title
stringlengths 13
112
| published_date
stringlengths 10
10
| authors
stringclasses 3
values | description
stringlengths 0
382
⌀ | section
stringlengths 2
31
⌀ | content
stringlengths 0
81.9k
| link
stringlengths 21
189
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pat Nevin: Has Mourinho revitalised Rooney? - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
BBC football analyst Pat Nevin asks whether Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has helped Wayne Rooney rediscover his hunger.
| null |
There was an error
Sorry, this content isn't available any more.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38669544
|
Obama to 'process amazing experience' - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
US President Barack Obama has spoke of his plans for life after the White House as a private citizen "to process this amazing experience we've gone through".
| null |
US President Barack Obama has spoke of his plans for life after the White House as a private citizen "to process this amazing experience we've gone through".
In his final news conference, Mr Obama told the White House press corps: "I want to do some writing, I want to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much.”
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38671712
|
Inside Davos summit's Arctic basecamp - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
A replica of an Arctic basecamp has been set up by a group of leading scientists, as a call to action to global leaders attending the World Economic Forum summit.
| null |
Hotel rooms are hard to come by during the World Economic Forum in Davos, and even the most basic forms of accommodation can cost hundreds of pounds a night.
But one delegation at the meeting in Switzerland is braving the Alpine temperatures and sleeping in tents - and not just because it is cheaper.
A replica of an Arctic basecamp has been set up by a group of leading scientists, as a call to action to global leaders attending the WEF summit.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38659323
|
Inflation means inflation, but who wins? - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Sooner or later, the downward pressure on the pound since the UK's Brexit vote is expected to lead to upward pressure on the prices of most things we buy.
|
Business
|
Tesco's recent spat with Unilever has highlighted fears of a new inflationary surge
The downward pressure on the pound since the UK's vote to leave the European Union is starting to lead to upward pressure on the prices of most things we buy.
Brexit, as we have been told by the prime minister, means Brexit. But inflation also means inflation.
The pound has repeatedly lurched lower in value since the outcome of the June 2016 referendum. Against the dollar, it is now worth 20% less than it was before the vote, and that fall is unlikely to be reversed in a hurry.
The basic laws of economics dictate that this will translate into higher inflation: foreign firms exporting goods to the UK will continue to charge the same amount for them in euros, dollars or whatever, but they will cost more in sterling when the prices are converted.
That goes for finished goods, such as food and drink or clothing, but also for raw materials that are processed here, such as car parts. Global supply chains mean that more than 50% of the components in cars "made in the UK" are actually sourced from overseas.
Petrol, too, is likely to go up in price, because oil is priced in dollars.
Shopping for clothes is likely to be more costly
So higher rates of inflation appear to be a foregone conclusion. The question is, how much higher? What will the consequences be? And will anyone gain from this, or are we all set to lose out?
One estimate of the extent of possible price rises has come from the former boss of Northern Foods, Lord Haskins, who told the BBC that he expected to see food price increases running at an annual rate of 5% by this time next year.
He was speaking in response to supermarket chain Tesco's recent spat with Unilever, which was trying to pass on its higher costs incurred because of sterling's weakness - though that dispute has since been resolved.
The cost of food is an important factor in calculating the overall inflation rate, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), which is published on a monthly basis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Some economists are predicting that the CPI could hit 3% by the end of 2017.
If overall inflation did climb to the level predicted by Lord Haskins, it could be nudging close to the highest rate in a decade. In recent years, there have been two peaks in CPI inflation, in September 2008 and September 2011. In both those months, it reached 5.2%.
By historical standards, however, that pales in comparison with the levels reached in the 1970s, when the UK experienced several years of double-digit inflation. The worst year was 1975, during which prices went up by an eye-watering 24.2%.
We are unlikely to return to those days. But of course, back then, the industrial climate was different, trade unions were stronger and large groups of workers were able to obtain pay rises to match, despite government attempts to impose wage restraint.
Nowadays, substantial pay rises are harder to come by, so a lower level of inflation can have a bigger effect on living standards.
If we have to spend more money on goods while our salaries fail to keep pace with rising prices, then we are all likely to suffer to some degree.
It will certainly make Bank of England governor Mark Carney's job harder, because the Bank has a 2% inflation target.
If it goes above that, it increases the likelihood that he will raise interest rates to combat it, thus making life harder for those who owe money, such as on mortgages.
Mr Carney has said that "monetary policy can respond, in either direction, to changes in the economic outlook" - meaning that the next move in interest rates could be up or down.
He has also spoken at length of the trade-off between price stability and other economic factors, meaning that the Bank will not necessarily rush to raise rates.
Bringing inflation back to target too rapidly could cause undesirable "volatility in output and employment", he says.
But at the same time, Mr Carney says "there are limits to the extent to which above-target inflation can be tolerated".
If you have a student loan, the level of interest charged is linked to a slightly different measure of inflation, the Retail Prices Index (RPI), and is not subject to the Bank of England's decisions.
But in most cases, a prolonged period of inflation reduces the value of people's debts, making them easier to pay off.
If inflation were to stay at that 5.2% level for 12 years, your debt would, in effect, be worth only half as much in real terms, because you would still owe the same number of pounds, but each of those pounds would have declined in value.
Pensioners may have trouble making their money last
The outcome is similarly mixed for pensioners. In their favour, state pensions are guaranteed by what is known as the "triple lock". In other words, they rise each year by the inflation rate, average earnings or 2.5%, whichever is the highest.
However, private pensions are not similarly protected. And to make matters worse, retired people are likely to spend a higher proportion of their income on food and fuel, which are particularly affected by the pound's big devaluation.
Pensioners are also more likely to be living off income from savings, and savers are clobbered by high inflation. Just as inflation erodes the value of debts, it also reduces the spending power of money kept in bank accounts, because prices go up and your money doesn't, especially with the ultra-low interest rates paid by banks at the moment.
So there is no unalloyed benefit from higher inflation for anyone. But some will feel more pain than others, while borrowers will certainly benefit more than savers.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37676869
|
The most important words May will ever deliver? - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
It was a simple, clear message from Theresa May amid the grandeur of Lancaster House.
|
UK Politics
|
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The prime minister declined four times to answer questions about when she had been aware of the "misfire'"
Under the gilt and candelabra of Lancaster House where Margaret Thatcher extolled the virtues of joining the single market, Theresa May has uttered some of the most important words she will ever deliver.
She has, for the first time explicitly, confirmed that she has decided not to try to preserve our membership of the European single market. Instead she is hoping to conclude a deal with the rest of the EU that will still give business the access it needs to trade with the rest of the continent without barriers, tariffs or any new obstacles.
Since the referendum she and her ministers have simply refused to be so explicit. Some Remainers have argued that she ought to try to keep us in the vast partnership, the risks to the economy are too vast, and while it might be complicated to achieve, the prize is simply too great to give up.
For months some ministers have privately whispered about complex solutions that might keep elements of membership, the choices not being binary, mechanisms that might give a sort of membership with a different name.
Well no more, the simple and clear message from Theresa May's speech is that we are out. The irony that she has delivered that vow on the same spot where her predecessor swore the transformative value of the single market hangs alongside the glittering chandeliers
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38653236
|
Trump and the nuclear codes - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
What are the checks on a US president launching a strategic nuclear strike?
|
US & Canada
|
On 20 January, inauguration day in the United States, a nameless, unknown military aide was seen accompanying President Barack Obama to the handover ceremony at the US Capitol in Washington.
That military aide was carrying a satchel over his or her shoulder containing a briefcase known as "the nuclear football". Inside was a piece of digital hardware measuring 3in (7.3cm) by 5in, known as "the biscuit".
This contained the launch codes for a strategic nuclear strike. The briefing for the incoming president on how to activate them had already taken place out of public sight, but the moment President-elect Donald Trump took the oath of office that aide, and the satchel, moved quietly over to his side.
From then on, Donald Trump has had sole authority to order an action that could result in the deaths of millions of people in under an hour. The question on a lot of people's minds is, given his thin skin and impulsive temperament, what are the safeguards, if any, to prevent an impetuous decision by one man with catastrophic consequences?
First off, it should be said that Donald Trump has previously rowed back on some of his earlier, provocative comments on the use of nuclear weapons. He stated he would be "the last person to use them", although he did not rule it out.
Other senior figures are also involved in the chain of command, such as the US Secretary of Defence, retired US Marine Gen James Mattis, But Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear non-proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, says that ultimately, the sole authority to launch a strike rests with the president.
"There are no checks and balances on the president's authority to launch a nuclear strike," he says. "But between the time he authorises one and the time it's carried out there are other people involved."
The idea of a rogue president taking such a monumental decision on his own is unrealistic. He gives the order and the secretary of defence is constitutionally obliged to carry it out.
The secretary of defence could, in theory, refuse to obey the order if he had reason to doubt the president's sanity, but this would constitute mutiny and the president can then fire him and assign the task to the deputy secretary of defence.
Donald Trump says the US should "greatly strengthen and expand" its nuclear capabilities
Under the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution a vice-president could, in theory, declare the president mentally incapable of taking a proper decision, but he would need to be backed by a majority of the cabinet.
So how would it work in practice?
Inside that briefcase, the "nuclear football" that never leaves the president's side, is a "black book" of strike options for him to choose from once he has authenticated his identity as commander-in-chief, using a plastic card.
Washington folklore has it that a previous president temporarily mislaid his identification card when he left it inside a jacket that was sent to the dry cleaners.
Once the president has selected his strike options from a long-prepared "menu", the order is passed via the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Pentagon's war room and then, using sealed authentication codes, on to US Strategic Command HQ in Offutt Airbase in Nebraska.
The order to fire is transmitted to the actual launch crews using encrypted codes that have to match the codes locked inside their safes.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
The US and Russia both possess enough nuclear missiles to destroy each other's cities several times over - there are reported to be 100 US nuclear warheads aimed at Moscow alone. The two countries' arsenals account for more than 90% of the world's total number of nuclear warheads.
As of September 2016 Russia had the most, with an estimated 1796 strategic nuclear warheads, deployed on a mixed platform of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and strategic bombers.
Under a programme ordered by President Vladimir Putin, Moscow has recently invested billions of roubles in upgrading its strategic nuclear missile force, keeping an arsenal of constantly mobile ballistic missiles travelling through tunnels deep beneath the forests of Siberia.
America had, in September 2016, 1,367 strategic nuclear warheads, similarly deployed in land-based underground missile silos, which by their static nature are vulnerable to a first strike, at sea onboard submarines, where they are harder to detect, and at airbases, where they can be loaded on to bombers.
The UK has about 120 strategic warheads, of which only a third are deployed at sea. The Royal Navy always keeps a portion of the nation's Trident nuclear force somewhere in the world's oceans, maintaining what is known as the continuous at sea deterrent.
The Topol is one of Russia's mobile ICBMs
ICBMs travel at a speed of over 17,000mph (Mach 23), flying high above the Earth's atmosphere before descending towards their pre-programmed targets at four miles a second.
The flight-time for land-based missiles flying between Russia and the US is between 25 and 30 minutes. For submarine-based missiles, where the boats may be able to approach a coast covertly, the flight time could be considerably shorter, even as little as 12 minutes.
This does not leave a president much time to decide whether it is a false alarm or imminent Armageddon. Once ICBMs have been launched they cannot be recalled, but if they remain in their silos they will probably be destroyed by the inbound attack.
A former senior White House official told me recently that much would depend on the circumstances in which a nuclear strike was being considered.
If this was a long-term, measured policy decision to say, carry out a pre-emptive strike on country X, then a lot of people would be involved. The vice-president, National Security Adviser, and much of the cabinet would all be likely to be included in the decision-making process.
But if there was an imminent strategic threat to the United States, i.e. if an inbound launch of ICBMs from a hostile state had been detected and were minutes from reaching the US then, he said, "the president has extraordinary latitude to take the sole decision to launch."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38651616
|
Theresa May on Brexit: Then and now - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
A look back at Theresa May's big Brexit speech - and at what she said before the EU referendum.
|
UK Politics
|
Theresa May giving a pro-EU speech in April (left) and delivering her Brexit address
Theresa May has said the UK will emerge from Brexit as a "great, global trading nation", becoming "safer, more secure and more prosperous".
But in April - before the EU referendum - the then home secretary gave a speech warning of the implications of a vote to leave the EU. Here's how some of the key quotes compare:
April 2016: "So, if we do vote to leave the European Union, we risk bringing the development of the single market to a halt, we risk a loss of investors and businesses to remaining EU member states driven by discriminatory EU policies, and we risk going backwards when it comes to international trade.
"But the big question is whether, in the event of Brexit, we would be able to negotiate a new free trade agreement with the EU and on what terms."
January 2017: "I respect the position taken by European leaders who have been clear about their position, just as I am clear about mine. So an important part of the new strategic partnership we seek with the EU will be the pursuit of the greatest possible access to the single market, on a fully reciprocal basis, through a comprehensive free trade agreement."
April 2016: "The reality is that we do not know on what terms we would win access to the single market. We do know that in a negotiation we would need to make concessions in order to access it, and those concessions could well be about accepting EU regulations, over which we would have no say, making financial contributions, just as we do now, accepting free movement rules, just as we do now, or quite possibly all three combined.
"It is not clear why other EU member states would give Britain a better deal than they themselves enjoy."
January 2017: "If we were excluded from accessing the single market, we would be free to change the basis of Britain's economic model.
"But for the EU, it would mean new barriers to trade with one of the biggest economies in the world. It would jeopardise investments in Britain by EU companies worth more than half a trillion pounds... and I do not believe that the EU's leaders will seriously tell German exporters, French farmers, Spanish fishermen, the young unemployed of the eurozone, and millions of others, that they want to make them poorer, just to punish Britain and make a political point."
The PM said China had expressed an interest in a trade deal with the UK
April 2016: "It is tempting to look at developing countries' economies, with their high growth rates, and see them as an alternative to trade with Europe. But just look at the reality of our trading relationship with China - with its dumping policies, protective tariffs and industrial-scale industrial espionage. And look at the figures. We export more to Ireland than we do to China, almost twice as much to Belgium as we do to India, and nearly three times as much to Sweden as we do to Brazil. It is not realistic to think we could just replace European trade with these new markets."
"And while we could certainly negotiate our own trade agreements, there would be no guarantee that they would be on terms as good as those we enjoy now. There would also be a considerable opportunity cost given the need to replace the existing agreements - not least with the EU itself - that we would have torn up as a consequence of our departure."
January 2017: "We want to get out into the wider world, to trade and do business all around the globe. Countries including China, Brazil, and the Gulf States have already expressed their interest in striking trade deals with us."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May on EU and immigration
April 2016 (responding to a question from the BBC): "What matters is that we have brought about changes in the free movement rules as a result of the negotiation."
January 2017: "As home secretary for six years, I know that you cannot control immigration overall when there is free movement to Britain from Europe."
April 2016: "With no agreement, we know that WTO rules would oblige the EU to charge 10% tariffs on UK car exports, in line with the tariffs they impose on Japan and the United States. They would be required to do the same for all other goods upon which they impose tariffs. Not all of these tariffs are as high as 10%, but some are considerably higher."
January 2017: "And while I am confident that this scenario need never arise - while I am sure a positive agreement can be reached - I am equally clear that no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain.
"Because we would still be able to trade with Europe. We would be free to strike trade deals across the world. And we would have the freedom to set the competitive tax rates and embrace the policies that would attract the world's best companies and biggest investors to Britain."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38653681
|
Manchester United: Memphis Depay makes move to Lyon - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Manchester United sell Memphis Depay to French club Lyon for a fee thought to be in the region of £16m.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section European Football
It is thought the fee is £16m rising to £21.7m, with the add-ons including Lyon qualifying for the Champions League and Depay getting a new contract.
United have also agreed buy-back and sell-on clauses.
Depay, 22, has scored seven goals in 53 appearances since joining United in a £31m move from PSV Eindhoven in May 2015. The initial fee was about £25m.
The deal with PSV is thought to have included a number of add-ons which have not been met.
Lyon are fourth in Ligue 1, 11 points behind leaders Monaco and eight points behind PSG in third, the closest Champions League qualification place.
This season Depay has made eight appearances for United, but has featured for only eight minutes since the end of October.
However, United boss Jose Mourinho put that down to the competition for places at Old Trafford.
"From my perspective, instead of trying to say why it didn't work, I think it is easier for me - and he deserves me to say - that he was a fantastic professional," said Mourinho.
"So if somebody thinks it didn't work because he was not a great professional, it is totally wrong.
"One thing is some picture that somebody takes with him in an amazing car or dressing in a very specific way, but the image is totally wrong.
"The guy is a fantastic professional, he is a kid that respected everyone, a kid that tried to work hard to get more chances, a kid that was frustrated because he was not having that, but I only have good things to say about him."
He added: "If I can find a little reason, it is to say he is a player from one position and the only position where we have overbooking. Wingers are what we have more of, so it is a position more difficult to have chances."
Depay, who will wear the number nine shirt for Lyon, said he was looking forward to showing people what he was a capable of.
"I did in the past and I didn't show it every time at Manchester,'' he said. "I want to score goals and get that feeling back again.''
Depay was the Dutch Eredivisie's top scorer in 2014-15 and was brought to United under then-manager Louis van Gaal, who had given him his Netherlands debut.
He becomes the latest high-profile Van Gaal signing to be sold on.
Argentina attacking midfielder Angel di Maria signed for a then-British record fee of £59.7m in August 2014, but was sold to Paris St-Germain for £44.3m a year later.
Morgan Schneiderlin, who signed from Southampton for £25m, was sold to Everton on 12 January for a fee rising to £24m.
Former Germany captain Bastian Schweinsteiger was also brought to Old Trafford by Van Gaal, joining from Bayern Munich for a reported £14.4m.
However, the 32-year-old has played just 16 minutes under Mourinho this term.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38663810
|
Who are the figures pushing Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin together? - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Advisers to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are promoting a stronger relationship between the two.
|
Europe
|
The question of whether Russia's leader Vladimir Putin has got material with which he could blackmail Donald Trump is for now unknowable and misses the point by a country mile: the two men think alike.
Mr Trump's belief in American traditionalism and dislike of scrutiny echo the Kremlin's tune: nation, power and aversion to criticism are the new (and very Russian) world order.
You could call this mindset Trumputinism.
The echo between the Kremlin and Trump Tower is strong, getting louder and very, very good news for Mr Putin.
As Trump signalled to Michael Gove on Monday, a new nuclear arms reduction deal seems to be in the offing linked to a review of sanctions against Russia.
The dog that did not bark in the night is Mr Trump's peculiar absence of criticism of Mr Putin, for example, on the Russian hacking of American democracy, his land-grab of Crimea and his role in the continuing war in Eastern Ukraine.
What is odd is that Mr Trump, in his tweets, favours the Russia line over, say, the CIA and the rest of the American intelligence community.
But why on earth criticise the world leader with whom you most agree?
Three men have egged along Trumputinism: Nigel Farage, who is clear that the European Union is a far bigger danger to world peace than Russia; his friend, Steve Bannon, who is now Mr Trump's chief strategist; and a Russian "penseur", Alexander Dugin.
With his long hair and iconic Slavic looks, Mr Dugin is variously described as "Putin's Brain" or "Putin's Rasputin".
Alexander Dugin is described as "Putin's Brain"
He has his own pro-Kremlin TV show which pumps out Russian Orthodox supremacy in a curious mixture of Goebbels-style rhetoric and Songs of Praise.
Mr Dugin is widely believed to have the ear of the Kremlin.
He is also under Western sanctions for the ferocity of his statements in favour of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has cost 10,000 lives to date.
Messrs Farage, Bannon and Dugin are all united that the greatest danger for Western civilisation lies in Islamist extremism.
Mr Bannon aired his views in a right-wing mindfest on the fringes of the Vatican in 2014.
He claimed that so-called Islamic State has a Twitter account "about turning the United States into a 'river of blood'".
"Trust me, that is going to come to Europe," he added. "On top of that we're now, I believe, at the beginning stages of a global war against Islamic fascism."
The danger is that in allying yourself with the Kremlin in the way they fight "Islamist fascism" in say, Aleppo, you end up siding with what some have called "Russian fascism" or, at least, abandoning democratic values and the rules of war and, in so doing, become a recruiting sergeant for ISIS.
It is a risk on which Mr Dugin does not seem willing to reflect. My interview with him in Moscow did not end well.
Dugin posted a critical blog entry after walking out of his interview with John Sweeney
First, he dismissed the chances that the Russians hacked American democracy as "strictly zero".
I asked him about the depth of Mr Putin's commitment to democracy.
"Please be careful," he responded. "You could not teach us democracy because you try to impose to every people, every state, every society, their Western, American or so-called American system of values without asking…and it is absolutely racist; you are racist."
Too many of Mr Putin's critics end up dead - around 20 since he took power in 2000.
I have met and admired three: Anna Politkovskaya, Natasha Estemirova and Boris Nemtsov.
Boris Nemtsov was murdered close to the Kremlin in 2015
Mr Nemtsov was shot just outside the Kremlin's walls.
I asked Mr Dugin what his death told us about Russian democracy.
"If you are engaged in Wikileaks you can be murdered," he countered.
I then invited Mr Dugin to list the American journalists who have died under Barack Obama.
Mr Dugin did not oblige but told me that ours was a "completely stupid kind of conversation" and walked out of the interview.
Later, he posted a blog to his 20,000 followers, illustrated with my photograph and accusing me of manufacturing "fake news" and calling me "an utter cretin... a globalist swine".
Such is the language of the new world order.
A few days later I watched the press conference when Mr Trump closed down a question from a CNN reporter by accusing him of manufacturing "fake news".
Under Trumputinism, the echo between Russia and America is getting louder by the day.
Panorama: The Kremlin Candidate? BBC One, 8.30pm, Monday, January 16. If you miss it, you can catch up later online.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38639327
|
Colo, the oldest gorilla in captivity, dies aged 60 - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Western lowland gorilla dies in her sleep at a zoo in the US less than a month after her birthday.
|
US & Canada
|
At 60, Colo outlived most captive gorillas by more than two decades
The oldest known gorilla to be born in captivity, a female named Colo, has died in the US aged 60.
Colo passed away in her sleep overnight at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio, less than a month after celebrating her birthday.
She was born at the zoo in December 1956 and is believed to be the first gorilla ever born in captivity.
Colo, a Western lowland gorilla, lived for more than 20 years longer than the average captive gorilla.
Despite recently having a malignant tumour removed, zookeepers said that she had been recovering well and the cause of her death had yet to be determined.
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium said in a statement that Colo was "an ambassador for gorillas" who "inspired people to learn more about the critically endangered species".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
"Colo touched the hearts of generations of people who came to see her and those that cared for her over her long lifetime," the statement read.
The zoo added that Colo is to be cremated, with her ashes buried on site.
In December, hundreds of people visited Columbus Zoo and Aquarium to sing Happy Birthday and watch Colo, a great-great grandmother, enjoy her cake.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38659471
|
Masters 2017: Neil Robertson to play Ronnie O'Sullivan in quarter-finals - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Former world champion Neil Robertson will play Ronnie O'Sullivan in the Masters quarter-finals - Marco Fu is also through.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Snooker
Former Crucible winner Neil Robertson set up a Masters quarter-final with defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan by beating Ali Carter 6-3.
A low-scoring match saw the pair share the first two frames before the Australian opened up a 4-1 lead.
England's world number 14 Carter pulled it back to 4-3, but the 2012 Masters champion won the next before clinching victory with a 117 break.
Hong Kong's Fu had fallen 3-0 and 4-2 behind, but recovered to make breaks of 80 and 102 in the last two frames.
Englishman Trump started brightly with breaks of 102, 87 and 67, and further runs of 79 and 112 took him one away from victory, before Fu fought back.
Fu, runner-up in 2010, faces Northern Ireland's Mark Allen in the next round at Alexandra Palace on Thursday.
A high-class encounter saw the pair make 14 breaks over 50 in the best-of-11 match.
Fu's victory was the third first-round match to go to a decider following O'Sullivan's win over Liang Wenbo and Allen's victory over John Higgins.
"I have done it the hard way," he told BBC Sport. "I missed three balls and was 3-0 down. I just tried to concentrate on the good things I had been doing.
"Maybe there was a few nerves at the start. No matter how many tournaments you have won, this is an extra buzz."
Last month, Fu was 4-1 down before winning eight frames in a row to beat Higgins in the Scottish Open final to claim the third ranking title of his career.
Fu added: "When I am in good form, I handle the mistakes better now. I feel stronger when I miss a few balls, it does not matter to me, I can keep going."
I feel sorry for Judd, he did not have a single chance in the final frame but Marco took those last few balls well.
It was an absolutely wonderful spectacle. Fu is 39 and playing the best snooker of his career.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/38656701
|
Planes, trains and McDonald's: Your stories of porn in public - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The BBC's Siobhann Tighe was unsure what to do when she boarded a bus and sat next to a man watching porn on his mobile phone. Here readers tell their own stories of porn in public.
|
Magazine
|
The BBC's Siobhann Tighe was unsure what to do when she sat down on a bus beside a man who was watching porn on his mobile phone, as she wrote last Saturday.
Her story provoked a fiery debate - while some deplored the man's behaviour, others said what he chose to watch was his own business. Many readers also described similar encounters on public transport and elsewhere. Here is a selection of their comments.
