business - BBC News
2017-01-09
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How not wanting to lose her job started an Australian teenager on the path to creating a breakfast cereal empire.
Business
Carolyn struggled in her first years of business When an 18-year-old Carolyn Creswell was told she might lose her job, she decided to take a leap of faith. While at university in Melbourne, Australia, she supported herself by working part-time for a little company that made muesli for a handful of cafes and shops. This was in 1992, and the husband and wife who owned the business said they were putting it up for sale. They warned Carolyn that this would probably mean she would be out of work. Wanting to save a job she enjoyed, Carolyn decided to try to buy the business. Pooling her savings with those of her friend and co-worker Manya van Aker, their offer of the princely sum of 1,000 Australian dollars ($735; £590) was accepted. They dubbed the new incarnation Carman's, combining the first three letters of their names. Despite their youthful enthusiasm, increased sales were hard to come by, and Manya left the business two years later. Carolyn, however, persevered on her own, and in 1997 the company got its big break when Australia's second largest supermarket chain, Coles, started to stock its muesli. Today Carman's Fine Foods is worth 83m Australian dollars ($60m; £50m), while Carolyn is dubbed the "muesli queen" by the Australian media. The company's breakfast cereals and other products are stocked by more than 3,000 outlets across the country, and exported to 32 other nations. "I wasn't afraid of hard work," says Carolyn, now 42. "[But] the first few years were really hard. If I could have given it away I would have." For the first three years of the business Carolyn continued with her arts degree at Melbourne's Monash University. She would make deliveries early in the morning before lectures, and then do the business's bookkeeping in the college library over lunch. After she graduated Carman's still wasn't making enough money for it to be Carolyn's only source of income, so she also held a number of part-time jobs, including working behind the till at a supermarket. Carolyn bought out her co-founder two years into the business She was so hard up at times that she had to ask her brother to siphon petrol from their mother's car. "I was really broke," says Carolyn. "I remember I couldn't see my way out of it." However, sales to independent stores and cafes starting to rise thanks to word of mouth. With no money for advertising, Carolyn's mum helped with an unusual marketing initiative - she'd stand in shops and loudly tell people how good her daughter's muesli was. Then after five years the company's fortunes were transformed when it started being stocked by Coles. At the time Carolyn still didn't have any formal staff, instead relying on help from her husband Pete. Today the company has 25 employees at its Melbourne head office, and another 160 people at its manufacturing facilities. In addition to six types of muesli it now makes other granolas, plus breakfast and snack bars. Although Carolyn says she will never regret her decision to set up Carman's, she says she had to miss out on many of the fun experiences that come with being young. For example, she never partied or travelled the way her friends were able to. And she wonders whether her age might have hindered early success. "It might have happened a bit quicker if I was a little bit more mature," she says. Carolyn balances running the company with helping to look after her four children Carolyn also says she faced challenges as a young woman running a business that are - thankfully - less common than they are today. She says being a 20-something female meant she struggled to convince banks to lend her money. Much more distressingly, she says she occasionally faced sexual harassment from suppliers and other men who wouldn't take her seriously. "Now I'd be like, 'you've got to be joking, that is so inappropriate.' [But] I think 20 years ago I was a bit nervous to stand up and go, 'hey that is not cool,'" she says. While Carman's has continued to grow strongly following the first Coles contract, it has not all been plain sailing. For a brief period eight years ago Carman's lost another supermarket deal because of a temporary dip in sales. Carolyn says she was able to win back the contract, and that the episode was one of the biggest learning experiences of her career. "I wouldn't be living with the healthy paranoia I have now," she says. "That is never going to happen to me again." The business has expanded beyond muesli Nathan Cloutman, a senior food industry analyst at research group Ibis World, says Carman's is able to charge premium prices for its products. "Consumers see Carman's as promoting that healthy, rustic lifestyle that people are moving towards," he says. Mr Cloutman says the two main challenges for the company in the future are to cope with the big cereal producers increasingly trying to copy what it is doing, and for it to expand without sacrificing its local, homemade feel. With Carman's now entering the giant Chinese market, Carolyn says she continues to set three-year goals for the business, while regularly testing and measuring her chances of success. "It's kind of like climbing Everest. What do we need to do to get to base camp?" The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38510041
Mrs Brown star set to front new Saturday night BBC show - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Comedy star Mrs Brown is to front a new Saturday night TV show on BBC One.
Entertainment & Arts
Brendan O'Carroll's alter-ego Mrs Brown will welcome celebrity guests as part of the show Comedy star Mrs Brown is to front a new Saturday night TV show on BBC One. All Round to Mrs Brown's will be hosted by Agnes Brown, the female alter-ego played by Brendan O'Carroll in the sitcom Mrs Brown's Boys. O'Carroll said: "The entire cast is excited by this. I think Agnes may be worried that she'll need a bigger kettle to make tea for everyone that's coming round!" The series will be shown later this year. The BBC said the show would feature "celebrity guests, surprise audience shenanigans and outrageous stunts" in front of a live studio audience. Charlotte Moore, director of BBC content, said: "Bringing one of our biggest comedy stars, Mrs Brown, to Saturday nights in 2017 with a new entertainment show is going to be full of fun and mischief and totally unpredictable." Mrs Brown's Boys became a hit when the BBC sitcom first aired in 2011. Mrs Brown first appeared on Irish radio station RTE 2fm in 1992 and has been the focal point of a series of books and a long-running stage show. But it was not until O'Carroll's matriarch hit the small screen that he became an international star. A Saturday night live episode of Mrs Brown's Boys was watched by more than 11 million viewers last year. The sitcom was also voted the most popular of the 21st Century in a Radio Times poll. In 2014, the spin-off film Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie topped the UK and Ireland box office. All Round to Mrs Brown's is to be produced by Hungry Bear Media in conjunction with O'Carroll's production company BocPix. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38563190
The shared society - more than a slogan? - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Theresa May believes life isn't very fair for millions of people. But can the PM's words be translated into action given the other challenges she faces?
UK Politics
When she began her leadership campaign to move into No 10, in an uncharacteristically brash statement, the then home secretary stood up and said: "I'm Theresa May and I'm the best person to be prime minister." But in the six months since she did take charge, far, far faster than she had anticipated, politics has been dominated by the questions the prime minister doesn't want to answer yet - on how she plans to negotiate our EU exit. And without very much evidence of a bold vision on that front in recent weeks, charges that her government is directionless, drifting, have started to gain currency. That's why her first big speech of the year, the start of what aides describe as a "lot more activity", matters, as the prime minister seeks to try to explain to the public why she believes she is the best person to be prime minister. After her speech on the steps of Downing Street, and the Tory party conference in October, and under the glittering chandeliers of the Mansion House before Christmas, today was one of what's still only a handful of opportunities she has taken to sketch her own image as the occupant of Downing Street. If you were hoping for radical departures from the PM, you'd have been disappointed. In fact it was striking how familiar today's speech was to those previous few - whole sections were more or less identical, with another strong restatement of her belief that for millions of people, life just doesn't feel very fair. She is not a politician trying to sell a cheery vision, not a politician claiming that nirvana is around the corner. She mentioned the word injustice 17 times, what she described as "everyday" injustice that breeds resentment between young and old, London and the rest of the country, rich and poor. Listening to her on all of those big occasions, despite having been at the top table of the government for six years, you sense that Theresa May fundamentally thinks that there is quite a lot that is wrong with Britain. But alongside what feels by now, a familiar and rather downbeat analysis of the state we are in, for the first time came what the prime minister wants us to see as her solution to all that. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May warns about rise of 'fringe' politics Not the Big Society of David Cameron, nor even Margaret Thatcher's much misquoted statement, "there is no such thing as society - there are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first". But for Theresa May it is a "shared society", where we all have responsibilities to each other, and an "active" government has a responsibility to step in to help, not just the poorest, but the millions in the middle too. After a while, every political leader finds themselves in need of a slogan, and it's certainly not the worst that's ever been dreamed up. She wants you to see her and her party as the sensible middle, on the side of ordinary families, not veering away from the centre ground. It's about as clear an appeal to Middle England, where elections are traditionally won, as you can find. But while she gave today the skeleton of a philosophy, there was not a fully fleshed-out body of policy to accompany it. And even before the speech was given, the policy that she did talk more about crashed into the common problem of reality versus political rhetoric. Theresa May's desire to make sure that people who need help with their mental health, particularly children, get what they need as soon as possible, and that society sheds the stigma around it, seems genuinely felt. But she is not the first Conservative politician to have made such a promise. Her predecessor made a similar big one exactly a year ago. And more importantly perhaps, there is deep scepticism from opposition politicians and those who work in the sector, that the system can work properly without a significant amount of extra cash. What's happening on the ground was described to me as a "car crash" today by someone in the sector. However many times the prime minister says she wants to make sure mental health is treated just a seriously as physical health, the pressures on funding right across the NHS do matter. Today's measures are also about where money is being allocated, not opening up the taxpayer's chequebook to top up health budgets. But that's not the only political problem that Theresa May's vision of a "shared society" will face. Prime ministers are always defined by what they choose to pursue but also by what they can't control. In managing our departure from the EU, she faces the biggest challenge any leader has had in decades. Preventing her government from becoming consumed by that will take more than a series of speeches and a new slogan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38555929
Up and away? Your Tube strike solutions - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Travellers in London have been hit by a Tube strike, with more than four million people affected. Some have seen the lighter side.
UK
Artist Claudine O'Sullivan offers an alternative to the Tube Commuters and travellers in London have been hit by a Tube strike. More than four million people could be affected, but some have taken to social media to see the lighter side. From The Daily Grindstone, there was just a hint of sarcasm about alternative routes, such as the bus, which no-one else would have thought of: Earlier, Clapham Junction rail station was evacuated, but commuters were appeased by a little light music, as tweeted by Alicia Harries: It's not just commuters who were struggling. Rupert had his tongue in his cheek when he wondered how the tourists would manage with the three-minute walk between two London destinations. The motto "Be prepared" might be well known in the Girl Guides, but these skills could also prove useful for some commuters, as Alex tweets his survival kit: Not everyone has been having such a terrible time of it, however. Twitter user Mark was glad people could enjoy the walk: And Sofia noted an increase in the capital's cyclists: On a more serious note, some organisations, like the MS Society, have been using the strike as an opportunity to highlight the suffering of others:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38554573
Tube strike: Aerial pictures of morning rush hour - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Aerial footage shows heavy traffic and large queues for buses during Monday morning rush hour in London as commuters try to get to work despite a 24-hour Tube strike.
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Aerial footage shows heavy traffic and long queues for buses during Monday morning's rush hour in London, as commuters try to get to work despite a 24-hour Tube strike. This video has no sound.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38552768
FA Cup: Man Utd face Wigan, Chelsea host Brentford, Derby meet Leicester - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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Holders Manchester United will host 2013 winners Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup fourth round.
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Last updated on .From the section Football Holders Manchester United will host 2013 winners Wigan Athletic in the fourth round of the FA Cup. Premier League champions Leicester City will travel to Derby County in an East Midlands derby, while Chelsea meet Brentford in a west London derby. League One Millwall's reward for beating Bournemouth is to host another Premier League side, Watford. Liverpool will be at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers of the Championship. Sutton United, the lowest-ranked side left in the competition, will face Leeds United. The fourth round represents the last-32 stage of the competition, and all ties are scheduled to be played from 27-30 January.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38564239
The simple steel box that transformed global trade - BBC News
2017-01-09
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By slashing international transportation costs, the shipping container stimulated a global trade boom.
Business
Perhaps the defining feature of the global economy is precisely that it is global. Toys from China, copper from Chile, T-shirts from Bangladesh, wine from New Zealand, coffee from Ethiopia, and tomatoes from Spain. Like it or not, globalisation is a fundamental feature of the modern economy. In the early 1960s, world trade in merchandise was less than 20% of world economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP). Now, it is around 50% but not everyone is happy about it. There is probably no other issue where the anxieties of ordinary people are so in conflict with the near-unanimous approval of economists. Arguments over trade tend to frame globalisation as a policy - maybe even an ideology - fuelled by acronymic trade deals like TRIPS and TTIP. But perhaps the biggest enabler of globalisation has not been a free trade agreement, but a simple invention: the shipping container. It is just a corrugated steel box, 8ft (2.4m) wide, 8ft 6in (2.6m) high, and 40ft (12m) long but its impact has been huge. BBC World Service's 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy programme highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the global economy. You can find more information about its sources and listen online or download the programme podcast. Consider how a typical trade journey looked before its invention. In 1954, an unremarkable cargo ship, the SS Warrior, carried merchandise from New York to Bremerhaven in Germany. It held just over 5,000 tonnes of cargo - including food, household goods, letters and vehicles - which were carried as 194,582 separate items in 1,156 different shipments. Just keeping track of the consignments as they moved around the dockside warehouses was a nightmare. But the real challenge was physically loading such ships. Longshoremen would pile the cargo onto a wooden pallet on the dock. The pallet would be hoisted in a sling and deposited in the hold. More longshoremen carted each item into a snug corner of the ship, poking the merchandise with steel hooks until it settled into place against the curves and bulkheads of the hold, skilfully packed so that it would not shift on the high seas. There were cranes and forklifts but much of the merchandise, from bags of sugar heavier than a man to metal bars the weight of a small car, was shifted with muscle power. In a large port, someone would be killed every few weeks. In 1950, New York averaged half a dozen serious incidents every day, and its port was safer than many. Researchers studying the SS Warrior's trip to Bremerhaven concluded the ship had taken ten days to load and unload, as much time as it had spent crossing the Atlantic. In today's money, the cargo cost around $420 (£335) a tonne to move. Given typical delays in sorting and distributing the cargo by land, the whole journey might take three months. Sixty years ago, then, shipping goods internationally was costly, chancy, and immensely time-consuming. Surely there had to be a better way? Indeed there was: put all the cargo into big standard boxes, and move those. But inventing the box was the easy bit - the shipping container had already been tried in various forms for decades. The real challenge was overcoming the social obstacles. To begin with, the trucking companies, shipping companies, and ports could not agree on a standard size. Some wanted large containers while others wanted smaller versions; perhaps because they specialised in heavy goods or trucked on narrow mountain roads. Then there were the powerful dockworkers' unions, who resisted the idea. Yes the containers would make the job of loading ships safer but it would also mean fewer jobs. Malcom McLean understood how revolutionary containerisation could be for shipping US regulators also preferred the status quo. The sector was tightly bound with red tape, with separate sets of regulations determining how much that shipping and trucking companies could charge. Why not simply let companies charge whatever the market would bear - or even allow shipping and trucking companies to merge, and put together an integrated service? Perhaps the bureaucrats too were simply keen to preserve their jobs. Such bold ideas would have left them with less to do. The man who navigated this maze of hazards, and who can fairly be described as the inventor of the modern shipping container system, was called Malcom McLean. McLean did not know anything about shipping but he was a trucking entrepreneur. He knew plenty about trucks, plenty about playing the system, and all there was to know about saving money. As Marc Levinson explains in his book, The Box, McLean not only saw the potential of a shipping container that would fit neatly onto a flat bed truck, he also had the skills and the risk-taking attitude needed to make it happen. First, McLean cheekily exploited a legal loophole to gain control of both a shipping company and a trucking company. Then, when dockers went on strike, he used the idle time to refit old ships to new container specifications. He took on "fat cat" incumbents in Puerto Rico, revitalising the island's economy by slashing shipping rates to the United States. He cannily encouraged New York's Port Authority to make the New Jersey side of the harbour a centre for container shipping. But probably the most striking coup took place in the late 1960s, when Malcom McLean sold the idea of container shipping to perhaps the world's most powerful customer: the US Military. Faced with an unholy logistical nightmare in trying to ship equipment to Vietnam, the military turned to McLean's container ships. Containers work much better when they are part of an integrated logistical system, and the US military was perfectly placed to implement that. Even better, McLean realised that on the way back from Vietnam, his empty container ships could collect payloads from the world's fastest growing economy, Japan. And so trans-Pacific trading began in earnest. A modern shipping port would be unrecognisable to a hardworking longshoreman of the 1950s. Even a modest container ship might carry 20 times as much cargo as the SS Warrior did, yet disgorge its cargo in hours rather than days. Gigantic cranes weighing 1,000 tonnes apiece lock onto containers which themselves weigh upwards of 30 tonnes, and swing them up and over on to a waiting transporter. The colossal ballet of engineering is choreographed by computers, which track every container as it moves through a global logistical system. The refrigerated containers are put in a hull section with power and temperature monitors. The heavier containers are placed at the bottom to keep the ship's centre of gravity low. The entire process is scheduled to keep the ship balanced. And after the crane has released one container onto a waiting transporter, it will grasp another before swinging back over the ship, which is being simultaneously emptied and refilled. Not everywhere enjoys the benefits of the containerisation revolution. Many ports in poorer countries still look like New York in the 1950s. Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, remains largely cut off from the world economy because of poor infrastructure. But for an ever-growing number of destinations, goods can now be shipped reliably, swiftly and cheaply. Rather than the $420 (£335) that a customer would have paid to get the SS Warrior to ship a tonne of goods across the Atlantic in 1954, you might now pay less than $50 (£39). Indeed, economists who study international trade often assume that transport costs are zero. It keeps the mathematics simpler, they say, and thanks to the shipping container, it is nearly true. Tim Harford writes the Financial Times's Undercover Economist column. The 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy programme was broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about its sources and listen online or download the programme podcast.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38305512
Pakistan test launches submarine cruise missile - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Pakistan's military says it has test launched a submarine cruise missile from the Indian Ocean.
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Pakistan's military says it has test launched a submarine cruise missile from the Indian Ocean. The nuclear-capable missile is seen flying over the coast and hitting its flag target.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38561939
Snow covers Greek beach as Europe freezes - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Icy temperatures across southern and eastern Europe have left more than 20 people dead and blanketed the Greek islands and southern Italy in snow.
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Icy temperatures across southern and eastern Europe have left more than 20 people dead and blanketed even the Greek islands and southern Italy in snow.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38550369
Is your child a cyberbully and if so, what should you do? - BBC News
2017-01-09
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What should you do if you find out your child has been bullying others online?