I was travelling home from London to Newcastle with two children on a busy train. There was one man at a table with three empty seats. I realised he was sitting next to a conspicuous stack of porno mags and leafing through them. Everyone in the corridor had chosen to stand apart from him. "Mummy!" - my four-year-old daughter exclaimed loudly as she swung into the empty seat - "that man has got pictures of ladies with big boobies!". The porno man looked at her, looked at them, and crumpled. He put his mags in a bag and freed up the space next to him so that we could sit down. Hellen, Newcastle
Whilst on a flight from Germany to Hong Kong a man in the next seat started up his laptop and was oblivious to the fact that his hardcore porn could be seen and heard by me and people in the next aisle. As a woman travelling on my own on an overnight flight, this made me extremely uncomfortable. I raised it with the purser - the man was moved and spoken to, apparently. As for the countless times I've witnessed this on the train, there's been no hope of anyone in authority sorting it out. You either have to move seats, say something and risk being verbally attacked, or seethe quietly until your stop. I'm not anti-men, anti-sex or anti-porn. Yet whenever I've raised this issue in the past, there's always someone ready to call me out for being a prude. I'm not. I just don't think porn has a place on public transport, or in any areas frequented by the general public. Annie G, UK
I admit I've viewed online porn occasionally in the privacy of my own home, but even I was surprised and felt a little uncomfortable when the person on the next train seat began viewing very hardcore porn on his tablet. I ended up moving and informed the guard. He said he would "have a word" with the guy, and duly did, at which point the perpetrator (no doubt embarrassed) got up and moved. The guard apologised to me, then explained that this was an increasing problem. Lawrie, Sleaford
This happened to me on a train to London. I was shocked and offended. The man was watching porn video involving a yoga instructor, on his phone in the seat beside me. I decided to ask the man to stop watching the video because, like the man, I have free will and I could ask him to stop doing something I was uncomfortable with. Of course, he could refuse and I was prepared for that. As it happens, he obliged and actually apologised. It is not the law's role to protect people from offence. If we disagree with views, we must challenge these views and have an open debate, for that is the only way society can progress. Mel Lane, Guildford
l was on a bus in Huddersfield working with a looked after child who was 14 years old at the time. My young person tapped me and pointed out the man sitting in front of us was watching "disturbing stuff". He was watching hardcore porn on a large screen. I quietly approached the man and asked him to either sit at the back or please turn it off, otherwise I would have to have very loud words with the driver. He looked horrified when l told him that a 14-year-old had pointed out what he was watching to me. He didn't say anything, he just turned his phone off and shoved it in his pocket. I still told the driver quietly when l was getting off. I left him having a word with him. I felt l had to say something as a professional, responsible adult and a mother. Annabel, Bradford
When I was 14, I was on a plane with my dad. I had the middle seat and an unknown man was in the window seat with his computer. He was reading a lot of documents and then started watching porn. I was so shocked and then I got scared, like who does that in a plane? I've never told anyone about this, but I haven't forgotten it somehow. Lais, Brazil
I went to McDonald's one evening with my wife and children. I sat at a large table while my wife and children went to the counter. A group of children aged between 12 and 14 were watching porn on a large iPhone with the sound on. I asked them to switch it off and received a cold shoulder. I insisted since I had young children or I would report them to the manager. Happily they switched it off before my children came. Paul Brown, Glasgow
I was at an upmarket bar/restaurant having a meal with friends. At a table close by a man sitting on his own had his laptop out. I glanced at the screen and the man was searching porn websites full of pornographic explicit images of women. I was rather shocked, particularly as he was making no attempt to be discreet. It felt to me like a blatant case of sexual harassment to myself and my female friend. The waitress agreed to talk to him and he dimmed the screen. I said I would only be happy if it was turned off or we would leave. She went back to him and he closed his laptop and left. In my view a man wouldn't be able to expose himself in a restaurant so why should he be able to expose degrading images on his laptop? Paula Stott, Harrogate
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. VIDEO: From disgust to it's ok, Woman's Hour took to the streets to find out what you think of watching porn on buses
I was standing on a packed tube train and a man was standing watching a porn movie on his phone. A boy, around 12 years old, realised what the man was watching and moved away. I tapped the man on the shoulder and very loudly asked why he was watching porn in a public place with children around? All he could reply with was "you shut up" and [swore at me]. I told him loudly to stop watching porn and switch it off but he refused. He said it was his personal right. Only my 16-year-old daughter supported me and told him to stop. Nobody else joined in or tried to help me. His behaviour was very threatening. I wanted to take his photo but was worried about his reaction. It wasn't until after he left the train at Leicester Square that other passengers congratulated me on standing up to him. I was so angry I reported the incident to Transport Police. They said if they managed to identify him he would be prosecuted for causing public outrage. Sharon Forbes, Chippenham
I am a Traffic PCSO working for the Met Police on Safer Transport. There was a young male looking at a gay porn magazine. As there were young children on the bus I asked him to put the magazine away. He refused and called me "homophobic." I then requested the driver of the bus to pull over and I evicted the passenger from the bus and told him my thoughts. I could have gone down the route of a Section 5 of the Public Order Act - causing harm, alarm or distress. I would recommend anyone to challenge someone looking at porn on a bus, if its causing them distress. Anonymous
I was on an overland train and a man, about 25 years old and wearing a hoodie, was watching porn on his mobile as we waited for the train to depart. The speaker was turned up and it was obvious from the sounds that it was a man and woman having sex. The young man appeared to be oblivious to the rest of us. Two women got up and moved to the next carriage. None of us said anything, it was obvious looking around that most of us felt considerable discomfort. The train departed and as the sound of the tracks and its engine increased, he turned up the volume on his mobile. Mick Gavin, London
Listen to Siobhann Tighe talking to Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour, on BBC Radio 4
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38638339
|
Lewis Hamilton: Mercedes driver backs new team-mate Valtteri Bottas - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Lewis Hamilton backs Mercedes' choice of Valtteri Bottas as a replacement for Nico Rosberg, team boss Toto Wolff has said.
| null |
Lewis Hamilton has backed Mercedes replacing Nico Rosberg with Valtteri Bottas, says team boss Toto Wolff.
Mercedes signed the Finn this week after agreeing a deal to buy him out of his Williams contract to replace Rosberg, who retired after winning last year's world title.
Wolff said: "Lewis said he thought Valtteri was a nice guy.
"One of the guys he actually got along with well in Formula 1 and he felt he was a good option."
Wolff, who was talking to Finnish commentator Oskari Saari for a podcast, said he believed there might be less tension between Hamilton and the 27-year-old Finn than there was between the triple world champion and Rosberg.
"I think that works well," he added. "It was OK already between Nico and Lewis, but there was the luggage of the past... Now it is a completely new relationship and there is no animosity.
"There will be moments where it is going to be difficult, but I think that how the personalities are for the team it's going to be a good situation and one that is maybe a bit easier to handle than the past. But I could be wrong."
BBC Sport revealed on Monday that Bottas had signed a one-year contract, with options to extend it into subsequent seasons.
Wolff said that was because a number of leading drivers' contracts were up for renewal at the end of the 2017 season - including multiple world champions Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso of Ferrari and McLaren - and Mercedes wanted to keep their options open.
"We wouldn't have chosen Valtteri if we thought that he was not good enough to continue with the team," said Wolff.
"But, as a matter of fact, the market is very dynamic at the moment. Next year options open - young drivers, Sebastian, Fernando, Valtteri, many of them. So it is about understanding that - and Valtteri does.
"Equally we have great faith and confidence in him that he can stay with us for a long time, but now we need to see how the season goes."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/38671931
|
Who will host the Brit Awards, as Michael Buble takes time off for his ill son? - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
As Michael Buble takes time off to care for his son, who could replace him as host of the Brit Awards?
|
Entertainment & Arts
|
With only five weeks to go, it looks like the Brit Awards have no host.
Canadian crooner Michael Buble was due to present - but that's been in doubt since his three-year-old son Noah was diagnosed with cancer last year.
At the time, the distraught singer cancelled all future engagements, saying he was determined to focus on caring for his eldest child.
It was hoped he'd be able to return for the Brit Awards, but media reports are suggesting he's pulled out for good - and understandably so.
So, who could take the helm at the O2 Arena on 22 February? Here are a few suggestions...
Ant (stands on the left, a bit wacky), and Dec (stands on the right, giggles) were hardly at their best when they hosted the Brits last year.
The nadir was the moment when Ant "mistakenly" appeared on stage in a dress. Because a man in a dress is hilarious, right?
Coming so soon after a video tribute to androgyny-embracing pop lizard David Bowie, it felt particularly dated.
But with a better scriptwriter they're a safe pair of hands - and, crucially, able to draw a big audience.
Back in 2008 when Katy Perry was a relatively new and untested pop star, she took the helm of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Liverpool and totally stole the show.
Cheeky and energetic, she kept the event moving at a frenetic pace, racing through 10 costume changes and more than a few memorable moments. "Girls. Just a reminder," she said, while riding on top of a giant banana. "It's not how big the banana is - it's how you sit on it."
With new music to promote in 2017, could the star be coaxed into a repeat performance?
If only so they can go: "On your marks, get set, DRAKE!"
By hiring Michael Buble, the Brits were making a statement of intent: we want some showbiz, and we want a host a global audience will recognise. Adele is one of the only other stars that fits the bill.
In many ways, Adele is the Brits. From the stop-you-in-your-tracks performance of Someone Like You to the moment last year when she tearfully accepted an award from Tim Peake in outer space.
She's funny, she's charismatic, and there's 0% chance she'll do it. Which will be a relief for the person who works the bleep button.
He's already winning the Brits Icon Award, so they won't need to book an extra cab.
His propensity to go off-script might cause organisers a few headaches - but a double-header with his bff Olly Murs would be worth tuning in for.
Before he swanned off to become a US chat show host, Corden presented the Brits five times (including a stint with Kylie in 2009). He stood down three years ago, telling the Radio Times he didn't want to outstay his welcome.
"There are award shows where it actually becomes a plus that it's hosted by the same person," he said. "But the Brits should always have an energy about them that is fresh and new and exciting."
But imagine if the whole Brits ceremony was an extended episode of Carpool Karaoke? No pizzazz, no fireworks, no music industry "suits" - just a rotating cast of megastars in the passenger seat, with Corden fishing the occasional trophy out of his glove compartment.
TV Gold. But, seeing as he's already presenting the Grammys a week before, extremely unlikely.
The Brits have often looked to comedians to provide a bit of frisson - notably Russell Brand, who outraged (some) viewers in 2007 with his references to the Queen's "naughty bits" and Amy Winehouse's drinking problem ("her surname's beginning to sound like a description of her liver".)
Of the current crop of stand-ups, Jack Whitehall has both the profile and the requisite irreverence. His UK tour might get in the way of rehearsals but, by coincidence, he has a day off on 22 February.
In the year that grime took over the Brits, Julie Adenuga would be a brave but bold choice.
The Beats 1 DJ is one of the genre's biggest champions (as well as being sister to three-time nominee Skepta) but eminently knowledgeable about music from all walks of life. Apple Music is also sponsoring two of the awards - best British male and best British female - so there's also a commercial reason to use one of their presenters on the night.
However, she's untested as a live TV presenter, so unlikely to make the cut.
X Factor host and hot buttered crumpet Dermot O'Leary makes live television look like a walk in the park - when in reality it's a race through a field full of knives, on one leg, in the dark, tethered to an excited donkey.
Amazingly, he's never presented the Brits, but given his role as a new music champion on Radio 2, he's a perfect fit.
Big Brother host Emma Willis did a great job fronting the Brits nominations show on Saturday night, attracting a respectable 1.6 million viewers to ITV.
She told the BBC she was planning to watch the main ceremony from the audience - but if the call comes, she can recreate her favourite ever Brit moment, when "Cat Deeley flew in on a champagne bottle" in 2004.
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-38662210
|
Australian Open 2017: Angelique Kerber and Venus Williams reach third round - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Defending champion Angelique Kerber withstands an onslaught from fellow German Carina Witthoeft to advance in Melbourne.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Coverage: Daily live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra; live text on selected matches on the BBC Sport website.
Defending champion Angelique Kerber survived an onslaught from fellow German Carina Witthoeft to advance to the Australian Open third round.
Kerber - top seed at a Grand Slam for the first time - struggled with her serve in a second-set tie-break before prevailing 6-2 6-7 (3-7) 6-2.
The top seed, who was 29 on Wednesday, faces Czech Kristyna Pliskova next.
Venus Williams beat Swiss qualifier Stefanie Voegele 6-3 6-2 to reach the third round for the 13th time.
Venus still going strong at 36
Williams, who played at her first Australian Open in 1998, is the oldest woman in the singles draw at 36 and is competing in her 73rd Grand Slam.
"I have to talk about my age every interview!" the American said. "I've played some of the greats.
"It's an honour and privilege to start that young, and play this old."
She later pulled out of the doubles competition with her sister Serena as a precaution to rest a sore elbow.
The 17th seed has never won the title in Melbourne, her best result finishing as runner-up to Serena in 2003.
She will next play Duan Yingying after the Chinese player beat Varvara Lepchenko 6-1 3-6 10-8.
• None Read: Old faithfuls - the athletes who just kept going
World number one Kerber has started the year in less-than-convincing style, going out in the last eight in Brisbane and the second round in Sydney.
And Witthoeft, 21, posed a far more serious challenge in this meeting than in the 6-0 6-0 defeat she suffered against her compatriot at Wimbledon in 2015.
After a frustrated Kerber coughed up successive double faults in the tie-break, Witthoeft's powerful groundstrokes took the opening game of the decider against serve.
But Kerber won the next four to regain control and avoid an upset.
"To have this pressure is a privilege," she said. "It's completely new for me, but I'm doing well. I'm just trying to enjoy it."
Best of the rest
World number seven Garbine Muguruza advanced to the third round by beating America's Samantha Crawford 7-5 6-4.
Meanwhile, Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, a three-time quarter-finalist in Melbourne, was a 6-2 6-1 victor over Australia's Jaimee Fourlis.
But 10th seed Carla Suarez Navarro is out after a shock defeat by Romania's world number 78 Sorana Cirstea.
The Spaniard went down 7-6 (7-1) 6-3.
Bouchard, a Melbourne semi-finalist in 2014 who is now ranked 47 in the world, won 7-6 (7-5) 6-2.
Australia's Ashleigh Barty, in her first Australian Open appearance since 2014, moved to the third round for the first time with a 7-5 6-1 win over American Shelby Rogers.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38659777
|
Couple 'risk lives' at North Yorkshire rail crossing - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
A couple with a toddler "risked their lives" by climbing over a locked level crossing gate near Scarborough, Network Rail have warned.
| null |
A couple with a toddler "risked their lives" by climbing over a locked level crossing gate near Scarborough, Network Rail has warned.
The company has just released CCTV footage of the incident, which happened on New Year's Eve.
It shows two adults climbing over a 6ft-high locked gate at Seamer station and then running across the tracks in front of a train.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-38664000
|
Retracing Tunisia beach attacker's movements in VR simulation - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Virtual reality images retracing the route of the Tunisian beach attacker was shown to the inquest.
| null |
Virtual reality footage retracing the footsteps of the Tunisian beach attacker who killed 38 people in 2015, was shown to the inquest investigating their deaths.
The inquest was also told a report from Jan 2015 for the UK government had raised concerns about security at the Riu Imperial Marhaba resort.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38655606
|
When fast food gets an Indian twist - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The BBC's in-house cartoonist, Kirtish Bhatt, on McDonald's bid to become "more Indian".
|
India
|
McDonald's created quite a stir when it announced plans to start serving classic Indian dishes in the form of burgers.
One dish to get the treatment is the hugely popular masala dosa, which is a type of rice pancake with a potato filling.
Many Indians took to Twitter last week to share their views on McDonald's "dosa burger" and "anda bhurji burger" (masala scrambled eggs).
Some saw this as an attempt by McDonald's to appropriate Indian food, but others chose humour to suggest more dishes for a McMakeover.
Here's the BBC's in-house cartoonist, Kirtish Bhatt, on these suggestions and on India's take on global fast food chains.
Now the samosa is a humble but very popular street snack in India. As one Twitter user suggested, McDonald's should include it in its menu to go fully Indian.
Another Twitter user said McDonald's Indian menu would not be complete without lassi, a sweet yogurt-based thick drink.
While McDonald's is trying to become more Indian, some local shops try hard to look global and name themselves after popular global fast-food chains, often with a twist. Kerala is a state in southern India, where famous meals include sadya - a feast served on a banana leaf. KFC would look very different if it were done Indian-style!
If Subway had started in India, it might have been inspired by the popular south Indian surname Subramanian. It would sell rice cakes and lentil stew (sambar), not sandwiches and salads.
US Pizza is a popular food chain across India, where pizzas are often connected with the US rather than any other country. In that spirit, there is absolutely no reason why "US" can't also stand for "Uttam Singh", which is a popular north Indian name!
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38633567
|
Natalie Portman on playing Jackie Kennedy - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
The actress says her latest role is "a portrait of grief and incredible sorrow".
| null |
Jackie Kennedy is remembered for her style and elegance, as well as what happened in Dallas in 1963, but a new film examines what life was like for the wife of JFK before and after his assassination.
Natalie Portman, who plays the former first lady, spoke to Tom Brook about the role, and about her thoughts on President-elect Donald Trump.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38662080
|
Westmonster: Arron Banks launches anti-establishment website - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The businessman who bankrolled the Brexit campaign reveals his latest venture to shake up the political landscape.
|
Entertainment & Arts
|
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Amol Rajan reports on the launch of the Westmonster website
Arron Banks, the former UKIP donor who bankrolled the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, is making a move into the media sector by backing an anti-establishment news website.
I can reveal that Westmonster is co-owned by Michael Heaver, former press adviser to Nigel Farage. The 27-year-old, who together with Mr Banks will own 50% of the website, will edit it day to day.
Modelled on the Drudge Report, the American aggregator site that generates huge traffic, Westmonster will be powered by the social media reach of Leave.EU, the campaign to which Mr Banks gave close to £7m - the largest donation in British political history.
Leave.EU has nearly 800,000 followers on Facebook and Mr Heaver believes he can use that base to generate substantial traffic from day one.
Westmonster will publish some original news, and Mr Heaver hopes to enlist more celebrity writers than backbench MPs.
The site will launch with an article from Nigel Farage, and Mr Heaver is open about wanting to ape the opinionated, anti-establishment, highly provocative tone of Breitbart.
This launch is significant for several reasons. It shows that the anti-establishment media which helped to power the campaign of Donald Trump is coming to Britain.
It's no coincidence that Westmonster is launching the day before Mr Trump's inauguration - an event that will be attended, almost alone among Brits, by Nigel Farage, Arron Banks, and Mr Banks's business associate Andy Wigmore, who are together hosting a celebratory party on Saturday night in a hotel across the road from the White House.
Banks has booked out an entire floor of the Hay-Adams Hotel on Saturday night, and - logistics permitting - the plan is for the new President to attend, along with his close friend the Governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant.
It also marks a significant acceleration of Mr Banks's involvement in British public life.
I spent time with him in the nondescript offices of his insurance company on the edge of Bristol on Tuesday, with a Premier Inn on one side and the M4-M5 junction on the other.
Arron Banks donated millions to the Brexit campaign
He is an extremely intriguing character, as this superb profile for Radio 4 pointed out.
He tweets vigorously and his politics do not fit into the anachronistic right-left spectrum through which so much of Westminster is still naively interpreted.
For instance, he favours nationalisation of Britain's railways and some utilities over their present near-monopoly status, harbours a visceral hatred of many Tories, and has had several conversations with Labour MPs about wooing them over to the populist Momentum-style movement that he intends to launch in the coming months.
I also revealed in December that he has expressed interest in more traditional media - that is, The Daily Telegraph.
Now, as I put to him yesterday, he has become Britain's latest media baron. He helps to show how the rise of digital media has not so much blurred the distinction between media and politics as abolished it; how the culture wars raging in the US are being imported here; and how traditional media - including the BBC - face ferocious competition like never before.
Watch my report for Wednesday's BBC News at Ten.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38650596
|
Man creates carousel on Helsinki open water - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
A 200-tonne ice carousel has been created on a frozen bay in Helsinki. The carousel is said to be 36 metres in diameter.
| null |
A 200-tonne ice carousel has been created on a frozen bay in Helsinki. It is said to be 36 metres in diameter.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38668375
|
Family traced after plea over watch from torpedoed SS Athenia - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
An appeal for information about the original owner of a watch gifted to a Scottish museum helps reunite members of his family.
|
Glasgow & West Scotland
|
The museum appealed for information about the owner of the watch
An appeal for information about the original owner of a watch gifted to a Scottish museum has helped reunite members of his family.
Sidney Worrall was a cook on board the SS Athenia, the first British ship to be sunk by Germany in World War Two.
He gave his watch to a Canadian passenger and almost 80 years later it ended up at Glasgow's Riverside Museum.
Sixteen members of his family responded to the museum curator's plea for more details about Mr Worrall.
The SS Athenia was a transatlantic passenger liner built in Glasgow which sailed between the UK and Canada.
The ship was sunk by a torpedo from a German submarine in September 1939, off the coast of Ireland.
Mr Worrall was badly injured in the attack, which killed 117 people, and passed his watch to a Canadian man who was in the same lifeboat, Gerry Hutchinson.
When Mr Hutchinson died, his son Rob donated the watch to the Riverside Museum.
Family members Cath Muir and Dr Ernie Worrall were introduced when they viewed the watch at the Riverside Museum
The Hutchisons believed Mr Worrall had died but the museum later learned he survived his injuries.
He went on to marry and have a daughter and died in 1973. Family members said he never mentioned the watch he had left in the hands of a stranger.
Among those to come forward in response to the museum's appeal for information were his granddaughter Cath Muir and nephew Dr Ernie Worrall, who did not know each other.
Ms Muir said: "What a surprise it was when by husband told me there was an appeal for information on my grandfather. I remember him as a child. He was very badly burned when the Athenia was attacked and had many skin grafts on his face and legs. He told us that they were his maps of the world.
"After returning from Galway he was pensioned out of the Merchant Navy due to the injuries he sustained, but he returned to sea to serve in the war, he felt it was his duty to do so, but that meant he had to forgo part of his pension. After the war he worked as a hospital porter in Law Hospital, Lanarkshire.
"I am indebted to Gerry for keeping my grandfather's watch safe all these years and I look forward to bringing my own grandchildren to Riverside to see it on display soon."
The seaman's nephew, Dr Worrall, added: "I was made aware of Riverside's search for my uncle Sid. My father had told me all about him being caught up in the torpedoing of the Athenia.
"A day or so after the sinking, my grandmother's neighbour was at the cinema and saw on the Pathe newsreel that night my uncle being landed as a survivor in Galway. At the end of the picture show she told my grandmother, who at that point would have been unaware whether her son had been killed or had been rescued.
"My grandmother hot-footed it down to the cinema just as the manager was closing up for the night and he kindly opened up and re-ran the newsreel for her while she sat in this empty cinema and was able to be reassured that he was indeed alive."
He added: "Not only has Emily's detective work allowed me to learn more about my family's history, it has put me in touch with Cath and family I didn't know before."
Rob Hutchinson, who gifted the watch to the Riverside, said: "I am delighted that the museum has been able to draw together the two ends of this very long story.
"I look forward to one day seeing the museum's display and possibly meeting Sid's family. My father would have been so pleased."
The watch will go on display as part of an updated SS Athenia exhibition at the Riverside which is expected to open in summer 2017.
Curator Emily Malcolm said: "It is wonderful to welcome Cath and Ernie to Riverside, to show them Sid's watch and to introduce them to Rob in Canada. I am so pleased they got in touch.
"We are delighted the family is happy to help Glasgow Museums complete Sid's story and put the watch on display. It's good that something so positive has come from such a disaster."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38656923
|
Babies remember their birth language - scientists - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Babies learn language in the early months of life, and retain this knowledge, say scientists.
|
Science & Environment
|
The first year of life is a time of astonishing linguistic development
Babies build knowledge about the language they hear even in the first few months of life, research shows.
If you move countries and forget your birth language, you retain this hidden ability, according to a study.
Dutch-speaking adults adopted from South Korea exceeded expectations at Korean pronunciation when retrained after losing their birth language.
Scientists say parents should talk to babies as much as possible in early life.
Dr Jiyoun Choi of Hanyang University in Seoul led the research.
The study is the first to show that the early experience of adopted children in their birth language gives them an advantage decades later even if they think it is forgotten, she said.
''This finding indicates that useful language knowledge is laid down in [the] very early months of life, which can be retained without further input of the language and revealed via re-learning,'' she told BBC News.
In the study, adults aged about 30 who had been adopted as babies by Dutch-speaking families were asked to pronounce Korean consonants after a short training course.
Korean consonants are unlike those spoken in Dutch.
The participants were compared with a group of adults who had not been exposed to the Korean language as children and then rated by native Korean speakers.
Both groups performed to the same level before training, but after training the international adoptees exceeded expectations.
There was no difference between children who were adopted under six months of age - before they could speak - and those who were adopted after 17 months, when they had learned to talk.
This suggests that the language knowledge retained is abstract in nature, rather than dependent on the amount of experience.
Dr Jiyoun Choi said there were practical messages for parents.
''Please remember that [the] language learning process occurs very early in life, and useful language knowledge is laid down in the very early months of life as our study suggests,'' she said.
''Try to talk to your babies as much as possible because they are absorbing and digesting what you are saying.''
The process of acquiring language starts extremely early, even while the child is still in the womb.
Babies have learned their mother's voice by the time they are born.
It has long been known that the foundations for speaking and listening to a native language are laid down very early in life.
But it was not known until now that very early language acquisition is an abstract process.
The research is published in the journal, Royal Society Open Science.
• None Early development of abstract language knowledge- evidence from perception–production transfer of birth-language memory - Open Science The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38653906
|
My Shop: Kristin Baybars' toy shop in London - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Kristin Baybars has made and sold toys from her shop for 40 years - and modern toys don't impress her.
| null |
Kristin Baybars has been making and selling toys for the past four decades from her self-named shop in Gospel Oak, London.
Money has never been her motive but with more people shopping online, times are getting harder - and a housing development next door is adding to her woes.
Video journalist Dougal Shaw went to visit her to find out what she makes of modern toys.
This video is part of a series from the BBC Business Unit called My Shop. The series focuses on distinctive, independent shops and is filmed on a smartphone. To suggest a shop email us. For the latest updates about the series follow video journalist Dougal Shaw on Twitter or Facebook.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38642319
|
Wheelchair user Doug Paulley on winning bus buggy dispute - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Wheelchair user Doug Paulley says the case "will hopefully make a major difference for disabled travellers".
| null |
Speaking after the judgement, wheelchair user Doug Paulley says the case "will hopefully make a major difference for disabled travellers".
Wheelchair user Doug Paulley brought his case after he was told he could not get on a bus to Leeds in 2012 when a mother with a pushchair refused to move.
He had argued operator FirstGroup's "requesting, not requiring" policy was discriminatory.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38664446
|
Reality Check: How could customs union deal work? - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Theresa May says she wants an agreement with the customs union but not full membership.
|
Business
|
The claim: The UK could negotiate an agreement that gives some of the benefits of customs union membership while still allowing other trade deals to be negotiated.
Reality Check verdict: Turkey has a deal for partial membership of the customs union so it is possible, but the terms are not favourable to Turkey. The prime minister says she does not want to replicate any existing agreements. There is a limit to what the government will be able to achieve in the negotiations if it is not prepared to impose the EU's tariffs on non-EU countries.
Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Tuesday that the UK would definitely not continue to be a full member of the customs union because that would prevent trade deals being negotiated with non-EU countries.
But she said that she did want to reach some sort of customs agreement with the EU.
"Whether that means we must reach a completely new customs agreement, become an associate member of the customs union in some way or remain a signatory to some elements of it, I hold no preconceived position," she said.
The EU customs union is a trade agreement between European countries that they will not impose tariffs (taxes on imports) on each other's goods and agree to impose common external tariffs on goods from other countries outside the customs union.
It means that once a product is inside the customs zone it can be transported without customs checks to any other country in the union.
Mrs May specified that there were two parts of the customs union that she could not accept.
One of them was the common external tariff, because having to impose the tariff would get in the way of free trade agreements outside the EU.
The other was the common commercial policy, which is the part of the EU treaties that sets out the principles for EU trade, including that it is the EU that sets external tariffs and negotiates trade deals, rather than individual member states.
The customs union is made up of the 28 EU members states and Monaco.
The EU also has separate customs union agreements with Turkey, Andorra and San Marino.
That means Turkey has to impose the common external tariff and meet EU regulations on its industrial products, but not its unprocessed agricultural ones.
So when Turkey negotiates trade agreements with other countries, it still has to impose the EU's external tariff on industrial products and processed agricultural products (unless those countries also have trade deals with the EU).
It's also a one-sided agreement, with non-EU countries that have free trade agreements with the EU automatically getting access to Turkish markets although Turkey does not get access to theirs.
And it means that on the products covered by the agreement, Turkey must keep to EU regulations.
Clearly the EU regulations would not currently be a problem for UK companies, which already follow them, but a Turkey-style deal would mean being bound by future changes to the regulations without having any say in them.
The question is whether the UK, which has stressed it does not want to replicate any existing agreements, could negotiate a deal with the EU that would allow tariff-free access for some industries to the customs union without getting in the way of the UK's trade agreements with other countries.
Theresa May said she wanted the UK's trade with the EU to be "as frictionless as possible", without specifying what benefits she would like to keep.
But there is a limit to what the UK can secure in the negotiations without agreeing to the EU's tariffs on non-EU countries, because that would mean that other countries could get a back-door, tariff-free route into the EU.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38654147
|
Plymouth Argyle fan meets FA Cup tie 'guardian angels' after son's death - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
A fan who learned his son had died while watching an FA Cup game is reunited with two men who comforted him.
|
Devon
|
A Liverpool fan led a fundraising campaign for Daniel May after he heard of the young man's death
A man who was watching Plymouth Argyle play Liverpool at Anfield when he found out his son had died has been reunited with two men who comforted him.
Argyle fan Kevin May was at the clubs' FA Cup tie on 8 January when he received a text with the news.