Technology
One in five teens claims to have been cyberbullied but few admit to being the bully Parents worry about their children being bullied online, but what if it is your child who is doing the bullying? That was the question posed by a BBC reader, following a report on how children struggle to cope online. There is plenty of information about how to deal with cyberbullies, but far less about what to do if you find out that your own child is the source. The BBC took advice from experts and a mother who found out her daughter had been cyberbullying her school friends. Nicola Jenkins found out that her 12-year-old daughter was posting unpleasant comments online from her teacher Few parents would want to admit that their child was a bully but Nicola Jenkins has gone on record with her story. You can watch her tell it here. "Nobody thinks that their own child is saying unkind things to other children, do they? I let them go on all the social media sites and trusted the children to use it appropriately. "Our form tutor phoned me up during school hours one day to tell me that there'd been some messages sent between my daughter and two other friends that weren't very nice. One of the children in particular was very upset about some of the things that had been said to her. "Her friend's mum spoke to me about it and showed me the messages that had been sent. When I approached my daughter about it, she denied that there had been anything going on. It took a while to get it out of her, but I was angry with her once I actually found out that she had been sending these messages. "I spoke to her teacher and to the other parents, and between us we spoke to the children to let them know that they can't be saying unkind things and to just make them aware that whatever they do is recorded and can be kept. And they all did learn a lesson from it. "I removed all the social media websites from her so she wasn't able to access them for a while and then monitored her input and what she's been saying to people. "But it did make me feel angry and quite ashamed that my daughter could be saying things like that to her friends, but she has grown up a bit since then and she's learnt her lesson. "You want to trust your children, but they can get themselves into situations that they can't get out of. "And as they get older, they look at different things. I know my son looks at totally different things to what my daughter does, so it's just being aware of what they are accessing and make sure that they are happy for you to look at what they are looking at as well." There is plenty of advice for parents on coping with cyberbullying but less on what to do if your child is the bully According to not-for-profit organisation Internet Matters, one in five 13-18 year olds claim to have experienced cyberbullying but there are few statistics on how many children are bullying. Carolyn Bunting, general manager of Internet Matters, offers the following advice: "First, sit down with them and try to establish the facts around the incident with an open mind. As parents, we can sometimes have a blind spot when it comes to the behaviour of our own children - so try not to be on the defensive. Talk about areas that may be causing them distress or anger and leading them to express these feelings online. "Make clear the distinction between uploading and sharing content because it's funny or might get lots of 'likes', versus the potential to cause offence or hurt. Tell them: this is serious. It's vital they understand that bullying others online is unacceptable behaviour. As well as potentially losing friends, it could get them into trouble with their school or the police. "If your child was cyberbullying in retaliation, you should tell them that two wrongs cannot make a right and it will only encourage further bullying behaviour. Stay calm when discussing it with your child and try to talk with other adults to work through any emotions you have about the situation. "Taking away devices can be counterproductive. It could make the situation worse and encourage them to find other ways to get online. Instead, think about restricting access and take away some privileges if they don't stop the behaviour. "As a role model, show your child that taking responsibility for your own actions is the right thing to do. Above all, help your child learn from what has happened. Think about what you could do differently as a parent or as a family and share your learning with other parents and carers." Twitter's image has been tarnished by trolls Many critics blame social media for not doing enough to deal with cyberbullying. Abuse is prolific on Twitter and it has pledged to do more, including improving tools that allow users to mute, block and report so-called trolls. Sinead McSweeney, vice-president of public policy at Twitter, explained why the issue is close to her heart: "As a mother of a seven-year-old boy, I've always tried to strike the right balance between promoting internet safety and encouraging the type of exploration, learning and creativity that the internet can unlock." She offered the following advice: "If you find that your child is participating in this type of behaviour, a good first step is to understand the nature of the type of material they're creating, who is the target, and try to ascertain their motivations. "If the bullying is taking place on a social media platform, make sure to explain to them why the behaviour is inappropriate and harmful, and to supervise the deletion of the bullying content they have created. If it continues, it may be worth seeking additional advice from a teacher or trusted confidant." The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38529437
Unexpected things named after Barack Obama - BBC News
2017-01-09
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US President Barack Obama adds a parasite to his presidential legacy after scientists name a newly discovered flatworm in his honour.
US & Canada
As Barack Obama closes out his final days as US president, local governments are naming the usual libraries, motorways and schools in his honour. The Barack Obama Presidential Center library is being erected in Chicago and students across the country are already enrolled in schools named after the nation's first African-American president. But as well as the ceremonial plaques, sculptures, and buildings there are a few other things bearing Mr Obama's name that you may not have expected. Baracktrema obamai is the second parasite whose moniker was inspired by Mr Obama. The flatworm species, which has a long, thread-like body, infects Malaysian freshwater turtles and can be fatal. "This is clearly something, in my small way, done to honour our president," said Dr Thomas R Platt, an expert on turtle parasites who discovered the species. He also said he was a distant relative of Mr Obama. Researchers have previously named a hairworm, the Paragordius obamai, found in Kenya, after Mr Obama. The worm was discovered near where Mr Obama's father lived. The fish is found inside the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument As part of a tribute to Mr Obama's marine conservation efforts in the Pacific, scientists named a maroon and gold fish found off Kure Atoll at the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off Hawaii. In 2012, researchers named a vibrant blue and orange freshwater darter, Etheostoma Obama, after Mr Obama. The fish is found in the Duck and Buffalo Rivers of the Tennessee River drainage. The Obamadon, an extinct, foot-long lizard with straight teeth, was named for the president due to his smile. Mr Obama is among the US presidents to have the distinction of a mountain named in his honour - but in Antigua. The island nation renamed Boggy Peak, its highest mountain, for Mr Obama on his birthday in 2009. Researchers named Caloplaca obamae in honour of Mr Obama's support for science education In 2007, researchers named the fungus, Caloplaca obamae, after Mr Obama at the close of his first presidential campaign. Scientists made the distinction in honour of Mr Obama's support for science education. The County Offaly village of Moneygall was the birthplace of Barack Obama's great-great-great-grandfather An Irish countryside service station located in County Offaly, between Dublin and Limerick, was officially named for the US president. The Barack Obama Plaza includes a petrol station, food court and visitor centre that provides information on Mr Obama's connections to Moneygall. In 2011 Irish bakers made Brack bread in the president's honour Ahead of Mr Obama's visit to Ireland in 2011, bakers rushed to create Irish "Brack" bread - something Americans might refer to as a fruit loaf. No word on if Mr Obama sampled one of the Irish treats A Western Striolated puffbird, known as Nystalus obamai, is also named in honour of the president. The bird is found in western Amazonia. A Kenyan school in the village of Kogelo, where Mr Obama's father was born and buried, bears the name of Mr Obama. The Senator Obama Kogelo Primary School and Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School were named in his honour while he was an Illinois politician. Aptostichus barackobamai is one of 33 trapdoor spider species discovered in 2013 A trapdoor spider, Aptostichus barackobamai, was also named for Mr Obama, a known Spider-Man fan. The spider species, which is found in California, is one of 40 that belong to the genus Aptostichus.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37353977
Chris Robshaw: Harlequins flanker out of England's Six Nations campaign - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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Harlequins flanker Chris Robshaw will miss England's 2017 Six Nations campaign with a shoulder injury.
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Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union Harlequins flanker Chris Robshaw will miss England's 2017 Six Nations campaign with a shoulder injury. The 30-year-old will have an operation on Monday and is expected to be sidelined for three months. Robshaw, who has won 55 caps, aggravated a problem with his left shoulder at Worcester on 1 January. The back row captained the national side between January 2012 and January 2016, but was replaced as skipper after Eddie Jones became England head coach. Jones led the side to a Grand Slam in 2016 but the Australian has a number of injury worries going into this year's tournament, which England begin against France at Twickenham on 4 February. Saracens forwards Billy and Mako Vunipola have been ruled out with knee injuries, while Leicester centre Manu Tuilagi is out for the season with cruciate ligament damage. Lock George Kruis is a doubt with a fractured cheekbone, and flanker James Haskell was concussed on his return from six months out with a foot injury. Captain Dylan Hartley, who is suspended until 23 January, will need to prove his fitness before the competition starts. After losing the captaincy following the World Cup, Chris Robshaw was a talisman for England on the blind-side flank in 2016 - playing in all but one of the 13 straight victories. He was also repeatedly singled out for praise by head coach Eddie Jones for his outstanding performances. However, while Robshaw's leadership and consistency will certainly be missed in the Six Nations, it may present Jones with the opportunity to move Maro Itoje from the second row into the back row, especially if locks Joe Launchbury and George Kruis can prove their fitness over the coming weeks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/38559130
Weekend Edition: The week's best reads - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Stories you may have missed in the past seven days, including the women who invented the "Brazilian" wax and the spy who was an imposter son.
Magazine
"Are you crazy? I'm not touching you there." That was the response when Brazilian Janea Padilha asked a beautician to remove most of her pubic hair in the late 1970s. But that was then and Janea, who went home and did it herself, so inventing the Brazilian wax, is one of the J Sisters. Their salon in New York now turns over millions of dollars a year catering to the grooming demands of the rich and famous. "It's an inspirational story of self-made women who came from nothing, illegal immigrants who made it in America," says Laura Malin, author of a forthcoming book about the sisters. In 1977, Dutch woman Johanna van Haarlem finally tracked down the son, Erwin, she had abandoned as a baby 33 years earlier. She immediately travelled to London to meet him. What followed was a scarcely believable story of deception and heartbreak, ending in Erwin van Haarlem's unmasking in court as an imposter and Soviet spy. More than two decades after his release from prison, the man newspapers called the "spy with no name" was living in Prague, where Jeff Maysh went to hear his story. "It was on the second day of our trek that I realised it was missing," says Eloise Dicker. "We had packed up the tents and loaded the horses. I reached up to the horse's mane to pull myself up and saw that my wrist was bare. 'My mum's bracelet! It's gone,' I thought, and immediately burst into tears. That bracelet was a physical part of my mother who is no longer physically in the world. It became part of me, and now was gone." Some weeks later, having returned to Europe from Kyrgyzstan and made peace with the loss, Eloise received a Facebook message that changed everything. "Ever since guns entered the country, Japan has always had strict gun laws," says Iain Overton, author of Gun Baby Gun. "They are the first nation to impose gun laws in the whole world and I think it laid down a bedrock saying that guns really don't play a part in civilian society." Tough regulations extend to the police, who rarely use firearms - so how do they deal with incidents of violence and what is the effect of strict gun laws on crime in Japan? After an hour's bus journey through forest from the town of Mae Sot, Mae La appears suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. In the morning mist, thousands of bamboo huts cling to steep limestone crags. It is the largest of nine refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border, and home to almost 40,000 people. Many families have been there for decades, but instances of suicide in women before and after childbirth appeared worryingly high. Researcher Gracia Fellmeth went there to find out why young women have been killing themselves. "Magazine stories come and go," says National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore. "But I had not seen the plight of endangered species getting better so I thought about what I could do to actually make a difference." The answer he decided on was to make professional studio-style portraits of species close to extinction. He has now photographed more than 6,000 species in 40 countries and the results, preserved in the National Geographic Photo Ark, are amazing. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38522061
George North: Northampton Saints' treatment of wing 'disappoints' World Rugby - BBC Sport
2017-01-09
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World Rugby says it is "disappointed" by Northampton's treatment of George North's most recent head injury.
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Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union World Rugby says it is "disappointed" by Northampton Saints' "failure to identify and manage" George North's recent head injury "appropriately". The Wales wing, 24, appeared motionless after a mid-air tackle in the loss to Leicester on 3 December, but played on. A concussion panel review last month concluded North should not have played on, but did not sanction Saints. The BBC contacted Saints, who referred back to previous statements when they "accepted" the panel's decision. Saints had also previously said the club was "encouraged to see that the CMRG (panel review) has found that the medics had nothing other than player welfare in mind during this incident". After the panel's findings, World Rugby wanted more information and has since held "highly constructive" talks with governing bodies. Following these discussions with the Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby, a World Rugby statement reiterated head injury protocols were "not fully adhered to", with the main reason given that Saints medical staff were evaluating a potential spinal injury. North's later resumption in play was caused by the "non-application" of these protocols, according to the statement, but World Rugby now says it is "satisfied" the club's medical staff have been educated on the permanent removal process. The statement continued: "While it is impossible to completely remove the risk of error, World Rugby remains disappointed that there was a failure in this case to identify and manage the injury appropriately, in particular considering North's medical history." North previously suffered four head blows in five months between November 2014 and March 2015, leading to a spell on the sidelines that lasted from 27 March until 29 August. Premiership Rugby welcomed the support for their strategy to deal with head injuries. "Within the English game - and in collaboration with the RFU and RPA (Rugby Players' Association) - we are setting new standards in dealing with concussion risk in education, prevention and treatment, and driving a change of culture in the game," said a spokesman. "We are 100% behind our clubs in the way they have tackled concussion - player welfare is theirs and our number one priority." • None Complete compliance with the mandatory six-point head injury education, prevention, and management programme as outlined within the conditions of use of the HIA (Head Injury Assessment) tool. • None Any clear or suspected symptom of concussion results in immediate and permanent removal of the player from the match or training session. The HIA is not applicable where a symptom of suspected concussion is observed - Recognise and Remove. • None Individual risk stratification of players as outlined in the conditions of HIA adoption is a priority and all management should undertake concussion education as outlined on World Rugby's player welfare website. • None Unions and competition owners are aware of their obligation under the conditions of HIA adoption that untoward incident reviews should operate where there are cases of apparent non-compliance with rugby's head injury protocols. • None They prioritise Recognise and Remove education via social and digital platforms to educate the entire rugby community in the importance of recognising symptoms and immediately permanently removing any players with clear or suspected symptoms from playing or training. After the report of the concussion panel review was published last month, Northampton said in a statement that they "accept the conclusion that George should not have been allowed to return to the field of play, but are pleased that the CMRG has reflected our concerns about the current technologies and processes available to medical teams when assessing concussion". The statement added: "The club believes that this is now an opportunity for the whole rugby community to reflect on the CMRG's recommendations to ensure the highest levels of player safety and well-being."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/38560206
Why addicts take drugs in 'fix rooms' - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Britain could soon see its first "fix room" for drug users. But who uses such places and how do they work?
Magazine
Angelea Let works as a prostitute to fund her drug addiction Britain could soon see its first "fix room" for drug users - a safe space where addicts can take illegal narcotics under medical supervision. But who uses such places and how do they work? On a cold and wet Thursday morning, there are already users inside Skyen, one of Copenhagen's fix rooms. Angelea Let, 49, sits in one of the cubicles in the smoking room to take crack cocaine. "I get a good feeling from my legs to my head, it has already taken away 50% of my pain," she says as she smokes. Angelea told the Victoria Derbyshire programme she can spend around £600 a week on crack. She is one of hundreds of users who visit Skyen each day. The irony of the situation is not hard to see. The fix room has an area where people can inject themselves with drugs While the hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, are illegal, in a fix room they can be taken under the watchful gaze of medical supervisors. The equipment they are given, including needles for injecting, is clean and supplied by the shelter. Everything is laid on - bar the drugs, which users must bring with them. Injecting rooms have been around for more than 30 years. Drug rooms exist officially in several European countries, including Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Spain, as well as in Canada and Australia. There are six fix rooms in Denmark, and many others around Europe And Britain could be next in line. Glasgow is planning to open the UK's first drugs consumption room and those behind it have been looking to countries like Denmark for inspiration. Denmark opened its first fix room in 2012 and Skyen, which started three years ago, is one of six now running in the country. Funded by public money, it costs about £1m a year to run. The set-up is organised and managed. There are two separate areas for people to take drugs - the injecting room, which seats up to nine people, and another room with eight seats, for those who want to smoke hard drugs. But don't such facilities encourage illegal drug use? "The situation in the area before we had the drug consumption room was that we had all the drug users sitting around in the streets, shooting drugs in public," says Christiansen. "After we opened this place, about 90% of the outdoor drugs use is gone. "We have had hundreds of overdose situations, not a single one has been fatal. Rasmus Koberg Christiansen says it is better to take people's drug use away from the streets "Our purpose is harm reduction, however, if or when a user expresses a wish to stop or cut down on their drug use, we react immediately and help the person to make contact to a relevant facility." Located in the heart of the Danish capital's red light district, Skyen is conveniently situated for Angelea, who volunteers in a soup kitchen by day and works as prostitute by night. It was the effects of a car accident almost 20 years ago that led to her drug habit, she says. "After I was in the accident, there was no feeling in my left leg and arm for about six years. I have the feeling back now, but I'm in constant pain." To take the edge off, Angelea smokes mostly crack cocaine, and occasionally heroin. She feels safe in the fix room, knowing that the staff and one of the nurses constantly on duty will watch over her. They are there to prevent people from dying from overdosing. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'Could you live my life for one week?' There is a constant flow of people in an out of the Skyen rooms throughout the day. Some of them are new faces to the staff, but many are regular users and can come multiple times in a few hours. Angelea is back later in the afternoon to smoke crack again. "I'm here again because I'm in so much pain," she says as she rushes into the smoking room. The drugs room stays open through the night, closing only for an hour each morning for cleaning. It is not a treatment facility to get addicts off drugs, and many people will use it before going back to their difficult and sometimes dangerous lifestyles. Late in the evening, only a few streets away, Angelea is out working, trying to find customers to pay for her next fix. "I'm going to work, make some money and then smoke cocaine, then go back to work, make more money and smoke more cocaine again in the fix room. This is my lovely life," she says, laughing bitterly. Another room in Skyen is set up for those who smoke hard drugs Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. The Victoria Derbyshire programme is broadcast on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38531307
Iran former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani dies aged 82 - BBC News
2017-01-09
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Iran's former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has died at the age of 82.
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Iran's former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has died at the age of 82. Catriona Renton looks back at his life.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38552767
Mental health care: 'The system is broken' - BBC News
2017-01-09
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People share their experiences of mental health problems and services.
Health
Theresa May has unveiled plans to do more to help those, particularly young people, with mental health conditions. In her speech at the Charity Commission, the prime minister announced a number of pledges including training at every secondary school, training for employers and organisations, and the appointment of a mental health campaigner. Here, people have been sharing their experiences of mental health services. For the last three years, I have been saying exactly what the prime minister has announced today. I lost my daughter Chloe Rose to suicide two and a half years ago - she was 19. She was under the care of Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) but discharged at 16. There is a gap in care from the age of 16 to 18. After 16, you're put into the adult mental health category. But a young person in a dark place may miss an important appointment - who follows them up to see if they're OK? I've carried out talks to police recruits and college students, and have done many charity events. I ran a 100km [62-mile] ultramarathon in memory of my daughter - it was for the charity Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide, which is a great charity I use who support people going through suicide grief. I'm currently serving in the Army as a sergeant, and I'm going through a transfer to become an Army welfare worker. Also, I will soon be getting qualified as a adult and young persons' mental-health first-aid instructor and also a trainer in applied suicide-intervention skills training. Being in the military, I'm well aware of the stigma and lack of resources that are not available to us and the community. I run a social media page, Miles for Mental Health, to raise awareness of organisations as well as funds to help pay for people to do mental health first-aid courses. I'm pushing for the courses to be brought into the curriculum in both primary and secondary schools, as well as in companies, communities, and the military. I'm a firm believer that experience, education, research, intervention and preparation can potentially save a life. The new measures have received praise from some, but others think the government has not gone far enough Mental health services have been in crisis for the last five years. [In my job as a community psychiatric nurse,] we have no beds or resources. My team has over 90 people on its caseload. We struggle to cope with 45. We take people on to avoid admission, but we have no beds to admit to. This year, [after 40 years,] I have had enough, it's time for me to go, I cannot cope with the strain and pressure anymore. The government do nothing, they lie and manipulate all the time. Trust managers know what is happening but are unable to act. I've had experience of both NHS and private mental health facilities recently, and the NHS is far worse at dealing with mental health issues. I had quite a bad experience with a GP who was very dismissive of these issues, so I opted to go through a Live Well facility in my local area. This was better for me, but still has a very light touch and [is] generic, without any effort or in my view ability to deal with mental health issues. I'm in a position where I can afford private healthcare, however many are not, so I can only imagine how widespread this issue is. I'm glad that there will, hopefully, now be a far greater focus on mental health, but there needs to be both words and action to tackle the problem. My daughter had anorexia last year. She suffers from self-esteem issues and the feeling of needing to be perfect. She was diagnosed [at] the beginning of April, but the nearest appointment to see a Camhs worker was the middle of June, which I feared would have been too late for my daughter. I took her to the GP again due to her deteriorating health, but he told me that I had to wait for the Camhs appointment. At this point her weight was in the danger zone, down to five stone. In the meantime, I tried manage it all myself, using all kinds of approaches to help my daughter. When she was eventually seen by Camhs, she was so ill she was admitted to hospital. She had to stay in a general hospital for two weeks before there was a bed available in a specialist hospital. But the nearest bed was over 120 miles from home in Middlesbrough, as there is no provision in the whole of Cumbria. She stayed in Middlesbrough for seven weeks - it affected her mental health further by being so far away from home, but in the end it was the best place for her. When she was discharged, she needed to see a dietician, but the only one in Cumbria was off sick. My daughter didn't see a dietician for six weeks. My main issue is that GPs didn't understand the seriousness of this mental health disorder - the system is woefully inadequate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38561016
Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee announcement: 'Was that a surprise? - BBC News
2017-02-01
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US President Donald Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
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US President Donald Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38823808
Halal snack pack: The kebab that defined Australia in 2016 - BBC News
2017-02-01
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After bursting onto the political scene in 2016, "halal snack pack" becomes Australians' Word of the Year.