His son Daniel, 25, was quadriplegic, blind and had cerebral palsy following an operation he had as a baby.
Liverpool brought the unnamed men to Home Park for Wednesday night's replay, along with a special banner.
Bearing the slogan "RIP Daniel May You'll Never Walk Alone", it was unfurled at the cup tie.
Kevin May: "Home Park is where I go to worship and for them to be thinking of Daniel is beyond words"
Fans from both sides also joined a minute's applause in the 25th minute, to mark Daniel's age.
Mr May, from Plymouth, described the two men who looked after him during the Anfield clash as his "guardian angels".
Speaking about the special welcome organised by Liverpool, Mr May said: "I had a lovely time with them."
He said before the meeting that it would be "poignant, very nice, and very sad", but he was "determined to focus on the positives, with many thousands of people thinking of my boy Daniel".
"Home Park is where I go to worship and for them to be thinking of Daniel is beyond words," he said.
A policeman guided Mr May out of the crowd after he heard the shock news
Mr May was told on the phone that Daniel had died as he watched the first cup game alongside thousands of Plymouth supporters.
The distraught dad, who was taken to a quiet room away from the crowd after receiving the news, later thanked a policeman and staff at Anfield for their support.
His message led to a fundraising campaign led by a Liverpool fan Anthony Grice to pay for the banner in memory of Daniel, who lived in Surrey with his mother.
Mr May said he would take the banner to Daniel's funeral on 7 February.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-38667697
|
Formula 1 sale to Liberty Media approved by FIA - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Formula 1's governing body the FIA approves the sale of the sport's commercial rights to Liberty Media.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
Formula 1's governing body the FIA has approved the sale of the sport's commercial rights to Liberty Media.
The US company is in the process of finalising a purchase of a controlling interest in Formula 1.
The FIA's approval was the final regulatory hurdle before the sale, which will see Liberty take over from investment group CVC Capital Partners.
The FIA believed its partnership with Liberty will "ensure the continued success and development" of F1.
Liberty is expected to complete its takeover of the sport within the next few weeks.
It bought just over 18% of the shares in Delta Topco, the holding company of the F1 Group, in September.
Liberty announced before Christmas that it had cleared all regulatory hurdles and had the necessary approvals for the purchase.
And on Tuesday in Colorado, the company's shareholders approved the buy-out.
Its purchase of its second tranche of shares, to take its holding to 35.3%, is due to be completed within the next few weeks.
Liberty has said it wants to protect F1's historic European races, establish new races in the USA and Latin America and grow the sport through the exploitation of digital media.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/38668906
|
Australian Open 2017: Andy Murray prepares for Andrey Rublev in second round - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
World number one Andy Murray admits he does not know much about his Australian Open second round opponent Andrey Rublev.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra and text updates on the BBC Sport website and app.
World number one Andy Murray has admitted he does not know much about his Australian Open second round opponent Andrey Rublev.
Murray will face the 19-year-old Russian, ranked 152nd in the world, on Wednesday from 09:30 GMT.
Fellow Briton Dan Evans will also be in action in Melbourne, against seventh seed Marin Cilic around 07:00 GMT.
"I've never hit with him or played against him, but I've seen him play and he goes for it," Murray said.
"I know a little bit about him and he doesn't hold back. He hits a big ball.''
• None Order of play - who plays when?
Rublev is appearing in his second Grand Slam - he was knocked out in the first round of the US Open in 2015.
"I'm so excited, I have nothing to lose. He's the best tennis player at the moment. So I will just try to take a great experience from this," he said.
Murray was left frustrated after his first round victory over Illya Marchenko, taking two hours and 48 minutes to register a three-set win.
"I have had a lot of tough losses here, for sure,'' said Murray, who has been beaten in the final in Melbourne five times in seven years.
"I have played some of my best tennis on hard courts here. But I keep coming back to try. I'll keep doing that until I'm done.''
Elsewhere, Roger Federer faces American Noah Rubin from 04:00, while fourth seed Stan Wawrinka will play Rubin's compatriot Steve Johnson.
World number one Angelique Kerber plays Germany's Carina Witthoeft, while Serena and Venus Williams appear in the first round of the doubles, playing Hungary's Timea Babos and Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
We'll learn a lot more about Rublev in this match. He is a big-hitting player who goes after the shots and plays high-octane tennis.
It'll be good to see what this young man can bring but it's a very tough ask for someone of that age against Andy.
It's an environment that Andy really enjoys. You would expect him to get the job done, but he will study him and won't take anything for granted.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38647714
|
Europe sees UK set for 'hard' Brexit after May speech - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Europeans see a "hard" UK Brexit looming - but welcome more British clarity on future EU ties.
|
Europe
|
Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit speech is being seen in Europe as the "hard" option of full UK withdrawal - and there is some relief that the British position is clearer now.
"Finally we have a little more clarity re the British plans," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
Germany also wanted a "close and trusting relationship", he said.
"Trade as free as possible, full control on immigration... where is the give for all the take?" he asked.
The Italian daily La Repubblica commented: "Out of the EU, out of common market, out of everything. It appears that Theresa May's intention through negotiations with the EU at the end of March is 'a hard Brexit' - a very hard Brexit indeed."
One of the top EU officials, European Council president Donald Tusk, voiced regret but some relief too in a tweet: "Sad process, surrealistic times but at least more realistic announcement on #Brexit."
Belgian liberal Guy Verhofstadt, named as the European Parliament's lead negotiator on Brexit, warned that any deal for the UK would be worse than EU membership.
He said it was an "illusion" for Mrs May to suggest "that you can go out of the single market, that you can go out of the customs union and that you can cherry-pick, that you can have still a number of advantages - I think that will not happen".
Mrs May's mention of a possible alternative economic model for the UK was a "threat", he said, that could obstruct the negotiations.
Norway's Aftenposten daily said Mrs May's speech signalled "a clear rejection of a Norwegian-type involvement in the [EU] internal market".
Norway has very close ties to the EU - as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) it has open, tariff-free access to the EU single market, though Norwegian fisheries and agriculture are excluded.
The price for that advantage is high Norwegian contributions to the EU budget and automatic acceptance of most EU laws.
Gatwick airport border control: Mrs May has pledged to curb immigration from the EU
"Even though she rejects the term, it is indeed a hard Brexit," commented France's Le Figaro daily.
FN vice-president Florian Philippot tweeted: "Bravo to T. May who respects her people with a 'clear and clean' Brexit. Sovereignty cannot be a half-measure. French independence soon!"
Michael Fuchs, a close conservative ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, accused Mrs May of "cherry-picking" in her speech, Sky News reported in a tweet.
EU politicians have stressed that they will not let the UK "cherry-pick" parts of its EU membership terms.
They insist that the single market's four freedoms - covering goods, services, capital and labour - cannot be diluted.
The Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad called Mrs May's speech "not just a bit of Brexit but the full whack".
"Bye bye EU... the unspoken, big threat from London is creating a tax paradise in front of the gates of Europe," it said.
Sweden's former Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted: "I regret the approach the UK government has taken.
"I think most of the EU would have preferred a closer relationship with the UK."
Sweden has long been one of the UK's closest allies in the EU.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38650877
|
All aboard the China-to-London freight train - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The Yiwu-to-Barking express is the newest way to send your freight from China to Europe.
|
Business
|
It's not on a boat, it's not on a plane, it's on a train. The newest way to send your freight from China to Europe involves spending 15 days on a train that doesn't have a buffet car in sight.
On 3 January in Yiwu in eastern China, a bright orange locomotive pulling 44 containers laden with suitcases, clothes and an assortment of household goods set off on a 7,500-mile (12,000km) journey to western Europe.
Ten containers were taken off at the German cargo hub of Duisburg. The rest made up the first cargo train from China to arrive in London at Barking's Eurohub freight terminal.
London is the 15th European city to find its way on to the ever-expanding map of destinations for China's rail cargo. Last year, 1,702 freight trains made the voyage to Europe, more than double the 2015 figure.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Yiwu Timex Industrial Investments, which is running this service with China's state-run railways, says prices are half that of air cargo and cut two weeks off the journey time by sea.
The UK's biggest supermarket, Tesco, doesn't have any goods on this particular train but does use rail to carry toys, electrical goods, homeware and clothing from China to European rail hubs such as Bratislava in Slovakia and Krasnaje in Belarus.
Alistair Lindsay, Tesco's head of global logistics, says the supermarket prefers shipping its goods because this is the most environmentally friendly way, as well as offering the best value for money, but that "where we need to move products quicker we have that option to do it by rail".
This decision would normally be driven by customer demand for particular products, he says.
It demonstrates how market demand and the realities of globalisation are increasingly allowing China's President Xi Jinping to realise his ambitious plan to revive the ancient Silk Road.
For centuries the fabled trade route from the ancient capital of Xian provided a link to the bustling markets of European cities such as Istanbul and Venice.
In the 21st Century China has become the world's biggest exporter, with the export of goods totalling $2.28 trillion (£1.85tn) in 2015.
The Silk Road provided a link to the markets of European cities like Istanbul and Venice
This rail expansion is part of President Xi's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) trade policy. For Beijing it offers another way to sustain its economic growth.
Kazakhstan is one of the countries on the route and it was there that Mr Xi first outlined his vision in a speech in 2013 saying, "This will be a great undertaking benefiting the people of all countries along the route."
Extolling the virtues of globalisation was a theme he repeated again at Davos this week.
For some, this is as much political as economic, offering Beijing the chance to project soft power as well as demonstrating it has the influence to thread disparate nations from Russia to Spain together.
China is also pushing its version of a "maritime silk road for example", by building a $1.4bn port city in Sri Lanka
"[OBOR] is set to become Xi Jinping's grand legacy," says Dr Sam Beatson, of King's College London.
"Regardless of the returns on offer... the policies will continue to be pushed as a means of seeking to fulfil Xi's dream under his leadership."
One of the other legacies President Xi is trying to tackle is China's pollution problem. While rail cargo is not as green as sea transport it emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) than air travel.
Freight transport accounts for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions
This is the "first argument when trying to get our customers to re-evaluate their options", says Johan Ignell, rail freight manager at Swedish cargo firm Greencarrier.
It calculates that a 40ft (12m) container with 20 tonnes of cargo would account for just 4% of the CO2 emissions it would take to move it by air (though emissions would be more than halved again if it were moved by sea).
Freight transport accounts for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but it is "fraught with difficulty" to compare emissions from different transport modes, says Prof Alan McKinnon of Germany's Kuehne Logistics University.
Prof McKinnon, one of the authors of a 2014 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says "load factor, energy efficiency and power sources all make a difference and can be hard to ascertain".
China is now the world's biggest exporter
He adds: "While shifting air cargo to rail will certainly cut emissions, container shipping will continue to command a significant carbon advantage over transcontinental rail, particularly now that most vessels are slow steaming to save fuel."
There is also a business case for this emerging trade route to grow. Not least among European companies looking to export to China.
At the moment there are no plans to run a return train service from London but that could change quickly. China is already the European Union's second biggest export market - though there is an EU trade deficit in goods of about $190bn.
For UK companies facing up to the reality of Brexit, China is an attractive proposition and the train carries new opportunities.
Brand Avenue is a company that already exports British-made goods including cosmetics and jewellery to China, and chief executive Jody Jacobs says he's exploring moving to rail.
"We deal a lot in goods which weigh a lot in comparison to their volume [which is] where airfreight becomes expensive, such as cosmetics and baby food.
"So for us a service which is quicker than sea and cheaper than air is a great middle ground."
For UK companies facing up to the reality of Brexit, China is an attractive proposition
For established cargo companies rail also offers the potential for growth. Shipping lines have seen profits fall because of overcapacity attributed to the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
The world's biggest shipping company, Maersk, told the BBC it is investigating "possible opportunities" in long-distance rail, though it sees them as supplementary to sea and air routes.
China is planning another 20 European routes for rail freight, and with the world's demand for consumer goods continuing to grow, all the ingredients seem to be there for rail to help the global economy steam ahead in 2017 and beyond.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38654176
|
Studying at the Bahai secret university - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Iran's Bahai minority is forbidden from studying at university - but they have a way round it, at least until it comes to postgraduate degrees.
|
Magazine
|
Mona studied at the underground Bahai university 10 years after Shirin
The largest non-Muslim minority in Iran, the Bahais, are persecuted in many ways - one being that they are forbidden from attending university. Some study in secret, but for those who want to do a postgraduate degree the only solution is to leave their country and study abroad.
"I remember my father showing me the scars he had on his head from when he used to be beaten up by the children of his town on his way to school," says Shirin. "So, of course, I didn't tell my father that I was experiencing the same when I was growing up in Iran in the 1980s. I knew he prayed and hoped that the world would get better."
In fact, persecution of the Bahais only increased following the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
And when Shirin's son, Khosru, started going to school, she had to hide more bad news from her father.
"I did not tell him that the children of the children of the children who left him scarred, are now calling my son untouchable," she says.
When, in the eighth grade, Khosru told the other children he was Bahai they dropped him like a stone.
"The kids wouldn't touch me," he says, "and if I were to touch them, they'd go and take a shower."
Since the creation of the Bahai faith in the mid-19th Century, the Iranian Shia establishment has called them "a deviant sect", principally because they reject the Muslim belief that Mohammed was the last prophet.
On official websites they are described as apostates, and as "unclean".
But it is when a student has finished school that the problems really begin.
As a Bahai, Shirin was told she could not enter university. Her only option was to secretly attend the Bahais' own clandestine university - the Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), set up in the mid-1980s by Bahai teachers and students who had been thrown out of Iranian universities after the revolution.
Universities are open to young women in Iran, but not if they are Bahai
Shirin enrolled in 1994. At that time, only two BA courses were available -in Science or Religious Studies - so she decided to study comparative religion.
Lectures took place in improvised classrooms in private homes all around Tehran. It took six years to complete her course, and it was then that she hit an impenetrable wall. There was no scope to do an MA or a PhD, and there was no scope for employment where her skills could be used.
Soon afterwards, a wave of crackdowns on the Bahai intelligentsia began, with raids on clandestine classrooms and the arrest of many BIHE teachers. Shirin saw her world was closing in on her. So when she heard about a domestic worker's visa scheme in the UK, she jumped at it.
"I applied straight away without wasting time, it didn't matter what the visa was called. I had to leave," she says.
Shirin arrived in the UK in 2003 and combined her domestic work with an evening job at an Italian restaurant in Scarborough. But she never forgot what she came to do, what she must achieve.
On a dark and smoggy English morning, she boldly walked through the doors of Birmingham University, and announced that she had a degree in religion from an underground university in Tehran.
To her great surprise, a week later, she was summoned back and was offered a place.
Listen to Lipika Pelham's report on the Bahai, The World's Faith, for Heart and Soul on the BBC World Service
"It was more than a miracle - it was beyond expectation, beyond my wildest dream," she says. "Till today, I feel it was the best reward I received for never compromising my faith."
Shirin finished her degree in 2006 and left the UK to join her brother in the US, where many of her family, friends and co-religionists have, over the years, found sanctuary from persecution.
Shirin (right) and a friend in New York
But soon another crackdown against the Bahais began, at home in Iran.
In 2008, seven members of the Bahai administrative body, Yaran, were arrested and charged with among other things, spying for Israel. After a trial in a Revolutionary Court in 2010, they were sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
At this time another young Bahai woman, Mona, was applying to university in Tehran.
"I took an entrance exam at the University of Tehran - they were supposed to send a card saying how and where you should register if you were accepted, and you must write your religion on the card," she says.
"I wrote that I was not Muslim. There was an option that said 'other', and I ticked that box. There was no option for Bahai.
"When they sent back the card, they said, 'OK, you may register,' and in the place of religion, they wrote, Islam."
"In my belief, you're not supposed to lie about your faith even when facing death. So I wrote back, I was not Muslim. They said, 'Good luck, you can't enter university.'"
Like Shirin, Mona had only one option - the clandestine university, and it was an unforgettable experience.
"I remember the faces of all my friends who were coming from other cities in Iran, from far away," she says. "It took them maybe 16 - 20 hours to get to Tehran. Their faces looked so tired.
"It was really hard. We had one class from 08:00 to 12:00 in the east of Tehran, and the second class from 14:00 to 18:00 on the west side - it was exhausting! Sometimes we didn't have physical teachers, we had them over Skype, who were teaching us from the US, Canada."
After she graduated, she faced the same difficulties Shirin had experienced a decade earlier - and opted for a similar solution.
In 2009, she escaped to New York, via Austria, under an international religious refugee repatriation programme.
When I met her recently in Joe's Coffee, a lively meeting place for students and teachers at Columbia University, she had just completed her MA in Psychology. She was over the moon.
"It feels amazing, I can't believe it's all done and I'll even have a graduation! When I graduated from the BIHE, they arrested all my teachers, Bahai teachers. And we never had a graduation day."
The US is home to one of the largest Bahai populations in the world, their presence dating back at least to 1912, when Abdul Baha, the son of the faith's founder, Baha'u'llah, spent 11 months in the country, promoting the religion.
The BIHE degrees are accepted by most US universities - as Mona's was at Columbia University - and many BIHE volunteers are based in the US.
"Students and instructors in Iran can end up in jail just for being students and instructors. So they are not only doing something that is hard for them to do, but dangerous to do," says Prof Thane Terril, a convert to the Bahai faith who now runs online teacher training courses for post-graduate students.
"The motivation for the students is like a person in the desert without water."
Sipping coffee in the café of the former hotel, Ansonia, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where Abdul Baha once stayed, Shirin says that she could never understand what the regime has against the Bahais.
"Abdul Baha emphasised that the East and West must meet," she says. "I think the collective approach to life is what we think of as being the oriental or Eastern culture, and the individualist approach to life is considered to be Western. And when the two merge, you have a very beautiful culture."
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38656871
|
Seeds of a Trump-Republican conflict - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Whether by plan or accident, Donald Trump is undermining the Republican Party's legislative agenda.
|
US & Canada
|
With just days to go before inauguration, Donald Trump is making life rather difficult for his party's leadership in Congress.
It could be by accident. It could be part of a plan to establish his independent credentials. Or it could simply be an early attempt at framing Republican policies in terms palatable to his working-class supporters.
Whatever the reason, Mr Trump has staked out positions that are not exactly in harmony with Republican orthodoxy or the policy direction in which the Republican-led Congress seems to be heading.
Over the weekend Mr Trump told the Washington Post that the goal of his healthcare reform plan, following repeal of the Affordable Care Act, is "insurance for everybody".
"There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it," the president-elect said. "That's not going to happen with us."
Universal coverage is an objective President Barack Obama's healthcare reform sought, but never actually achieved. According to the federal government, even with full implementation of Obamacare and its insurance-coverage mandate, the US uninsured rate was 8.6% in 2016 - albeit a 50-year low.
"Insurance for everybody," outside a single-payer government-provided healthcare plan, is virtually unachievable.
This is why, when Republican congressional leaders describe their healthcare reform proposals, they generally use the term "universal access" not "universal coverage".
"Our goal here is to make sure that everybody can buy coverage or find coverage if they choose to," a Republican House of Representatives aide told reporters in December.
Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan may not see eye-to-eye on universal healthcare coverage.
The yet-to-be announced plan congressional Republicans are currently formulating is more likely to be a blend of the measures floated by various conservatives in the past.
For instance Congressman Tom Price, Mr Trump's nominee to be health and human services secretary, suggested a system that leaned heavily on tax credits and an expansion of existing health-savings accounts, where individuals could put aside untaxed money to pay for future medical needs.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has proposed the creation of federally funded high-risk insurance pools that would enrol individuals who couldn't get insurances elsewhere because of pre-existing medical conditions or other complicating factors.
None of these would come close to approaching universal coverage or even Mr Obama's uninsured mark over the past few years, however.
As if that weren't enough, Mr Trump also advocated using the buying power of the federal Medicare prescription-drug programme for the elderly to drive down the cost of pharmaceuticals.
While this has long been a goal of Democrats, conservatives have opposed the idea for more than a decade. It's enough to make rank-and-file Republicans reach for their antacids.
Looming over this entire discussion is a Congressional Budget Office report released on Tuesday that predicts a straight-up repeal of Obamacare without any kind of a replacement would result in a doubling of premiums in the individual insurance market by 2026, at which point a total of 32 million Americans would have lost their coverage.
Mr Trump, in his comments this weekend, has essentially laid down a marker that repeal will be quickly followed by a replacement that will do a better job advancing Democratic goals of lower drug prices and more universal coverage than the Democrats' own best attempt.
It is, to put it bluntly, a high bar to reach.
If reshaping the US healthcare system turns out to be a challenge, at least tax reform was considered a low-hanging fruit for Mr Trump and his party. Even here, however, the president-elect has made comments that undermine Republican efforts to achieve legislative consensus.
A key part of the nascent congressional tax plan involved something called "border adjustments", which would tax corporations based on their final point of sale and not on where they are based. This would allow the US to give preference to businesses based in the US - one of Mr Trump's key goals during the campaign. It would also raise enough revenue to allow the overall US tax rate to be lowered from its current 35% mark.
Mr Trump, however, said the idea was "too complicated".
"Anytime I hear border adjustment, I don't love it," he said. "Because usually it means we're going to get adjusted into a bad deal."
Mr Trump appears to support a more direct border tariff, not the more complicated congressional work-around. On Monday he threatened European automakers with a 35% tax on foreign-made vehicles sold in the US.
The problem this presents for both the president-elect and congressional leaders is it runs directly against his party's long-standing free-trade positions - principles many in Congress have campaigned, and won, on for years. They might be able to dance around the issue with border adjustments and corporate tax reform, but Mr Trump seems more like a bull than a ballerina.
It's possible to imagine that Mr Trump's recent comments were just, to put it delicately, rhetorical missteps and that he, in fact, is actually on the same wavelength as his Republican colleagues in Congress.
Then again, when pressed by the Washington Post on how he could get his healthcare priorities advanced despite an apparent conflict with current Republican plans, Mr Trump dug in his heels.
"The Congress can't get cold feet because the people will not let that happen," Mr Trump said.
"I think we will get approval. I won't tell you how, but we will get approval. You see what's happened in the House in recent weeks."
That was an apparent reference to Mr Trump's Twitter-based effort to force House Republicans to back away from a plan to weaken an independent congressional ethics investigation office several weeks ago.
Donald Trump says "the people" won't let Congress back away from his ideas
Whether he was directly responsible for causing the legislators to change course or simply reflecting popular outcry is open to debate, but the president-elect seems to be feeling his oats.
And if it's this way on tax law and healthcare reform - areas where Republicans and Mr Trump have a fair amount of ideological common ground - imagine what might happen when the president tries to advance his more controversial ideas on immigration or trade. Or pushes his childcare proposal, which met with significant opposition from his party "allies" pretty much from the moment he proposed them last October.
And what's in store if Mr Ryan goes through with his long-sought dream of entitlement reform - despite Mr Trump's campaign pledges not to touch Medicare or Social Security benefits?
Candidate Trump was a political wild-card, willing to buck conventional wisdom and his own party seemingly on whim.
Early indications are President Trump could do more of the same. As Republicans celebrate this weekend, storm clouds may be forming on the horizon.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38656814
|
Marrying the man who saved my life - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Melissa Dohme was viciously stabbed more than 30 times by her ex-boyfriend. She survived against all the odds and found love in an unexpected place.
|
Magazine
|
Melissa Dohme, from Florida, was 20 years old when she was stabbed more than 30 times and left for dead by her ex-boyfriend. Against all the odds she survived, though she thought she would never have another relationship. But then, as she describes here, she found love in an unexpected place.
Before the attack I was a college student working full-time in the reception of a local hospital. My dream was to become a nurse.
I was dating Robert Burton, who I had met in high school. We hung out all the time, texting and talking. He was very charming and funny and kind of like a gentle giant.
I noticed his behaviour changed, though, when I started applying to universities. He became very jealous. He would belittle me and not want me to succeed. He would lie about things and if I confronted him he had an explosive temper.
I tried to break up with him but he told me that, as his girlfriend, I should be helping him, not abandoning him. He said he would kill himself if I left him.
Melissa says Robert was funny and kind when they first met
It escalated to physical abuse. One day in October 2011, I drove us home as he had been drinking. He said that I shut the door before he had finished speaking and that set him off. He started hitting and punching me. I was able to break free and run away to call the police, who arrived and arrested him. He was charged with domestic battery and sentenced to 10 hours in jail. I thought I was finally free of him.
Over the next couple of months he left me alone. I learned through social media that he had another girlfriend, so I really thought he was over me.
Then, on 24 January 2012, he called me at 2am. He had gone to court that morning for the battery charge and said he needed closure from our terrible relationship and just wanted a hug. If I saw him just one more time he said would leave me alone forever.
I didn't listen to my intuition telling me it was wrong, and that was the biggest mistake I ever made. I took my pepper spray and phone, thinking I could protect myself if I needed to.
As soon as I walked out there he reached his arms out for a hug, but he had a switchblade in his hand. He flipped it open and he started stabbing me over and over again.
I remember the pain of the first few but after that I went into fight-or-flight mode. I tried to fight back and bite his hand. I was punching and screaming and doing everything I could, but I kept falling to the ground because I was losing so much blood.
A young boy and girl nearby ran over because they heard me screaming, and the girl called 911. After seeing them Robert went and got a bigger knife with a serrated blade from his truck and attacked me with that. He had every intention of killing me. He knew the police were going to come and he wanted to get it finished.
He left me lying in the road and I thought I was going to die. I just prayed to God to save me and give me a chance.
I was drifting away when a police officer shone his light on me. I felt a rush of life come back to me and I was able to state my name and who had attacked me. My speech was very slurred because I had had a stroke from the loss of blood.
My last few memories were in the ambulance. It was very bright and blurry and people were yelling and trying to stabilise me. They put the ventilator in to help me breathe and I knew that was a really bad sign. I thought, "OK, they think I'm about to die." They then said they needed to airlift me and they called for the helicopter.
I later learned from the trauma surgeons that I died on the table several times and they had to resuscitate me over and over.
My wounds were severe. I had a broken skull and jaw. My head and nose were fractured. He had severed my facial nerve, so I had paralysis on the right side of my face. They gave me 12 units of blood and the body holds about seven on average. It was a miracle I survived.
That time in hospital seemed like one very long day, but I was actually in intensive care for several days. At one point I remember motioning for a pen from my family. I needed to know what had happened to my attacker. I couldn't use my right hand because it had been stabbed so many times, so I used my left to write: "Dead, alive or jail?"
My family told me I didn't have to worry, that Robert had been caught and he was not going to harm me now. I felt very relieved.
He had attempted to kill himself by taking sleeping pills and crashing his car into a wall but he failed. He woke up in hospital strapped to the bed with the police by his side.
I faced a long road to recovery. Nineteen of the 32 stab wounds were to my head, neck and face so I didn't look like myself. I was missing teeth. My hair was shaved because they had to stitch up wounds on my head. Half of my face was paralysed.
When I looked in the mirror for the first time afterwards I just sobbed. I was only 20 years old. It was devastating. However, my faith was strong and I knew I wasn't still here on Earth to be mad about what I looked like. I just felt blessed that I was alive.
I had implants in my teeth and my scars slowly faded. I had nerve and muscle surgery in Boston, which helped regenerate my face and give me my smile back. I was keen to get back to school and work as soon as I could.
I assumed I would be single for the rest of my life. I never thought anyone would want to date me because I was damaged and had all this baggage. But I thought I could still use my experiences to help others. I wanted to speak out to let people in abusive relationships know that they deserved to be loved and respected and valued.At one of my speaking events in October 2012 I was delighted to meet the emergency services team who saved my life. One of the firefighters, Cameron, invited my mom and me to go to dinner at the fire department the following week. I was really excited about it.
Afterwards I couldn't stop thinking about Cameron. I knew that I had feelings for him but I was trying to ignore them. I wondered, "Am I feeling this way because he was one of the firemen who helped me?" But the more we talked the more we realised we had in common.