Australia
"Halal snack pack" has been named People's Choice Word of the Year 2016 by Australia's Macquarie Dictionary. A snack pack, also known as an HSP, is a hearty pile of kebab meat, chips and sauce which has become a staple of Australian takeaway shops. It's perhaps an unlikely platform for political debate, but this year the dish rocketed into Australia's national consciousness, becoming a symbol of peaceful multiculturalism for many, but for others, an unwelcome sign of the growing influence of Islam. Politician Pauline Hanson takes the view that halal meat is unacceptable in Australia This year the dish, made to Islamic religious standards, found its way into politics, after right-wing anti-Islam politician Pauline Hanson refused an invitation to eat one. In congratulating her on her election to the Senate in July, Labor Senator Sam Dastyari - a "non-practising Muslim" - told Ms Hanson: "I'll take you out for halal snack pack out in Western Sydney, whenever you want." Mr Dastyari was arguably slightly trolling Ms Hanson, whose One Nation party believes that by "buying halal certified products, it means that you are financially supporting the Islamisation of Australia". "It's not happening, not interested in halal, thank you," she replied, arguing (without evidence) that "98% of Australians" were also against halal. The dish subsequently enjoyed a surge in popularity. One Melbourne kebab shop even added "The Pauline Hanson" to its menu - "Lamb kebab roasted to perfection in the rotisserie, mint yoghurt, chilli sauce, cheese, beer battered chips". The halal snack pack is an Australian creation, but its creators were immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants from the Middle East and Europe. It's a fusion of these cuisines, and even has its own appreciation society on Facebook, for "sharing great snack pack stories and discussing possible best snack pack in world". The forum asks members to "show us a sick pic of ur halal snacky, whered ya get it?, is it sick?, is it halal? and salrite or na? also, is it a halal snack pack mountain or na?" The group, which has close to 180,000 members, was inspired by a visit its founders made to Oz Turk Jr, a kebab shop in Sydney. "Before, we used to sell 10 kebabs for one snack pack, now it's 10 snack packs to one kebab," says owner Ufuk Bozouglu. An Australian Muslim of Turkish origin, he credits his mum for the popularity of his snack packs, saying "she taught me you should only sell what you'd eat". Mr Bozouglu says his customers are mainly students living locally - who'll queue for up to 40 minute at peak times - but one boy travels two-and-a-half-hours each week to buy one of his snack packs, which cost about A$10.50 each ($8; £6.30), with cheese. He says he's never seen anyone be perturbed by the fact his meat is halal. "Where we live, it's very multicultural, and people see it doesn't matter if you're Christian, Hindu, whatever. You become friends and have respect for each other." "The people that it does matter to, they're usually from small areas so they only thing they see [about Muslims] is what they read in the paper. "People around this area, they're all together," he says. "Sometimes, you go on Facebook and it's just hate towards Muslims," he says, but on the snack pack appreciation forum, it's all about the food. Keysar Trad, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, says normalising words used by other languages can only be a good thing. "Especially if you're able to find it in the dictionary, it takes away the mystery," he said. "It brings people comfort and satisfaction that there's nothing sinister about the word halal. It's all about what's positive, what is good and wholesome." The popularity of halal snack packs "demystifies the word, demystifies the culture from which those words are borrowed and hopefully, helps built harmony in society". The Macquarie committee said the choice of the halal snack pack as word of the year "tells us about something once confined largely to the Muslim community that is now surfacing throughout the broader Australian community". The dictionary's editor, Susan Butler, even said it was "the duty of lexicographers to, as much as is humanly possible, eat the food items that they put in the dictionary". "How can you write the definition of HSP with enthusiasm if you have never sampled it? So today I ate my first HSP. "I can understand why this dish has become the fast food item of the day. It is carbo-loaded, calorific sinfulness. Once started on it, you cannot stop." Reflecting similar trends, the dictionary committee last week named "fake news" it's Word of the Year, saying it "captures an interesting evolution in the creation of deceptive content as a way of herding people in a specific direction".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-38824058
Dan Roan asks whether welfare should come before winning - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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In light of recent accusations made within cycling, Dan Roan asks whether it is more than just the sport's reputation that is on the line.
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It may have started out as a dispute between a track cyclist and her former coach. But 10 months after Jess Varnish first made allegations of sexism, discrimination and bullying against Shane Sutton - and British Cycling - it is not just the reputation of the country's most successful and best-funded Olympic sport that is on the line. The claims were denied by Sutton, and he was cleared of all but one of nine specific allegations of using discriminatory and inappropriate language by an internal investigation. But Varnish's portrayal of a "culture of fear" at British Cycling has been backed up by female riders such as Nicole Cooke and Victoria Pendleton, along with para-cyclists and former staff members - triggering an independent review of the culture at its world-class performance programme. The panel is headed by Annamarie Phelps, chair of British Rowing and is due to publish its findings later this month. If well-placed sources are to be believed, the much-anticipated report - now delivered to British Cycling's board - could make for grim reading for the governing body. But it could also raise serious questions for Britain's sporting establishment, the entire approach of funding agency UK Sport, and whether, through its 'no-compromise' approach to the pursuit of medals, standards of behaviour towards elite Olympic and Paralympic athletes are in desperate need of review. Imagine if the report finds evidence that there has indeed been an institutionalised culture of bullying at what was held up as a model governing body. That would seriously raise the stakes for some of British sport's best-respected and most powerful individuals and organisations... • Sir Dave Brailsford for instance; a man already under severe pressure over former rider Sir Bradley Wiggins' use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) before major races, and his handling of the furore over the delivery of medication for Wiggins in France in 2011. Performance director at British Cycling from 2007 to 2014, and until recently heralded as the country's leading sports thinker, he denies presiding over any bullying, insisting he was merely uncompromising as he masterminded Team GB's cycling triumphs in successive Games. • None For the man who effectively replaced Brailsford at British Cycling, former technical director Shane Sutton, who continues to deny any wrongdoing, and who has plenty of high-profile backers of his own, but who resigned in the wake of Varnish's allegations. • Ian Drake, stepped down from his position two months early , having announced his resignation last year. He did so amid questions over whether he (and other board members) were aware of claims of bullying and discrimination against Sutton. In 2012 the man he replaced, former chief executive Peter King, took anonymous statements from 40 personnel as part of a report that was never made public. The report may reveal more about this, and examine whether enough was done in the wake of those testimonies. Drake has said he never heard of any complaints relating to Sutton's behaviour in the past. • Brian Cookson , president of British Cycling for 16 years until 2013, when he became the most powerful man in the sport, elected President of world federation the UCI after campaigning to restore the sport's credibility. At the time Cookson spoke proudly of his time in charge of British Cycling, hailing it a "well-run, stable federation governed on the principles of honesty, transparency and clear divisions of responsibility." A man who, when asked whether he had presided over any bad behaviour, surprised some observers by saying "I don't want to comment on any individual", but then did so anyway, expressing his "great respect" for Sutton. • British Cycling, which is already under investigation from UK Anti-Doping over allegations of wrongdoing following revelations that one of its former coaches, Simon Cope, delivered that mystery medical package to ex-Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman in 2011. Dr Freeman now works for British Cycling. Both men deny wrongdoing but to appear in front of the Commons' Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Select Committee later this month. The governing body has had to defend its support of women's cycling after a blistering attack by former world road champion Nicole Cooke, who recently told the CMS Committee that British Cycling was • UK Sport, who say they are considering helping fund Cookson's forthcoming UCI re-election campaign this year [they gave him £78,000 to help him get elected in 2013], despite co-commissioning the investigation into the culture of an organisation that he headed up for 16 years. The wisdom of using National Lottery funds to help pay for the election campaigns of British sports administrators has already been questioned. Despite their crucial role in distributing the billions of pounds that have helped bring about Britain's remarkable rise as a sporting superpower in successive Olympic and Paralympic Games, UK Sport's 'no-compromise' approach is already under serious scrutiny after cutting off funding to sports like badminton, table-tennis and wheelchair rugby, whose appeals will be heard later this month. There is a growing sense that the time may have come for British sport to give as much thought to welfare as it does to winning. This whole saga has also shone a light on the contracts and rights of elite-level athletes who are part of performance programmes funded by UK Sport. Varnish believes her contract was not renewed because she had publicly criticised her coaches after her team failed to qualify for the Rio Olympics. Sutton denies this, insisting it was simply down to her performances not being good enough. But regardless of this, and whoever is in the right, some observers are increasingly concerned that the current system is too heavily weighted in favour of the governing bodies. Under the terms of their UK Sport contracts, athletes are not employees, and therefore they lack certain rights afforded to other workers. Varnish, for instance, amid the devastation of being told she was being axed, claims she was initially given just 48 hours to serve notice whether she wanted to appeal. Often, athletes face that deadline to actually present their case too. And even then, they can only appeal against the process rather than the decision. Athletes who want to challenge selection decisions that determine their livelihoods tend to find their appeals are heard by internal panels made up of officials from the governing body, rather than external, independent arbitrators. Defenders of the system will argue that in the tough and demanding world of international sport, it has to be this way. Public funding is at stake after all, and coaches like Sutton sometimes have to make tough selection decisions, but do so in order to get results. Staying the right side of the line when it comes to delivering bad news, and the language used, is not always easy. Disappointment is inevitable, and many argue that as long as athletes perform well they are safe - the system is meritocratic. British Cycling also says it extended the appeals process deadline for Varnish. But it is still easy to see why athletes could feel they are in a vulnerable position. Concerns were heightened last year for instance, after the leak of an email sent by Andy Harrison, British Cycling's technical director, warning riders they could jeopardise their futures by speaking out to the media about the various scandals afflicting the governing body. Harrison later apologised for his "poorly constructed" wording, and British Cycling then said that riders were free to talk to the media without fear, but the damage had been done. Have governing bodies become too powerful? Does there need to be a greater duty of care towards athletes? More thought given to their lives after their contracts come to an end? Is their an imbalance in the relationship between competitor and coach? Are there cultures of fear at some governing bodies? These are the questions Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson has been wrestling with over the past year. Her government-commissioned review into safety and wellbeing in sport is due to report in the next few weeks. You may not have heard about it, but in the aftermath of what looks like being an explosive report by Phelps, and the shocking child sex abuse scandal in football, the publication of Grey-Thompson's recommendations could prove highly significant. No one can deny that the demanding, uncompromising approach adopted by bodies like British Cycling has contributed to medals, and plenty of them. It partly explains how Team GB rose to second place in the Rio medal table. But at what cost? British Rowing's coaching culture was described on Wednesday as "hard and unrelenting" but cleared of bullying by an internal inquiry. But it also urged more care to be taken of athletes' well-being. There is a growing sense that the time may have come for British sport to give as much thought to welfare as it does to winning. And in doing so, usher in a new era in the country's sporting evolution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/38833749
Train guard left at Burley-in-Wharfedale station causes delay - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Passengers were left at the next stop waiting for another train.
Leeds & West Yorkshire
A guard was accidentally stranded at a railway station when the train left without him. Passengers had to get out through the driver's cab door at the next stop and were delayed for an hour waiting for another train. The conductor on the 08:16 Ilkley to Leeds service was left behind at Burley-in-Wharfedale station. The train and its passengers stopped at Menston. Northern Rail said it was an "operating incident". Passenger Simon Painter said: "We were offloaded on to the platform via the driver's cab and then waited at Menston for the next train. "Left Ilkley at quarter past 8 and arrived Leeds at twenty to 10." A spokesman for Northern Rail said: "Shortly after 8.23am on Tuesday 31 January the 8.16am Ilkley to Leeds service was delayed after the train left Burley in Wharfedale station whilst the conductor was still on the platform. "As a result, the service was terminated at Menston station." "We are currently investigating the cause of the incident and it would be inappropriate to comment further until that investigation has taken place." The incident led to delays on several other services between Ilkley, Bradford and Leeds on Tuesday morning. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-38807979
Chelsea Cameron wrote letter thanking drug addict parents - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Chelsea Cameron explains why she's grateful to her drug addict parents.
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A woman raised by drug-addicted parents has written a letter to thank them. Chelsea Cameron's parents missed many important moments as she grew up, like exam results and prize giving. She told the Victoria Derbyshire programme why she's grateful.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38825332
Huge planes help fight Chile forest fires - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Huge supertanker planes from the US, Russia and Brazil have been deployed to fight forest fires in Chile.
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Huge supertanker planes from the US, Russia and Brazil have been deployed to fight forest fires in Chile. The fires are the worst in modern history and have spread to affect 480,000 hectares (1,186,105 acres) so far.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38819951
James Ibori: Nigerian ex-governor challenges UK conviction - BBC News
2017-02-01
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A former Nigerian governor and convicted money-launderer claims UK investigators in his case were corrupt.
UK
James Ibori was released from a UK prison in December after serving four years of a 13-year sentence A Nigerian politician is appealing against his British conviction for corruption, claiming the Metropolitan Police investigation was itself mired in corruption. James Ibori was released in December after four years in a British prison, but prosecutors have since admitted they have documents suggesting police officers involved in the case took bribes. The UK government spent years and millions getting Ibori out of Nigeria and into a British court in one of the most expensive and complex police investigations undertaken. Ministers wanted to prove their determination to tackle corruption in Africa. Ibori, a former London DIY store cashier, was jailed for fraud totalling nearly £50m in April 2012. But now the tables have been turned with Ibori claiming the British authorities were themselves corrupt. "I have been unfairly treated, that's all I can say," Mr Ibori told the BBC, confirming that he plans to appeal against his conviction for money laundering. "Yes, I am, of course. I have made that decision personally and I have instructed my solicitors." Ibori was extradited from Nigeria to London in 2010 Ibori was believed to have laundered large sums in the UK, just part of hundreds of millions of dollars it was claimed he had embezzled from the Nigerian people. On a state salary of just £4,000 a year he had bought a fleet of luxury cars and expensive properties. He was also looking to buy a private jet. In 2005 the Department for International Development funded a special police unit inside Scotland Yard to go after corrupt African politicians. Its prime target was Ibori. Its aim: to get him into a British court and convict him for corruption. Having been extradited to London in 2010, Ibori was convicted and sentenced to 13 years for money laundering two years later. But since he was jailed, documents have emerged suggesting that at least one officer involved in the Ibori investigation had taken thousands of pounds in bribes. Last year, after repeatedly telling judges there was no evidence of police corruption, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) admitted they had found substantial material that supported the allegations. Last summer, defence lawyers learned more about an undercover Scotland Yard investigation called Operation Limonium. "There exists intelligence that supports the assertion that [a police officer] received payment in return for information in respect of the Ibori case," the CPS admitted. The officer in question has always denied taking bribes and internal police investigations have previously exonerated him. Details of how Scotland Yard tapped phones and conducted covert surveillance on a number of officers in the unit investigating Ibori emerged for the first time. Ibori bought expensive properties and cars, including this Bentley, on a salary of £4,000 a year Other documents alleging officers had taken bribes were sent to the authorities anonymously in 2011 by a lawyer convicted as part of the Ibori case. Former solicitor Bhadresh Gohil says he was trying to alert them to the police corruption. "I brought this case to the attention of the Met police, the commissioner of the Met police Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, I brought it to the attention of Alison Saunders, the head of the CPS. I also drew it to the attention of the then Home Secretary Theresa May," Mr Gohil says. "Unfortunately, no-one did anything about this." What they did do was attempt to prosecute Mr Gohil for perverting the course of justice by faking the documents. With the CPS release of the new documents, that case collapsed. The British authorities managed to get their man before a judge in 2012, but now James Ibori is willingly returning to the courts looking to put the reputation of the UK's criminal justice system on trial. The irony will not be lost on government ministers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38834833
Six Nations 2017: The moments that defined England's rise and the ones to come - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Relive the key moments in England's rise under Eddie Jones - and the ones they are set to face in the 2017 Six Nations.