He gave me his number and said, "You know we're here for you," but I thought maybe he was just being nice. Still, I knew I had to see him again so a week later I contacted him and said I had a thank you card for the team. He said I should pop over to the station. I gave them the card and thought I would then leave, but Cameron and I ended up talking for six hours.
It felt like we could talk forever and that's when it became clear there was something special here.
We had different dates, we had a barbecue - we love barbecue in southern Florida - and we went to a shooting range. Cameron showed me how to improve my shooting and I now have a concealed-carry permit. It makes me feel better, that I can protect myself.
Cameron was by my side in August 2013 when I went to court to face the man who tried to kill me. When it was my turn on the stand Robert was staring at me. He was trying to intimidate me by staring me down but I refused to look away. At the end of the trial when all the evidence was being shown his head went down to the table. He finally had to face what he did and he realised he had no more power.
He was given life without parole and I was so relieved and thankful. I walked out of there with my life back.
Cameron and I continued dating. I went to St Petersburg College but decided not to study nursing - I wanted to dedicate my life to speaking out against domestic violence, so I studied Management and Organisational Leadership in Business.
A couple of years later I was invited to give the first pitch at a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game, in recognition of my work in schools talking about violent relationships.
I was on the mound and there wasn't a baseball there so Cameron came out of the dugout to hand me one. Written on the ball were the words: "Will you marry me?"
It was the most surprising moment of my whole life. And then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.
I couldn't speak for a moment as I couldn't find the words. It was just really incredible knowing that he put so much effort in and to making this surprise special for me. And I just I felt very blessed and over the moon. Of course I said yes.
He gave me a beautiful diamond ring that he had picked out and we're going to get married in a few weeks. All the people that saved me, from the first police officer on the scene to the trauma surgeon, are coming.Today I just feel very blessed to be here. I know that the attack was just one day in my life and it will never define me.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38302839
|
US President Obama surprises spokesman at White House briefing - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
| null |
The US president makes a surprise appearance at White House press secretary Josh Earnest's last briefing.
| null |
Barack Obama made a surprise appearance at White House press secretary Josh Earnest's last briefing with members of the press to lavish praise on his spokesman.
"He is a really, really good man," said the outgoing president of Mr Earnest, who first joined Mr Obama's campaign in Iowa back in 2007.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38658667
|
The successful women embracing ‘girl power’ - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Could a club for "girly girls" really help improve female equality in the workplace?
|
Business
|
Shelley Zalis says "trying to be a man is a waste of a woman"
"Embrace your inner girl" is not a phrase you'll hear very often, particularly in the macho world of business where "manning up" is more de rigueur.
Yet if you attend any major business conference this year, then you're likely to come across "The Girls' Lounge".
It might sound like a name dreamt up by an unimaginative spa owner or an all-female pop-band, but in reality it's a professional networking space for women.
On the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos - a place where male attendees outnumber females five to one, the space is just being prepared.
A peek through the windows show that it's all white sofas and cushions, some adorned with glitter pink writing. The decor is soft and unashamedly feminine.
Lounges at previous conferences have included beauty treatments, such as face masks and manicures.
Aside from the patronising use of the word "girl", surely the idea that women need a separate mingling space, and such a stereotypically feminine one to boot, is doing little to further the case for female equality?
Shelley Zalis - who started The Girls' Lounge five years ago - is unapologetic:
"This is their boys' club - for women to get to know other women.
"There are masculine and feminine styles of leadership and we encourage women to find and lead with their strengths. We need both [styles] or we're all the same," she says.
Ms Zalis resolutely refuses to apologise for using the word "girl", arguing the word "woman" is too associated with the traditional hierarchy where female leaders conform to male leadership styles.
Beyond Ms Zalis' deliberately provocative and attention-grabbing approach, her point is that women need to take on leadership in whichever way they choose, not emulating the male, institutional model.
"We have to stop fixing the women. We have to fix our mindset and recalibrate our mindset on equality and understand men and women are all equal. Until society and corporations value the individual strengths of each person we won't progress," she says.
And in The Girls' Lounge, underneath the seemingly fluffy interior, there's plenty of hard facts.
In it, for example, there are ten clocks from various countries. Based on a nine to five day, they point to the time a woman should leave work according to the wage gap in the country.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, male attendees outnumber female by five to one
The US clock points to 3.20pm, highlighting the fact that women there earn only 79% of what men earn.
To make the same point, men in the Girls' Lounge are charged $1 for a bar of chocolate, while women pay 79 cents.
While Ms Zalis' initial aim was simply to provide a space for women to feel less isolated at male dominated business events, the Girls' Lounge now hosts serious talks on addressing inequality and has attracted some heavyweight commercial partners including Unilever and Google.
The Girls' Lounge is part of The Female Quotient, the firm founded by Ms Zalis which aims to advance workplace equality.
The firm has conducted research for consumer goods giant Unilever showing the extent to which underlying bias is holding back progress on the issue.
The study, published on Tuesday, showed that not only do an overwhelming 77% of men believe that a man is the best choice to lead an important project, but also the majority (55%) of women.
More so, men and women overwhelmingly believe that men don't want women in top corporate positions, according to the research, which interviewed more than 9,000 men and women across eight markets.
Unilever changed its adverts last year to make them less gender stereo-typed
Unilever's chief marketing officer Keith Weed said the poll pinpointed how traditional beliefs and norms were still holding back women's progress.
"Men have intellectually bought into [the] whole area of gender inequality, but acting on it there's still a long way to go. We are holding stereotypes in our head that we fit people into," he said.
Mr Weed said addressing the issue was not just "a moral issue but an economic issue".
The firm, behind more than 400 brands from Ben & Jerry's ice-cream to Dove soap, last year pledged to remove sexist stereotypes from its own ads.
Mr Weed said while it was too early to measure the impact of this change, its previous research had shown that progressive ads were 12% more effective.
Erica Dhawan is optimistic about the future of gender equality
Yet, Erica Dhawan, a female chief executive of consultancy Cotential, perhaps offers some hope.
In her thirties, she says she identifies herself as part of several groups: a millennial, an Indian American, and has never thought there's anything that either women or men could do better.
"We can't solve age old problems with old solutions. We need to redefine inclusion in today's modern world and by bringing new perspectives we can improve gender equality. I'm extremely optimistic I believe we need to broaden the conversation.
Ms Zalis also believes the new corporations which have emerged in the past couple of decades, such as the tech giants such as Facebook and Google, could help to adjust the balance.
"Most traditional corporations were founded over 100 years ago when women weren't in the workplace. Newer firms have equality in their DNA," she says.
Hopefully that heralds a future where there will be no need for a girls or boys club but just clubs.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38638325
|
Ryder Cup 2018: Europe to increase wildcards from three to four - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
Europe's Ryder Cup team will feature four wildcards in 2018, and players will need to play only four tournaments to retain membership.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Golf
Europe's Ryder Cup captain Thomas Bjorn will have four wildcard picks for his team in 2018.
The increase from three is among several changes the European Tour has made to its qualifying criteria for the event at Le Golf National in France.
Tournaments in the latter half of the season will carry weighted points, helping in-form players to qualify.
Players will also only have to play four tournaments instead of five to retain their Tour membership.
Only European Tour members can be selected for the Ryder Cup.
The 12-man European team for next year's competition will comprise the first four players from the European points list, the leading four players from the world points list and four captain's picks.
The qualifying process for the event - to take place from 28-30 September - will begin from the Czech Masters in Prague in August this year.
The changes were announced following a meeting of the European Tour's Tournament Committee in Abu Dhabi.
Bjorn said: "I am delighted the committee passed these regulations, which I believe will considerably benefit the European Ryder Cup team in 2018 without compromising the strength or importance of the European Tour."
The United States added a fourth wildcard pick for last year's event, when they ended a run of three successive European victories by winning 17-11 at Hazeltine.
Thomas Bjorn appears to have found a delicate formula that benefits both his team and the European Tour.
The extra wildcard pick increases pressure on the captain's shoulders, but makes it less likely that a big name player misses out.
This was the danger once it was decided that events elsewhere that coincide with the new Rolex Series tournaments on the European Tour will not count for Ryder Cup qualification.
It is a move that encourages Tour stars to compete in events such as the BMW PGA Championship, French, Irish and Scottish Opens rather than chase FedEx Cup points on the PGA Tour.
Weighting Ryder Cup points to make them a third more valuable in the final four months of qualifying is also sensible because it will help ensure the players who qualify are in form at the time of the match.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/38660767
|
GCHQ seeks teenage girls to join cyber security fight - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Web-savvy teenage girls could become the UK's spies of the future, Britain's intelligence agency hopes.
|
UK
|
The CyberFirst competition aims to get more girls to consider a career fighting online crime
Teenage girls who spend a lot of time online and on social media could become the UK's spies of the future, Britain's intelligence agency hopes.
GCHQ is launching a competition with the aim of encouraging more girls to think about a career in cyber security.
Girls aged 13 to 15 will compete in tests that will also cover logic and coding, networking and cryptography.
Women currently only make up 10% of the global cyber workforce, the agency says.
The competition is part of a five-year National Cyber Security Strategy announced in November 2016, and will be overseen by the new National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
Working in teams of four, the girls will complete online tasks remotely on their school computers, with each stage being harder than the previous one.
The 10 groups with the highest scores will then be invited to the CyberFirst competition final in London to investigate a complex cyber threat.
CyberFirst's winning team will be awarded £1,000 worth of computer equipment for their school, as well as individual prizes.
The NCSC was set up to be the main body for cyber security at a national level.
It manages national cyber security incidents, carries out real-time threat analysis and provides advice.
An NCSC spokeswoman said: "Women can, and do, make a huge difference in cyber security - this competition could inspire many more to take their first steps into this dynamic and rewarding career."
Government Communications Headquarters director Robert Hannigan said: "I work alongside some truly brilliant women who help protect the UK from all manner of online threats.
"The CyberFirst Girls competition allows teams of young women a glimpse of this exciting world and provides a great opportunity to use new skills."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38664703
|
Does living to 100 mean we'll work forever? - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
With more and more people expected to live until 100, how does that affect our working lives?
|
Business
|
Living longer may also mean working longer
Will you live to be 100 years old? Even if you don't - it's pretty likely your children or your grandchildren will.
While Brexit, China and Trump may be dominating the news out of this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, living longer is a hot topic in the cold and snowy mountain village, and one which many attendees are already grappling with.
Current trends suggest most babies born since 2000 in developed countries such as the UK, US, Canada, France and Germany, will live past their 100th birthday.
Put another way, for every 10 years since the 19th Century, life expectancy has increased by two and a half years, according to Jim Vaupel from Max Planck Institute of Demography, who has tracked global changes over the past 150 years.
That's the equivalent of another six to eight hours every day.
It may sound great - after all who doesn't want to live for as long as possible - but the reality is we may also be working for as long as possible to be able to pay for it.
"If we live 30 years longer, then in order to retire at 60 we would have to save five times as much during our working lives. It's the end of retirement as we know it," says Lynda Gratton, who hosted a session on the topic in Davos.
She is a psychologist, and professor of management practice at the London Business School, and has written a book on the topic.
The effects of people living longer is one of the hot topics in Davos
Rather than the three traditional stages of life: education, work and retirement, Ms Gratton expects people to have to constantly retrain as they shift careers and focus.
Counter-intuitively, she suggests that one positive of having a longer career could actually mean a better work-life balance.
If you're working for longer, then taking a couple of years out to look after children, or ageing parents for example, won't be such a big deal when your career lasts for 60-plus years, she suggests.
Jo Ann Jenkins, chief executive at non-profit group AARP - the influential lobby group for older Americans - says working longer is already a reality for many in the US.
In 2012, US employees aged over 50 made up almost a third of the workforce. By 2022 they're expected to make up 36%.
The shift has already forced the group to change its name. The body used to be called the American Association of Retired Persons, but had to change it to just AARP because its members complained they weren't retired, but still working.
"People used to think middle age started around 35. Now, most people think it's late 40s or early 50s. Same thing with one's working years. Someone who was 55 or 60 often used to be seen as over the hill. That's not the case today," says Ms Jenkins.
She believes one of the big adjustments will be how to manage the increasing breadth of age groups in the workplace.
"Years ago, one of the big questions was: can a man report to a woman manager? We've answered that question. Today, a big question is: can an older employee report to a younger manager? I think many organisations are still grappling with that."
Of course, increased life expectancy isn't always matched by better health.
Christophe Weber, the chief executive of Japanese pharmaceutical giant Takeda, says the key issue is how long people are remaining well.
In Japan, around a quarter of the population is now over 60, and Mr Weber notes that this increasing longevity also means certain diseases such as dementia, for example, are on the rise.
He says research and finding new medicines to address the issue will be crucial.
"[People living longer] is a very nice evolution but the challenge is how you finance it," he says, adding that the healthier people are, the less costly it is.
As far as work goes, he says people need "a soft landing carrier to retirement", suggesting while older people may remain at work, they're likely to work part-time, or in less hands-on mentoring roles.
But if even the idea of working part-time when you're in your 70s seems depressing, Ms Gratton has some encouragement.
She says the fact that you're likely to have to change jobs and retrain several times to remain employable over 60 years offers a natural break to take time out.
"Take a gap year. Why should it only be the young who take gap years? You could take a gap year at 50, and travel around the world," she says.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38652359
|
What Mrs Trump's hometown tells us about the next first lady - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Guy Delauney visits Melania Trump's hometown of Sevnica in Slovenia to meet those who knew her.
|
US & Canada
|
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What was Melania Trump like in Slovenia?
The President Burger is presented with a flourish - on a wooden board, surrounded by circular "dollar fries" and topped with a yellow crust of cheese "hair" which looks as if it might fly away at any moment.
As tributes to the US President-elect go, it may not be the most respectful. But it is offered with the affection and gentle humour which it soon becomes apparent is a hallmark of Sevnica, a Slovenian town which just happens to be the place where Donald Trump's first-lady-to-be, Melania, spent most of her childhood.
"We formed the burger so it would resemble Trump a little bit," chuckles Bruno Vidmar, the chef-proprietor of Rondo, a restaurant in the newer part of Sevnica.
"It has hot peppers, because Trump's statements are hot - and it comes with dollar fries because he's a successful entrepreneur."
The owner of the Rondo restaurant designed this burger to resemble Donald Trump
The presidential tie-in seems to be serving Rondo well: on a weekday morning, the place is buzzing with an early lunch crowd from the nearby furniture and textile factories. Meanwhile a table full of smartly-dressed young women order another of Bruno's culinary creations dreamt up with Sevnica's most famous daughter in mind.
"The 'Melanija' dessert is made out of sponge, then there's a layer of mascarpone and strawberries. It's light enough for a model - and we have it on good authority that Melania loves strawberries."
Sevnica is a small place - so Bruno probably did not have to search long to find an authority on what Melania likes for pudding. Or, at least, what she did like when she was growing up as Melanija Knavs in this town of fewer than 5,000 people.
Bar the addition of a branch of Lidl on the outskirts, little seems to have changed since she left for Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana, as a teenager. The old castle - parts of which date back to the 12th Century - still overlooks Sevnica from its hilltop perch.
The town itself is a tidy place with new and old sections, sitting alongside the River Sava and surrounded by forested hills. The Slovenian Tourist Board suggests that Sevnica is "an excellent destination for those who enjoy picnics and outings, hiking, cycling or fishing".
If the roads had been less icy, it would certainly have been an enjoyable ride through the trees to Gostišče Ob Ribniku, a restaurant and guesthouse next to a small lake. Inside the traditional wooden chalet, you can chat to one of the people who can shed some light on the future first lady's early years.
Sevnica is "an excellent destination for those who enjoy picnics and outings, hiking, cycling or fishing" according to the Slovenian Tourist Board
"We were next door neighbours - and we used to go the same way to school," says Mateja Zalezina, who runs Gostišče Ob Ribniku with her husband, Dejan.
"In the afternoon when we came back we used to hang out in front of the apartment block. Even then she was quite busy, because her mother was a fashion designer and Melania was one of the models for the Jutranjka company that did fashion for kids."
Mateja laughs at the idea that she could have spotted that her neighbour would go a long way from Sevnica - never mind all the way to the White House. But she says that Melania could not help but stand out.
"She was really good at school. She and her sister Ines were studying really hard. After school, we played a game called 'gumi-twist', an elastic band game, and she was really good at that. She had the figure of a model - really long legs - and she always won!"
The restaurant is offering a three-course "Melanija Menu" in honour of Mateja's former playmate. But, like Rondo's eponymous offering, this does not feel like a culinary cash-in, just a low-key tribute, delivered with affection.
"I'm really happy for her - she's achieved the maximum," says Dejan. "I hope everyone in Sevnica will watch the inauguration. We will be here at the restaurant with friends and will raise a glass to them both."
Melania's former neighbour says America's next first lady studied "really hard" at school
Back in the old town, beneath the castle, Sevnica's mayor Srecko Ocvirk is not planning any special events to mark the start of the Trump era. But he hopes the publicity will bring the town's charms to the attention of tourists.
"The first visitors who came were journalists like you," he admits. "But we're now seeing there are rising numbers of tourists. We're also expecting more organised tour groups after the inauguration. Sevnica and the region will become better known because of this."
At the town's primary school, one of the staff has certainly achieved a degree of local celebrity. Art teacher Nena Bedek was best friends with Melania until the future Mrs Trump left to finish her schooling in Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana.
Now Nena fields questions from her students about her friendship with Sevnica's most famous former resident - and marvels at the different paths their lives have taken.
"It's a 'wow' effect for us and for me," she says.
"She was a reliable girl and a very good friend. But she never wished to stand out - even though she was beautiful and hard-working. She loved to read and draw. She was brought up in a very artistic manner - she knew what was beautiful - due to her mother's job as a fashion designer. I have very fond memories and keep her very close in my heart."
As for the town's various tributes - which include wine, slippers and honey as well as the culinary offerings - Nena believes they are in keeping with the Sevnica spirit.
"They are very sympathetic and sweet - none of them are bad things - and it's also funny. I think it's still within limits - all in all it's sweet and nice."
Rather like Sevnica itself, perhaps.
You can hear Guy De Launey's report from BBC Radio 4's World Tonight via BBC iPlayer.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38642889
|
The woman donating organs to strangers - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Tracey Jolliffe has already donated a kidney, 16 eggs and 80 pints of blood. She is now considering donating part of her liver too.
|
Health
|
Tracey Jolliffe is calling on others to give a kidney
Tracey Jolliffe has already donated a kidney, 16 eggs and 80 pints of blood, and intends to leave her brain to science. She is now hoping to give away part of her liver to a person she may never meet.
"If I had another spare kidney, I'd do it again," Tracey tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme.
She is what is known as an "altruistic donor" - someone willing to give away an organ to potentially help save the life of a complete stranger.
A microbiologist in the NHS, and the daughter of two nurses, she has spent her life learning about the importance of healthcare from a professional standpoint.
But she has also been keen to make a difference on a personal level.
"I signed up to donate blood, and to the bone marrow register, when I was 18," she says.
Now 50, her wish to donate has become gradually more expansive.
In 2012, she was one of fewer than 100 people that year to donate a kidney without knowing the recipient's identity - and now supports the charity Give A Kidney, encouraging others to do the same.
As of 30 September 2016, 5,126 people remain on the NHS kidney transplant waiting list.
About 3,000 kidney transplants are carried out each year
Tracey's kidney donation, in all likelihood, will have saved someone's life.
"I remind myself of it every day when I wake up," she says, rightly proud of her life-changing actions.
It was not, however, a decision taken on the spur of a moment.
Donating a kidney is an "involved process", she says, with suitability assessments taking at least three months to complete.
Tests leading up to the transplant include X-rays, heart tracing and a special test of kidney function, which involves an injection and a series of blood tests.
"It is not something to do if you're scared of needles," she jokes.
The risks associated with donating, however, are relatively low for those deemed healthy enough to proceed, with a mortality rate of about one in 3,000 - roughly the same as having an appendix removed.
Compared with the general public, NHS Blood and Transplant says, most kidney donors have equivalent - or better - life expectancy than the average person.
Tracey says she was in hospital for five days after her operation but felt "back to normal" within six weeks.
As well as helping to save lives - including through 80 pints worth of blood donations - Tracey has also helped families create them too.
She has donated 16 of her eggs, allowing three couples to have children.
It was a simple decision to take, she says.
"I have no desire to have children of my own, so I thought, 'I'm healthy, why not?'"
The next step, she hopes, could be to donate part of her liver - once again, to someone she has never met. But she is aware of the dangers involved.
"It's a much riskier operation than donating your kidney," she says.
The rate of death for those donating the right lobe is estimated at one in 200. For the left lobe, it is one in 500.
But many donators live a long and healthy life, with the organ having an "amazing capacity to regenerate", as Tracey describes it.
Almost immediately after an operation, the remaining liver begins to enlarge in a process known as hypertrophy, continuing for up to eight weeks.
Tracey will undoubtedly continue to donate for as long as she can - and is hoping to pass on her organs once she dies.
"I signed up to donate my brain for medical science when I go," she says.
Brain donations are usually performed within 24 hours of death, to be used for medical research into conditions such as dementia.
Taking such decisions can be difficult, but Tracey says her friends and family "accept I'm going to do what I want to do".
Her reasons for donating organs - whether it be a brain or a kidney - are both humbling and understated.
"I think it's part of my nature, my opportunity to do something nice," she says.
But the difference such decisions can make to others is huge.
For information on how to make a living donation, visit the NHS Blood and Transplant website.
Watch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38637348
|
Rachael Heyhoe Flint dies aged 77 - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The women's cricket pioneer and Wolves vice-president dies aged 77 after a short illness.
|
Birmingham & Black Country
|
Rachael Heyhoe Flint, the former England women's cricket captain, has died aged 77.
Baroness Heyhoe Flint, vice-president of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, passed away in the early hours of Wednesday after a short illness.
She leaves behind husband Derrick, their son Ben, and her stepchildren Rowan, Hazel and Simon. Ben said the family was "deeply saddened".
Heyhoe Flint, pictured with Wolves legend Steve Bull, was vice-president of the football club
She also played in the first ever women's match at Lord's, against Australia, in 1976.
During her career she played 22 Test matches and 23 one-day internationals. She was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2010.
She also became a successful journalist, after dinner speaker and expert in public relations, which brought her back into contact with her beloved Wolves as she headed up the club's work in the local community.
MCC president Matthew Fleming said: "Rachael Heyhoe Flint was a pioneer of women's cricket - she was the first global superstar in the women's game and her overall contribution to the MCC, cricket and sport in general was immense."
Baroness Heyhoe Flint has been described as a pioneer of women's cricket
Clare Connor, the ECB's director of women's cricket, said: "She was so special, so ever-present and now she has gone - but her impact can never be forgotten.
"Rachael was one of our sport's true pioneers and it is no exaggeration to say that she paved the way for the progress enjoyed by recent generations of female cricketers."
Among many others paying tribute to Heyhoe Flint was BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew, who said on Twitter: "Very sad news re Rachael Heyhoe Flint. Great champion of women's cricket, won first World Cup and one of life's real enthusiasts. #RIP."
Clare Connor, pictured with Heyhoe Flint, said her impact could never be forgotten
Heyhoe Flint's development of cricket was "immense", the ECB said in tribute
Flags were flying at half mast at Lord's and Wolves' Molineux stadium.
The club's players will also be wearing black armbands at Saturday's Championship game at Norwich.
Wolves managing director Laurie Dalrymple said: "Everyone at Wolves is deeply saddened to hear the news that Rachael has passed away.
"She was a wonderful lady who meant so much to so many people at the football club, in the city of Wolverhampton, and also much further afield.
"Rachael's contribution to the world of sport, the local community, and in later years politics, cannot be measured, and neither can her seemingly never-ending kindness and generosity of spirit."
The England Cricket Board said her development of cricket had been "immense".
Baroness Heyhoe Flint was one of the first women admitted to the MCC
When her playing career ended, Heyhoe Flint became one of the first women admitted to the MCC. In 2004 she became the first woman elected to the full committee.
She was awarded the MBE in 1972, the OBE in 2008 and was made a life peer in 2011.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-38664893
|
Australian Open 2017: Dan Evans hopes to move on from 'dark times' - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-18
| null |
British number three Dan Evans believes he has come through a difficult period after beating Marin Cilic at the Australian Open.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Tennis
British number three Dan Evans believes he has come through a difficult period in his career after beating world number seven Marin Cilic at the Australian Open.
The 26-year-old caused a massive upset to beat the former US Open champion 3-6 7-5 6-3 6-3 and reach the third round.
It comes after a struggle at the end of 2016 following a heartbreaking defeat by Stan Wawrinka at the US Open.
"There were some tough times after the Wawrinka match," he said.
"I still think about that match on the court today. It's not easy when you had the opportunity to close out the big match and then lose.
"Yeah, I'm happy it happened. But, you know, hopefully there will be no more dark times, as you put it."
World number 51 Evans squandered a match point in the fourth set of his third-round match with two-time Grand Slam champion Wawrinka in September.
He was devastated afterwards and finished the year with three defeats from four matches - all against lower-ranked opposition.
But he is now into the third round of a Grand Slam for only the fourth time of his career - and the first time in Melbourne, where he will face Bernard Tomic.
• None Day three: All the results
Evans said the victory over Cilic was the "biggest" of his career, as he joined compatriot Andy Murray in the third round.
He did it wearing shirts and shorts bought from a shop after his kit deal with Nike expired in December and was not renewed.
"I just went to the store and bought a load of clothes the other day, plain clothes," he said.
"What was it, Sunday? Sunday or Saturday, yeah. $19.99 (£12), the shirts are.
"I think I bought about 18 shirts, something like that. I went back this morning to buy some more. They're not the best quality, to sweat in and wash.
"I only wore one shirt today. I'm good until Friday."
Evans will face Australian Tomic in the last 32, a man he beat in four sets in the second round of the 2013 US Open.
It was a win the Birmingham player enjoyed, after the world number 27's father suggested he was not good enough to have a practice hit with his son.
"I'm not going to bother saying anything about that again. He confronted me about that. We'll leave it at that," he said on Wednesday.
"I'd say it's a 50-50 match. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to playing him."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38666651
|
Brexit memo to Boris Johnson: Don't mention the War - BBC News
|
2017-01-18
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The foreign secretary's evocation of the Great Escape didn't go down well in Europe.
|
UK Politics
|
Basil Fawlty discovered that some subjects were taboo
Like some latter-day Basil Fawlty, Boris Johnson mentioned the War and didn't get away with it.
The foreign secretary urged the French president not to "administer punishment beatings" on Britain for choosing to escape the EU "rather in the manner of some World War Two movie".
Not surprisingly, uproar has ensued. Former Labour leader Ed Miliband said Mr Johnson had shown once again that he could be "supremely clever and yet immensely stupid".
To some Britons, Mr Johnson's remarks will be seen as colourful but unexceptional language that echoes the popular World War Two film The Great Escape.
To many of Mr Johnson's generation, these films were part of their childhood and are subject to frequent cultural reference. Former Prime Minister David Cameron has seen The Guns of Navarone more than 17 times and once quoted a line from the film in a party conference speech.
I know one former Conservative cabinet minister who can quote reams from Where Eagles Dare. (Full disclosure, so can I).
Yet this hinterland of war films from the 1960s and 1970s, seen by some today as jingoistic, can create a tin ear among some Britons when it comes to recognising how sensitive many Europeans remain towards this period in their history.
The foreign secretary has form on this. During the referendum campaign last year he compared the EU to Nazi Germany, telling the Daily Telegraph both were attempting to unify Europe: "Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically."
This caused a flurry of headlines and a social media storm that passed quickly. Yet the impact on EU politicians was lasting.