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By the end of the Six Nations, England could have won a second Grand Slam in a row and set a new record for the most consecutive wins in the history of Test rugby. The key date may well be 18 March, when Ireland host England in a potential Grand Slam decider. But England know they face tough battles before that, notably against a resurgent France on 4 February and the difficult trip to Wales on 11 February. If England are to win consecutive Slams and set a new Test record of 19 straight victories, they will probably have to survive all manner of close shaves, random bounces and borderline decisions. It is how teams handle those key moments that not only defines the result of matches, but also illuminates the bigger picture surrounding them. Little more than a year ago, England were tumbling out of their own World Cup at the group stage, so how did they embark on an unbeaten run of 14 matches, and what are the key moments in that amazing journey? Stuart Lancaster, Eddie Jones' predecessor as head coach, called up nine uncapped players to his first squad, so the Australian's promotion of seven fresh faces was perhaps not as revolutionary as it felt at the time. Instead, it was removing the captaincy from the dependable Chris Robshaw and handing it to Dylan Hartley - who had already served more than a year of bans for various acts of on-field violence before his latest indiscretion - that established the new regime's modus operandi. Where Lancaster had spoken of his players being "ambassadors", Jones introduced Hartley praising his "passion", "aggression" and "uncompromising approach". A wretched World Cup campaign had revealed England's soft underbelly. By promoting Hartley, Jones gave his side a hard-nosed ideal to aspire to and the street smarts to succeed. Former England hooker Brian Moore, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said: "Eddie Jones has identified something that had been obvious to many outside the England camp for a while - England work hard, give their all, but there is no edge. "We're not talking about illegality, we're talking about the controlled belligerence that is the hallmark of players such as Eben Etzebeth, Ma'a Nonu and Scott Fardy." For the first match and a half under Jones, England had been effective but not inspirational. After scrapping their way to victory over Scotland in their Six Nations opener, the first half in Rome had been far from the St Valentine's Day massacre England fans might have hoped for under the new coach. England had scored one try and led by a slender two points. But the second half saw a more ambitious, 15-man game emerge, with replacement hooker Jamie George's cutting angle and slick offload to Owen Farrell for the final try the clearest sign of Jones renewing England's licence to attack by instinct rather than the playbook. "This is more like it, England cutting loose," enthused BBC commentator Eddie Butler as Farrell crossed. Jones' England have now scored 46 tries in 13 games - an average of 3.5 a match, better than predecessors Lancaster (2.1), Martin Johnson (2.1), Brian Ashton (1.9) and Andy Robinson (2.9). Had Manu Tuilagi, or even Henry Slade, been fit then Farrell might never have got the chance to revive his partnership with George Ford. As boys, they became neighbours when their fathers moved south to Saracens, and they played together in the street as well as at school and international age-grade level. Under Lancaster, they had competed for the fly-half jersey, with the 12 slot reserved for blunderbus ball-carriers. Under Jones, Farrell was given the chance to show his craft could provide a more subtle midfield weapon, while offering a solid defensive presence as well. The perfectly weighted miss-pass that picked off Robbie Henshaw's rush defence and opened Mike Brown's route to the line against Ireland was typical of the way he seized his chance. During the 2015 World Cup - before he took the England job - Jones wrote a column for the Daily Mail lamenting the absence of a specialist open-side flanker in England's ranks. Robshaw was, he wrote, a "six and a half at best", unable to compete with the pace and breakdown skills of Australia's standard-bearer David Pocock. James Haskell would not claim to be a traditional number seven either. But he has imposed himself with relentless industry and physicality. His colossal hit on Pocock in the first two minutes of the first Test of the summer series against Australia set the tone for a bruising 39-28 win and showed how a perceived area of weakness had turned to a strength for England. That it was Haskell - ebullient, driven, and not necessarily everyone's cup of tea - leading from the front was especially significant. Marginalised under the Lancaster regime, Jones put him front and centre and gave him a very specific brief - smash everyone who comes near you, hammer every ruck you can, and run hard and straight when you get the ball. The result? With his confidence high and a focused gameplan, Haskell was man of the series down under, despite injury forcing him out just after the hour mark of the second Test. Teimana Harrison's parents had flown over from New Zealand to see their son make only his second start for England, in the third Test in Sydney. The match was only 31 minutes old when he was replaced in a tactical switch by Jones. "I don't see it as a big deal," explained Jones when asked about the possible damage to the young flanker's confidence. Jones was similarly blunt with defence coach Paul Gustard, telling him he "has got to get better". All this in the wake of scoring 44 points to seal a historic whitewash in Sydney. There is no concession to reputation or sentiment - either in public words or private decision-making - as Jones drives England on and up. He is ruthless in pursuit of victory and more importantly, brutal as they may be, his tactical changes work, as the withdrawal of Luther Burrell in the first Test after half an hour in favour of Ford also demonstrated. When Elliot Daly recklessly charged into the airborne Leonardo Senatore less than five minutes into England's autumn Test against Argentina, it set England an unexpected, but not unwelcome challenge. Down to 14 men with 75 minutes to play, there was an immediate premium on discipline and defensive concentration. After a nine-try demolition of Fiji the previous weekend, England had to think on their feet, adapt and survive to keep their winning run alive. Argentina, while not in the form that carried them to the World Cup semi-finals in 2015, looked ominous as they moved to within two points early in the second half. But England's composure and conditioning passed the examination in a 27-14 win. It was a red letter day for England, one that showed them they could adapt to straitened circumstances on the fly and work out how to win despite the odds being stacked against them. In the future, this may be pin-pointed as the moment the team grew up. The dates that will define England's Six Nations France were demolished 62-13 by the All Blacks at the 2015 World Cup, but gave the world champions a scare with a late fightback in Paris in November, coming up just short in a 24-19 defeat. France have not won at Twickenham since 2005, however the mood takes their talented individuals they can poop any party. There were only tentative pokes - rather than the expected all-out verbal jousting - between Jones and Wales' counterpart Warren Gatland last year. This time around, with Gatland on British and Irish Lions duty, it will be Rob Howley plotting England's downfall. Last time the interim head coach stepped up to the plate, he delivered in style with England sent spiralling to a 30-3 defeat in 2013. The fixture list throws up a trip to Dublin on the final weekend for England - just at it did in 2011. England were on for a Grand Slam that year, but were on the wrong end of a 24-8 scoreline by the time the final whistle blew. After wins over the three southern hemisphere superpowers in 2016, Joe Schmidt's side will fear no-one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/38592833
West Ham United 0-4 Manchester City - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Gabriel Jesus scores his first Manchester City goal as they tear West Ham apart for a comfortable victory at London Stadium.
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Last updated on .From the section Football Gabriel Jesus scored his first Manchester City goal as they tore West Ham apart at London Stadium. City, who left striker Sergio Aguero and goalkeeper Claudio Bravo on the bench, led when Kevin de Bruyne played a one-two with Jesus before stroking home. Four minutes later, they doubled their lead when the impressive Leroy Sane beat two defenders and his deflected cross was tapped home by David Silva. And the game was as good as won before half-time when Raheem Sterling squared the ball to Jesus to tap home. Yaya Toure added a fourth after the break from a penalty when Hammers debutant Jose Fonte brought down Sterling. West Ham, who made errors to lose possession for each of City's three first-half goals, have been beaten heavily by City twice at home in 2017, having lost 5-0 in their FA Cup meeting last month. City are now only behind fourth-placed Liverpool on goal difference, 10 points behind leaders Chelsea. City boss Pep Guardiola revealed before the game that he had decided to stick with goalkeeper Willy Caballero and his front three of Sterling, Sane and Jesus - all of whom started Saturday's 3-0 win over Crystal Palace in the FA Cup. And it worked in sensational style the trio - aged 22, 21 and 19 respectively - ripped the Hammers to shreds. Jesus, making his first Premier League start following his £27m move from Palmeiras this month, assisted the opener as City broke from their own half at speed with De Bruyne. The Brazilian exchanged passes before the Belgian, who was also impressive throughout, guided the ball past Darren Randolph. The second goal was made by Sane, who has recently hit form following a slow start after his £37m summer move from Schalke, with the German skinning two Hammers defenders and crossing, via a touch from Randolph, for Silva to tap home. The dynamic front three all had a hand in the third, with Sane playing in Sterling, who passed the ball across goal for a Jesus tap-in. Their second-half performance was still dominant albeit less sensational, perhaps because it did not need to be, but they got their fourth when Sterling was brought down by Fonte and Toure narrowly beat Randolph. In goal, Caballero kept his third clean sheet of 2017, having only played three matches, in contrast to the benched Bravo, who had conceded the last six shots on target he had faced. West Ham have now conceded 12 goals to City this season, including nine in 2017 - all at London Stadium. And while City were brilliant, the Hammers played a huge part in their own downfall. Aaron Cresswell gifted the ball to City for their first, then lost a 50-50 before the second goal and Pedro Obiang gave the ball to Sane for the third. Centre-back Fonte marked his debut, following his £8m move from Southampton, by conceding a penalty for Toure's second-half penalty. They only forced Caballero to save the ball once - a simple fourth-minute stop from Michail Antonio. Slaven Bilic's side - who only had 30% possession - did have the ball in the net once, although Antonio was offside when he latched on to debutant Robert Snodgrass's through ball to fire home. Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola to BBC Sport: "Our high pressing was good. We were so aggressive without the ball. "Gabriel Jesus is a fighter with instinct for the goal. He's good at assists too. "We played a front three with an average age of 20. I like the fans to be excited. Those players are the future of the club. Leroy Sane had some problems at the beginning but now he's settled. They will be important players for the next few years." West Ham boss Slaven Bilic told BBC Sport: "It's like a copy and paste from the FA Cup game. It's very frustrating. We made such mistakes for the first and third goal. If you give the ball away in those areas, they'll punish you. "When it's 3-0, it's hard to play against them. You are hoping if you score you can turn a game around. But at 3-0 it's more likely you'll concede more as they'll gain confidence. "It's a heavy defeat for us but we can't let it hurt us a lot. We have to bounce back like we did after the FA Cup defeat." Analysis - 'City will be found out' "I think if Manchester City play the team they did tonight away from home against other team, they will be found out. "They are far too open. Yaya Toure, as the holding midfielder, won't get around enough against decent teams. "West Ham are the perfect team for Manchester City. They played 4-4-2 and were destroyed in midfield. • None Gabriel Jesus became the first player to both score and assist a goal on their first Premier League start for Manchester City. • None Jesus also became the second youngest Brazilian player to score his first Premier League goal (19yrs 304days), after Rafael for Manchester United in November 2008 (18yrs 122days). • None David Silva scored his third away Premier League goal against West Ham - his highest tally of away goals against another opponent in the competition. • None West Ham have shipped four or more goals in three of their 12 Premier League games at London Stadium - the same number as in their final 106 top-flight games at Upton Park. • None Yaya Toure has scored all 11 of his Premier League penalties - the best 100% record in the competition. • None In his 50th Premier League game, Kevin de Bruyne recorded his 30th goal involvement in the competition (11 goals, 19 assists). • None City have scored nine goals in two games in all competitions at London Stadium - just half the number West Ham have (18) in 17 games there. Both clubs are back in Premier League action this weekend. City host Swansea on Sunday (13:30 GMT), while the Hammers go to Southampton on Saturday (15:00 GMT). How the papers saw Jesus' performance • None Attempt blocked. Robert Snodgrass (West Ham United) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. • None Offside, West Ham United. Mark Noble tries a through ball, but Robert Snodgrass is caught offside. • None Attempt blocked. Edimilson Fernandes (West Ham United) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. • None Offside, West Ham United. Robert Snodgrass tries a through ball, but Michail Antonio is caught offside. • None Offside, Manchester City. David Silva tries a through ball, but Sergio Agüero is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38740421
Donald Trump picks Neil Gorsuch as US Supreme Court nominee - BBC News
2017-02-01
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President Donald Trump has nominated Colorado federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch for the US Supreme Court.
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President Donald Trump has nominated Colorado federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch for the US Supreme Court. If confirmed by the Senate, the 49-year-old would replace the vacancy left at the court by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38823814
Brexit: When MPs voted to back Article 50 bill - BBC News
2017-02-01
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MPs argued for and against, then voted, by a majority of 384, to allow Theresa May to get Brexit negotiations under way.
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MPs have voted by a majority of 384 to allow Theresa May to get Brexit negotiations under way. They backed the government's European Union Bill, supported by the Labour leadership, by 498 votes to 114. But the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrat leadership opposed the bill, while 47 Labour MPs and Tory ex-chancellor Ken Clarke rebelled.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38833593
Zika virus: Babies face problems other than microcephaly - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Doctors treating children whose mothers were infected with Zika say microcephaly is not the only problem.
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Some Brazilian mothers infected with the Zika virus during their pregnancy, who were relieved when their babies did not have abnormally small heads, are finding that their children still face developmental problems related to the virus. Camilla Costa reports from Recife, the worst affected area.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38814257
Transfer deadline day: Confirmed deals - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Track all the latest signings in the January transfer window as they happen in England, Scotland and across the world.
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The January transfer window has closed in England and Scotland after a hectic final few hours of business. The most expensive incoming transfer was Southampton's £14m signing of Italy striker Manolo Gabbiadini from Napoli, while Crystal Palace agreed a loan deal for Liverpool and France defender Mamadou Sakho very late on. Elsewhere, Burnley broke their transfer record to sign Republic of Ireland winger Robbie Brady from Norwich, while Odion Ighalo was the major exit, joining Chinese Super League club Changchun Yatai for £20m from Watford. See below for a full list of the deadline-day deals on 31 January and see every Premier League move on the transfer wall here. Signings announced in December, some of which only went through once the window opened, can be found here. For all the latest rumours check out the gossip page and, for all the manager ins and outs, see our list of current bosses. *Deal to go through at end of 2016-17 season The page covers signings by Premier League, Championship and Scottish Premiership clubs, along with selected deals from overseas and the Scottish Championship.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/38482984
Trevor Bayliss: India defeat shows England must learn to play spin - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Trevor Bayliss believes England need to work on how they play spin bowling after their tour of India ended in a crushing defeat.
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Last updated on .From the section Cricket England need to work on how they play spin bowling after their tour of India ended in a crushing Twenty20 defeat, says head coach Trevor Bayliss. England lost eight wickets for eight runs in 19 balls to lose by 75 runs in Bangalore, with spinner Yuzvendra Chahal taking 6-25 in his four overs. The loss sealed a 2-1 T20 series defeat for England, who also lost the Test and one-day series during the tour. "We're certainly not world-class players of spin," admitted Bayliss. "We're playing against players that are very good players of spin, and they've got very good spinners themselves. "When you don't grow up on it, as players here do, it is difficult. It's a learning process." • None Eight wickets for eight runs - how the collapse unfolded 'One of our worst performances in a while' England lost 86 wickets to spin across all formats on their tour of India, having also struggled against it in their previous tour in Bangladesh. Chasing 203 to win on Wednesday, they were still in the game at the halfway stage of their reply, but after Chahal dismissed both skipper Eoin Morgan and vice-captain Joe Root, the tourists collapsed. "It is a little bit disappointing the way we finished our series," said Bayliss. "It doesn't reflect the type of cricket we have played over here. But it's what can happen in a T20 match when you're chasing a big total." Morgan said: "Everybody is gutted. Today was a big game for us. There was a series on the line and we wanted to produce a good performance but in fact we have produced one of our worst in a long time. "If we can take anything from it, it is that it is the first time it has happened in two and a half years." 'Still a lot of work to do' England won only three of their 13 matches during the tour - one ODI, one T20 and a tour match against India A. However, they produced their best cricket in the limited-overs series, scoring more than 300 in each of the ODIs and producing some improved bowling displays in the T20s. "The results haven't gone the way we'd have liked," said Bayliss. "We've played some pretty good cricket here at times. "We've still got a lot of work to do - the boys have been very honest about where they stand. "We've got to put together a batting and a bowling performance in one game - we seem to bat well in some games, and bowl well in others." Morgan added: "There hasn't been a lot between the sides, particularly in the one-day series. There was 15-20 runs between the winning and losing of the series. "The improvements we have shown since then have been considerable in our bowling department. When you are going well you have to take advantage of it. "But we are really strong at the moment. Home advantage is huge, around the world. We have pushed India right to the cusp in both [limited-overs] series." 'Up to Cook if he continues as captain' In the wake of the 4-0 Test series defeat in India, Alastair Cook said he had "questions" about his role as England captain, admitting Root was "ready" to be his successor. Australian Bayliss said he had not spoken to Cook since he departed the tour but said he would contact him in due course. "I'm heading home to Australia for a little while in the next day or so," added Bayliss. "I'll put the feet up for a little bit and I'm sure I'll speak to him at some stage. "I'll give it a couple of days - I'm sure we'll exchange a text message or something. "As I said to him when he left, and there was a lot of speculation, it is totally up to him. He will know if it's time to step down. "I'm happy either way, whether he stays or goes. There is plenty of time."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/38829551
Will globalisation take away your job? - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Globalisation's already had a huge impact on workers' lives and is now set to hit middle-class jobs.
Business
Protests against globalisation have become increasingly common Millions around the globe may have taken to the streets in recent years to protest against the impact of globalisation on their jobs and communities - but this backlash is only likely to grow as globalisation itself becomes more disruptive. The stark warning comes from Richard Baldwin, president of the Centre for Economic Policy Research think-tank, who has been studying global trade for the past 30 years. Technological advances could now mean white-collar, office-based workers and professionals are at risk of losing their jobs, Prof Baldwin argues. In the US, voter anger with globalisation may have led to Donald Trump's election victory, but those who voted for him could be disappointed as his aim of bringing back jobs is unlikely to work, says Prof Baldwin, who also worked as an economist under President George HW Bush. Robots are now increasingly used in surgery; the first transatlantic operation - with the patient in France and surgeons in the US - was carried out in 2001 Protectionist trade barriers won't work in the 21st Century, he says. "Knowledge crossing borders in massive amounts [is the] big new disruptive thing." It's going to help people in Africa and Asia compete more effectively with people in the West, as communication advances mean workers in the developing world will be able to control robots to do jobs in Europe and the US at lower cost, he says. Developing world labour costs can be a tenth of what they are in the West, says Prof Baldwin. "They can't get here to take the jobs but technology will soon allow virtual migration, thanks to telerobotics and telepresence." Some of the first post-war Jamaican migrants to the UK - future migration could well be virtual Ever-faster internet speeds becoming globally more widely available, coupled with the rapidly falling prices of robots will allow workers, for example in the Philippines or China, to remotely provide services to a country like the UK - where the sector accounts for about 80% of the economy. "What it will do is unbundle our jobs and change the nature of our occupation. Some of the things you do absolutely require your judgement - but parts of your job could be off-shored, just as some stages in a factory can be off-shored. "All you need is more computing power, more transmitting power and cheaper robots - and all that is happening." This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Security guards in US shopping malls could be replaced by robots controlled by security personnel based in Peru, and hotel cleaners in Europe could be replaced by robots driven by staff based in the Philippines, he argues in his book The Great Convergence. The use of robots has grown exponentially since the mid-20th Century. A Ford factory in 1914; the development of robots has radically altered such production lines... ...now spot the workers; this is a BMW production line in the UK in 2013 A typical industrial robot can cost about £4 an hour to operate, compared to average total European labour costs of about £40 an hour - or £9 an hour in China. And robots are getting cheaper to buy and are increasingly able to do more complex tasks. This means the increased use of robots is also threatening millions of jobs in developing countries, says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), as well as in developed economies. And it's not just in factories; the worldwide number of domestic household robots will rise to 31 million between 2016 and 2019, says the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), with sales of robots for cleaning floors, mowing lawns, and cleaning swimming pools forecast to grow to about $13bn (£10.3bn) in this period. Napoleon's defeat in 1815 after almost 25 years of war triggered a growth in world trade In the 19th Century, the first wave of the industrial revolution triggered an upsurge in global trade. Steam power, the end of the Napoleonic wars and the subsequent era of peace cut the costs of moving goods internationally. Global wealth became increasingly concentrated among just a few nations; the G7 group - the US, Germany, Japan, France, the UK, Canada and Italy - saw their share of the world's wealth rise significantly. But from the 1990s a second wave of globalisation kicked in, with the rise of information and communications technology. There's been a dramatic change of gear, and "a century's worth of rich nations' rise has been reversed in just two decades," says Prof Baldwin. Old-style globalisation "worked on a calendar that ticked year by year" whereas the current wave of globalisation is being driven by IT which is changing and disrupting economies and societies with increasing rapidity, he says. All of this has created a backlash, especially in developed economies, as many voters say they are losing out or seeing little of the benefits that globalisation supposedly brings. Globalisation has sparked protests around the world... Prof Baldwin says protectionist policies, such as those of Donald Trump, are ultimately counterproductive. If firms become inefficient by being forced to move jobs back to the US, then ultimately they will lose their business to international competitors. "People are so angry they are doing things that are not in their own interest. "Cures are being sold which are not related to the problem." Globalisation has been a factor in the election of Donald Trump in the US... ...and the UK's vote to leave the European Union He points out that the backlash is not the same in every single country. It often depends on how governments deal with workers who may be displaced by technology. "For instance, in Japan they take care of their workers, and there really isn't an anti-globalisation feeling there," he says - unlike in the UK and the US. As a consequence, even businesses that are benefiting from greater automation are increasingly sensitive about the potentially negative social and political consequences. Increasingly sophisticated robots mean many jobs that used to exist are not going to return, says Prof Baldwin Similarly, in Europe the bosses of both Deutsche Telekom and Siemens have advocated paying a basic income to workers replaced by technology. We may see a move to protectionism as countries try to preserve jobs within their economies, but this is unlikely to work in the long term, says Prof Baldwin. The trick is to accept "21st Century reality", he says, and the fact that many jobs simply aren't going to come back. Protesters in Bordeaux with a banner reading "together against unemployment and social precariousness" Governments need to pay more attention to social policy, says Prof Baldwin. "In the post-war period of globalisation we liberalised trade but at the same time we expanded social welfare - instituted low-cost education and retraining for workers. "In essence there was a set of complementary policies that reassured workers that they would have a good chance of taking advantage of globalisation." The challenges all this is throwing up for governments are many, but Prof Baldwin says it should be possible to develop policies that embrace globalisation - and give workers displaced by it the support they need. • None Do robots pose a threat to our jobs?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38600270
Reality Check: Was pollution worse in London than Beijing? - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Was pollution in the British capital worse than it was in the Chinese capital last week?
UK Politics
The claim: Air pollution in London last week was worse than it was in Beijing. Reality Check verdict: Some one-off readings were higher in London last week, but this was an unrepresentative snapshot and Beijing is generally far worse. On 22 January, recordings of particulate air pollution were higher in London than in Beijing. Ruth Cadbury is the Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth, a part of London that has seen unusually high levels of air pollution recently. Last week saw the highest level recorded in the capital since April 2011. The spike was attributed to cold, calm and settled weather, meaning winds were not dispersing local pollutants. Different countries measure air pollution in different ways. The UK government uses a one (lowest) to 10 (highest) scale. Last week's levels in London were a 10. Another measure is the Air Quality Index (AQI). Last Monday, according to this measure, some parts of London showed particulate levels a bit higher than in Beijing. But this was just a snapshot and not the case for most of the week. On Wednesday afternoon, the overall AQI level in Beijing was about three times higher than in London, and recordings were even higher on the Chinese city's industrial outskirts. The World Health Organization gathers average particulate levels from cities around the world. They suggest that Beijing's levels are about five times worse than London's. The cities with the dirtiest air are Zabol in Iran and Onitsha in Nigeria. In the UK, overall emissions of all types of air pollution have fallen dramatically since 1970. Pollution in Beijing is much worse than in London - or in Stockholm, where the same claim was made this week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38829146
Driver screams obscenities at BBC presenter Jeremy Vine - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Jeremy Vine posted footage of a driver screaming obscenities at him as he cycled in Kensington.
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A driver filmed screaming obscenities at BBC presenter Jeremy Vine as he cycled on a narrow road has been found guilty of road rage offences. Shanique Syrena Pearson, 22, made a gun sign and threatened Mr Vine during the row in Kensington, west London. Mr Vine filmed the argument using his helmet camera and posted it online.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38830432
RSPCA footage of caged puppies - BBC News
2017-02-01
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A gang of puppy farmers which sold hundreds of dogs kept inside cages on a farm has been spared jail.
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A gang of puppy farmers which sold hundreds of dogs kept inside cages on a farm has been spared jail. Some of the animals were so sick they died shortly after arriving at their new homes. Mia was one of the dogs rescued, and the BBC spoke to her new owners.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38827491
Rare 'lava firehose' from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Dramatic footage shows the unusual phenomenon as lava flows through a crack in a sea cliff.
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The Kilauea volcano in Hawaii has been active since 1983, but scientists have filmed an unusual phenomenon. Dramatic footage shows lava as it flows through a crack in a sea cliff, and into the Pacific Ocean.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38825330
Find out how LA officers rescue exploited children - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Police in Los Angeles carry out their biggest-ever operation to rescue sexually exploited children.
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Police in Los Angeles have carried out their biggest-ever operation to find girls and young women who were forced into commercial sexual exploitation. Officers made almost 500 arrests and rescued more than 50 young people. The BBC's Angus Crawford was given exclusive access.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38823816
Past the point of no-return - BBC News
2017-02-01
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After decades of debate on the EU, MPs have finally done it - we are off.
UK Politics
After decades of debate, years of acrimony over the issue in the Conservative Party, months of brutal brinksmanship in Westminster, and hours of debate this week, MPs have just approved the very first step in the process of Britain leaving the European Union. There are many hurdles ahead, probably thousands of hours of debate here, years of negotiations for Theresa May with our friends and rivals around the EU, as she seeks a deal - and possibly as long as a decade of administrative adjustments, as the country extricates itself from the EU. On a wet Wednesday, the debate didn't feel epoch-making, but think for a moment about what has just happened. MPs, most of whom wanted to stay in the EU, have just agreed that we are off. This time last year few in Westminster really thought that this would happen. The then prime minister's concern was persuading the rest of the EU to give him a better deal for the UK. His close colleagues believed the chances of them losing, let alone the government dissolving over the referendum, were slim, if not quite zero. Then tonight, his former colleagues are rubber stamping the decision of a narrow majority of the public, that changed everything in politics here for good. This isn't even the last vote on this bill. There are several more stages, the Lords are likely to kick up rough at the start. But after tonight, for better or worse, few will believe that our journey to the exit door can be halted. As government ministers have said in recent days, the moment for turning back is past. • None Trump and May 'committed' to Nato
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38830552
Sin-bin plan to be looked at by football's lawmaking body Ifab - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Football's law-making body Ifab is to look at introducing sin-bins for yellow-card offences when it meets in London in March.
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Last updated on .From the section Football Sin-bins for yellow-card offences in football could be given the go-ahead as early as next month. Football's law-making body Ifab will look at the proposal at its annual meeting in London in March. The measure has been tested in Uefa development competitions and some amateur leagues in recent years. If approved, sin-bins will come in at youth and amateur levels and could be introduced to the professional game within two to three years. Other proposals to be discussed at the meeting include allowing national associations more freedom to decide on the number of substitutions in a game. The move is intended to help the development of the game at lower levels, "by promoting and encouraging more people to take part," the International Football Association Board agenda reads. There is also a line in the release about "fairness" and that "particular focus will be given to the role of the captain and how her/his responsibilities could be enhanced as part of a move to improve on-field discipline and create better communication between players and match officials". This is likely to refer to a suggestion by Marco van Basten, the chief technical officer of governing body Fifa, that only the captain should be able to speak to the referee. Ifab is made up of Fifa and the four British home associations - the FAs of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - and is responsible for making the final decision on law changes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38824937
London 2012 Olympics: Russia stripped of relay silver - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Russia are stripped of their 4x400m relay silver at London 2012 as Antonina Krivoshapka tests positive for steroid turinabol.
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Last updated on .From the section Olympics Russia have been stripped of their 4x400m relay silver from London 2012 after sprinter Antonina Krivoshapka tested positive for steroid turinabol. The ruling is likely to see Jamaica and Ukraine promoted to silver and bronze respectively behind the United States. Krivoshapka, 29, has not competed since 2013, the same year she won bronze at the World Championships in Moscow. Russian discus thrower Vera Ganeeva and Turkish boxer Adem Kilicci have also tested positive in a review of samples. Ganeeva finished 23rd in the discus while Kilicci was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the middleweight boxing tournament. Four hundred and ninety-two samples have now been reanalysed with improved anti-doping methods since London 2012 and the International Olympic Committee states that there are "likely to be more confirmed adverse analytical findings in the coming weeks and months as the reanalysis programme continues". More than 1,000 Russian athletes were part of a state-sponsored doping programme between 2011 and 2015, according to a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency and published in December. Russia returned more positive tests than any other nation in the re-analysis of Beijing 2008 and London 2012 samples in 2016. Seventeen Russian athletes tested positive in the review of samples from China, with another 13 showing up from the Games in London four years later.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/38825752
Gary Barlow's unwashed hair: Should you do the same? - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Gary Barlow says he did not wash his hair for 14 years, but are there benefits to ditching shampoo?
UK
Former Take That star Gary Barlow has revealed on Twitter that he has washed his hair for the first time in 14 years. Is this really a hair-raising fact or are there any benefits? Way back in 2003 when Westlife and the Black Eyed Peas were in the charts and flip mobile phones were all the rage, Gary Barlow washed his hair for the last time. That is, until this weekend, when Gary announced on Twitter that it was an "important day" as he had washed his short locks. Cue jokes from people on social media - many of whom were surprised at the revelation from the Let It Shine judge. So are there any advantages to not washing your hair? Patrick Graham, from Stroud, Gloucestershire, ditched the shampoo bottle 25 years ago after he heard that hair may be self-cleaning. "I had problems with dandruff, I couldn't get rid of it," the 60-year-old says. "As soon as I stopped my hair was worse for about two weeks. "Pretty soon after that I started to feel clean and nice and now I've had no dandruff for 25 years... there is no smell, it is clean." Kayleigh Thomas, who wrote about her experience of not using shampoo on her blog Blue jeans white tee, says she stopped using shampoo in March 2015 after seeing another woman on Snapchat who had done so for two years. "My hair's more manageable now and I don't feel like I need to tame it using heat tools, so it saves me time in the mornings," the 28-year-old from Milton Keynes says. She also says that a rash she had behind her ears cleared up as a result. Gary Barlow, pictured two years after he stopped washing his hair, with Take That bandmate Mark Owen Other public figures have admitted not using any hair products. Andrew Marr said in 2006 that he had given up washing his hair, which had been "a vast cost to my wallet and the environment". And former Conservative MP Matthew Parris spoke to BBC 5 live last year about not washing his hair for more than 20 years. "The hair got greasier and greasier and after about 10 days it stopped getting greasy," he said. But Mark Coray, former president of the National Hairdressers' Federation and owner of a salon in Cardiff, says there is no benefit to not washing your hair. "Shampoo is not abrasive or harsh to the scalp," he says. "The ingredients in shampoo help the hair to look lustrous. "The [hair's] oil may build up so it starts to look like it is shiny and lies in place more... but it will not self-clean." And the Belgravia Centre in London, a hair loss clinic, recommends that people avoid the no shampoo - known as "No 'poo" - trend. "Rinsing your hair is not going to be very effective after certain activities that make the scalp sweaty, such as exercising or using a sauna," it says. "Rinsing will also not remove bacteria or clean the excess oil from your scalp if you have greasy hair." The clinic says it is "understandable" that people want to avoid harsh chemical ingredients in their shampoo, but stresses that there are good quality products free of harsh chemicals that are "widely available". Anabel Kingsley, a trichologist from the Philip Kingsley clinic in London, agrees that hair does not clean itself. "Imagine if you didn't wash your face or underarms for a week - the same logic applies to your hair and scalp," she says. "They are likely to become coated in dirt, smelly, greasy and flaky. Build-up of yeasts and bacteria will also occur, especially as they thrive in oily environments." She recommends shampooing at least every other day - leaving no more than three days between washes to keep the hair and scalp in good condition.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38812935
Arsenal 1-2 Watford - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Arsenal's Premier League title hopes suffer a huge blow with a shock defeat against Watford at Emirates Stadium.
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Last updated on .From the section Football Arsenal's Premier League title hopes suffered a huge blow with a shock home defeat as Watford secured their first top-flight win over the Gunners since 1988. Former Tottenham defender Younes Kaboul lashed in the opener within 10 minutes for Watford with a shot from outside the area which deflected off Aaron Ramsey. Just two minutes and 57 seconds later, the visitors doubled their lead as Troy Deeney tapped in the rebound after Etienne Capoue's fine run ended with his shot being saved by Petr Cech. The Arsenal goalkeeper was called into action again as he tipped Sebastian Prodl's header over the crossbar and pushed away Daryl Janmaat's curling strike. The hosts improved significantly in the second half and Alex Iwobi pulled a goal back by steering Alexis Sanchez's cross home. Lucas Perez struck the crossbar with a powerful drive, but they could not find the equaliser. Relive Watford's win over Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium Challenge over for another year? Arsenal last won the title in the 2003-04 season and face clawing back a nine-point deficit on London rivals and leaders Chelsea, who drew 1-1 with Liverpool. And their task is made more difficult as they still face trips to play Antonio Conte's side as well as Liverpool and Tottenham - the other three teams in the top four - between now and the end of the season. Going into this game they were unbeaten in their last five league fixtures, but a desperately poor first half showing - with manager Arsene Wenger watching powerless from the stands as he served the second of a four-match touchline ban - cost them dearly. The Gunners failed to get a shot on target in the first 45 minutes, but forced Watford goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes into sharp saves from substitute Theo Walcott and Iwobi after the break, while the Brazilian pushed away Mesut Ozil's snap shot. But they suffered their first defeat at the Emirates Stadium since the opening day against Liverpool, ending a run of eight victories and two draws. Watford boss Walter Mazzarri was under increasing pressure after an embarrassing FA Cup exit at Millwall and seven games without a win in the league. But the visitors' energetic start - pressing Arsenal high up the pitch and not allowing the hosts time on the ball - created the platform for them to climb to 13th in the table, eight points clear of the relegation zone. Central midfielder Capoue produced a dynamic performance. He contributed seven tackles and won the ball back the same number of times to top his team's defensive statistics and lay the groundwork for Watford's first league win over Arsenal in nearly 30 years. Debutant M'Baye Niang, signed on loan from AC Milan until the end of the season, showcased his pace in the 70 minutes he was on the pitch and his strong running down the left caused Arsenal right-back Gabriel constant problems. 'You have to press them' Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger: "It was obvious we lost duels and were not sharp enough. It looked more mentally that we were not ready for the challenges. We were unlucky for the first goal which was deflected after a soft free-kick. "It took us a while to get into the game; it was all us in the second half and we were unlucky not to get something from the game." Watford boss Walter Mazzarri: "We played a great first half and the condition of some of the players is returning. In the second half, Arsenal managed to press us but in general it was very well done. "Against a great team in their stadium, you cannot allow them to play too much of the ball and you have to press them. We did that very well but you cannot do it for 90 minutes. That was our tactic." Analysis - Arsenal are nowhere near Chelsea "I have to give Watford credit because they had not won in seven games but did not look like a side lacking confidence. They had a good game plan and looked a threat on the break. "I was a bit surprised by Arsenal. You can't start games like they did today. It was lethargic, sloppy and they did not look like a team going for the title. For the first 25 minutes they were lucky to be only 2-0 down. Watford were the first to every ball. "Capoue was a driving force throughout the game. He had a great start to the season and faded but he was back to his best today. His performance was superb. "Arsenal played better in the second half but you can't keep giving yourself a mountain to climb against such quality and expect to win games. You are never going to win the league that way. Defensively, even though they brought in reinforcements, I still don't think they are anywhere near Chelsea." Arsenal face a crucial trip to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday (kick-off 12:30 GMT), while Watford host Burnley the same day at 15:00 GMT. Sanchez would love to play Watford every week - the stats • None Watford earned their first league win against Arsenal since April 1988, ending a run of seven straight defeats against them. • None Younes Kaboul has scored more Premier League goals against Arsenal than he has against any other side (3). • None The Gunners had not conceded a goal in the opening 15 minutes of their last 53 home Premier League games before tonight. • None Alexis Sanchez has had a hand in six Premier League goals against Watford (three goals, three assists). He has not been involved in more against any other club. • None The Hornets ended a run of seven Premier League games without victory (drawn three, lost four), since beating Everton in December. • None It was their first away league win since October, when they beat Middlesbrough 1-0. • None Despite having twice as many shots in total as Watford (20-10), Arsenal had one shot on target fewer than the Hornets (5-6). • None Attempt saved. Lucas Pérez (Arsenal) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Mesut Özil. • None Delay over. They are ready to continue. • None Delay in match Shkodran Mustafi (Arsenal) because of an injury. • None Tom Cleverley (Watford) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. • None Stefano Okaka (Watford) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. • None Lucas Pérez (Arsenal) hits the bar with a left footed shot from the right side of the box. Assisted by Gabriel. • None Attempt missed. Nacho Monreal (Arsenal) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left following a corner. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38727389
Trump's weapon in trade war - BBC News
2017-02-01
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The taxation policies of President Trump will show, among other things, why the subject is not boring.
Business
There is a three letter word that ends in "x" which gets people hot under the collar and is a big part of most relationships. That word is of course tax. While the headlines from Donald Trump's first 12 days in office have focused on immigration and security, business leaders seem agreed that some of the most profound changes to the role of the US in the global economy will come about via tax reform. It is easy for eyes to glaze over at the mention of tax. Not only is it an unsexy subject, there have also been many false alarms sounding the imminent overhaul of a tax system that all parts of the political spectrum agree needs fixing. The US has some of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. At 35% it is nearly double the UK rate of 20% and that has seen US companies go to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying it. Although US companies pay 35% tax on profits generated in the US, it is only payable on profits made outside the US when those profits are repatriated. That is why those foreign earnings never do make it home. Some $2.5 trillion of US corporate profits are living in exile. They are lapping round the borders of low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland and Luxembourg, or squirrelled away among the palm trees in no-tax hideaways like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands. Donald Trump believes that dormant cash should come home to boost the US economy and he is proposing a tax amnesty - a one off charge of just 10% on repatriated cash - to achieve just that. It is not, according to Professor Christopher Smart, a former trade and investment advisor to Barack Obama, and a senior fellow at Chatham House, a leading international affairs think tank. "The potential is for a great deal of instability both on financial markets and politically," he says. "On financial markets a large amount of money moving quickly tends to destabilise things but the real political issue is the potential for retaliation. "Barriers we have been removing over the last ten to twenty years start to go back up again. We could get trade skirmishes, we could get a trade war," the professor warns. The second part of Donald Trump's tax plan could be even more provocative. As well as a one-off amnesty for exiled profits, the new president's plan involves slashing the headline rate of US corporation tax to 15% from 35%. At the same time he wants to impose taxes on imports to encourage companies to locate production in the US. A border tax on US cars made in Mexico is just one example of a policy that would have profound, and many say chaotic, ramifications. Retailers, for example, would find it almost impossible to make a profit on imported goods. John Viemeyer, the global chairman of the huge accountancy firm KPMG, sounds a similar warning. "You can't look at US tax in a vacuum, you push here and there will be equal and opposite reactions," he says. "There's been a lot of talk about border taxes on imports that US companies use in their production, that in itself could certainly cause a trade war" To many observers, President Trump's spat with Mexico is just a bit of sparring before the heavyweight clash with China. There are many close to the new president who think the current relationship is unfair and needs to change. Anthony Scaramucci, a senior adviser to the president, told the BBC recently at the World Economic Forum gathering in Switzerland that the relationship with China was "asymmetrical", and that he was doubtful of China's ability to exact revenge on the US. "What are they going to do, [are] they going to move against our move for fairness?" he asked, pointedly. "That's going to cost them way more than it is ever going to cost us, and I think they know that." Who wins a US-China trade war? That is simple, according to Christopher Smart. "No-one. There is huge fallout for the United States and for China and frankly for the global economy," he says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38809944
Grand National 2017: Native River to miss Aintree showpiece - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Native River, who was joint-favourite with some bookmakers, has been left off the list of Grand National entries by trainer Colin Tizzard.