One EU diplomat explained it to me like this: "You Brits don't understand us when we talk about European values. To us they are important because they are not Nazi values, they are not Vichy values, they are not fascist values, not the values of the Greek junta. They are the values of a different Europe.
"So for that clown to compare us to the Nazis, well, that hurts and will not be forgotten."
In other words, the global conflict from which the EU's forerunner emerged - and was ultimately designed to prevent recurring - lingers long in the mind on the continent.
So perhaps the foreign secretary might take the advice of Gisela Stuart, the German-born Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, who said she was sure her fellow Brexit campaigner did not mean to be offensive but added: "For the next two years… just don't mention the war."
Or maybe Mr Johnson might remember the last line of the Fawlty Towers episode when a ranting Basil is being led away by the nurses and one of the stunned German guests asks: "However did they win?"
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38670349
|
Plymouth Argyle 0-1 Liverpool - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Lucas Leiva's first goal in seven years sends Liverpool into the FA Cup fourth round at the expense of League Two Plymouth.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Football
Lucas Leiva scored his first goal in seven years to send Liverpool into the fourth round of the FA Cup at the expense of League Two Plymouth.
Jurgen Klopp's side had to make the 293-mile trip to Home Park after they were held to a frustrating goalless draw in the initial meeting between the two at Anfield.
However, Lucas ensured the long journey was not a wasted one when he headed home Philippe Coutinho's corner early in the first half.
The win should have been more comfortable for the Reds but Divock Origi's poor penalty was comfortably saved by home keeper Luke McCormick.
Plymouth, who are 66 places below Liverpool in the football pyramid, were not overawed by their Premier League opponents and came closest to equalising when Jake Jervis hit the post with a scissor kick midway through the second half.
Liverpool's reward for victory is a home tie against Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers on 28 January.
'It is that long?' Lucas ends wait
Brazilian Lucas has been at the club since 2007 but goals are not a regular feature of his game. The midfielder's strike was his first since a 4-1 win against Steaua Bucharest in the Europa League back in September 2010 - 2,316 days ago.
That was when Roy Hodgson was Liverpool boss and Ben Woodburn, Lucas' team-mate against Plymouth, was just 10 years old.
"It's that long? I scored last week in training," Lucas said after the game.
Despite the lengthy gap between goals, it was a neat finish by Lucas as he rose above the defence to power a header beyond McCormick's reach.
"He is the top scorer in training," joked Klopp. "I love this in football, everyone can cause problems."
Close game, but Klopp rewarded for keeping the faith
Klopp named the youngest-ever Liverpool line-up in the club's history for the first meeting between these two sides - a decision that came under some criticism as they struggled to break down their determined opponents.
The draw added another fixture to an already congested list for the Reds and, after a tough encounter with Manchester United in the Premier League at the weekend, Klopp gave the majority of those who played in the first game a chance to finish the job.
It wasn't a memorable Liverpool performance as they struggled to put the game out of Plymouth's reach. Origi had the best chance to do just that when Yann Songo'o brought down Alberto Moreno inside the box, but the Belgian, who has not scored since 14 December, hit an unconvincing spot-kick too close to McCormick.
Plymouth are fighting for promotion from League Two. They are currently second in the division and produced a hugely impressive defensive display at Anfield to earn the replay.
As a consequence, there was an air of expectation in the build-up to the game that the Pilgrims could produce an upset, with excitement for the fixture high throughout the city.
Tickets quickly sold out as fans queued for hours to ensure they had the chance to be part of a potentially famous night for the club, while several iconic buildings around Plymouth were illuminated in green and white colours to show their support.
During the game, Plymouth fans produced a party atmosphere even after Lucas' goal and their players responded by creating one or two chances to equalise.
Alberto Moreno struggled to deal with the combination of the impressive Oscar Threlkeld and Jervis down Liverpool's left. And it was from there that the hosts produced their best chance in the first half.
Threlkeld got into space to cross low into the box, only for a well-timed Alexander-Arnold tackle to deny Paul Garita the chance to equalise from close range.
Jervis then shaved the outside of the post as Plymouth pressed in the second half, and although it was not to be in the end, the club are set to earn more than £1m from the two games with Liverpool. That could provide a significant boost to their bid for promotion.
'We didn't want to be embarrassed'
Klopp was relieved to avoid an upset and praised his young players for stepping up to the challenge.
"You do not want to feel the embarrassment of losing a game like this," he said.
"I'm happy about their potential and we will do everything we can to let it grow. But they have a big job to do too."
Plymouth manager Derek Adams said his players could be proud of their performance.
"We took the game to Liverpool at times," he said.
"We went a wee bit direct towards the end and overall I thought it was a very good performance from us. Over the two games we've lost by one goal to Liverpool."
• None Attempt blocked. Alberto Moreno (Liverpool) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
• None Ben Purrington (Plymouth Argyle) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Offside, Plymouth Argyle. Luke McCormick tries a through ball, but Nauris Bulvitis is caught offside.
• None Offside, Plymouth Argyle. Louis Rooney tries a through ball, but Craig Tanner is caught offside.
• None Attempt missed. Divock Origi (Liverpool) left footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high. Assisted by Alberto Moreno.
• None Penalty saved! Divock Origi (Liverpool) fails to capitalise on this great opportunity, right footed shot saved in the centre of the goal.
• None Yann Songo'o (Plymouth Argyle) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Penalty conceded by Yann Songo'o (Plymouth Argyle) after a foul in the penalty area.
• None Attempt blocked. Sheyi Ojo (Liverpool) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Harry Wilson.
• None Attempt missed. Harry Wilson (Liverpool) left footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Ben Woodburn.
• None Sheyi Ojo (Liverpool) has gone down, but that's a dive. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38579212
|
Mexico's Colima volcano in fiery explosion - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Webcams have caught the dramatic eruption of Mexico's Colima volcano, which has seen an increase in activity since October.
| null |
Webcams have caught the dramatic eruption of Mexico's Colima volcano, which has seen an increase in activity since October.
The explosion sent a large plume of ash and smoke 2,000m (6,561 feet) above the crater.
Mexico has more than 3,000 volcanoes, but only 14 are considered active.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38674298
|
Theresa May's Brexit speech: What does it mean for free trade? - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
BBC Economics Correspondent Andrew Walker answers your questions on Theresa May's Brexit speech.
|
UK
|
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May confirmed that the final deal would be put to the vote in Parliament
Following Theresa May's widely anticipated speech on Brexit on Tuesday, you sent us your questions.
The impact on free trade was the most asked about subject. Below, BBC Economics Correspondent Andrew Walker looks at two of the most popular questions you asked:
The only thing on the list above that the Prime Minister has said she wants to opt out of is the free movement of people - or rather the free movement of people to work and settle in the UK.
She is very keen on the free movement of goods and services. She said in the speech that she wants: "the freest possible trade in goods and services between Britain and the EU's member states."
She does not want to opt out of that.
The freest possible means what we have today. For example: no tariffs on goods travelling in either direction, mutual recognition of each other's technical standards, the freedom to offer services across borders and more.
In short, it means the provisions of the single market that apply to goods and services. It would be theoretically possible to go further still, especially in services. The European Commission says there are still barriers and it wants to tackle them.
But for now, the single market as it is represents the freest we can get.
But Mrs May seems to accept that we can't have that without also accepting freedom of movement for workers. And that is one of her red lines.
So once that has gone, the freest possible movement for goods and services will presumably mean something less than the single market, something less than we have today.
How much less will be a matter for negotiation. In fact, the answer to many questions about what will "X" be like when we leave will depend on the outcome of the negotiations. We can speculate but we can't know for sure.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some of the headlines from Theresa May's vision for future UK-EU relations
The UK does have some cards which will encourage the EU to lean towards what the Prime Minister wants. Some European businesses have the UK as an important export market - German car makers for example.
During the referendum campaign many Leave supporters were keen to point out that the rest of the EU exports more to the UK than the UK exports to them. That, they argued, means they need the UK more than we need them.
The counter-argument is that EU exports to the UK as a share of national income are a lot smaller than trade in the opposite direction. That suggests UK/EU trade matters more to us than to them.
Another reason that the remaining EU might want to be cooperative in trade negotiations is that many continental businesses would want to continue to be able to use the City of London as a financial centre. On the other hand some other cities, including Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin, might fancy a bigger slice of that pie.
So there are some economic reasons for the EU to share Mrs May's desire for free movement of goods and services.
But there is an important political issue that pulls them in the opposite direction. They don't want life in the UK to look too rosy at a time when there are rising Eurosceptic movements in many countries beyond the UK.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38658697
|
Viewpoint: The 'delicious spectacle' of President Trump - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
The first of two animated opinion pieces for BBC Newsnight looking ahead to Donald Trump's presidency. Roger Kimball, art critic, social commentator and editor of The New Criterion, says the moral panic needs to stop.
| null |
The inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the US is on Friday.
What does he represent? What might his presidency bring? In the first of two very personal viewpoints for BBC Newsnight, Roger Kimball, art critic, social commentator and editor of the magazine The New Criterion, says the moral panic needs to stop.
Watch the second opinion piece - from Trump critic Andrew Sullivan - here.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38664788
|
Italy avalanche aerials show stranded rescuers - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Aerial footage reveals the wall of snow blocking rescuers from reaching a hotel engulfed by an avalanche in central Italy.
| null |
Rescuers have struggled to reach the hotel engulfed by an avalanche in central Italy because of heavy snow.
Aerial pictures show scores of rescue vehicles lined up as a snow-plough tries to break through.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38682034
|
Aleppo ‘haunted by violence and death’ - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Jeremy Bowen reports from the ruins of eastern Aleppo where 40,000 people have returned home.
| null |
Jeremy Bowen reports from the ruins of eastern Aleppo where 40,000 people have returned home.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38668377
|
Australian Open 2017: Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal reach round three - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Six-time Australian Open winner Serena Williams stays on course for a 23rd Grand Slam, while Rafael Nadal also reaches round three.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Coverage: Daily live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra; live text on selected matches on the BBC Sport website; TV highlights on BBC Two and online from 21 January.
Six-time champion Serena Williams and former winner Rafael Nadal both reached the Australian Open third round with straight-sets victories on Thursday.
Williams, 35, who is attempting to win an Open era record 23rd Grand Slam singles title, beat world number 61 Lucie Safarova 6-3 6-4 in Melbourne.
"I'm really happy to have got through that," said the American second seed.
Nadal, who won the tournament in 2009, eased through 6-3 6-1 6-3 against 2006 finalist Marcos Baghdatis.
Williams beat 29-year-old Czech Safarova in the French Open final in 2015, and needed one hour and 25 minutes to see off the former top-10 player on Thursday.
"It's never easy having to play in a second round against someone you have seen in a final," she added. "I've played two former top-10 opponents, but it's a great way to start the tournament."
Williams lost the Australian Open final last year to Angelique Kerber, but went on to win at Wimbledon and equal Steffi Graf's Open era record of 22 Grand Slam singles titles.
She will continue her bid for the record against 23-year-old Nicole Gibbs, who beat fellow American Irina Falconi 6-4 6-1.
Fourteen-time Grand Slam winner Nadal will face promising teenager Alexander Zverev in the next round after the German beat 18-year-old American Frances Tiafoe 6-2 6-3 6-4.
Nadal, 30, says the 19-year-old world number 24 "can be a future world number one".
"It will be a big challenge for me," said Nadal. "He is a potential Grand Slam winner. He is a big, talented player. He is young and improving in every moment he is on the tour."
Nadal lost in the first round in Melbourne for the first time in his career last year and, having pulled out of Wimbledon with a wrist injury, his best major result in 2016 proved to be a last-16 exit at the US Open.
The Spaniard has only played one tournament since October, reaching the quarter-finals at the Brisbane International earlier this month, but says he has "no injuries" after coming through against Baghdatis in two hours and 12 minutes.
"I can't ask for more," he said. "I have suffered injuries in my career, but I have had a lot of success and amazing memories from all the places I have played.
"I cannot complain. I am a lucky person and I am trying to enjoy every moment on court."
The 27-year-old, who has reached two semi-finals in Melbourne in the past three tournaments, lost 6-3 6-2 to the 34-year-old world number 79.
Fifth-seed Karolina Pliskova beat 18-year-old Russian qualifier Anna Blinkova 6-0 6-2 in 59 minutes, meaning the Czech has dropped just four games en route to the third round.
"I don't want to say my opponent wasn't that good, but I was better," said the 24-year-old, who faces Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko next.
Third seed Milos Raonic reached the third round of the Australian Open for the seventh time with a 6-3 6-4 7-6 (7-4) win over Luxembourg's Gilles Muller.
The Canadian 26, hit 21 aces as he set up a meeting with France's Gilles Simon, who reached the quarter-finals in Melbourne in 2009.
"I started feeling a little bit of a cough but I didn't think much of it, then this morning I felt pretty bad waking up," he said.
"I came out with the sort of idea of put everything into the match, try to solve it, understand the importance of the mental side of things in that situation."
World number 15 Grigor Dimitrov also moved into the next round with a 1-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 victory over Korea's Chung Hye-on.
He will face France's Richard Gasquet after his 6-1 6-1 6-1 win over Argentine Carlos Berlocq. Former world number three David Ferrer beat American qualifier Ernesto Escobedo 2-6 6-4 6-4 6-2 to set up a tie with Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38674306
|
Trump's inauguration: An insider's tour - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
The day begins early for President-elect Trump at the exclusive White House guest residence.
| null |
The day begins early for President-elect Trump at the exclusive White House guest residence.
And from there it's a day of tradition and ceremony throughout Washington DC.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38658917
|
Netflix's gamble pays off as subscriptions soar - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Netflix's choice to bin old films and shows in favour of ploughing money into original content is, for now at least, reaping rewards.
|
Technology
|
Netflix took a decision to invest in original content
Hundreds of movies disappeared from Netflix over 2016, the result of the streaming service’s decision to end several key content deals with top studios and distributors.
It was a brave move - particularly given that its main rivals, such as Hulu, jumped at the chance to take on some of those titles Netflix decided it no longer wanted.
The reason for the cull? Original content.
Netflix was being bold - its aspirations were no longer to be your on-demand DVD collection, but instead the place where you discovered and consumed new and exclusive shows.
So rather than pay money out to studios for the right to show existing content, it instead ploughed its cash into shows such as Stranger Things, The Crown, Luke Cage and the remake of Gilmore Girls.
In 2016, those “Netflix Originals” - already a term you could argue has become synonymous with quality - came thick and fast.
The firm said it produced 600 hours of original programming last year - and intends to raise that to about 1,000 hours in 2017. Its budget to achieve that is $6bn (£4.9bn) - a billion more than last year.
On Wednesday we learned the company has been rewarded handsomely for putting its eggs in the original content basket. After hours trading on Wednesday saw the company’s stock rise by as much as 9% on the news it had added 7.05 million new subscribers in the last three months of 2016.
That’s far greater than the 5.2 million they had anticipated, and left them ending the year with 93.8 million subscribers in total - and an expectation of breaking the symbolic 100 million mark by the end of March.
The kids of Stranger Things become overnight superstars - and helped earn Netflix millions
In all, 2016 saw Netflix take in $8.83bn (£7.1bn) in revenue - with a profit of $186.7m (£151.6m).
All looking good, then - but there’s still work to do.
In a letter to shareholders, Netflix underlined, as it is obliged to do, the potential risks to its success going forward - chiefly globalisation and competition.
While international expansion has been rapid, with the majority of the new sign-ups are coming from outside of the US, it will require a lot of expenditure for Netflix to dominate with original content in the 189 other countries it serves.
It has put some of its budget into non-English language shows, such as “3%”, a Portuguese sci-fi series. Intriguingly, Netflix noted that many English viewers opted to watch the dubbed version, providing an unexpected added audience.
Still, when local TV players kick into action and give up so-called linear TV - episodes once a week, and so on - in favour of Netflix’s model there’s a chance the company’s head start could be clawed back.
The company notes that the BBC became the first “major linear network” to push into a “binge-first” strategy, and it expects American network HBO to follow suit pretty soon.
The company also took a somewhat unusual political step in its earnings, drawing attention to the ongoing debate over so-called net neutrality.
Net neutrality is the concept that all data traffic on the internet is treated equally - and that internet service providers (ISPs) cannot, for example, charge extra for data-heavy services like video streaming.
The cost could be passed on to either companies like Netflix or the consumer - but is currently not allowed. However, there are concerns the incoming Trump administration may abolish the current laws that ensure net neutrality.
Netflix said any weakening of net neutrality laws would not affect its business in any significant way, but stressed, as many advocates have done, that it would hinder competition across the board.
“Strong net neutrality is important to support innovation and smaller firms,” the company wrote.
"No one wants ISPs to decide what new and potentially disruptive services can operate over their networks, or to favour one service over another. We hope the new US administration and Congress will recognise that keeping the network neutral drives job growth and innovation.”
Finally, Netflix reiterated its reluctance to get into the business of broadcasting live sport - something the company argued was the last real incentive for someone to have a traditional cable or satellite subscription.
My hunch there is that it’s biding its time.
Netflix boss Reid Hastings said his company was not interested in going after sports rights
Right now, sports rights - even for just one market - cost astronomical amounts of cash.
But if big cable firms continue to be weakened by the likes of Netflix, their spending power will decrease. At which point the new players could see the prospect of getting a far better deal than if they were to go after it today.
What Netflix has made clear is that it’s no longer content with signing up content to show only in select markets, it’s instead focusing on deals that can be shown in every country.
How much would global rights to the Premier League be worth, I wonder?
Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC and on Facebook
• None Netflix to allow TV and movie downloads
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38672837
|
Sir Patrick Stewart: Poo emoji role for Shakespearean actor - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
From Captain Picard to poo - the surprising new role for Sir Patrick Stewart.
|
Entertainment & Arts
|
Sir Patrick Stewart is joined by James Corden in the cast of the animated film
He has played many of Shakespeare's greats and been lauded for film roles in Star Trek and X-Men.
But now, Sir Patrick Stewart is to tackle perhaps his most surprising role to date - becoming the voice of the poo emoji.
He will take on the role of the bow-tie wearing Poop in The Emoji Movie, which will be released this summer.
James Corden will star as Hi-Five and Maya Rudolph will lend her voice to Smiler in the animated film.
Sony Pictures announced the casting news on Twitter, announcing Sir Patrick's role by saying - in emojis, naturally - that he was "no party pooper".
Sir Patrick's job as Poop comes after his voice roles in animated comedies Family Guy, American Dad! and The Simpsons.
Maya Rudolph practising her happy face for the role as a smiling emoji
The reaction on social media was unsurprisingly tongue-in-cheek, with one commentator saying Sir Patrick was "to boldly go" - referring to his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek.
And another wrote - adding the poo emoji: "Patrick Stewart is going to voice the poo emoji in the new emoji film. From Captain Picard to poo. What is this world?"
Sir Patrick is yet to comment on his new film.
His most recent post on Twitter, at the time of writing, was about Britain's decision to leave the European Union.
"First time back in continental Europe since Brexit," he wrote. "I was once so proud to be part of the Union. Now embarrassed to be British."
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-38675616
|
BBC Breakfast presenters meet 'Orangu-cam' - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
The Breakfast team have been monkeying around with one of the stars of new series 'Spy in the Wild'.
| null |
'Spy in the Wild' uses life-like animatronics to infiltrate the animal world and capture wildlife from a unique perspective.
BBC Breakfast's Steph and Charlie met one of the stars of the series.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38673839
|
BBC iPlayer - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null | null | null |
JavaScript seems to be disabled. Please enable JavaScript to take full advantage of iPlayer.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10318089
|
Is free trade good or bad? - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Free trade has been a dominant part of the post-WW2 global economy, but it is now being challenged.
|
Business
|
Trade makes the world go round, but how free can it remain?
Free trade is something of a sacred cow in the economics profession.
Moving towards it, rather slowly, has also been one of the dominant features of the post-World War Two global economy.
Now there are new challenges to that development.
The UK is leaving the European Union and the single market - though in her speech this week, British Prime Minister Theresa May promised to push for the "freest possible trade" with European countries and to sign new deals with others around the world.
Most obviously Donald Trump has raised the possibility of quitting various trade agreements, notably Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. Even the World Trade Organization (WTO) has proposed new barriers to imports.
In Europe, trade negotiations with the United States and Canada have run into difficulty, reflecting public concerns about the impact on jobs, the environment and consumer protection.
The WTO's Doha Round of global trade liberalisation talks has run aground.
The World Trade Organization is based in Geneva and came into being in 1995
The case for trade without government imposed barriers has a long history in economics.
Adam Smith, the 18th Century Scottish economist who many see as the founding father of the subject, was in favour of it. But it was a later British writer, David Ricardo in the 19th Century, who set out the idea known as comparative advantage that underpins much of the argument for freer trade.
It is not about countries being able to produce more cheaply or efficiently than others. You can have a comparative advantage in making something even if you are less efficient than your trade partner.
When a country shifts resources to produce more of one good there is what economists call an "opportunity cost" in terms of how much less of something else you can make. You have a comparative advantage in making a product if the cost in that sense is less than it is in another country.
Economic arguments over free trade date back to the 19th Century
If two countries trade on this basis, concentrating on goods where they have a comparative advantage they can both end up better off.
Another reason that economists tend to look askance at trade restrictions comes from an analysis of the impact if governments do put up barriers - in particular tariffs or taxes - on imports.
There are gains of course. The firms and workers who are protected can sell more of their goods in the home market. But consumers lose out by paying a higher price - and consumers in this case can mean businesses, if they buy the protected goods as components or raw materials.
The textbook analysis says that those losses add up to more than the total gains. So you get the textbook conclusion that it's best to avoid protection.
Many lower-skilled workers in developed economies feel they have lost out in the drive to globalisation
And this conclusion is regardless of what other countries do. The 19th Century French economist Frederic Bastiat set it out it like this:
"It makes no more sense to be protectionist because other countries have tariffs than it would to block up our harbours because other countries have rocky coasts."
The implication is that unilateral trade liberalisation makes perfect sense.
A more recent theory of what drives international trade looks at what are called economies of scale - where the more a firm produces of some good, the lower cost of each unit.
The associated specialisation can make it beneficial for economies that are otherwise very similar to trade with one another. This area is known as new trade theory and the Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman was an important figure in developing it.
The basic idea that it's good to have freer trade has underpinned decades of international co-operation on trade policy since World War Two.
Free trade has been a cornerstone of the post-war world
The period since 1945 has been characterised by a gradual lowering of trade barriers. It happened in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which began life in 1948 as a forum for governments to negotiate lower tariffs.
Its membership was initially small, but by the time it was replaced by the World Trade Organization in 1995, most countries had signed up.
The motivation was to end or reduce the protectionism or barriers to trade that went up in the 1930s. It is not generally thought that those barriers caused the Great Depression, but many do think they aggravated and prolonged it.
The process of post-war trade liberalisation was driven largely by a desire for reciprocal concessions - better access to others' markets in return for opening your own.
But what is the case against free (or at least freer) trade?
First and foremost is the argument that it creates losers as well as winners.
What Ricardo's theory suggested was that all countries engaging in trade could be better off. But his idea could not address the question of whether trade could create losers as well as winners within countries.
Economic theory says if governments adopt protectionism, total losses will outweigh total gains
Work by two Swedish Nobel Prize winners, Eli Hecksher and Bertil Ohlin, subsequently built on by the American Paul Samuelson developed the basic idea of comparative advantage in a way that showed that trade could lead to some groups losing out.
Putting it very briefly, if a country has a relatively abundant supply of, for example, low-skilled labour, those workers will gain while their low-skilled counterparts in countries where it is less abundant will lose.
There has been a debate about whether this approach fits the facts, but some do see it as a useful explanation of how American industrial workers (for example) have been adversely affected by the rise of competition from countries such as China.
A group of economists including David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked at the impact on areas where local industry was exposed to what they call the China shock.
"Adjustment in local labour markets is remarkably slow, with wages and labour-force participation rates remaining depressed and unemployment rates remaining elevated for at least a full decade after the China trade shock commences.
At this week's World Economic Forum, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned against isolationist moves that could spark a trade war
Still if you accept that overall countries gain, then the winners could in principle fully compensate the losers and still be better off.
Such programmes do exist. Countries that have unemployment benefits provide assistance to people who have lost their jobs. Some of those people will have been affected by competition from abroad.
The United States has a programme that is specially targeted for people who lose their jobs as a result of imports, called Trade Adjustment Assistance.
But is it enough? Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank in Washington writes: "The winners have never tried to fully compensate the losers, so let's stop claiming that trade benefits us all."
Which arguments will Donald Trump be listening to in the White House?
In any case, it is not clear that compensation would do the trick. As Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor noted, they may lose their jobs and also "the dignity of work".
He is keen on maintaining open markets for trade, but recognises the need to do something about what you might call the side effects.
To return to recent political developments - Donald Trump clearly did get support from many of those people in areas of the US where industry has declined.
We don't yet know how he will address those issues when he takes his place in the White House.
Perhaps his threats to introduce new tariffs are just that - threats. But the post-war trend towards more liberalised international trade looks more uncertain than it has for many years.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38209407
|
Putin spokesman denies US election hack - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman denies any Russian government involvement in hacking to influence the 2016 US election result.
| null |
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has told the BBC that neither the Russian government nor the president himself were involved in hacking to influence the 2016 US election result.
Speaking exclusively to Hardtalk, Dmitry Peskov added that Russia suffered “hundreds and thousands of cyberattacks every day” emanating from the West.
The full Hardtalk interview is running on the BBC News Channel on Saturday 21 January at 0030 and 1530 GMT and Sunday 22 January 1630 GMT. It will also be on BBC World News on Saturday 21 January at 0730 and 1630 GMT and Sunday 22 January 2030 GMT.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38684643
|
Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth artwork shortlist announced - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
A scoop of ice cream covered in parasites and an empty robe are some of the new proposals for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
|
London
|
The End by Heather Phillipson: Described as exploring the extremes of shared experience, from commemorations and celebrations to mass protests, all while being observed by a drone's camera
A scoop of ice cream covered in parasites and an empty robe are some of the new proposals for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Also put forward is a recreation of a sculpture destroyed by so-called Islamic State.
Maquettes of the proposed works will be on display at the National Gallery until 26 March. The two winners will then be chosen.
The two chosen works will be unveiled on the plinth in 2018 and 2020.
The Fourth Plinth Programme invites world-class artists to make new works for the capital.
A maquette is a small preliminary sketch, or wax or clay model, from which a work of art is elaborated.
High Way by Damián Ortega: Described as a playful and precarious construction of a truck, oil cans, scaffold and a ladder
Untitled by Huma Bhabha: Described as an imposing figure, the scale reflecting a modern comic sci-fi movie
The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist by Michael Rakowitz: Described as a recreation of the Lamassu, a winged bull and protective deity, which was destroyed by so-called Islamic State in 2015
The Emperor's Old Clothes by Raqs Media Collective: Described as exploring how power can be both present and absent in sculpture
The current artwork, David Shrigley's Really Good, will be on the plinth until March 2018.
The 7m-high (23ft) sculpture of a hand giving a thumbs up sign was unveiled last September.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: "I'm delighted to see that the shortlisted commissions are not just from the UK but from around the globe, a clear sign that London is open to creativity.
"The Fourth Plinth reflects the best of London in so many ways - it is inventive, pioneering, surprising and a source of delight, discussion and debate for millions of Londoners and visitors from across the world."
Mark Wallinger's figure Ecce Homo was the first piece to stand on the empty plinth - in the north-west corner of the square - in 1999.
Other works have included Alison Lapper Pregnant by Marc Quinn (2005), Nelson's Ship in a Bottle by Yinka Shonibare (2010) and Elmgreen and Dragset's Powerless Structures, Fig 101 - a sculpture of a boy astride his rocking horse.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38670797
|
Cunning or clueless? Europe reacts in Brexit bout with May - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The BBC's Kevin Connolly gauges reaction in the European Parliament to the UK PM's Brexit pledges.
|
Europe
|
If Brexit is going to end up feeling like a long toe-to-toe boxing match then at last we can say that the first round is over.
Theresa May has come out jabbing - offering crisp points about the UK's plans to leave the single market and its readiness to walk away from a bad deal if that's all that's on offer.
The European side for the moment is still acting as if what we've seen so far this week is just the posturing and chest-beating you see at the pre-fight weigh-in rather than the fight itself.
Their big-hitters - politicians like the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and his equivalent at the European Council Donald Tusk - have confined themselves to a little nifty defensive work pointing to the likely difficulty of the talks, hoping for a fair outcome and reiterating that until Britain formally triggers the departure process everything is mere shadow boxing.
None of that of course will stop individual MEPs and commentators from offering their assessment of where the balance lies between the EU and the UK after Theresa May's Brexit declaration.
One German colleague said to me jokingly: "I didn't realise that the EU had decided to leave the UK until I heard your prime minister's speech."
And elsewhere in the corridors of the European Parliament you heard plenty of surprise at the confidence of the tone coming from London, the crispness of the decision to leave the single market and the sudden shafts of clarity after weeks in which the UK had appeared to not know what it wanted.
Shafts of clarity about the UK's position in the corridors of the European Parliament?
That's not to say of course that everyone has been impressed, even though Mrs May was praised in some quarters both for realism and for clarity.
It's worth remembering that most mainstream politicians in Europe view Brexit as an act of madness to be spoken of with hostility and incomprehension. Britain in this analysis has taken the decision to walk away from an institution that's been an engine of peace and prosperity.
Hence these remarks from the German MP Norbert Roettgen, who represents Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats.
He said: "The UK's two main economic weaknesses are its considerable trade deficit and a big budget deficit. As such [UK Chancellor Philip] Hammond's threats with duties and tax cuts would primarily damage the UK and should be regarded as an expression of British cluelessness."
That dismissal of an option Britain is keeping in reserve - the option of operating as a low-tax base for business if Europe refuses to cut an attractive deal - would be seen in Strasbourg as one weakness in the Theresa May strategy.
From elsewhere on the German political spectrum came an alternative strand of criticism - not that the UK was trying to set up a kind of low-tax magnet for foreign investment into Europe but simply that it was cutting ties in too brutal a fashion.
Too much, too fast? Yes, says German Greens MP Ska Keller
For Bruno Gollnisch, MEP for the French far-right National Front (pictured left, next to party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen last year) the UK can return to days of yore
Ska Keller represents the German Greens in the European parliament.
She told us: "My overall impression is that May wants to go for a super-hard Brexit. She wants to cut all ties and I don't think that's going to fly well on the rest of the continent. Theresa May didn't really make friends in the last couple of days here in the overall European Union."
To the right of that broad European mainstream of course, things are seen rather differently.
France's far-right National Front looks at the success of the Leave campaign in the UK with a degree of envy. It doesn't like the EU either and would like to see its core treaties renegotiated.
Its senior MEP Bruno Gollnisch said: " I do think that in the end Britain could settle down to a situation rather like what it had before Brexit - after all in those days we managed things like exchanges of school pupils. And the UK will have commercial ties that reflect its specific Anglo-Saxon nature. There is no real reason why not."
So there has been a sense in Strasbourg this week that a phase in a kind of phoney war has finally ended and after months of speculating about what Britain might or might not want, a degree of clarity has emerged about British ambitions towards the single market and to a lesser extent the custom unions.
So far in this cautious round it was the UK which came out swinging rather than the European side.
But there is a very long way to go in this negotiation and by the end of it both sides will have endured defeats and disappointments alongside their occasional moments of triumph.
The UK might feel for now that its ahead on points, but everyone knows there's a long way - a very long way - to go.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38669476
|
Johnny Wright: The Instagram star who cuts Michelle Obama's hair - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Throughout his time in the White House, Michelle Obama's personal hairdresser has become a flamboyant social media star.
| null |
Johnny Wright has several celebrity clients but perhaps none is as famous as the First Lady.
Throughout his time in the White House, Wright - Michelle Obama's personal hairdresser - has become a flamboyant social media star, with nearly 24,000 Instagram followers.
He admits he's sometimes had to tone down his pics because of his high-profile customer.
As Mrs Obama makes way for Melania Trump, how does Wright think the FLOTUS has changed American style?
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38666098
|
Travelling from China to London - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
China has launched a direct rail freight service to London, as part of its drive to develop trade.
| null |
China has launched a direct rail freight service to London, as part of its drive to develop trade and investment ties with Europe.
London will become the 15th European city to join what the Chinese government calls the New Silk Route.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-38659170
|
Donald Trump's big day: Who is performing? - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Donald Trump has put together a star-studded line-up for his official inauguration celebrations.
|
Entertainment & Arts
|
Although a host of big names have turned him down, Donald Trump has gathered a number of stars for his official inauguration celebrations. Meanwhile, other stars are appearing at alternative and anti-Trump events.
The official inauguration celebrations kicked off on Thursday with the Make America Great Again! concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC as part of the Welcome Celebration.
The bill included hard rockers 3 Doors Down (above), who have had two US number one albums.
Country singer Toby Keith joined them at the event. He released a statement explaining his decision. "I don't apologise for performing for our country or military," he said. "I performed at events for previous presidents Bush and Obama and over 200 shows in Iraq and Afghanistan for the USO [United Service Organizations]."
Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight also put in an appearance. He endorsed Mr Trump during the presidential election campaign, saying Mr Trump is "an answer to our problems" and "will save our nation".
During his speech on Thursday, Voight said: "We have been witnessed to a barrage of propaganda that left us all breathless with anticipation, not knowing if God could reverse all the negative lies against Mr Trump, whose only desire was to make America great again."
American-Indian DJ RaviDrums provided further entertainment. He said he was "on the fence" when he was first asked to perform. "But I talked to my dad and he said this is a great honour. My dad came to America from India with $8 and a one-way ticket to pursue the American dream. This is the dream!"
But - although Dreamgirls star Jennifer Holliday was announced as a performer at the concert, she dropped out after a vicious backlash.
"I woke up, and there was like this whole thing of terrible tweets and things on my Instagram," she said. "I live a pretty reclusive life. I pretty much stay to myself. You're not on the radio and then one morning you wake up and everybody hates you."
The honour of singing the national anthem during the main inauguration event itself on Friday has gone to 16-year-old Jackie Evancho, who came second on America's Got Talent in 2010.
Sam Moore, of legendary soul duo Sam and Dave, will lead the line-up at Liberty and Freedom: The Official Presidential Inaugural Balls.
He said: "I was a participant in the civil rights movement and have seen many positive changes and advancement in my 81 years of living in this wonderful country, but I know we must all join hands and work together with our new president."
The Radio City Rockettes will also turn on the style at the official balls - even though the decision caused consternation among some members of the troupe.
Other performers at the balls will include Tim Rushlow and his Big Band, Silhouettes, Pelican212, The Piano Guys, Circus 1903, Cache Olson, Lexi Walker and Erin Boheme.
There are alternatives to the official balls - the Peace Ball, for liberal activists, will feature Solange Knowles.
Grammy-winning jazz musician Esperanza Spalding will also star at the Peace Ball in Washington.
Rock band Audioslave will play their first concert for 11 years at an Anti-Inaugural Ball in Los Angeles, organised by rock/hip-hop crossover band Prophets of Rage on Friday.
Veteran folk rocker Jackson Browne - who initially supported Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders - will play at the same anti-Trump event.
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-38678102
|
Novak Djokovic: Australian Open champion knocked out by world 117 Denis Istomin - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Defending champion Novak Djokovic is beaten in five sets by world number 117 Denis Istomin in the Australian Open second round.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Defending champion Novak Djokovic suffered a shock defeat by world number 117 Denis Istomin in the second round of the Australian Open.
The six-time winner struggled for rhythm and lost 7-6 (10-8) 5-7 2-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 in four hours and 48 minutes.
It is the first time Djokovic, 29, has lost in the second round of a Grand Slam since 2008 at Wimbledon.
The result leaves world number one Andy Murray as favourite to win his first Australian Open title in Melbourne.
Briton Murray, who has already reached round three, has lost five finals in the past seven years in Melbourne, four of them to Djokovic.
It is only the second time in seven years that Djokovic has lost to a player ranked outside the top 100 - his defeat by Juan Martin del Potro, ranked 145th, at the Rio Olympics in 2016 being the other occasion.
"He deserved to win. No doubt, he was a better player in the clutch moments," said Djokovic.
"Many things came together for him today and he's a well-deserved winner. There's not much I could do."
• None Analysis - Has Djokovic's obsession burned itself out?
• None Cash fears Djokovic's best days are behind him
• None How to follow the Australian Open on the BBC
Djokovic could not find his rhythm, eventually winning his first service game after 15 minutes but going on to lose the first set in one hour and 25 minutes.
He won four consecutive games in the third set as his opponent faltered but Istomin came back in the fourth set to take it to a tie-break.
Both players served aggressively as they received vocal support from the crowd, with Istomin taking the match to a deciding set with a brutal ace.
Istomin, who broke in game five, remained strong on his own serve and wrapped things up when Djokovic, lunging on the backhand, could only block another crunching delivery long on match point.
Uzbek Istomin will next face Spain's Pablo Carreno Busta, who beat Britain's Kyle Edmund on Thursday.
"It is the biggest win of my career and means so much, now I feel I can play with these guys and be with them on the same level," said Istomin.
"From the third set I had cramp in my leg, I don't know how I held it. I was playing so good. I surprised myself."
Istomin had two years out of the game after breaking his leg in a car accident and spending three months in hospital in 2001.
Coached by his mother Klaudiya, he dropped out of the top 100 in 2016 and was given a wildcard to play in the Australian Open.
Prior to his win over Djokovic, Istomin had won just one of 33 matches against a player ranked in the world's top 10.
His best Grand Slam result is reaching the last 16 at Wimbledon in 2012 and the US Open in 2013, where he lost to Murray.
Gavhar Azimova, from the Tennis Federation of Republic of Uzbekistan, said Istomin is a "star" in his home country.
"We are ecstatic," he told BBC Uzbek. They [Denis and his mother] trained very hard. He is a very kind and modest guy, but works very hard.
"The whole Federation watched it live together. You say 'Istomin' and everyone knows him. The phones have not stopped ringing - we have had a barrage of phone calls saying congratulations."
Djokovic has struggled for consistency since winning his first French Open title in June 2016 and completing a career Grand Slam.
He was knocked out in the third round at Wimbledon by American Sam Querrey but looked to have returned to form when he won the Rogers Cup in July.
However, he went on to lose to Del Potro in the first round of the Olympics and was knocked out of the doubles competition the following day.
He struggled physically in the US Open final, losing in four sets to third seed Stan Wawrinka, before he lost the world number one ranking to Murray in November.
Murray also ended his run of four consecutive ATP World Tours Finals titles in the same month.
"Djokovic is not the same Djokovic we saw this time last year, who was at the peak of his career," two-time Australian Open finalist Pat Cash told BBC Radio 5 live.
"It's clearly the mental edge. He's done so much and worked so hard to grab those four Grand Slams, I think he's just lost the edge."
Find out how to get into tennis in our special guide.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38673905
|
India v England: Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni seal series in Cuttack - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Brilliant centuries from Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni give India a series-clinching 15-run win over England in a thrilling second ODI.
| null |
Brilliant centuries from Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni gave India a series-clinching 15-run win over England in a thrilling second one-day international.
India were reduced to 25-3 in Cuttack before Yuvraj, who struck 150, and Dhoni (134) shared a stand of 256.
They helped India to 381-6, the third-highest total made against England.
Eoin Morgan blasted an 80-ball hundred, Jason Roy, Joe Root and Moeen Ali all made half-centuries, but England ended 366-8 to go 2-0 down with one to play.
That in itself was England's fifth-highest total and their second of 350 or more in as many games, but they still have not won a series in this country since 1984-85 and have lost 21 of their past 25 ODIs against India in India.
The tourists looked well set to alter that record when Chris Woakes took three wickets in his first three overs, including the prolific Virat Kohli, but Yuvraj and Dhoni destroyed an England attack that had no control of length.
An unlikely chase was not out of the question on an ideal batting surface, only for India's spinners to run through the England top order, with the late hitting of Morgan not enough in the face of the home attack's greater nous.
Before returning for the first match, Yuvraj was out of the India ODI side for more than three years, dropped at the end of a 2013 when he averaged only 19.71 with the bat.
Recalled after some excellent domestic form, he made his first ODI century for six years and his highest score, dismantling the England bowling with stylish drives and brutal pulls.
England were right to initially probe the left-hander's historical weakness against the short ball, but too slow to change a plan that did not work.
Time and again short deliveries were dismissed to the leg-side fence, even after Yuvraj had registered his 14th ODI ton with Jake Ball the most persistent offender.
Yuvraj successfully overturned a caught-behind decision on 145 and a double century seemed possible until he edged the excellent Woakes, comfortably the pick of England's bowlers, to wicketkeeper Jos Buttler.
Dhoni relinquished the white-ball captaincy to Kohli before this series but once again proved his worth alongside the equally experienced Yuvraj - both 35 and with 580 caps between them.
Usually at his best at the end of the innings, Dhoni dealt with the inconvenience of having to arrive in the fifth over by batting until the 48th, initially as a foil for Yuvraj.
He was dropped on 43, a tough chance to a retreating Ball off a leading edge, and only really accelerated as he neared a century, announcing his intention with a huge six over long-on off Woakes.
From there it was carnage, as Dhoni took 41 runs off the last 20 balls he faced. Overall, India hit 214 from their final 20 overs and 120 off the last 10.
Liam Plunkett, ineffective on his return for figures of 2-91, was hammered for three sixes in an over, eventually getting a crumb of comfort when Dhoni hit a full toss to David Willey at deep mid-wicket.
England were not fazed by what would have been their highest successful run chase in ODIs, with Root and Roy sharing a stand of 100 that kept the tourists ahead of the curve.
However, off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, England's tormentor during their 4-0 Test series defeat, had Root sky a sweep, bowled Ben Stokes and had Buttler stumped down the leg side, while spin partner Ravindra Jadeja found turn to bowl Roy.
Still England pressed on, captain Morgan returning to form with sixes over long-on and long-off, and Moeen's leg-side scoring bringing him a 40-ball half-century.
When Moeen dragged on to his stumps off Bhuvneshwar Kumar, it looked to be a fatal blow to England's chances, but Morgan kept them alive in a fifty partnership with Plunkett that came in only 24 balls.
The Irishman reached his ninth ODI ton only to be run out by bowler Jasprit Bumrah when backing up too far, taking England's hopes with him as he departed.
Falling short by 15 in a game of 747 runs, England will reflect on a bowling effort that was too expensive and top-order batting that failed to capitalise on a strong position.
'India just got too many runs' - analysis
India got just too many runs. England's bowling wasn't focused enough on Yuvraj Singh and then they lost wickets at the wrong time.
It's unfair to blame England's death bowlers, but they still haven't got that right. Woakes is good but they haven't got another person that they can really rely on.
• None India's 381-6 is the third-highest score ever made against England in a one-day international.
• None The partnership of 256 by Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni is the second-highest for any wicket by any opponent against England in ODIs, bettered only by the 286 shared by Sanath Jayasuriya and Upul Tharanga for Sri Lanka in 2006.
• None Yuvraj is only the sixth man to make a score of 150 or more against England in an ODI.
• None England made their fifth-highest ODI total and their largest batting second. It was also the largest score they have ever made to lose an ODI.
• None 747 runs is the second-most made in an ODI in India, behind the 825 made by the hosts and Sri Lanka in 2009-10.
• None Joe Root has made a half-century in each of the five Tests and two ODIs against India this winter.
'We weren't at our best' - what they said
England captain Eoin Morgan: "We probably weren't at our best with ball or the bat but we still competed and it's tremendously disappointing not to get over the line.
"Bowling to MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh is very difficult at times. The margin for error is quite small and the challenge is to break the partnership a little earlier.
"We showed a lot of fight, we have a huge amount of talent. It's been a magnificent day's cricket."
India captain Virat Kohli: "I said to the team that if we had had a good start then where could we have ended up today? MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh brought stability and wonders to the team, their batting rate was outstanding.
"A 380 target, we thought, was a bit too far-fetched, but we bowled at the most difficult phase because of the dew and the ball was very hard to execute - and the guys showed great character.
"If we had not picked out the wickets in the middle then I'm not sure where the game would have gone."
Man-of-the-match Yuvraj Singh: "In the domestic season I've been hitting the ball really well and I've been working hard on my fitness. The results showed today.
"Me and MS Dhoni understand the situations really well, we started by hitting the ball down the ground really well and not taking any risks. Then we attacked when the time was right."
"Diet has been the key, as you pass 30 you've got to work hard on your fitness - I learned that from Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble, all the greats."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/38679657
|
Chinese billionaire offers biggest education prize - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Internet entrepreneur Charles Chen Yidan is going to award $8m per year to education projects.
|
Business
|
Charles Chen Yidan is putting his technology fortune back into education
A Chinese technology billionaire is offering the world's most valuable education prize.
The Yidan Prize will award nearly $8m (£6.64m) every year to two research projects that have the potential to "transform" global education.
Charles Chen Yidan, who co-founded China's internet company, Tencent, wants to use the prize to scale up innovative education research projects and replicate them across the world.
Universities, governments and think tanks have reacted enthusiastically to the prize, and leading US institutions like Harvard and MIT have already submitted several nominations.
But the winner might not necessarily be a household name in education. Even a local project could win the prize, if it can prove it has been effective.
"As long as an idea is replicable in other regions, we can give them an award," says Mr Chen.
Mr Chen, now aged 45, became one of China's richest men after co-founding Tencent in 1998. In 2013, he stepped down to focus on educational philanthropy.
His interest in education came from his family. His grandmother was illiterate but insisted that Mr Chen's father got a good education.
The internet billionaire founded Wuhan College, with an emphasis on more than exam grades
Mr Chen himself studied applied chemistry as an undergraduate at Shenzhen University and took a master's degree in economic law at Nanjing University.
His educational philosophy has also been shaped by the "tremendous pressure" he felt while studying for China's "gaokao" higher education entrance examinations.
So he set up Wuhan College, a private university in China, which focuses on "whole-person development" rather than rote-learning and examinations.
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.
The college aims to train talented students to join China's technology industry.
Executives from Tencent helped to design the college's curriculum, recruit students and teach classes, so that its graduates are trained in the skills required by employers.
But Mr Chen was frustrated that this college only reached a limited number of students. So he decided a global education prize would be the best way to improve education for millions of young people.
Mr Chen, speaking on a tour of Europe to promote the prize to universities, governments, NGOs and think tanks, says he has already been inundated with nominations.
He wants the prize to focus the attention of universities and governments on future trends in education.
Looking for creativity: Fine art exam in Wuhan this autumn
"We find that no matter whether people come from a rich or developing country, in the east or the west, they are talking about similar concerns," says Mr Yidan.
These are questions about children from rich families having the best access to education, and whether students in some countries face too many exams.
The prize-winners will be chosen by an independent committee of educational experts led by Dr Koichiro Matsuura, former director-general of Unesco.
They are looking for nominations that are innovative and sustainable, that reform existing educational structures, and that respond to what might be the future challenges for education.
But Mr Chen also has his own ideas about how to improve global education.
Speaking through a translator but occasionally breaking into English to reinforce a point, he said he wants to find ways to make the most of the expertise of retired teachers.
Mr Yidan, launching the prize, called for better use of the talents of retired teachers
"They are a valuable resource that we need to make better use of," he says.
He thinks that collecting "big data" on students can improve the education that individual students receive.
"By analysing big data, we can find bespoke ways to help pupils in need," he says.
Unsurprisingly for the co-founder of an internet company, he believes that technology will transform education.
This latest education prize is now the most valuable.
The Global Teacher Prize, run by the Varkey Foundation, gives $1m (£830,000) annually to a teacher who has made an "outstanding contribution" to education.
The Broad Prize for Urban Education, which ran from 2002 to 2014, gave $1m every year to a school district in the US that significantly improved the academic performance of low-income and minority students.
The WISE Prize for education, supported by the Qatar Foundation, awards $500,000 (£415,000) to the winning laureate.
But is a prize really the best way to improve education?
Dan Sarofian-Butin, founding dean of the school of education and social policy at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, says that prize money can be a poor way of achieving change.
"Rather than give a one-off cash prize, I hope the Yidan Prize will nurture and sustain its winners over a period of years," he says.
Hanan Al Hroub who teaches refugee children has been named as the world's best teacher
"If you look at the TV show Dragons' Den, or Shark Tank in the US, what the winners really get is not just the investment money from the sharks, but their expertise, their network of contacts and firms, their foot in the door with many companies, and their national exposure.
"Likewise, a really powerful education prize would create a mechanism that fostered exactly such mentoring, networking, and sustainability."
Andreas Schleicher, education director at the OECD, welcomes the Yidan Prize as an incentive for innovation in education.
"When we surveyed teachers, less than a quarter of them said they would be recognised for greater levels of innovation," he said.
"The highly industrial and compliance-based organisation of education generally means that even where good ideas are generated, they don't scale and spread."
Nominations close at the end of March and the winners will be announced in September.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38639891
|
Kim Kardashian will appear in the all-female Ocean's Eight - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The all-female Ocean's Eight film adds two new cast members - Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner.
|
Entertainment & Arts
|
Kardashian has reportedly already shot her scenes for Ocean's Eight
The upcoming all-female Ocean's Eight film has just added a new cast member - Kim Kardashian.
The reality TV star and her half-sister Kendall Jenner will make cameo appearances in the film.
It will be the fourth movie in the Ocean's franchise in 17 years - confusingly coming after Ocean's Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen.
Kardashian and Jenner were photographed in New York on Monday after reportedly filming their cameos.
The pair will apparently appear in scenes set at a fictional gala being held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Kendall Jenner, Kardashian's half sister, has also shot scenes for Ocean's Eight
One scene in the film features a jewel robbery at New York's annual Met Gala - an event packed with celebrities.
The news comes three months after Kardashian was held at gunpoint during a robbery in Paris.
She took a break from social media and public appearances as a result but has recently returned to Twitter and visited Dubai last week.
Rihanna, Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway are due to take some of the main roles in Ocean's Eight.
Vogue editor Anna Wintour and fashion designer Zac Posen have also recently been spotted near the set - could they be making cameos in the same scenes?
We'll find out when the film hits cinemas in June 2018.
The original Ocean's 11 was released in 1960 and starred Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin - and was remade as Ocean's Eleven in 2001 with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
Unlike Ocean's Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, the new film won't have major roles for Pitt and Clooney.
Matt Damon will reprise his role for a brief appearance, and James Corden and Damian Lewis will also have cameos.
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-38662090
|
Line of cyclists in Bangladesh sets Guinness World Record - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Bangladesh cyclists set a world record for the longest single line of moving bikes.
| null |
A group of more than 1,000 cyclists in Bangladesh set a Guinness World Record for the longest single line of moving bikes.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/38668336
|
Windsor Castle undergoes two-week 'high clean' - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Chandeliers and suits of armour are just some of the features being dusted down.
|
Berkshire
|
The chandelier, one of five in the Waterloo Chamber, dates from 1862 and was made by the Birmingham glass makers F and C Osler
Windsor Castle is undergoing a two week spring clean before it is re-opened to the public over the weekend.
Experts ensure the castle's State Apartments are cleaned from floor to ceiling during what the Royal Trust calls the annual "high clean".
Chandeliers dating from 1862 and commissioned by Queen Victoria are dusted, along with suits of armour on the Grand Staircase.
The castle will open its doors again to the public on Saturday.
A marble bust of German Emperor Frederick III of Prussia in St George's Hall is cleaned as part of the annual clean
Expert staff cleaning a cut glass chandelier, dated from 1862, in the Waterloo Chamber, Windsor Castle
The clean takes two weeks to complete and sees each room cleaned from top to bottom
Castle staff dust the suits of armour on the Grand Staircase
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-38674610
|
Andy Murray column on Dan Evans, injury worries and inspiring the next generation - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
World number one Andy Murray on fellow Briton Dan Evans, injuring his ankle and inspiring kids to take up tennis.
| null |
Coverage: Live radio and text commentary of every Andy Murray match on BBC Radio, BBC Sport website and BBC Sport app. Watch highlights on BBC Two and online from 21 January.
I'm really happy and excited for Dan Evans, who is getting closer and closer to the top of the game.
I've known him a long time. I first met him when we played a Davis Cup tie probably nine, 10 years ago. You spend a week together in the build-up and since then I've seen him a lot at various events.
He used to have a reputation of maybe not working that hard but every time I have been on the court with him, he has been fantastic.
He's a natural competitor. Once you get him on the match court, he always tries his best and gives his best effort and I really respect that.
Away from the court, he's a pretty relaxed guy. He doesn't take himself too seriously and he likes to have a good time, but when he's playing, he's focused. He's a very talented player.
I haven't spoken to him loads about his tennis. He has a team around him that is doing such a fantastic job.
If he keeps doing what he's doing, who knows where he could end up? It's exciting to see how good he is going to be. We still don't know what his limit is.
'We want to inspire kids to pick up a racquet'
It's a really promising time to be part of British tennis. A number of players are close to the top of their game and that's really good.
I definitely think that having a number of different players, with different personalities and backgrounds and playing styles, is really positive. I hope it keeps going that way.
A lot of kids might watch tennis and hate watching me. But some might love watching Johanna Konta, or Dan, or Kyle Edmund or Heather Watson.
The more choice there is, the more role models people have to look up to and that is a really positive thing.
'I was worried about my ankle'
There was a moment of panic when I went over on my ankle during my match against Andrey Rublev. You don't know how bad it is until you get up and you're also a bit shocked about going over.
Once I got up and started moving around, it was still a bit concerning because it was sore. I'm walking around on it fine now - it's sore, but it's OK.
For now, it's all about icing it and keeping it elevated. I had an ice bath after the game and I'll be keeping it cool for the next few days. It's all good.
Facing Rublev did give me a few flashbacks to when I was first starting out.
I played Rafael Nadal when I was 19 at the 2007 Australian Open. Going out for the first time against one of the top players does influence the way you play.
I expected Rublev to come out going for his shots, because he had nothing to lose. He got off to a pretty quick start but once I settled down, I played some good stuff. He's a good player though and definitely one to watch in the future.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38661264
|
Primates 'sliding towards extinction', say scientists - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
A report says that 60% of the world's primate species are under threat of extinction.
| null |
The world's primates face "crisis" with 60% of species now threatened with extinction, according to research.
A global study, involving more than 30 scientists, assessed the conservation status of more than 500 individual species, including apes, monkeys, lemurs and lorises.
The findings are published in the journal Science Advances.
Victoria Gill visited the lemurs at Blackpool Zoo to explain the threat.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38670097
|
Australian Open 2017: Konta, Edmund & Watson aim for last 32 - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
British trio Johanna Konta, Heather Watson and Kyle Edmund attempt to make the Australian Open third round on Thursday.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Coverage: Daily live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra; live text on selected matches on the BBC Sport website.
British trio Johanna Konta, Kyle Edmund and Heather Watson will attempt to reach the Australian Open third round on Thursday.
Konta, who won the Sydney International last week, takes on Japan's Naomi Osaka at 00:00 GMT.
The 25-year-old ninth seed beat Osaka 6-4 6-4 in 2015 US Open qualifying - their only previous meeting.
Edmund plays Pablo Carreno Busta, while Watson will reach the last 32 if she beats Jennifer Brady.
Like Konta, world number 46 Edmund is first on court, with Watson to follow at approximately 01:30 GMT.