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Last updated on .From the section Horse Racing Native River, who was joint-favourite with some bookmakers, has been left off the list of Grand National entries by trainer Colin Tizzard. The seven-year-old, who won the Welsh Grand National in December, will miss the 8 April showpiece at Aintree. The Last Samuri, who finished second behind Rule The World in 2016, returns but Gilgamboa, who was fourth last year, is another absentee. Grade One winner Don Poli is among trainer Gordon Elliott's 14 entries. The long-list of potential runners is 16 names shorter than the 126 named before the 2016 race. A maximum of 40 runners can line up for the race.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/38828424
Campaigners criticise Premier League clubs over access deadline problems - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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At least three clubs are at risk of missing a self-imposed deadline to improve access for disabled fans, the Premier League says.
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Last updated on .From the section Football At least three clubs are at risk of missing a self-imposed deadline to improve access for disabled fans, the Premier League has said. A report suggests Bournemouth, Chelsea and Watford may not fulfil a pledge to meet standards by August 2017. It stressed clubs have been "working hard on delivery" since a 2014 BBC report found that 17 of 20 clubs did not provide enough wheelchair spaces. But campaigners have criticised the failure to meet the standards set out. "The time for excuses is over," said David Isaac, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. "The Premier League promised that disabled access would be improved by the start of next season, so it is disappointing that a number of clubs will fail to meet that deadline. "Clubs need to urgently demonstrate to us what they are doing to ensure they are compliant with the law and how they are making it easier for disabled fans to attend matches. If they don't they will face legal action." The Premier League's report comes after MPs argued last month that top-flight clubs were prioritising finance over improving access and meeting the Accessible Stadia Guidelines. The Culture, Media and Sport select committee report said clubs should face legal action if they fail to meet the basic needs of disabled fans. The Premier League board can impose fines of up to £25,000, while cases of serious breaches would be referred to an independent panel - which could impose heavier fines or even deduct points. Who will miss the pledge? Bournemouth have 195 disabled fan spaces but not to the required standard. However, they do not own their Vitality Stadium home and the club says that the stadium's small size makes meeting guidelines difficult. It is planning to move to a bigger ground in the coming years. Chelsea have 128 spaces for disabled fans, against a recommended 214. The club is aiming to move to a new 60,000-seat stadium and says in the meantime it will consult with disabled fans. Watford have spaces for 61 disabled fans, but should provide 153. It will have more wheelchair spaces by August but says it faces architectural challenges and is aiming to make other improvements to boost the matchday experience of disabled fans. Burnley, Middlesbrough and Hull were given extensions to 2018 to meet the guideline standards as they were only promoted last summer. What does the Premier League say? "Premier League clubs have embarked on a substantial programme of work and rapid progress has been made. The improvements undertaken are unprecedented in scope, scale and timing by any group of sports grounds or other entertainment venues in the UK. "Given the differing ages and nature of stadia, some clubs have, and continue to face, significant challenges. For those clubs, cost is not a determining factor. "They are working through issues relating to planning, how to deal with new stadium development plans, how to best manage fan disruption or, in cases where clubs don't own their own grounds, dealing with third parties. "Clubs deserve credit for committing to and delivering the extensive work detailed in this interim report. What is also clear is that even more progress will be achieved in creating the appropriate levels of access for disabled football fans by our own deadline of August 2017. "Beyond that date, clubs will continue to engage with their disabled fans and enhance their provisions in the coming months, years and beyond." The story so far 2014: A BBC investigation finds that 17 of the 20 clubs in the top flight at that time had failed to provide enough wheelchair spaces. September 2015: The Premier League promises to improve stadium facilities for disabled fans, stating that clubs would comply with official guidance by August 2017. September 2016: Campaigners say up to a third of clubs will miss the deadline to meet basic access standards. October 2016: Leading disability campaigner Lord Holmes tells MPs that legal action against clubs and the Premier League remains an option if standards are not met. January 2017: A report by MPs says some clubs could face sanctions because they are not doing enough. Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton announce plans to develop their grounds to accommodate more disabled supporters. 1 February 2017: A Premier League report outlines the detailed work the clubs are undertaking to make sure they meet guidelines but adds that three clubs will miss the August 2017 target.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38828349
Reality Check: Can we believe petition signature numbers? - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Can the number of people reported to have signed parliamentary petitions be believed?
UK Politics
The numbers of people who have signed a petition calling for President Trump not to be allowed to make a state visit to the UK has been widely reported. The number reported by Parliament's petitions website is at about 1.8 million. There is also a petition saying that President Trump should be welcomed with a state visit, which has passed 200,000 signatures. Any British citizen or UK resident is entitled to sign a petition on the site and asked to confirm their status when they do so. An email is then sent to the address given, containing a link that signatories must click on before they are counted. The House of Commons says: "All petitions are checked for fraudulent activity, using both automated and manual checks. The checks prevent fraudulent signatures being added to petitions by individuals trying to repeatedly sign, or automated attacks (bots)." It adds that there is a balance to be made between making it easy for people to sign while making it harder to do so repeatedly. Signatories are required to confirm that they are entitled to sign The procedures have been tightened up since last June, when at least 77,000 fraudulent signatures were removed from a petition calling for a second EU referendum. An investigation was launched after posts were found on websites from people claiming to have written programs that would automatically sign the petition thousands of times. The House of Commons will not give details of either the original or new security procedures it has put in place. It is not immediately obvious how the system works to prevent people voting more than once, but fraudulent signatures have been disqualified in the past. It should be said that both petitions have received considerably more than the 100,000 signatures, above which petitions "almost always" trigger a debate in Parliament. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38828663
Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Medals to be made from mobile phones - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Olympic and Paralympic medals for the Tokyo 2020 Games will be made from recycled mobile phones.
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Last updated on .From the section Olympics Olympic and Paralympic medals for the Tokyo 2020 Games will be made from recycled mobile phones. The Japanese public will be asked to donate old phones and small appliances to gather two tonnes of gold, silver and bronze for the 5,000 medals. The project hopes to promote sustainability and reduce costs. "A project that allows the people of Japan to take part in creating the medals is really good," said Tokyo 2020 sports director Koji Murofushi. "There's a limit on the resources of our earth, so recycling these things will make us think about the environment." Collection boxes will be placed in local offices and telecoms stores from April and will remain there until the metal required has been collected. Members of Japan's Olympic organising committee tabled the idea to government officials and companies in 2016. Olympic host cities have traditionally obtained the metal from mining firms. But Japan, which lacks its own mineral resources, is keen to take the theme of a sustainable future a step further. Discarded consumer electronics such as smartphones and tablets contain small amounts of precious and rare earth metals, including platinum, palladium, gold, silver, lithium, cobalt and nickel. Scrap cars and home appliances such as fridges and air conditioners also contain these rarer metals, along with base metals, including iron, copper, lead and zinc. Recycling or refining companies either collect or purchase tons of this e-waste and industrial scraps. They then use chemical processes to separate the various metals. Much of this work takes place in developing countries such as China, India and Indonesia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/38827701
Celtic 1-0 Aberdeen - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Dedryck Boyata's header is enough for Celtic to extend their Scottish Premiership lead to 25 points by beating Aberdeen.
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Last updated on .From the section Football Celtic continued their stranglehold over Aberdeen at Parkhead to stretch their Premiership lead to 25 points and unbeaten domestic run to 28 games. The Dons hinted at ending a run of 23 straight league defeats in the east end of Glasgow during an even first half. But their resistance ended when Dedryck Boyata rose to head home Scott Sinclair's free-kick after 57 minutes. Aberdeen rallied again late on but couldn't find an equaliser to stop them slipping 27 points behind the leaders. Looking at the hosts' line-up, it was easy to see why the visitors fancied their chances of a first league win at Celtic Park since 2004. Key players such as Moussa Dembele, Stuart Armstrong and Leigh Griffiths all missed out through injury, but Aberdeen's five straight wins backed up that belief with form. What the first half lacked in clear-cut chances, it made up for in tactical intrigue with both managers pushing and pulling their men from the sidelines like tinkering chess masters. Aberdeen deployed a high line and they pressed the champions in a way they are not accustomed to domestically. The work-rate from the visitors was impressive but as expected, Celtic enjoyed the majority of the possession and their first chance came when left-back Kieran Tierney curled an effort just over the bar after cutting inside and spying Joe Lewis off his line. But with their main strikers out, Celtic's killer instinct was also missing and there was a lack of focal point up front, despite some good movement between Scott Sinclair and Patrick Roberts in particular. Sinclair passed up a chance inside the box just before the break, although Ryan Jack should be praised for a timely tackle. The Dons were doing their job defensively but in the pursuit of stifling Celtic they were creating very little of their own. A Graeme Shinnie shot high over the bar was as close as they came in the first half. But as many teams have found to their cost this season, you can only stifle this Celtic side under Brendan Rodgers for so long and 12 minutes after the break they were ahead through Boyata. The big Belgian defender rose magnificently inside the six-yard box to head home an equally impressive Sinclair cross from the left-hand side. Aberdeen looked punch drunk after that - the men in green and white sensed it and pushed for the second. They almost got it too through Sinclair but his curling right-foot effort battered off the bar. Their crisp passing and movement off the ball, at times, left the visitors chasing shadows. When the Dons settled they knew, if they were to take points, they had to push out, but they also knew that would leave gaps and Roberts almost exploited pace down the left-hand side but pulled his low drive just wide. Aberdeen had scored in seven of their last eight visits to Celtic Park though and the belief they started with never really left them. They continued to press Celtic, hoping to pounce on a stray ball or misplaced pass, but the champions saw it out with the professional swagger that we have become used to. • None Gary Mackay-Steven (Celtic) wins a free kick on the right wing. • None Scott Brown (Celtic) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. • None Attempt saved. Jonny Hayes (Aberdeen) header from the left side of the six yard box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38740393
How long should you stay in one job? - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Is there a magic number to how many years you should stay in one job before moving on?
Business
Peter Capaldi is bowing out at Christmas after four years playing Dr Who Three years is the maximum length of time anyone should stay in a job, declared actor Peter Capaldi when he explained why he was stepping down from the Dr Who role after four years. "I've never done one job for three years. This is the first time I've done this and I feel it's time for me to move on to different challenges," he said. It's a pretty short tenure compared to the old days when people secured a job after leaving school or university and then stayed there until they collected their golden carriage clock. But increasingly, changing one's job every few years is considered the norm. In fact, a UK worker will change employer every five years on average, according to research by life insurance firm LV=. In the US, it's even shorter with people staying with a single employer for just over four years, according to official statistics. But is there a magic number, one that will make sure you don't stop progressing, but also doesn't make you look too, well, flighty? Almost a quarter of employed people are currently looking for new roles, according to HR body the CIPD Claire McCartney, adviser for the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, says there's no such thing. "It's very specific to the person. It depends on their career plans, assuming they have any career plans and whether they feel they get the right amount of challenge and flexibility," she says. Ms McCartney does, however, believe there's a minimum tenure, saying just three months in one role before moving on wouldn't look good, unless it was driven by a change in personal circumstances. She also says the size of an organisation can often be a factor in determining how long a person stays, with a smaller company often offering less opportunity for people to progress than a larger rival. Victoria Bethlehem, the group head of talent acquisition at recruitment firm Adecco, says she looks favourably on a prospective employee who has changed roles every three to five years. "Immobility is never desirable in a curriculum. This does not necessarily mean that the candidate needs to have changed several companies and employers. "What's important is to see the candidate has an open attitude to change and a continuous learning approach, driving him or her to embrace new challenges," she adds. Changing jobs regularly is seen as positive if it moves your career forward, say experts In certain sectors, regular change is not only desirable, but a necessity, according to Robert Archer, regional director of human resources at recruitment firm PageGroup. "In technology, advertising and public relations, where professionals are known to change jobs every few years or even months, job hopping can be considered to be a necessity in order to keep up with changes in the market," he says. But Nigel Heap, managing director at recruitment firm Hays UK & Ireland, warns "there can sometimes be a stigma associated with 'job hopping'." "Constantly moving to new roles without demonstrating a good reason might make new employers wary. They may question your ability to commit to an organisation and it may appear that you cannot adapt to new environments and challenges. "If you do move jobs frequently it's important that you clearly outline how long you were in each job on your CV, and support this with clear evidence of what you have learned in each role and what value you can bring to future employers," he says. By far the most influential element driving how often you change jobs is age. In the US, the average tenure of workers aged 55 to 64 was 10.1 years, more than three times the 2.8 years of workers aged 25 to 34, according to the most recent US statistics. The UK doesn't record such data, but London-based Dr Clare Gerada is an example of an older worker who has stayed at the same place for many years. She has worked for the NHS for 40 years and spent 25 years at the same practice. Clare Gerada started working for the NHS when she was just 14 years old Dr Gerada says this is partly down to her role which offers lots of flexibility and change, but she believes people are inherently designed to put roots down. "Of course when you're young you should move around and do things and experiment, gain experience, but there has to be a point I think that you put roots down and actually start to grow in that job," she told Radio 4's Today programme. But so-called millennials, those born between 1980 and 1999, have very different expectations about jobs. Several surveys suggest that these younger workers aren't motivated by the same factors as previous generations, such as a job for life, but instead value a good work-life balance and a sense of purpose beyond financial success. Job hopping too often could make new employers question your commitment It's a drastically different outlook from the generations before who are used to the more traditional hierarchy of large corporate firms - staying at the same firm and working a set number of years in a particular post before progressing. Almost a quarter of employed people are currently looking for new roles, according to the CIPD's latest Employee Outlook survey which polled 2,000 UK employees. For companies of course it poses a challenge. Constantly losing staff and their knowledge and having to recruit and retain replacements is costly. Ms McCartney says firms need to do more to try and retain staff, for example holding regular casual chats with staff on career progression. "Companies need to be more creative. There might not be room for promotion, but cross-function working, opportunities to work on special projects and secondments are all ways of boosting skills," she says. But she also says it's important for firms to stay on good terms with departing staff, who may decide to return later on in a different role adding wider experience to their existing knowledge of the firm. "It's not about organisations holding on to people at all costs," she says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38828581
India v England: Yuzvendra Chahal and MS Dhoni seal T20 series - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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England lose their last eight wickets for eight runs as India power to a 75-run win in the third Twenty20 in Bangalore to take the series 2-1.
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England lost their last eight wickets for eight runs as India powered to a 75-run win in the third Twenty20 in Bangalore to take the series 2-1. Chasing 203, England were 117-2 with eight overs to go after three Eoin Morgan sixes in a Suresh Raina over. But leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (6-25) got Morgan and Joe Root in successive balls and England fell to 127 all out. Raina and MS Dhoni both made half-centuries in India's 202-6, while Yuvraj Singh blasted 27 from 10 balls. That total was around par on a surface ideal for batting, but the sort of collapse that characterised the Test series loss means that England have been beaten in all three formats. Although Morgan's men competed best in the T20s, they have lost a series in which they won the toss on all three occasions. Whereas their bowlers impressed in the opening two matches, here they were blitzed, with the batsmen falling in a familiar heap against leg-spin. Their slump was the second-worst eight-wicket collapse in the history of international cricket - New Zealand lost 8-5 in a Test against Australia in 1946. Only once before in all T20 cricket, either international or domestic, has a side lost eight wickets for eight runs or fewer. England have only once successfully chased more than 200 to win a T20 international, but were well placed despite opener Sam Billings falling to the first ball he faced - an inside edge onto his boot that found slip and gave Chahal his first wicket. Jason Roy wasted a good start - his 23-ball 32 ended when he top-edged the second of India's leg-spinners Amit Mishra - only for Morgan to arrive and pick up the pursuit. Targeting the part-time off-spin of Raina, Morgan helped take 22 from the 12th over of the innings to leave England needing 89 from the final eight. However, with Root beginning to struggle at the other end - he went 13 deliveries without finding the boundary - Morgan was held on the leg-side fence off the returning Chahal for 40 and, from the next ball, Root was pinned leg-before to depart for 42. From there, it was a procession as Chahal and second T20 match-winner Jasprit Bumrah ran through the lower order. Jos Buttler miscued pacer Bumrah to mid-off, Moeen Ali fetched Chahal to long-on and Ben Stokes pulled the same bowler to deep mid-wicket. Liam Plunkett, Chris Jordan and Tymal Mills all failed to score as the last eight wickets went down in only 19 balls. India's stacked batting line-up had struggled on slower pitches in the first two matches, mainly down to the excellence of England's bowling. Here, they fired in a blur of boundary hitting, even though captain Virat Kohli was run-out by bowler Jordan for only two after being sent back by KL Rahul. As England missed their lengths - only the pacey Mills was close to the levels of the first two matches - Raina in particular cashed in with power square of the wicket on the off side and pick-ups off his pads. He smashed five sixes in his 45-ball stay. At the other end, Dhoni showed more finesse and the occasional deft touch, but he too cleared the leg-side fence twice in his first international T20 half-century - the 76-match wait for a maiden fifty easily the longest by any batsman. But the most brutal treatment was dished out by Yuvraj, the man who once hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in a over. Jordan, previously dependable, was punished for failing to nail his yorkers and three times pummelled back over his head for straight maximums as India took 118 from the final nine overs. 'We're not world-class players of spin' England captain Eoin Morgan: "We made a fatal error in losing two 'in' batsmen when we were going so well. It really hurt us. You have to give credit where credit is due, congratulations to the Indian team. "With the benefit of hindsight, we could have done with Joe or I to see out the innings. It's a beautiful wicket to bat on with a small boundary we would have taken conceding 190/200 at the beginning at the game." England coach Trevor Bayliss speaking to Sky Sports: "The way we finished tonight is not an indication of the way we have played on this tour. But we have to give credit, India have played better than us. "We're not world-class players of spin yet and it is difficult to knock the ball over the fence. I'd like to see our guys hit down the wicket rather than sweep sometimes. "A lot of times the guys have been out playing across the line but that's something we can learn from and make sure we're better at next time we play here." India captain Virat Kohli: "This was an occasion that demanded us to be at our best. Everyone was looking forward to this game. We lost all three tosses but won the series. We have shown character to win all three series."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/38832150
Manchester United 0-0 Hull City - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Eldin Jakupovic makes a string of saves as Hull frustrate Manchester United by claiming a goalless draw at Old Trafford.