Konta began her campaign with a commanding 7-5 6-2 win over Belgian former top-20 player Kirsten Flipkens and, given her impressive early season form, will hope to improve on her run to the semi-final last year.
However, Osaka's power is a threat to those ambitions.
The world number 48 has hit the fastest female serve of the tournament so far at 123mph and delivered nine aces in her first-round victory over Luksika Kumkhum.
The 19-year-old reached the third round at the Australian, French and US Opens last year.
"I remember playing her and since then she's improved a lot," Konta said.
"I know she plays a big game. She has big shots. I'm definitely prepared to go in for a battle."
After losing in the opening round of the Australian Open in the past two years, Yorkshire's Edmund is into uncharted territory.
The 22-year-old's only previous encounter with 30th seed Carreno Busta was a defeat on clay at a lower-tier Futures event in 2013.
Should Edmund win, it will be the first time three British players have made it to the third round of the Australian Open.
Watson's third-round defeat by Agnieszka Radwanska in 2013 is her best run in Melbourne and she will be favourite to match that with victory against Brady, who is ranked 35 places lower at 116.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38660203
|
James Ellington & Nigel Levine: British sprinters 'truly blessed' to be alive - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
British sprinter James Ellington says he does not know how he or team-mate Nigel Levine survived a motorbike accident in Spain.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Athletics
British sprinter James Ellington says he does not know how he or team-mate Nigel Levine survived a motorbike accident in Spain.
The pair will miss the 2017 season - including the World Championships - and Ellington posted on Instagram that he is "truly blessed" to be alive.
The 31-year-old has a suspected broken leg in two places and both men have a suspected broken pelvis.
Ellington said he is "overwhelmed" by the public's support.
He added: "I truly am blessed as I do not know how me or my training partner Nigel are still alive.
"Me and him are both strong characters and will be looking to bounce back from this horrific accident."
British Athletics says its staff are with the athletes and are liaising with doctors over treatment.
However, they are still waiting to find out the severity of their injuries from specialists. There will be no definitive update from doctors until the weekend or next week.
Ellington and Levine say they were riding a motorbike when they were struck head on by a car travelling on the wrong side of the road.
The incident happened on Tuesday evening, with Ellington and Levine part of a British Athletics group taking part in a warm-weather training camp.
Any pelvic injuries to sprinters are potentially career-threatening and both athletes will need significant rehabilitation.
Ellington, 31, is a 100m and 200m specialist and a two-time Olympian who was part of the gold medal-winning 4x100m relay teams at the 2014 and 2016 European Championships.
Levine, 27, is a 400m runner who was born in Trinidad and raised in Northamptonshire.
He won a European outdoor relay gold in 2014 and an indoor relay gold in 2013.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/38663811
|
Rebecca Gallantree: World champion diver retires - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
World champion Rebecca Gallantree retires from diving after competing in three Olympic Games.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Diving
British world champion Rebecca Gallantree, who also attended three Olympic Games, has retired from diving.
Gallantree competed in her first international event in 2004 and won gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the women's 3m synchronised springboard alongside Alicia Blagg.
The 32-year-old from Chelmsford won the team event at the 2015 World Championships alongside Tom Daley.
"I have achieved more in my career than I ever thought possible," she said.
"Representing Team GB at three Olympic Games, winning a Commonwealth gold medal with Alicia, and a World Championship gold medal with Tom were all things that I would never have imagined 10 years ago.
"Competing in front of a home crowd at London 2012, in particular, will always be one of my fondest memories.
"I hope that my diving career has helped show what can be achieved with passion, determination, and hard work."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/diving/38677339
|
Life and death on Thailand's lethal roads - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The BBC's Jonathan Head looks into why Thailand's roads are among the most lethal in the world.
|
Asia
|
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Jonathan Head looks at the cost to human lives of Thailand's poor road safety record.
There is a ritual that is now very familiar to Thais, before the two big holiday seasons of the year, in late December for the new year, and in April for the Songkran Festival.
The government will set a target for reducing fatalities on Thailand's notoriously dangerous roads, exhorting Thais not to speed, or drink and drive.
Sometimes good citizens will run publicity stunts, like the coffin-maker, who last year invited journalists to film the huge stockpile his workers were building up for the holiday season.
And every year these efforts fail.
The grim statistics of death and injury on the roads are tallied each day in the media with, as often as not, worse figures than the year before.
And so it was this last new year - 478 people lost their lives on the roads in just seven days.
In one horrific collision in Chonburi on 2 January, 25 people died - some burned to death in a crushed and overcrowded passenger van they could not escape.
In the latest high-profile accident, a pick-up truck collided with a passenger van, killing 25 people
Thailand's roads are currently ranked the second most lethal in the world after Libya's by the World Health Organization.
This status is all the more extraordinary given the fact that Thailand has been peaceful and increasingly prosperous for decades, with governments that in other fields, like healthcare and infrastructure, have made impressive progress.
In 2011 the then-government announced the following ten years as Thailand's 'Decade of Action on Road Safety'.
It declared 2012 as the year of 100 percent helmet use on motorbikes.
In 2015 the Department of Disaster Prevention, which is tasked with road safety in addition to problems like floods and landslides, boldly announced a target of reducing road deaths by 80%.
The challenge they face is not hard to see. Thailand's rapid development has bequeathed it an unrivalled network of 462,133 roads in the region, nearly all paved, with plenty of multi-lane highways.
There are 37 million registered vehicles, 20 million of them motorbikes, and millions more that are unregistered.
Driving on a Thai expressway is akin to playing a hyper-caffeinated video game. A cursory web search for road accident videos will throw up examples of breathtaking, sometimes suicidal, recklessness. Drunk driving is a huge problem.
In 2014 and 2015 three foreigners, a British couple and a Chilean man, who were cycling around the world, and near the end of their journeys, were killed while travelling through Thailand.
A pick-up truck driver, who struck the British couple while trying to reach a hat on the floor of his cab, was fined the equivalent of $30 and given a suspended prison sentence.
"Thailand has beautiful roads", explains Ratana Winther, the country director for the US-based Asia Injury Prevention Foundation. "And people tend to go very fast. So the number one killer is speed."
Police Sergeant-Major Kanthachat Nua-on can attest to that.
At a speed trap he had set up on a stretch of elevated expressway outside Bangkok, he watched car after car pass him at speeds well in excess of the 80km/h (50 mph) limit. He did not bother to ticket them.
"If we strictly follow what the law says, and issue a ticket for people driving over the speed limit, then we will end up booking everyone."
He booked just one car, travelling at 129km/h. But the fines are small, and more than half of those ticketed do not bother to pay, with little follow-up.
There are now 37 million vehicles on Thailand's roads
In recent years there have been a number of cases where drivers from wealthy families have killed, and been treated with extraordinary leniency.
In 2012 the grandson of the man who made a fortune from the Red Bull energy drink killed a policeman while driving at speed in his Ferrari. He was charged, but has repeatedly failed to show up in court.
Another case was that of a 16-year-old girl from an influential family, driving without a license, who struck a passenger van, killing nine of its occupants.
She was given a suspended prison sentence, and ordered to do community service - which it turned out two years later she had avoided doing.
Some 24,000 people are estimated to die on Thailand's roads each year
"Enforcement is the key", says Ratana Winther. "But that is not just about telling the police to enforce the law. The police should be told to prioritise traffic policing over traffic management.
"But it is a multi-sectoral challenge. The punishment needs to be big enough for people to be afraid of it. And the safety campaigns must be continuous, not just at peak seasons. Then we need to move on to issues like improving the engineering of roads."
Former Deputy Transport Minister and safety campaigner Nikorn Chamnong goes further.
"We need to go back and change the DNA of the country," he says. "Education, right back in schools, is important".
He has been petitioning the current military-appointed National Assembly to do more. It is now on the point of approving ten changes to driving laws, including mandating the use of rear seatbelts - overall the largest overhaul of road safety legislation in 40 years.
But no-one knows how well these laws will be enforced.
Mourners have left flowers at the site of the accident in Chonburi
Members of the public are cynical. "There is a saying, that a true Thai follows his own rules," said Pongsak Putta, a motorbike taxi driver, who was hit by a car and injured over the new year.
"As long as it does not happen to them, people do not think safety is an issue," said Pornpen Wongbantoon, who complains about the poor driving of the buses she has to take to work.
"Enforcement is everything," says Dr Liviu Vedrasco, who works on road safety at the World Health Organization.
The government officials he works with are serious about road safety, he believes, but co-ordination is a real challenge.
The Road Safety Direction Centre is responsible for leading on the issue, but is subsumed within the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department, which is itself within the Ministry of Interior. Roads are the responsibility of the Ministry of Transport.
Dr Vedrasco believes the best way to cut the appalling death toll on the roads is to focus on the most vulnerable group, motorbikes, which account for 80% of deaths.
"If you cannot reduce the number of motorbikes, the next best thing is separating them. Make a dedicated lane; maybe not a hundred percent of roads in Thailand, but aim to increase the percentage of roads with separated traffic - this will definitely have a tremendous impact."
The parents of Hathaitip Modpai, one of the victims of the 2 January crash, have been grieving their daughter's death
After the shocking collision in Chonburi, the government has promised to phase out passenger vans, which it says are not designed to carry up to 15 people over long distances.
The police believe the 64 year-old driver fell asleep at the wheel. He was on his fifth 300km, 3.5 hour journey in 33 hours.
Twenty-six-year-old Hathaitip Modpai was one of the victims. She had been travelling in the van back from a new year visit to her parents to Bangkok, where she worked as a car saleswoman. She was an only child.
After her funeral, her mother, Wimol, reflected on what the impact of her daughter's death would be.
"I wish the government would do more," she said. "After the accident people got excited for a while, but once the fuss dies down, everything will go back to the way it was before."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38660283
|
Lawro's Premier League predictions v James McAvoy - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Actor and lifelong Celtic fan James McAvoy predicts this weekend's Premier League results and reveals his favourite players from the Scottish side.
| null |
Actor and lifelong Celtic fan James McAvoy predicts this weekend's Premier League results and reveals his favourite players from the Scottish side.
Watch Football Focus at 12:00 GMT on Saturday, 21 January on BBC One, the BBC Sport website & mobile app.
Available to UK users only.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38679851
|
Inside lab where Mers vaccine made - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Tulip Mazumdar visits the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford where scientists are developing vaccines for all three of the shortlisted viruses.
| null |
Tulip Mazumdar visits the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford where scientists are developing vaccines for all three of the shortlisted viruses.
Their Mers vaccine is at the most advanced stage.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38672514
|
Jan Vertonghen: Tottenham defender expected to be out for six weeks - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen is expected to be out for six weeks with an ankle ligament injury.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Football
Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen is expected to be out for six weeks with an ankle ligament injury, according to his manager Mauricio Pochettino.
The 29-year-old centre-back turned his left ankle during the second half of last Saturday's 4-0 win over West Brom.
"When your mind is positive it's easier to recover," said the Argentine boss. "He doesn't require surgery.
"We have players that can perform in his place and we are very happy with the squad and the players we have."
Analysis: The best defence? the most powerful midfield? - How good are Tottenham?
Vertonghen has played in 20 out of 21 league matches this season, forming part of a defence that has conceded just 14 goals - the best record in the league.
Pochettino, however, was unsure as to when attacking midfielder Erik Lamela would return to action. The 24-year-old has been sidelined since the end of October with a hip problem.
"He will have a scan on Friday," he added.
"Still it is difficult to give the time that he can come back. We need to wait tomorrow because there is still some problems, and we are still not sure of the diagnosis."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38685142
|
Trump and the nuclear codes - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
What are the checks on a US president launching a strategic nuclear strike?
|
US & Canada
|
On 20 January, inauguration day in the United States, a nameless, unknown military aide was seen accompanying President Barack Obama to the handover ceremony at the US Capitol in Washington.
That military aide was carrying a satchel over his or her shoulder containing a briefcase known as "the nuclear football". Inside was a piece of digital hardware measuring 3in (7.3cm) by 5in, known as "the biscuit".
This contained the launch codes for a strategic nuclear strike. The briefing for the incoming president on how to activate them had already taken place out of public sight, but the moment President-elect Donald Trump took the oath of office that aide, and the satchel, moved quietly over to his side.
From then on, Donald Trump has had sole authority to order an action that could result in the deaths of millions of people in under an hour. The question on a lot of people's minds is, given his thin skin and impulsive temperament, what are the safeguards, if any, to prevent an impetuous decision by one man with catastrophic consequences?
First off, it should be said that Donald Trump has previously rowed back on some of his earlier, provocative comments on the use of nuclear weapons. He stated he would be "the last person to use them", although he did not rule it out.
Other senior figures are also involved in the chain of command, such as the US Secretary of Defence, retired US Marine Gen James Mattis, But Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear non-proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, says that ultimately, the sole authority to launch a strike rests with the president.
"There are no checks and balances on the president's authority to launch a nuclear strike," he says. "But between the time he authorises one and the time it's carried out there are other people involved."
The idea of a rogue president taking such a monumental decision on his own is unrealistic. He gives the order and the secretary of defence is constitutionally obliged to carry it out.
The secretary of defence could, in theory, refuse to obey the order if he had reason to doubt the president's sanity, but this would constitute mutiny and the president can then fire him and assign the task to the deputy secretary of defence.
Donald Trump says the US should "greatly strengthen and expand" its nuclear capabilities
Under the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution a vice-president could, in theory, declare the president mentally incapable of taking a proper decision, but he would need to be backed by a majority of the cabinet.
So how would it work in practice?
Inside that briefcase, the "nuclear football" that never leaves the president's side, is a "black book" of strike options for him to choose from once he has authenticated his identity as commander-in-chief, using a plastic card.
Washington folklore has it that a previous president temporarily mislaid his identification card when he left it inside a jacket that was sent to the dry cleaners.
Once the president has selected his strike options from a long-prepared "menu", the order is passed via the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Pentagon's war room and then, using sealed authentication codes, on to US Strategic Command HQ in Offutt Airbase in Nebraska.
The order to fire is transmitted to the actual launch crews using encrypted codes that have to match the codes locked inside their safes.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
The US and Russia both possess enough nuclear missiles to destroy each other's cities several times over - there are reported to be 100 US nuclear warheads aimed at Moscow alone. The two countries' arsenals account for more than 90% of the world's total number of nuclear warheads.
As of September 2016 Russia had the most, with an estimated 1796 strategic nuclear warheads, deployed on a mixed platform of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and strategic bombers.
Under a programme ordered by President Vladimir Putin, Moscow has recently invested billions of roubles in upgrading its strategic nuclear missile force, keeping an arsenal of constantly mobile ballistic missiles travelling through tunnels deep beneath the forests of Siberia.
America had, in September 2016, 1,367 strategic nuclear warheads, similarly deployed in land-based underground missile silos, which by their static nature are vulnerable to a first strike, at sea onboard submarines, where they are harder to detect, and at airbases, where they can be loaded on to bombers.
The UK has about 120 strategic warheads, of which only a third are deployed at sea. The Royal Navy always keeps a portion of the nation's Trident nuclear force somewhere in the world's oceans, maintaining what is known as the continuous at sea deterrent.
The Topol is one of Russia's mobile ICBMs
ICBMs travel at a speed of over 17,000mph (Mach 23), flying high above the Earth's atmosphere before descending towards their pre-programmed targets at four miles a second.
The flight-time for land-based missiles flying between Russia and the US is between 25 and 30 minutes. For submarine-based missiles, where the boats may be able to approach a coast covertly, the flight time could be considerably shorter, even as little as 12 minutes.
This does not leave a president much time to decide whether it is a false alarm or imminent Armageddon. Once ICBMs have been launched they cannot be recalled, but if they remain in their silos they will probably be destroyed by the inbound attack.
A former senior White House official told me recently that much would depend on the circumstances in which a nuclear strike was being considered.
If this was a long-term, measured policy decision to say, carry out a pre-emptive strike on country X, then a lot of people would be involved. The vice-president, National Security Adviser, and much of the cabinet would all be likely to be included in the decision-making process.
But if there was an imminent strategic threat to the United States, i.e. if an inbound launch of ICBMs from a hostile state had been detected and were minutes from reaching the US then, he said, "the president has extraordinary latitude to take the sole decision to launch."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38651616
|
Vegemite back in Australian ownership after A$460m Bega deal - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The iconic brand of salty yeast spread is bought by Bega Cheese from US giant Mondelez in $A460m deal
|
Australia
|
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Vegemite is back under Australian ownership after it is sold by US food giant Mondelez.
Vegemite will return to Australian ownership after Bega Cheese agreed to buy a range of well-known food brands in a deal worth A$460m (£280m; $345m).
Bega said it would acquire Vegemite, ZoOSH mayonnaise and Bonox beef extract from Mondelez International.
The deal will also give the dairy producer the right to use the Kraft brand under licence.
Mondelez announced it would now focus on "core brands" in Australia and New Zealand including Cadbury and Oreos.
Fans of Vegemite spread it on sandwiches or toast, and sometimes mix it with cheese, salad and peanut butter.
"The wonderful heritage and values that Vegemite represents and its importance to Australian culture makes its combination with Bega Cheese truly exciting," Bega executive chairman Barry Irvin said.
For decades, Australians bemoaned the loss the brand to the US-owned Kraft in 1935, though it is still manufactured in Port Melbourne, Victoria.
Mondelez took control of the brand in 2012 after a restructuring at Kraft.
Mondelez International vice president Amanda Banfield said: "It's been a privilege stewarding this brand, which is found in almost every Australian household and is part of the fabric of the nation."
• None The story behind the Vegemite scare
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-38672758
|
Supermarket introduces 'relaxed' lane - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
A supermarket in Moray introduces a "relaxed" lane aimed at making life at the checkout less stressful for some of its more vulnerable customers.
| null |
A supermarket in Moray has introduced a "relaxed" lane aimed at making life at the checkout less stressful for some of its more vulnerable customers.
Checkout staff at Tesco in Forres have been trained to identify any special needs of customers and operate at a speed that suits them.
Tesco has developed the scheme with Alzheimer Scotland.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-38671867
|
Masters 2017: Ronnie O'Sullivan beats Neil Robertson, Fu beats Allen - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan beats Neil Robertson 6-3 to reach the semi-finals of the Masters at Alexandra Palace.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Snooker
Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan beat Neil Robertson 6-3 to reach the semi-finals of the Masters at Alexandra Palace in London.
Australia's Robertson started with 74, but O'Sullivan made 63 and 51 as the pair shared the first six frames.
Neither player were at their best but Englishman O'Sullivan won the seventh, and a fluked red helped him take the next, before winning with a 68 break.
O'Sullivan will now play Marco Fu, who beat Mark Allen 6-2.
Fu made the highest break of the tournament - a 140 in the eighth frame - and followed it up with a 65 to advance to Saturday's semi.
The 2010 runner-up had started with breaks of 83 and 74 as he took a 3-0 lead, before Allen's 70 and 54 closed the deficit, but Fu kept his cool by winning three-in-a-row.
Meanwhile, 'The Rocket' is bidding for a record seventh Masters title and aiming to retain the trophy after last year's 10-1 thrashing of Barry Hawkins.
Now 41, O'Sullivan last won an event at the 2016 Welsh Open in February and has lost in three finals of events since.
In a disjointed match against Robertson - which featured a highest break of 74 in the opening frame - he made uncharacteristic errors by missing straightforward pots, but still managed to battle through.
"I can feel and sense that I am missing too many easy balls now. I need to cut them out," he told BBC Sport.
"I am going to keep dragging my career out as long as I can, that is all you can do.
"It is nice to know if your game is coming back or not. I don't want to be at the point where I am being delusional and carry on playing for 10 years thinking I am good but I am not.
"Hopefully I have three years left in my career but I am appreciative that I am still playing."
"A fascinating and intriguing encounter. It was not the best standard but it was engrossing.
"Both players were missing and you saw how much it meant to them. It was enjoyable in a strange way."
Sign up to My Sport to follow snooker news and reports on the BBC app, or if you want to get involved yourself, read our Get Inspired guide.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/38680221
|
Novak Djokovic has 'lost his edge' says Pat Cash after Australian Open defeat - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Novak Djokovic has "lost his edge" and is "a shadow of what he was at his peak", says Pat Cash after the Serb's shock Australian Open exit
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Novak Djokovic has "lost his edge" and is "a shadow of what he was at his peak", says 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash.
The defending champion lost in five sets in round two of the Australian Open to world number 117 Denis Istomin.
The Serb, 29, won four Grand Slams in a row between 2015 and 2016 but has made only one of the past three finals.
"If we were doubting it before, we confirmed he's not the same player he was six months ago," said Cash.
Speaking to BBC Sport, the Australian added: "[Thursday's defeat] just shows that Novak has absolutely lost his edge, there's no doubt about that."
• None Analysis - Has Djokovic's obsession burned itself out?
• None Williams stays on course for record win
Djokovic - who has slipped to number two in the world with Andy Murray taking the top spot in the rankings - completed a career Grand Slam in June 2016 when he beat Murray in the French Open final, but has struggled for form since then.
The loss to Istomin was Djokovic's earliest exit from the Australian Open since 2006, when he was beaten in the first round by American Paul Goldstein.
"I'd love to see him competing, to be a true number two fighting for that number one spot, but at this rate I don't think we will see that," Cash said.
"It's clear that it's a mental thing. He's done everything he needed to do and wanted to do in his career."
Six-time Australian Open champion Djokovic double-faulted nine times in an error strewn performance against Istomin.
He denied he had lost intensity since completing the career slam, adding that he "forgot about it" when he began a new season.
"It's not a time now to go so deep into it. I didn't reflect on that at all at this stage," he said.
"It's just that, it's one of these days when you don't feel that great on the court, don't have much rhythm, and the player you're playing against is feeling the ball very well."
Since winning the French Open in June, Djokovic has been knocked out in the first round of the Rio Olympics and lost both his US Open title and his status as world number one.
"It's not like this technique has fallen off. There's obviously a big confidence thing, but now he makes mistakes and it is a mental thing," Cash added.
"Maybe it's his time to say I'm not quite the same player that I was but I can still perform well."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38675984
|
Planes, trains and McDonald's: Your stories of porn in public - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The BBC's Siobhann Tighe was unsure what to do when she boarded a bus and sat next to a man watching porn on his mobile phone. Here readers tell their own stories of porn in public.
|
Magazine
|
The BBC's Siobhann Tighe was unsure what to do when she sat down on a bus beside a man who was watching porn on his mobile phone, as she wrote last Saturday.
Her story provoked a fiery debate - while some deplored the man's behaviour, others said what he chose to watch was his own business. Many readers also described similar encounters on public transport and elsewhere. Here is a selection of their comments.
I was travelling home from London to Newcastle with two children on a busy train. There was one man at a table with three empty seats. I realised he was sitting next to a conspicuous stack of porno mags and leafing through them. Everyone in the corridor had chosen to stand apart from him. "Mummy!" - my four-year-old daughter exclaimed loudly as she swung into the empty seat - "that man has got pictures of ladies with big boobies!". The porno man looked at her, looked at them, and crumpled. He put his mags in a bag and freed up the space next to him so that we could sit down. Hellen, Newcastle
Whilst on a flight from Germany to Hong Kong a man in the next seat started up his laptop and was oblivious to the fact that his hardcore porn could be seen and heard by me and people in the next aisle. As a woman travelling on my own on an overnight flight, this made me extremely uncomfortable. I raised it with the purser - the man was moved and spoken to, apparently. As for the countless times I've witnessed this on the train, there's been no hope of anyone in authority sorting it out. You either have to move seats, say something and risk being verbally attacked, or seethe quietly until your stop. I'm not anti-men, anti-sex or anti-porn. Yet whenever I've raised this issue in the past, there's always someone ready to call me out for being a prude. I'm not. I just don't think porn has a place on public transport, or in any areas frequented by the general public. Annie G, UK
I admit I've viewed online porn occasionally in the privacy of my own home, but even I was surprised and felt a little uncomfortable when the person on the next train seat began viewing very hardcore porn on his tablet. I ended up moving and informed the guard. He said he would "have a word" with the guy, and duly did, at which point the perpetrator (no doubt embarrassed) got up and moved. The guard apologised to me, then explained that this was an increasing problem. Lawrie, Sleaford
This happened to me on a train to London. I was shocked and offended. The man was watching porn video involving a yoga instructor, on his phone in the seat beside me. I decided to ask the man to stop watching the video because, like the man, I have free will and I could ask him to stop doing something I was uncomfortable with. Of course, he could refuse and I was prepared for that. As it happens, he obliged and actually apologised. It is not the law's role to protect people from offence. If we disagree with views, we must challenge these views and have an open debate, for that is the only way society can progress. Mel Lane, Guildford
l was on a bus in Huddersfield working with a looked after child who was 14 years old at the time. My young person tapped me and pointed out the man sitting in front of us was watching "disturbing stuff". He was watching hardcore porn on a large screen. I quietly approached the man and asked him to either sit at the back or please turn it off, otherwise I would have to have very loud words with the driver. He looked horrified when l told him that a 14-year-old had pointed out what he was watching to me. He didn't say anything, he just turned his phone off and shoved it in his pocket. I still told the driver quietly when l was getting off. I left him having a word with him. I felt l had to say something as a professional, responsible adult and a mother. Annabel, Bradford
When I was 14, I was on a plane with my dad. I had the middle seat and an unknown man was in the window seat with his computer. He was reading a lot of documents and then started watching porn. I was so shocked and then I got scared, like who does that in a plane? I've never told anyone about this, but I haven't forgotten it somehow. Lais, Brazil
I went to McDonald's one evening with my wife and children. I sat at a large table while my wife and children went to the counter. A group of children aged between 12 and 14 were watching porn on a large iPhone with the sound on. I asked them to switch it off and received a cold shoulder. I insisted since I had young children or I would report them to the manager. Happily they switched it off before my children came. Paul Brown, Glasgow
I was at an upmarket bar/restaurant having a meal with friends. At a table close by a man sitting on his own had his laptop out. I glanced at the screen and the man was searching porn websites full of pornographic explicit images of women. I was rather shocked, particularly as he was making no attempt to be discreet. It felt to me like a blatant case of sexual harassment to myself and my female friend. The waitress agreed to talk to him and he dimmed the screen. I said I would only be happy if it was turned off or we would leave. She went back to him and he closed his laptop and left. In my view a man wouldn't be able to expose himself in a restaurant so why should he be able to expose degrading images on his laptop? Paula Stott, Harrogate
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. VIDEO: From disgust to it's ok, Woman's Hour took to the streets to find out what you think of watching porn on buses
I was standing on a packed tube train and a man was standing watching a porn movie on his phone. A boy, around 12 years old, realised what the man was watching and moved away. I tapped the man on the shoulder and very loudly asked why he was watching porn in a public place with children around? All he could reply with was "you shut up" and [swore at me]. I told him loudly to stop watching porn and switch it off but he refused. He said it was his personal right. Only my 16-year-old daughter supported me and told him to stop. Nobody else joined in or tried to help me. His behaviour was very threatening. I wanted to take his photo but was worried about his reaction. It wasn't until after he left the train at Leicester Square that other passengers congratulated me on standing up to him. I was so angry I reported the incident to Transport Police. They said if they managed to identify him he would be prosecuted for causing public outrage. Sharon Forbes, Chippenham
I am a Traffic PCSO working for the Met Police on Safer Transport. There was a young male looking at a gay porn magazine. As there were young children on the bus I asked him to put the magazine away. He refused and called me "homophobic." I then requested the driver of the bus to pull over and I evicted the passenger from the bus and told him my thoughts. I could have gone down the route of a Section 5 of the Public Order Act - causing harm, alarm or distress. I would recommend anyone to challenge someone looking at porn on a bus, if its causing them distress. Anonymous
I was on an overland train and a man, about 25 years old and wearing a hoodie, was watching porn on his mobile as we waited for the train to depart. The speaker was turned up and it was obvious from the sounds that it was a man and woman having sex. The young man appeared to be oblivious to the rest of us. Two women got up and moved to the next carriage. None of us said anything, it was obvious looking around that most of us felt considerable discomfort. The train departed and as the sound of the tracks and its engine increased, he turned up the volume on his mobile. Mick Gavin, London
Listen to Siobhann Tighe talking to Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour, on BBC Radio 4
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38638339
|
The vegan trying to make the perfect burger - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The vegan aiming to make the perfect meatless burger to please even "the hardcore meat lover".
|
Business
|
The "impossible burger" - as good as the real thing?