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Last updated on .From the section Football Eldin Jakupovic made a string of fine saves as Hull frustrated Manchester United by claiming a goalless draw in the Premier League at Old Trafford. The hosts dominated the match but could not find a way past the Tigers goalkeeper, who brilliantly kept out Zlatan Ibrahimovic's long-range strike and Paul Pogba's driving effort in the first half. In between, Harry Maguire should have done better with a header which he put wide of goal. Ibrahimovic hooked an effort wide in the second half and Jakupovic made his best save to prevent Juan Mata from scoring at the back post, as well as keeping out Paul Pogba's curler. The visitors could have won it with five minutes to go, but on-loan Lazar Markovic's clipped shot came back off the post and Abel Hernandez struck tamely at David de Gea. The point keeps United in sixth place, but allowed Hull to move off the bottom of the table. The rules are different for me - Mourinho Relive the entertaining draw from Old Trafford Jakupovic made a total of six saves, punching the air in delight with each effort he kept out and taking the acclaim of the jubilant away supporters at full-time. Hull have shipped 47 goals this season - only Swansea (52) have conceded more in the division - and this was just their second clean sheet in 23 league games. Asked by BBC Sport if it was his best game in a Hull shirt, Jakupovic replied: "I try to be my best for the team all the time but today I caught a good day. "The striker celebrates when he scored, and I celebrated to myself with some saves." United striker Ibrahimovic was not impressed by the Hull player's performance. The Swede said: "I did not see any chances where it was difficult for the goalkeeper. It was not a good save from Mata, it was a bad finish. Some saves he made for the cameras." United had seen all the top four sides drop points in this round of fixtures as they chase a Champions League spot, but failed to capitalise even though they had 66% possession in the match. Despite extending their run to 14 games unbeaten in the top-flight, they have drawn their last three games and are four points adrift of Liverpool in fourth place. United only had themselves to blame in a wasteful performance. Marcus Rashford, who completed a full 90 minutes for the first time since November, highlighted his team's sloppiness by losing possession 21 times - more than any other player on the pitch. Wayne Rooney was brought off the bench at half time, but failed to change the game, having become the club's leading all-time goal scorer in the previous league match at Stoke. Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho: "We didn't score. You don't score, it is not possible to win. "We needed to score, we needed more time to play. If you played 35-40 minutes in both halves, it is a lot. I think Hull City tried to see where they could go, the way they could behave and tried to see what the referee would allow them to do. "They had the feedback and were comfortable to do what they did. I am not critical of that. They are fighting against relegation and every point is gold. Asked by BBC commentator Martin Fisher what upset him about referee Mike Jones' performance: "If you do not know football, you should not have a microphone in your hand." Before this game, Hull had lost nine straight away games, with their last point on their travels coming at Burnley in early September. But under new boss Marco Silva they have shown enough improvement to suggest they can preserve their top-flight status. The Portuguese has led Hull to a win and a draw in his first three games - with a defeat coming against leaders Chelsea - and lie four points away from safety. Having beaten United in the second leg of their EFL Cup semi-final last week, Hull may even feel disappointed by not taking all three points with Markovic coming agonisingly close to clinching the winner late on. However, striker Oumar Niasse was lucky not to be given a red card after making late challenges on Michael Carrick and Daley Blind, having earlier received a yellow card. 'Sometimes you have to suffer' Hull boss Marco Silva: "It is a very good result for us against a very good team. We played like a team with great attitude, spirit and character. What we showed tonight again, I am happy. "Sometimes you have to suffer in moments but we have to play as a team. First Old Trafford shutout since 1952 - the stats • None Manchester United are on the current longest unbeaten run in the Premier League this season (14 games - won seven, drawn seven). • None Hull City have picked up just two points in their 10 Premier League meetings with Manchester United (won zero, drawn two, lost eight). • None Man Utd have attempted 85 shots (including blocks) against newly promoted sides at Old Trafford this season but have found the net just twice. • None This is the first time United have failed to beat two different newly promoted clubs at home in a Premier League season since 1994-95 (Nottingham Forest and Leicester). • None Hull kept their first clean sheet at Old Trafford in all competitions since January 1952. • None The Red Devils have only lost once in their last 20 home Premier League games (won 12, drawn seven) - against Manchester City in September 2016. • None In fact, United have now gone unbeaten in 18 home games in all competitions (won 12, drawn six). It is their longest run since October 2011 (37 games). • None Hull have won four points in three Premier League games under Marco Silva, one more than they managed in the previous nine under Mike Phelan. United travel to champions Leicester City on Sunday (kick-off 16:00 GMT), while Hull host title challengers Liverpool on Saturday (15:00 GMT). • None Attempt blocked. Paul Pogba (Manchester United) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Daley Blind with a headed pass. • None Attempt saved. Paul Pogba (Manchester United) right footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the top right corner. Assisted by Daley Blind with a headed pass. • None Attempt saved. Marcos Rojo (Manchester United) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Paul Pogba with a headed pass. • None Delay over. They are ready to continue. • None Delay in match Andrea Ranocchia (Hull City) because of an injury. • None Attempt saved. Abel Hernández (Hull City) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Tom Huddlestone. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38740420
Clarke: Brexit hopes 'like Alice in Wonderland' - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Veteran Conservative Ken Clarke likens post-Brexit trade hopes to Alice in Wonderland.
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Mr Clarke, who was speaking as MPs began two days of debate on a bill to give the go-ahead to the official two year process of leaving the EU, said he had been told he was being too pessimistic about prospects for the UK after Brexit. Watch more: Ken Clarke on why he's voting against Brexit
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38811312
The long-distance learners of Aleppo - BBC News
2017-02-01
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A young woman in Syria refuses to let a war and lack of electricity stop her ambition to be a student.
Business
Mariam has to study by candlelight and use a shop's generator to charge up her computer Mariam Hammad, despite every adversity of war and hardship, is trying to be a student in Aleppo in the dark heart of Syria's civil war. "My city has turned to ruins," she says. Despite being in constant danger, forced out of her home twice by shelling and living without regular supplies of electricity or water, this 22-year-old has refused to give up being a student. Four years ago, she had just left school and begun at the University of Aleppo when it was hit by rockets, killing dozens of students around her. "I saw my friends killed and still now I can't forget what happened," Mariam says. "I saw a lot of students hurt and injured. There was blood, death. Everything was terrible." There was intense danger at home too. "I came so near to death many times," Mariam says. "My family and I rented a house that was only 500m from the front lines, and a lot of rockets fell in my neighbourhood. Mariam has refused to give up her ambition to be a student and get a degree "Many of my neighbours were killed, and mortars hit my home twice." She remembers waking during an attack, unable to see in the dust and darkness and not knowing who was alive or dead. Mariam talks of life in Aleppo becoming a mix of "horror and danger". "I was crying so much when I saw my city in front of my eyes, everything destroyed," she says. But her reaction has been to stubbornly carry on and to use her studies as a way of honouring those who have died. She became an online student in a warzone, following a degree course run by the US-based University of the People, making a conscious decision to be "optimistic" and to make plans to "rebuild". This week in Aleppo the temperature has fallen below 0C But this is far from straightforward, she says over a patchy Skype line. "The hardest thing about being a student in Aleppo? Actually, it's being alive," Mariam says. There are still occasional rockets and mortar blasts, despite a ceasefire, but there are also big practical problems that would have put off a less determined student. "We haven't had electricity for two years," she says. Instead, people rely on generators that might operate for a few hours at a time. Mariam goes to a local shop with a small generator, where it can take 12 hours to charge up her mobile phone and an old laptop, and then she ekes out the charge so she can study. Families are living in the wreckage of their city Internet connections are sporadic and weak - and when an exam was approaching, there was an internet blackout. Worried that she would be failed, Mariam began to make preparations to travel to Damascus to find a way of sitting the exam. Even by the standards of a civil war, she says, this would have been extremely dangerous, but friends managed to make contact with the university, and she was able to re-arrange the exam. More stories from the BBC's Global education series looking at education from an international perspective, and how to get in touch. You can join the debate at the BBC's Family & Education News Facebook page. Heat and light are daily challenges, particularly in winter, with temperatures in Aleppo below freezing this week. Water is available only every three or four weeks. "When we have water, we store huge amounts," she says, filling every container. There have been long battles between government and rebel armies in Aleppo, but there are also forces of the so-called Islamic State not far from the city. Mariam says they tried to cut a road to the city a few days ago - but she says there is also the battle of ideas and the need to protect the right to education. Their presence makes her even more determined to keep studying. Despite the dangers, the hunger for education has remained in Aleppo While the high technology of war has rained down on Syria, this young woman has to study at night by candlelight. But she doesn't complain. Instead, she talks with understated longing for one single "normal day" as a student. And what would she do with it? "I want to do a lot of things in this day," she says. "I want to go to my university like any normal student. I want to go with my friends. I want to sit with my family." She pauses. "And I want to see everyone I lost," she says. But in the face of such awful destruction, why is she worrying about getting a degree? Mariam says the experience of war has made education seem even more important - something positive that links people to the chance of rebuilding a better life. Carrying bread in the streets of Aleppo "We have this strong motivation to seek it no matter what," she says. "You can see that in young children going to their schools, even though they can be hit at any time." "Education was always important in my life. "It gives me hope that I can have a better future. "It will help me to rebuild my country and everything that's been destroyed." Mariam is studying a business degree with the University of the People, based in California, which supports people around the world who otherwise would not have access to university - including 15 students in Aleppo. The ceasefire has made it safer for civilians to walk in the street The online university, backed by the likes of the Gates Foundation, Hewlett Packard and Google, offers accredited four-year degree courses, taught by volunteer academics and retired university staff. The university's president, Shai Reshef, says: "We are an alternative for those who have no other alternative." Mariam sees her studying as a kind of lifeline and source of hope - and she says any other students around the world should appreciate the chances they have. Students were killed when the University of Aleppo was hit in 2013 She can only dream of having a "normal life like them". "I hope that whoever sees my story will not be discouraged by difficulties they face," she says. "I believe that after every hardship comes a great rebirth, and in honour of ever friend, neighbour and Syrian who lost his life due to this war, we must stay optimistic." And if that faith wavers? "If I feel down, my mother says to me, 'This will pass.'"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38798308
Newspaper headlines: Trump's new EU 'assault' and fairer fares - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Rail fare costs and criticism of the EU by the Trump administration make Wednesday's front pages.
The Papers
As the world learns more about the tactics of the Trump administration, the Financial Times has been talking to the president's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro. Like his boss, he doesn't shrink from saying what he thinks. He accuses Germany of exploiting a "grossly under-valued" euro - which makes its exports cheaper - to gain an unfair trading advantage over other EU countries and the United States. He also confirms that negotiations about a trade deal between the EU and the US are dead. The FT says that while criticism of German policy during Barack Obama's presidency was "cloaked in diplomatic language", Mr Navarro's comments "highlight an apparent willingness by the Trump administration to antagonise EU leaders". The Daily Telegraph also leads on Mr Navarro's comments, which it calls "incendiary". Mr Trump's trade chief had "put the US on a collision course with Germany", the paper added. It sees the comments as a "new front in the president's assault on the EU". A bid to end Britain's "rip-off" rail fares will represent the system's "biggest overhaul in more than 30 years", the Times says. Thousands of expensive long-distance fares will be scrapped from the National Rail database to ensure travellers get a cheaper deal, it says. A new website will make it easier for passengers, the Metro adds. The website is based on an algorithm mathematicians developed to quickly calculate whether there is a cheaper way to do things, the paper says. According to the Metro, the best deals are on trips over an hour long, as longer journeys offer more opportunities to tweak the route and ticketing. The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents train operators, says current fares are "baffling" for passengers. The Times unveils plans for a test that all newly qualified doctors - as well as doctors from abroad - would have to sit before they could practice in Britain. It's being proposed by the General Medical Council. The GMC's president tells the paper that the existing system, under which 34 British medical schools set their own criteria, is inherently unfair and fails to ensure that all doctors starting to practice meet common standards. The cost of "health tourism" is the main front page story for both the Daily Mail and the Sun. Both tell the story of a Nigerian woman who gave birth to quads in a London hospital and whose care will cost the NHS £500,000. She appears in a BBC documentary, "Hospital", which is on BBC Two tonight. The Sun says the failure to make health tourists pay for their care is an outrage and that the NHS is seen as "a soft touch" worldwide. There is plenty of advice for MPs preparing to vote on Brexit. The Daily Express hopes they'll respect the referendum result, while the Daily Mail says up to 100 MPs are ready to vote against triggering Article 50 and, in its words, defy the 16 million people who voted to leave the European Union. "They still don't get it" is the paper's headline. The Daily Telegraph says the speech by Labour's Sir Keir Starmer setting out why Remainers must accept the outcome of the referendum was "soberly compelling". The paper tips him as a future Labour leader. Meanwhile, the Guardian fears Britain's relationship with Europe is on course to collapse: it urges wavering MPs to "get real and vote to stop this madness". The paper also gives prominence to the gloomy predictions of the Resolution Foundation, which says this parliament could be the worst for living standards and inequality since the early 1980s. The campaigning think tank forecasts that rising inflation and a slowdown in jobs growth will hit poorest households hardest. The plight of Gerry and Kate McCann - who yesterday lost their libel case against a Portuguese former detective - is the front page story in the Daily Mirror. The McCanns originally sued ex-police chief Goncalo Amaral after he wrote a book claiming they were responsible for their daughter Madeleine's disappearance. The paper says they now face a bill for legal costs estimated at £500,000. The Daily Telegraph says the result also raises the "nightmare prospect" that the couple could be sued for damages by the former policeman. And finally, the Times reports that dozens of families in Cornwall could lose their homes under compulsory purchase orders to protect them from pollution. Cornwall council is considering - as a last resort - moving people out of areas where air pollution exceeds legal limits. It says that would be cheaper than a new road bypass costing tens of millions of pounds. In an editorial, the paper says this is the kind of eccentric idea that ends up on the table in local government when ministers refuse to take action. It urges the government to do more to reduce air pollution, which is linked to more than 40,000 deaths a year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-38821255
Six Nations: England's George Kruis out of France match with injury - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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England lock George Kruis is out of the Six Nations opener against France on Saturday with a knee ligament injury.
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Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live and text updates on the BBC Sport website. Highlights: Watch on BBC Two and online from 18:00 GMT on Sunday. Lock George Kruis is out of England's Six Nations opener against France on Saturday with a knee ligament injury. The 26-year-old Saracens second row suffered the injury in training on Tuesday and will see a specialist on Thursday to determine its severity. England head coach Eddie Jones said: "We are not ruling him out of the Six Nations at this stage." Courtney Lawes and Joe Launchbury are now expected to pair up in the second row, with Maro Itoje at flanker. Jones will name his starting XV for Twickenham on Thursday. Defending champions England then face Wales at the Principality Stadium on 11 February, with Kruis' inclusion in that game now unclear. France centre Yann David, 28, has also pulled out of the England match with a thigh injury and is a doubt for their second game against Scotland on 12 February. France head coach Guy Noves now has to select between Gael Fickou, Remi Lamerat and Mathieu Bastareaud to form his centre partnership against England. David is the latest France player to withdraw through injury, with flanker Raphael Lakafia, hooker Camille Chat, loose-head prop Eddy Ben Arous and centre Wesley Fofana all previously ruled out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/38834700
The former sex worker who set up a retirement home - BBC News
2017-02-01
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After years of living and working on the streets of Mexico City, Carmen Munoz set up a retirement home for former - and homeless - sex workers.
Magazine
After years of working the streets of Mexico City, Carmen Munoz wondered what happened to sex workers like her when they got old - so she campaigned to set up a retirement home. It was on the historic Plaza Loreto in Mexico City - surrounded by buildings that date back to the 16th Century - that Carmen Munoz set out on her path as a sex worker. She had come to the city looking for work and had been told that the priest at the Santa Teresa la Nueva Church sometimes found jobs for domestic workers. She was 22, illiterate, and had seven children to feed - including one whom she carried in her arms. For four days she anxiously waited to see the priest, but when she finally succeeded he gave her no help and sent her away. "He only told me that there was tons of work, and to look for it around the area," she recalls. "I left crying because it hurt me deeply to hear the priest talk that way." At that moment a woman approached Munoz to console her. "She said to me: 'That man over there says he'll give you 1,000 pesos if you go with him,'" Munoz remembers. At the time it seemed a fortune, although at today's exchange rate - taking into account a 1993 revaluation when one new peso was valued at 1,000 old pesos - it is barely five US cents. "I said: 'I've never seen 1,000 pesos all in one place - where am I going with him?' "She said: 'To a room.' And I said: 'A room? How will I know what work to do?' "'No!' she said: 'You don't understand, to a hotel.' The woman told her bluntly what she would have to do. When Munoz understood, she was shocked. "Oh senorita no, no, not that!" she said. But the woman replied: "You prefer to give it to your husband who doesn't even provide enough money for soap to wash, than to give it to others who will provide for your children?" Feeling desperate, she went with the man. He gave her the 1,000 pesos as promised but said he wanted nothing in return. He didn't want to exploit her desperation, he said, and as she cried he pressed the money into her hand. Perhaps he knew she would be back. The following day, Munoz's despair had turned into defiance. She returned to the same corner in Plaza Loreto thinking to herself: "From now on, my children won't go hungry any more." Soledad, a resident of Casa Xochiquetzal, in her bedroom For the next 40 years she made her living as a sex worker on the corners of the Plaza and surrounding streets. The area is known as the Merced - 106 bustling blocks that form part of a Unesco World Heritage Site, containing some of the city centre's oldest buildings, its main commercial hub, and the biggest of the city's seven red light districts. There is at least one seedy hotel on every block. "When I first entered sex work I was dazzled by the money," says Munoz. "I realised I had worth, that someone would pay to be with me, when the father of my children told me that I was worth nothing and that I was very ugly." But working on the streets took its toll. Both the authorities and pimps demanded money. Beatings and sexual harassment were common, and she became addicted to drugs and alcohol. Yet, despite all this, she is grateful. "Thanks to sex work I was able to take care of my kids and provide them with a roof over their heads - a dignified place to live," she says. And years later, she was able to provide a home for others too. Luchita, a resident of Casa Xochiquetzal, puts on make-up in her bedroom at the shelter One night, she passed by a dirty, moving tarpaulin on the side of the street. "I went over to it and pulled it up, thinking there were going to be children underneath," she says. What she found instead were three elderly women huddled together for warmth. She recognised them as fellow sex workers. "It hurts you, it hurts you as a human being to see them like that," says Munoz. She helped the women up, bought them coffee, and got them a room in a cheap hotel. It made her realise how many elderly women were working in the Plaza. Once their looks had faded, because of their advancing years and the hard life on the streets, many ended up destitute. Their families didn't want them so they had nowhere to go. Munoz became determined to do something about it. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Listen: Carmen tells Outlook why she wanted to help women such as Marbella Aguilar For the next 13 years she lobbied the city authorities to provide a retirement home for elderly and homeless sex workers. With the support of several well-known artists, neighbours from the Merced and fellow sex workers, she finally persuaded them. The city gave them a large 18th Century building, just a few blocks from Plaza Loreto. The women's feeling of elation when they first walked through the doors was immeasurable. "It was an amazing experience," Munoz says. "We cried with joy, laughed and shouted: 'Wow, we now have a home!'" Norma, a resident of Casa Xochiquetzal, rests in her bedroom It took a lot of work to clean up the building, a former boxing museum, but in 2006 the first women moved in. They named the shelter Casa Xochiquetzal, after the Aztec goddess of women's beauty and sexual power. When I leave the Merced's cacophonous streets and enter Casa Xochiquetzal, the women are listening to music. Jewellery and flower-making workshops are under way and the smell of baking fills the air - a dozen residents are busy baking cakes. While teaching the women new skills, Casa Xochiquetzal also aims to improve their health and well-being by providing self-esteem workshops, medical check-ups and counselling. Marbella Aguilar's room off the central courtyard is filled with books - her favourite authors are Pablo Neruda, Leo Tolstoy and Franz Kafka. "Books have been my refuge since the age of nine," she says. As a child, nearly 60 years ago, her parents threw her out. Fortunately another woman took her in but when she died, Aguilar - now 16 - had to find the rent and pay for her studies by herself. When this proved impossible, she began to sell her body. "There was nothing else I could do," she says. Through a mixture of jobs and occasional sex work, Aguilar managed to support her own three children through school. But when a teenage daughter died of leukaemia, she fell into a deep depression, could not work and was thrown out of her home for failing to pay the rent. At this point Casa Xochiquetzal rescued her and she now makes money selling jewellery in nearby markets. "This house taught me that my life is worth a lot, that I am as dignified as any other woman," she says. "Now I say that a woman can lose her honour, but never her dignity." Her only sadness is that her surviving children no longer speak to her. Canela and Norma, both residents of Casa Xochiquetzal, at the shelter There are currently 25 other elderly or homeless women living in Casa Xochiquetzal - aged from 55 to their mid-80s. Though many have retired, some still work the streets. Over the past 11 years, more than 250 sex workers have been given shelter here. There have been big challenges though. Casa Xochiquetzal's finances are precarious - its grant from the city government has been cut back and it is reliant on charitable donations. María Isabel, a resident of Casa Xochiquetzal, in her bedroom On top of that, not everyone gets along. Although the women are friends and roommates now, some were formerly competitors and enemies on the streets. "We have been so used, abused, so beaten, and so marginalised, that we are almost always on edge," explains Munoz. "We have our nails out, ready to attack if we are attacked." But disagreements happen in any family, Aguilar says. "Here we have been taught to have respect for each other, that there are things worth fighting for - and that brings harmony to the house." And if not harmony, at least a sense of peace, and the reassurance that they will not die uncared-for on the streets. "We deserve a place where we spend the last days of our lives with dignity and tranquillity," says Munoz. One day she expects to move in herself. Paola, a resident at Casa Xochiquetzal, puts on make-up before going to work Listen to Clayton Conn's report on Outlook on the BBC World Service Photographs of Casa Xochiquetzal from the series Tough Love (Las Amorosas Mas Bravas) by Benedicte Desrus (via Shutterstock) Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38677679
Protests greet Donald Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Protesters condemn the nomination of Neil Gorsuch by Donald Trump outside the US Supreme Court.
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Protests have been taking place outside the US Supreme Court at the nomination of Neil Gorsuch by Donald Trump. Labor union leader Mary Kay Henry was among those to voice her opposition.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38823812
Ukraine: Avdiivka, the front line of Europe's 'forgotten war' - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Tom Burridge reports from the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, on the front line between government troops and Russian-backed rebels.
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Tom Burridge reports from the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, on the front line between government troops and Russian-backed rebels.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38818543
Russian doping scandal: Emails confirm Lord Coe 'aware' of claims - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Emails appear to contradict IAAF president Lord Coe’s claim he was unaware of corruption allegations in athletics before they became public.
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Claims that Lord Coe misled an MPs' inquiry have grown after new emails confirmed he was "made aware" of corruption allegations in his sport four months before they became public. The president of the IAAF, athletics' governing body, told a select committee in December 2015 he was "not aware" of specific allegations of corruption around the Russian doping scandal. But the email from Lord Coe to the IAAF's ethics commission in August 2014 states: "I have now been made aware of the allegations." In 2015, Lord Coe told Parliament: "I was certainly not aware of the specific allegations that had been made around the corruption of anti-doping processes in Russia." Lord Coe denies there is any discrepancy between his evidence and what the emails say he knew. MPs had wanted the IAAF [International Association of Athletics Federations] president to return to the committee after former athlete David Bedford's testimony to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee inquiry into doping in sport appeared to contradict Lord Coe's. The president has so far declined to return to the committee, but agreed to two requests from MPs to release missing correspondence between him and Michael Beloff, chair of the IAAF ethics commission. The emails, published on Tuesday by the committee, cast fresh light on the issue of what Lord Coe knew - and when - about the burgeoning Russian corruption and doping scandal which has blighted world athletics. Committee chairman Damian Collins told the BBC: "Whatever excuse he gives, it is clear that Lord Coe decided not to share with the committee information that was relevant to our inquiry on doping in sport. "The committee asked him about his knowledge of doping in Russian athletics and of corruption within the sport. In his answers, he gave the impression that he was unaware of specific allegations. "Thanks to evidence that was presented by the BBC Panorama programme last year, and by David Bedford to the committee this January, we can see that he was aware, at least in general terms, of the allegations that had been brought forward by the Russian athlete Liliya Shobukhova." Dr Rosena Allin-Khan MP, shadow minister for sport, said: "These are very troubling allegations. The release of these emails by the select committee casts serious doubts over the evidence previously given by Lord Coe to the inquiry. "World Athletics is going through one of the most serious doping scandals in its history and requires the strongest possible leadership. Lord Coe must immediately come back to the select committee and clarify his evidence in light of this new information. "He must be honest about which allegations he knew of and when he found out about them. The IAAF and BOA [British Olympic Association] need transparency and honesty throughout their organisations now more than ever, and that has to start at the very top." Last June the BBC's Panorama programme and the Daily Mail alleged Lord Coe - then an IAAF vice-president - had been alerted to the scandal months before it was revealed by the German journalist Hajo Seppelt in December 2014. The programme revealed Lord Coe had been sent an email by Bedford, the former world 10,000m record holder, containing several attachments detailing allegations from Russian marathon champion Shobukhova that she had paid almost half a million euros to cover up positive doping tests after being blackmailed by senior IAAF officials. Collins told Panorama it appeared Lord Coe had "deliberately misled" them. Lord Coe told the programme he hadn't opened the attachments and had simply forwarded the email on to the IAAF's Ethics Committee, and that since he did not open the attachments, he had not been aware of the detail of the corruption allegations and therefore had not misled Parliament. His spokeswoman told the BBC his failure to open the attachments had been nothing more than a "lack of curiosity". In his evidence to the select committee in December, Bedford said he was "surprised and disappointed" that Lord Coe, who became president of the IAAF in August 2015, said he had not opened the attachments. However, fresh questions have emerged for Lord Coe following his disclosure to the committee of the full email chain between him and Mr Beloff. What does the email say? The email, from Lord Coe to Mr Beloff, is dated August 2014 and reads: "I have in the last couple of days received copied documentation of serious allegations being made by and on behalf of the Russian female athlete Shobukhova from David Bedford. "I have spoken to David today on the phone and he advises me that he has shared this information with you. Should I forward this documentation to you? "The purpose of this note is of course to advise you that I have now been made aware of the allegations... but would be grateful for your advice." What does Lord Coe say now? In a detailed four-page letter to the select committee, which accompanies the disclosure of the emails, Lord Coe says there is "no discrepancy". He said he was not asked specifically by MPs about when he first heard of the corruption of doping cases. He said he was on holiday abroad when he received a call from Mr Bedford asking if he was aware of the Shobukhova allegations, and on answering "no", Mr Bedford agreed to send them without going into the detail of what the allegations were. Lord Coe says he then dictated the 14 August email to an assistant. The letter to the committee reads: "David had thought the allegations were serious enough to send information about them first to the ethics commission and then to me, and I knew I therefore had a duty to inform the ethics commission that I was aware of allegations having being made, and I wanted to ensure that Michael [Beloff] had all the information David [Bedford] had sent to me." Mr Beloff responded on 16 August 2014 that he already had the information. Lord Coe wrote: "Having received these responses from Michael [Beloff] I was satisfied that I had done what I was required to do under the code of ethics. "I have made clear I did not read David Bedford's emailed documents but asked my office to forward them to the person and the commission with exclusive authority to investigate. "I trust this clarifies the matter to the satisfaction of the committee, and as such there are no grounds for suggesting that I misled the committee in any way." Questions remain as to why Lord Coe, if he was unaware of the detail of the allegations, would state to Beloff he had "now been made aware of the serious allegations being made by, and on behalf of the Russian female athlete Shobukhova". Collins told the BBC: "It was not possible to know this, without some knowledge of the attachments contained in the email, as all David Bedford's email to Lord Coe said was that the documents he was sending to him related to 'an issue that is being investigated by the IAAF ethics commission'. "However, if it is true that Lord Coe was somehow unaware of the details of the complaint that had been made by Shobukhova, it is regrettable that neither he nor his team could find the time to read the 1,700 word summary of the allegations that was sent to him by David Bedford. "This episode adds further weight to the concern that senior figures within athletics could have done more to make themselves fully aware of serious allegations of corruption and doping within their sport, and then acted on that information to make sure that it was being properly investigated." Lord Coe, as a member of the House of Lords, cannot be compelled to give evidence to a select committee, unlike members of the public, but it is likely that the committee will take a dim view of Lord Coe's refusal to return when writing up their final report on doping in sport, which is expected to be published within weeks. The BBC Panorama programme also revealed claims Lord Coe had been helped to the presidency of the IAAF by Papa Massata Diack, at a time when Diack was under investigation for serious corruption. Diack, who is the son of the disgraced former president of the IAAF Lamine Diack, is now banned for life from athletics, is wanted by Interpol and remains in hiding in Senegal. Lord Coe denied anything inappropriate occurred during his election campaign.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/38809210
The man who sold his back to an art dealer - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Tim Steiner has an elaborate tattoo on his back which was designed by a famous artist and bought by an art collector. For 10 years now he has been showing it in art galleries.
Magazine
Tim Steiner has an elaborate tattoo on his back that was designed by a famous artist and sold to a German art collector. When Steiner dies his skin will be framed - until then he spends his life sitting in galleries with his shirt off. "The work of art is on my back, I'm just the guy carrying it around," says the 40-year-old former tattoo parlour manager from Zurich. A decade ago, his then girlfriend met a Belgian artist called Wim Delvoye, who'd become well known for his controversial work tattooing pigs. Delvoye told her he was looking for someone to agree to be a human canvas for a new work and asked if she knew anyone who might be interested. "She called me on the phone, and I said spontaneously, 'I'd like to do that,'" Steiner says. Two years later, after 40 hours of tattooing, the image spread across his entire back - a Madonna crowned by a Mexican-style skull, with yellow rays emanating from her halo. There are swooping swallows, red and blue roses, and at the base of Steiner's back two Chinese-style koi fish, ridden by children, can be seen swimming past lotus flowers. The artist has signed the work on the right hand side. Collectors can buy the pig skins tattooed by Wim Delvoye once the pigs have died of old age "It's the ultimate art form in my eyes," Steiner says. "Tattooers are incredible artists who've never really been accepted in the contemporary art world. Painting on canvas is one thing, painting on skin with needles is a whole other story." The work, entitled TIM, sold for 150,000 euros (£130,000) to German art collector Rik Reinking in 2008, with Steiner receiving one third of the sum. "My skin belongs to Rik Reinking now," he says. "My back is the canvas, I am the temporary frame." As part of the deal, when Steiner dies his back is to be skinned, and the skin framed permanently, taking up a place in Reinking's personal art collection. "Gruesome is relative," Steiner says to those who find the idea macabre. "It's an old concept - in Japanese tattoo history it's been done many, many times. If it's framed nicely and looks good, I think it's not such a bad idea." Delvoye worked for 40 hours to complete the piece But this aspect of the work often sparks intense debate. "It becomes a huge discussion matter every time, and those confrontations with people have been very exciting and interesting," Steiner says. "People are either very into the idea, or say it's going too far - they're outraged or say it's against human rights. They come with ideas of slavery or prostitution." As part of his contract, Steiner must exhibit the tattoo by sitting topless in a gallery at least three times a year. His first exhibition took place in Zurich in June 2006 - when the tattoo was still a work-in-progress. When the 10th anniversary fell last year, he was in the middle of his longest-ever exhibition, a whole year at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart, Tasmania, working five hours a day, six days a week. That came to an end on Tuesday. "Sit on your desk, with your legs dangling off, straight backed and holding on to your knees for 15 minutes - it's tough," he says. "I did this for 1,500 hours. It was by far the most outrageously intense experience of my life. "All that changed throughout the days was my state of mind - sometimes heaven, sometimes hell, always totally alert." The only thing separating Steiner from visitors to the gallery is a line on the floor - a line that that in the past some have crossed. "I've been touched, blown on, screamed at, pushed and spat on, it's often been quite a circus," he says. "But I wasn't touched a single time on this trip, it's a miracle." Steiner takes in the view during his first stint at Mona in 2012 When people try to speak to him he doesn't move or reply. He just sits still. "Many people think I'm a sculpture, and have quite a shock once they find out I'm actually alive," he says. But he rejects the idea that this is performance art. "If the name Wim Delvoye was not attached to this tattoo, it would have no artistic relevance," he insists. It is part of Delvoye's intention, though, to show the difference between a picture on the wall and a "living canvas" that changes over time. "I can get fat, scarred, burned, anything," Steiner says. "It's the process of living. I've had two lower back operations." One of the joys of working at Mona has been having the gallery to himself before opening time. "To be in there by myself, with my headphones in, roaming around and doing my stretches surrounded by stunning art in this mystical building was surreal," he says. And he will be back there in November, for a six-month stint, after appearances in Denmark and Switzerland. "This whole experience has convinced me that this is what I am here to do. Sit on boxes," he says. "And one day TIM will just hang there. Beautiful." Tim at the Louvre in 2012 Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38601603
Ben Barba: NRL player avoids drug ban with code switch to Toulon - BBC Sport
2017-02-01
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Australian rugby league player Ben Barba will be allowed to play rugby union in France after switching codes, despite a 12-match drug ban.
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Last updated on .From the section Rugby League Australian rugby league player Ben Barba will be allowed to play rugby union in France despite a drugs ban. Full-back Barba, 27, was given a 12-match ban by Australia's NRL after testing positive for cocaine. On Tuesday he swapped codes to join Top 14 side Toulon - but will only face a sanction if he returns to rugby league. "Ben does not have a contract with the NRL so he is free to make a decision to play in a different code with a new club," NRL CEO Todd Greenberg said. Barba failed a drugs test just days after winning the Grand Final with Cronulla Sharks in October. His contract with the club was terminated but he then agreed a new deal with Sharks in December. However, that deal has not been ratified by the NRL and now he is moving to France. "Ben Barba will arrive in Toulon next week," a spokesperson for the three-time European champions said. And the NRL later confirmed it would not be able to enforce his ban because he had switched codes. "The match suspension he needs to serve will only begin after he has completed his playing commitments elsewhere," Greenberg said. He added his main concern was whether the player would be taking "appropriate courses and programs as part of his rehabilitation". Barba could make his debut for Toulon against Lyon on 18 February.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/38824929
Democrats in dilemma over Supreme Court - BBC News
2017-02-01
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Liberals demand a scorched-earth opposition to Donald Trump's Neil Gorsuch Supreme Court pick.
US & Canada
In a season of Democratic Party frustration and anger, Donald Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court Tuesday night is a particularly bitter pill to swallow. When the seat opened nearly a year ago following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Democrats imagined a durable liberal majority on the court for the first time since the 1960s. Even as the Republican Senate majority broke with longstanding tradition and blocked any consideration of President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, Democrats comforted themselves with the prospect of Hillary Clinton's likely victory in November's presidential election. They entertained the possibility that she would instead pick someone younger and even more progressive than the decidedly moderate Mr Garland. Then the election happened - setting up the inevitability of Tuesday night's prime-time announcement. President Trump, standing in the East Room of the White House, sprayed lemon on their open wounds, noting that the next Supreme Court justice would follow in Scalia's conservative footsteps. Republicans, across the board, are thrilled with the pick. Mr Gorsuch has a sterling legal reputation and indisputable right-wing pedigree. While Mr Trump has proven an uncertain quantity when it comes to fealty to other party orthodoxies, they view his court pick as their trust rewarded. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. "President Trump won 81% of the evangelical vote in no small measure because he made an ironclad pledge that if elected he would fill the vacancy on the US Supreme Court with a strict constructionist who would respect the Constitution and the rule of law, not legislate from the bench," Faith and Freedom Coalition Chair Ralph Reed said in a press release. "We never doubted then-candidate Trump's sincerity or commitment, and by nominating Judge Gorsuch, he has now kept that promise." As great as was conservative joy, so were the depths of liberal anger - likely only stoked by calls by Republicans, from Mr Trump on down, to give their nominee a fair shake. "The default is if you are generally qualified and not extreme you are confirmed," White House press spokesman Sean Spicer said on Tuesday afternoon. It's a sentiment that has not been welcomed by those on the left. "The Democrats should treat Trump's [Supreme Court] pick with the exact same courtesy the GOP showed Merrick Garland," tweeted Dan Pfeifer, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. "Don't flinch, don't back down." Senate Democrats considering Mr Gorsuch's nomination have a powerful weapon at their disposal, should they choose to use it - the filibuster. If 41 of the 48 members of their caucus are on board, they could block a confirmation vote indefinitely. It's something some Democrats are already promising to do. "This is a stolen seat," Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon said, pledging to invoke the filibuster power. "We will use every lever in our power to stop this." Such a scorched-earth strategy puts Senate Democrats in a bit of a bind, however. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. First of all, if they do indeed filibuster, Republicans may simply do away with the procedure entirely - the so-called "nuclear option" - as Democrats did for all other presidential nominees in 2013, allowing Mr Gorsuch to be confirmed with a simple majority. "If you can, Mitch, go nuclear," Mr Trump urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a meeting on Wednesday. In fact, Democratic pressure could prompt Republicans to do away with the Senate tradition entirely, allowing their party to enact all legislation without minority consent. That would make it significantly easier for Congress to pass conservative priorities like Obamacare replacement, weakening union power, education reform and sweeping deregulation. Already some Democrats are giving indications they may not take such a hard-line stand. "I'm not going to do to President Trump's nominee what the Republicans in the Senate did to President Obama's," Delaware Senator Chris Coons said in a television interview. Mr Coons is in a safely Democratic seat. The 10 Senate Democrats up for 2018 re-election in states Mr Trump carried last year may be under even more pressure to avoid total war with the president over a Supreme Court nomination. While the base may be angry, they will need independent and moderate conservative votes if they want to stay in office. Ronald Klain, a former legal adviser to Democratic President Bill Clinton, offers another reason why Democrats should be cautious when choosing how to handle Mr Gorsuch's nomination. The real battle is not over this seat - it's the next one. While it seems unlikely any of the four liberal justices will willingly vacate their seats during the Trump administration, 80-year-old Anthony Kennedy - who leans conservative but has proven to be a swing vote - may be gauging retirement and will be watching the proceedings closely. "While it is tempting to begin the confirmation process with an intent to avenge the injustice done to President Barack Obama and his nominee," Klain writes, "an attitude of score-settling and partisan bitterness would likely be off-putting to Kennedy." The Democratic base may not care. They're angry, and they're out for blood - and if they don't get it from Republicans, they may turn on their own. "Senate Democrats, let's be very clear: You will filibuster and block this Supreme Court nominee or we will find a true progressive and primary you in next election," liberal filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted. More than 1,000 Democrats showed up at a town hall by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse after he voted to support Mr Trump's CIA nominee. Around 200 protesters picketed California Senator Dianne Feinstein's California home in response to her votes for several of his cabinet picks. Democrats ignore this sentiment at their own peril - and their recent efforts to delay confirmation of Mr Trump's cabinet appointments may be evidence that they are getting the message. The situation is similar to the one the Republican Party found itself in following Barack Obama's election. At first, they thought they could harness conservative Tea Party anger to defeat Democrats. They did - but the Tea Party brought down a lot of establishment Republicans, as well. This damaged the party's electoral chances in the short term, likely costing them the Senate in 2010 and 2014. It also contributed to Mr Trump's rise and eventual victory in 2016, however. That, alone, should be enough to give Democrats officeholders many a sleepless night.
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