"My company's goal is to wipe out the animal farming industry and take them down," Patrick Brown tells me.
The grey-haired, former paediatrician turned professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, now turned start-up founder, may be softly spoken but he doesn't mince his words.
A vegan, he's come to the World Economic Forum in Davos to evangelise about how ditching meat can save the planet.
At Davos, where helping the United Nations reach its goal of eradicating hunger by 2030 is one of its goals, he's got a receptive audience.
A pop-up barbecue - set up by Brazilian charity Gastromotiva amid the snowy slopes - draws daily crowds. The company helps young people out of poverty by training them as chefs and creates its dishes out of food surplus that otherwise would have been thrown away.
It neatly illustrates the point that a staggering one third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, around 1.3bn tonnes, which if used could help address the issue.
But Mr Brown's target is not the Davos elites but the masses.
The firm he set up almost seven years ago - Impossible Foods - is aiming to make the perfect meatless burger for "the hardcore meat lover".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
The 62-year-old came up with the idea during a sabbatical. Freed from admin and teaching responsibilities, instead of hitting the beach he pondered what was the most important problem in the world he could do something about.
The issue he hit upon was animal farming due to its environmental impact.
While he personally has been a vegan for years, he said this was a personal choice and had nothing to do with his decision.
Rattling off statistics staccato style he says the sector uses a third of the world's water supply and land, with the greenhouse gas impact second only to the power industry.
But while startling, he admits such facts won't change people's minds or behaviour, or persuade them to eat "cardboard food".
Instead, he decided to try to solve the problem scientifically.
"A different way of looking at it is that it's not a problem that people love meat and dairy products. The problem is that we produce them using animals, which is completely inefficient," he says.
So he set his mind to creating a burger - with the same nutritional value, taste and texture of ground beef - just without using an animal.
The vegan pattie is made from wheat, coconut oil, potatoes and, crucially, heme
The Californian firm's 70 scientists doing research and development treated the issue in the same manner as a biomedical one, says Mr Brown, figuring out the problem and working out what exactly it was in meat that made it so appealing.
"We needed to understand it in actionable terms so we could make deliberate choices to deliver those characteristics to consumers," he says.
The magic ingredient turned out to be a compound called heme. Their research identified this as the thing which made meat distinct, giving it a richer taste and its bloody, red colour.
The firm has now figured out a way to produce heme on a large scale cost effectively by using fermentation.
So far the resulting burger is available in just four high-end restaurants, although Mr Brown says this will soon expand to seven.
The decision to choose expensive restaurants seems at odds with his desire to persuade the masses to ditch meat. But Mr Brown argues that strategically it makes sense.
"We can only produce small volume so we have to get maximum brand building from every pound of product we make," he says.
The vegan burger is currently only sold in four high-end restaurants
He argues that by choosing well-known establishments - largely known for their meat offerings - it will help further the firm's name.
But you won't see "vegan burger" on the menu. "It's divisive," says Mr Brown. Instead it's called the "impossible burger", with the small print explaining that the product is made from plants.
"People don't have to change their beliefs or buy into anything philosophically. The burden is on us to make a delicious and affordable burger," he says.
By the end of this year, production will ramp up, and he and his research and development team will double to 140 people.
But can it really compete with the mass market burger chains such as McDonald's and Burger King?
Mr Brown says he's already talking to places "of that ilk" but currently he remains focused on development rather than sales.
Patrick Brown came up with the idea of the vegan burger during a sabbatical
Pushed on whether the burger can also compete on price, he is unequivocal.
"By the end of the year we will be selling the product at a price where thousands of restaurants can sell it to their customers at the same price range as other stuff, and we will make money on every pound of [fake] meat that we sell," he says.
Ultimately, he claims the cost of their burger will be "substantially cheaper" than a burger from a cow.
"The economics are so much in our favour. It takes a lot of resources to produce a pound of beef," he says.
Mr Brown isn't the only confident one. The firm has attracted funding from some big-name venture capital firms including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Horizons Ventures, which invests on behalf of Hong Kong business tycoon Li Ka-shing.
He says this investment is supporting research and development, which will continue as it moves on to replicating other meat products and fish in the same manner.
And ultimately in the battle of cow versus meatless burger Mr Brown says he's got no doubts that he will win.
"I'm so completely confident I'm going to win this competition.
"A cow did not evolve to be eaten. It was just there and it's not getting any better at this. The product we have is now better than a month ago. We're optimising it for deliciousness."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38664353
|
Lewis Hamilton: Mercedes driver backs new team-mate Valtteri Bottas - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Lewis Hamilton backs Mercedes' choice of Valtteri Bottas as a replacement for Nico Rosberg, team boss Toto Wolff has said.
| null |
Lewis Hamilton has backed Mercedes replacing Nico Rosberg with Valtteri Bottas, says team boss Toto Wolff.
Mercedes signed the Finn this week after agreeing a deal to buy him out of his Williams contract to replace Rosberg, who retired after winning last year's world title.
Wolff said: "Lewis said he thought Valtteri was a nice guy.
"One of the guys he actually got along with well in Formula 1 and he felt he was a good option."
Wolff, who was talking to Finnish commentator Oskari Saari for a podcast, said he believed there might be less tension between Hamilton and the 27-year-old Finn than there was between the triple world champion and Rosberg.
"I think that works well," he added. "It was OK already between Nico and Lewis, but there was the luggage of the past... Now it is a completely new relationship and there is no animosity.
"There will be moments where it is going to be difficult, but I think that how the personalities are for the team it's going to be a good situation and one that is maybe a bit easier to handle than the past. But I could be wrong."
BBC Sport revealed on Monday that Bottas had signed a one-year contract, with options to extend it into subsequent seasons.
Wolff said that was because a number of leading drivers' contracts were up for renewal at the end of the 2017 season - including multiple world champions Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso of Ferrari and McLaren - and Mercedes wanted to keep their options open.
"We wouldn't have chosen Valtteri if we thought that he was not good enough to continue with the team," said Wolff.
"But, as a matter of fact, the market is very dynamic at the moment. Next year options open - young drivers, Sebastian, Fernando, Valtteri, many of them. So it is about understanding that - and Valtteri does.
"Equally we have great faith and confidence in him that he can stay with us for a long time, but now we need to see how the season goes."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/38671931
|
Daily Politics coverage of PMQs - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Prime Minister's Questions on the BBC's Daily Politics.
| null |
This video can not be played.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27901933
|
Katie Hopkins invited for tea by Muslim family - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Zahid Mahmood, wrongly accused by columnist Katie Hopkins of being a Muslim extremist, has invited her to his house for tea. Catrin Nye reports.
| null |
Zahid Mahmood, who was accused by Mail Online columnist Katie Hopkins of being a Muslim extremist, has invited her to his house to have tea and meet his family.
Hopkins wrongly said the family had links to al-Qaeda in two articles published in December 2015. The Mail Online paid £150,000 in libel damages.
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/uk-38670716
|
Who will host the Brit Awards, as Michael Buble takes time off for his ill son? - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
As Michael Buble takes time off to care for his son, who could replace him as host of the Brit Awards?
|
Entertainment & Arts
|
With only five weeks to go, it looks like the Brit Awards have no host.
Canadian crooner Michael Buble was due to present - but that's been in doubt since his three-year-old son Noah was diagnosed with cancer last year.
At the time, the distraught singer cancelled all future engagements, saying he was determined to focus on caring for his eldest child.
It was hoped he'd be able to return for the Brit Awards, but media reports are suggesting he's pulled out for good - and understandably so.
So, who could take the helm at the O2 Arena on 22 February? Here are a few suggestions...
Ant (stands on the left, a bit wacky), and Dec (stands on the right, giggles) were hardly at their best when they hosted the Brits last year.
The nadir was the moment when Ant "mistakenly" appeared on stage in a dress. Because a man in a dress is hilarious, right?
Coming so soon after a video tribute to androgyny-embracing pop lizard David Bowie, it felt particularly dated.
But with a better scriptwriter they're a safe pair of hands - and, crucially, able to draw a big audience.
Back in 2008 when Katy Perry was a relatively new and untested pop star, she took the helm of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Liverpool and totally stole the show.
Cheeky and energetic, she kept the event moving at a frenetic pace, racing through 10 costume changes and more than a few memorable moments. "Girls. Just a reminder," she said, while riding on top of a giant banana. "It's not how big the banana is - it's how you sit on it."
With new music to promote in 2017, could the star be coaxed into a repeat performance?
If only so they can go: "On your marks, get set, DRAKE!"
By hiring Michael Buble, the Brits were making a statement of intent: we want some showbiz, and we want a host a global audience will recognise. Adele is one of the only other stars that fits the bill.
In many ways, Adele is the Brits. From the stop-you-in-your-tracks performance of Someone Like You to the moment last year when she tearfully accepted an award from Tim Peake in outer space.
She's funny, she's charismatic, and there's 0% chance she'll do it. Which will be a relief for the person who works the bleep button.
He's already winning the Brits Icon Award, so they won't need to book an extra cab.
His propensity to go off-script might cause organisers a few headaches - but a double-header with his bff Olly Murs would be worth tuning in for.
Before he swanned off to become a US chat show host, Corden presented the Brits five times (including a stint with Kylie in 2009). He stood down three years ago, telling the Radio Times he didn't want to outstay his welcome.
"There are award shows where it actually becomes a plus that it's hosted by the same person," he said. "But the Brits should always have an energy about them that is fresh and new and exciting."
But imagine if the whole Brits ceremony was an extended episode of Carpool Karaoke? No pizzazz, no fireworks, no music industry "suits" - just a rotating cast of megastars in the passenger seat, with Corden fishing the occasional trophy out of his glove compartment.
TV Gold. But, seeing as he's already presenting the Grammys a week before, extremely unlikely.
The Brits have often looked to comedians to provide a bit of frisson - notably Russell Brand, who outraged (some) viewers in 2007 with his references to the Queen's "naughty bits" and Amy Winehouse's drinking problem ("her surname's beginning to sound like a description of her liver".)
Of the current crop of stand-ups, Jack Whitehall has both the profile and the requisite irreverence. His UK tour might get in the way of rehearsals but, by coincidence, he has a day off on 22 February.
In the year that grime took over the Brits, Julie Adenuga would be a brave but bold choice.
The Beats 1 DJ is one of the genre's biggest champions (as well as being sister to three-time nominee Skepta) but eminently knowledgeable about music from all walks of life. Apple Music is also sponsoring two of the awards - best British male and best British female - so there's also a commercial reason to use one of their presenters on the night.
However, she's untested as a live TV presenter, so unlikely to make the cut.
X Factor host and hot buttered crumpet Dermot O'Leary makes live television look like a walk in the park - when in reality it's a race through a field full of knives, on one leg, in the dark, tethered to an excited donkey.
Amazingly, he's never presented the Brits, but given his role as a new music champion on Radio 2, he's a perfect fit.
Big Brother host Emma Willis did a great job fronting the Brits nominations show on Saturday night, attracting a respectable 1.6 million viewers to ITV.
She told the BBC she was planning to watch the main ceremony from the audience - but if the call comes, she can recreate her favourite ever Brit moment, when "Cat Deeley flew in on a champagne bottle" in 2004.
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-38662210
|
Dunelm venetian blind thief gets community order - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Jessie Bellham, who stuffed the stolen Dunelm shade in his trousers, is sentenced for his troubles.
|
Northampton
|
Jessie Bellham stuffed the shade down his trousers
A thief who stole a Venetian blind by stuffing it in his trousers and jacket has been given a community order.
Jessie Bellham admitted stealing the £48.99 blind from the Dunelm Mill store in St James Retail Park, Northampton, last October.
He was given a 12-month order for burglary by Northampton Crown Court.
Bellham, of Chaucer Street, must carry out 180 hours of unpaid work and also spend 20 days in rehabilitation for drug dependency.
Pictures of the 39-year-old leaving the shop with the stolen shade tucked into his clothing attracted global attention.
The item was found abandoned by shop staff on a nearby canal path, shortly after the theft.
Pictures of his efforts went viral on social media
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-38682424
|
Alanis Morissette's manager admits stealing almost $5m from artist - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Jonathan Schwartz admits stealing over $7m from the singer and other celebrities, prosecutors say.
|
Entertainment & Arts
|
Morissette's former business manager has admitted stealing $4.8m from the singer
The former business manager of pop star Alanis Morissette has admitted stealing over $7m (£5.7m) from the singer and other celebrities, US prosecutors say.
Jonathan Schwartz was charged with fraud over claims he transferred the singer's money into his own accounts.
When initially confronted about the theft, Mr Schwartz lied and said he had invested the money in an illegal marijuana growing business.
He was responsible for collecting revenue, managing her accounts and organising the payment of bills on her behalf.
At the federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Mr Schwartz admitted to stealing $4.8m from Morissette and more than $2m from other celebrity clients, who have not been named.
His lawyer, Nathan Hochman, said Mr Schwartz had co-operated fully with the investigation and had accepted responsibility.
Mr Schwartz now faces a jail sentence of between four and six years if convicted on criminal charges.
Last year, Morissette sued Schwartz and his former company GSO for $15m in damages, claiming that he transferred money to his own accounts without permission.
It led to an internal investigation at the company, with GSO later issuing a statement saying that it was "shocked" to discover that Schwartz had been using the money to sustain a lavish lifestyle.
The lawsuit was later dropped by Morissette after a settlement was reached.
The Canadian-born singer, whose hits include Ironic and You Oughta Know, discovered the fraud after she appointed a new manager, who noticed sizeable discrepancies in her accounts.
Mr Schwartz is due to appear in court on criminal charges on 1 February.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38673219
|
Teetotal Trump and the drinking presidents - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
What the chief executive's relationship with alcohol reveals about the occupants of the White House.
|
US & Canada
|
As Donald Trump becomes US president on Friday many will reach for a drink. Washington DC will be whirl of parties, galas and balls.
The celebrities may be skipping it this year but the US capital will still swing to the sound of clinking glasses and popping corks. Across the country, celebrating Trump supporters will toast his swearing-in with a drink while others will numb their nerves with booze.
Around the world, alcohol will help with this historic transition. In north London, for instance, the Old Queens Head pub is throwing an Armageddon-themed party to mark the start of Donald Trump's presidency.
But the man himself will not be boozing through his first hours as the most powerful politician in the world. In fact, he won't touch a drop of alcohol on Friday night or on any day of his presidency.
"I've never had a drink," Donald Trump told Fox News after his election last November. Unlike George W Bush, who was teetotal in office after giving up booze on his 40th birthday, Mr Trump has eschewed alcohol his whole life, making him a first among modern US presidents.
Donald Trump's teetotalism stems from the early death of his older brother Freddie
The reason for Mr Trump's sobriety is because his adored older brother Freddie died of illness stemming from alcoholism at the age of 42. "It was a very tough period of time," he said, that convinced him never to drink.
"If you don't start you're never going have a problem. If you do start you might have a problem. And it's a tough problem to stop," Mr Trump told Fox.
What is fascinating is his view that one drink could spiral into addiction. He discussed his fear that he might have a gene that would make moderate drinking impossible.
His approach to alcohol is also a window into a personality that appears to crave control over others. Mr Trump ordered his children to follow his example. Every day he would drum the message into them: No drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes. "I've been very tough on my children with respect to drink," he said.
So how do the teetotal presidents compare with those who enjoyed the pleasures of a drink? George W Bush went dry after years of heavy boozing and swapped a compulsion for drink for an obsession with fitness.
Remembered largely for the invasion of Iraq, George W's foreign policy record might not be seen as the best advertisement for a teetotal presidency.
Franklin Roosevelt (right) had a particular reverence for "cocktail hour"
Nor might the idealistic but muddled foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, another teetotal president. Life in the Carter White House was drearily dry and a chore for its more sociable visitors.
Senator Ted Kennedy remembered arid evenings of earnest discussion. "You'd arrive about 6.00 or 6.30pm, and the first thing you would be reminded of, in case you needed reminding, was that he and Rosalynn had removed all the liquor in the White House. No liquor was ever served during Jimmy Carter's term. He wanted no luxuries nor any sign of worldly living," Kennedy wrote.
The moderate drinkers fare better. Franklin D Roosevelt frequently tops the list of America's greatest presidents, the commander-in-chief who defeated the Great Depression and led the US through World War Two.
Throughout these turbulent years, FDR kept a martini close at hand and prized the rituals of cocktail hour, when he mixed stiff drinks for friends on his White House study desk. The conviviality of cocktail hour undoubtedly helped FDR unwind and briefly relieved the immense pressure he was under.
John F Kennedy would occasionally sip a daiquiri but preferred women to wine and kept a clear head through the brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But other presidents were more reckless with their drinking.
Lyndon Johnson was well known in Washington for his capacity to guzzle Cutty Sark whisky and soda when he was Democratic majority leader in the Senate, a habit he took to the White House. Johnson, who told his doctor after a heart attack that the only things he enjoyed in life were "whisky, sunshine and sex", enjoyed entertaining at his Texas ranch where the booze flowed.
LBJ's special assistant for domestic affairs, Joseph A Califano, remembered a ride around the ranch with the president: "As we drove around we were followed by a car and a station wagon with Secret Service agents. The president drank Cutty Sark scotch and soda out of a large, white, plastic foam cup.
"Periodically, Johnson would slow down and hold his left arm outside the car, shaking the cup and ice. A Secret Service agent would run up to the car, take the cup and go back to the station wagon. There another agent would refill it with ice, scotch and soda as the first agent trotted behind the wagon."
But the most disturbing picture of presidential drinking is provided by Richard Nixon, a man prone to morose self-pity who medicated his moods with booze.
According to his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's trouble was that a small amount of drink would set him off and late-night threats of military action were made when the president was the worse for wear.
When North Korea shot down a US spy plane in April 1969, an enraged Nixon allegedly ordered a tactical nuclear strike and told the joint chiefs to recommend targets. According to the historian Anthony Summers, citing the CIA's top Vietnam specialist at the time, George Carver, Henry Kissinger spoke to military commanders on the phone and agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning.
By the early 1970s, Watergate was beginning to choke Nixon's presidency and the president was relying more on drink and sleeping pills to cope with the pressure. On the evening of 11 October 1973, he was incapable of speaking to the British Prime Minister Edward Heath on the phone.
Heath was keen to discuss the latest developments of the Arab-Israeli War but a transcript of the conversation between Henry Kissinger and his assistant Brent Scowcroft revealed the president was too drunk to talk to the prime minister.
Richard Nixon was a warning to future presidents on the danger of mixing hubris with drink. He is a reminder too of the awesome executive power a US president has when it comes to conducting foreign affairs.
With no previous political or military experience, Donald Trump is unlike any incoming president. His hubris is clear to all and his (sober) stream of excitable tweets prove an impetuous temperament.
Nixon's example might make us grateful booze is not in the mix too. But some of the most successful presidents found valuable perspective and balance at the bottom of a glass.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38651623
|
FA Cup: Cracking goals from the third-round replays - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Watch a selection of the best goals from the FA Cup third-round replays, including a great finish from Newcastle's Yoan Gouffran and Nathan Arnold's last-gasp winner for Lincoln City.
| null |
Watch a selection of the best goals from the FA Cup third-round replays, including a great finish from Newcastle's Yoan Gouffran and Nathan Arnold's last-gasp winner for Lincoln City.
Watch all the best action from the FA Cup third-round replays here.
Available to UK users only.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38672657
|
Man Utd: Premier League club named world's leading revenue-generating club - BBC Sport
|
2017-01-19
| null |
Manchester United top the Deloitte Football Money League for the first time since 2003-04 after generating record revenue in the 2015-16 season.
| null |
Last updated on .From the section Football
Manchester United generated the most revenue of any football club in the world last season, according to a report published by Deloitte.
United dethrone Real Madrid - who held top spot for 11 years - after accumulating a record revenue of 689m euros (£515m) during the 2015-16 term.
The Premier League club saw commercial revenue grow by 100m euros (£71m).
Combined revenue for the top 20 clubs during the 2015-16 season grew 12% to 7.4bn euros (£6.41bn) - a new record.
It is the first time Manchester United have topped the annual Deloitte Football Money League since the 2003-04 season.
Real drop down to third, behind Spanish rivals Barcelona, who remain in second spot.
German giants Bayern Munich move up a position to fourth and Manchester City also climb a spot to fifth - having generated 524.9 euros (£392.6m) - up from 463.5 euros (£352.6m) during the previous season.
It is the first time they have reached the top five of the annual list.
Eight Premier League clubs make the top 20, with revenues totalling nearly 3.2bn euros (£2.4bn).
Champions Leicester City (20th) enter the top 20 for the first time. They produced a revenue of 172m euros (£128m) - which is almost five times the revenue generated two seasons before in 2013-14.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham remain in seventh, eighth, ninth and 12th place, with West Ham in 18th position.
Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said Manchester United's record revenues were achieved by "phenomenal commercial revenue growth".
He added: "In recent years, their ability to secure commercial partnerships with value in excess of that achievable by their peers has been the crucial factor in enabling the club to regain their place at the top of the money league.
"That said, they'll face strong competition from Barcelona and Real Madrid to retain the top spot in next year's edition, due to the lack of Champions League football, the weakening of the pound against the euro and, over the longer term, as other clubs enter the commercial market demanding similar deals, using United as the precedent."
Take part in our Premier League Predictor game, which allows you to create leagues with friends.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38655480
|
Moneysupermarket and Paddy Power lead advert complaints - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Adverts for Moneysupermarket and Paddy Power were among the most-complained-about last year.
|
UK
|
Moneysupermarket's twerking businessman in high heels and Paddy Power's cat-kicking blind footballers were some of the most-complained-about ads of 2016.
Moneysupermarket's dancing bodyguard Gary, twerking businessman Dave and dancing builder Colin were all in the top 10, the advertising watchdog said.
The Paddy Power advert was first shown in 2010 but still drew 450 complaints.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said none on the list "crossed the line" from bad taste to offence.
Three Moneysupermarket price comparison website adverts attracted 2,491 complaints between them.
Some viewers found the bodyguard's dance moves "distasteful", and the ads with the businessman and the builder as homophobic.
An advert for dating website Match.com showing a woman removing her female partner's top and kissing her received 896 complaints.
It was seen as sexually explicit and inappropriately scheduled.
The Paddy Power advert featured men playing blind football and inadvertently kicking a cat due to the sound of a bell round its neck.
The ASA had already ruled the majority of viewers would see the advert as humorous and not humiliating or undermining to blind people, and so did not investigate it again.
The bookmaker's advert about Scottish football fans not minding not qualifying for Euro 2016 - because they could bet on England to lose - was complained about for being racist and anti-English.
Also in the top 10 were Smart Energy's Gaz and Leccy cartoon characters, the Home Office's Disrespect Nobody domestic violence campaign, Maltesers featuring a woman in a wheelchair and Gourmet Burger Kitchen's references to giving up vegetarianism.
The complaint about the Home Office's ad was that it implied only men were responsible for domestic abuse and it could discourage male victims from coming forward.
ASA chief executive Guy Parker said: "The ads that attract the highest number of complaints are often not the ones that need banning.
"Our action leads to thousands of ads being amended or withdrawn each year, mostly for being misleading, but there wasn't one misleading ad in the top 10.
"In the list there are a number of ads, which while advertising their product or service, have also sought to present a positive statement about diversity but were in fact seen by some as doing the opposite.
"In all those cases, we thought people generally would see the ads in a positive light and that the boundary between bad taste and serious or widespread offence had been navigated well enough, often through using sensible scheduling restrictions."
A Moneysupermarket campaign also topped the most-complained-about list in 2015.
• None Men more likely to complain about ads
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38672439
|
Westmonster: Arron Banks launches anti-establishment website - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
The businessman who bankrolled the Brexit campaign reveals his latest venture to shake up the political landscape.
|
Entertainment & Arts
|
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Amol Rajan reports on the launch of the Westmonster website
Arron Banks, the former UKIP donor who bankrolled the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, is making a move into the media sector by backing an anti-establishment news website.
I can reveal that Westmonster is co-owned by Michael Heaver, former press adviser to Nigel Farage. The 27-year-old, who together with Mr Banks will own 50% of the website, will edit it day to day.
Modelled on the Drudge Report, the American aggregator site that generates huge traffic, Westmonster will be powered by the social media reach of Leave.EU, the campaign to which Mr Banks gave close to £7m - the largest donation in British political history.
Leave.EU has nearly 800,000 followers on Facebook and Mr Heaver believes he can use that base to generate substantial traffic from day one.
Westmonster will publish some original news, and Mr Heaver hopes to enlist more celebrity writers than backbench MPs.
The site will launch with an article from Nigel Farage, and Mr Heaver is open about wanting to ape the opinionated, anti-establishment, highly provocative tone of Breitbart.
This launch is significant for several reasons. It shows that the anti-establishment media which helped to power the campaign of Donald Trump is coming to Britain.
It's no coincidence that Westmonster is launching the day before Mr Trump's inauguration - an event that will be attended, almost alone among Brits, by Nigel Farage, Arron Banks, and Mr Banks's business associate Andy Wigmore, who are together hosting a celebratory party on Saturday night in a hotel across the road from the White House.
Banks has booked out an entire floor of the Hay-Adams Hotel on Saturday night, and - logistics permitting - the plan is for the new President to attend, along with his close friend the Governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant.
It also marks a significant acceleration of Mr Banks's involvement in British public life.
I spent time with him in the nondescript offices of his insurance company on the edge of Bristol on Tuesday, with a Premier Inn on one side and the M4-M5 junction on the other.
Arron Banks donated millions to the Brexit campaign
He is an extremely intriguing character, as this superb profile for Radio 4 pointed out.
He tweets vigorously and his politics do not fit into the anachronistic right-left spectrum through which so much of Westminster is still naively interpreted.
For instance, he favours nationalisation of Britain's railways and some utilities over their present near-monopoly status, harbours a visceral hatred of many Tories, and has had several conversations with Labour MPs about wooing them over to the populist Momentum-style movement that he intends to launch in the coming months.
I also revealed in December that he has expressed interest in more traditional media - that is, The Daily Telegraph.
Now, as I put to him yesterday, he has become Britain's latest media baron. He helps to show how the rise of digital media has not so much blurred the distinction between media and politics as abolished it; how the culture wars raging in the US are being imported here; and how traditional media - including the BBC - face ferocious competition like never before.
Watch my report for Wednesday's BBC News at Ten.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38650596
|
Trump inauguration: 'I'm so excited' - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
People in the US describe their feelings about going to Donald Trump's inauguration in Washington DC
| null |
US President-Elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated on January 20.
People are travelling from near and far to see history being made in Washington DC.
Here, Mr Trump's supporters, who will be making the journey to the capital, share their excitement about the event.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38685470
|
Man creates carousel on Helsinki open water - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
| null |
A 200-tonne ice carousel has been created on a frozen bay in Helsinki. The carousel is said to be 36 metres in diameter.
| null |
A 200-tonne ice carousel has been created on a frozen bay in Helsinki. It is said to be 36 metres in diameter.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38668375
|
The man correcting stories about Muslims - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Every day, Miqdaad Versi searches newspapers looking for errors concerning Muslims and Islam, looking to challenge them.
|
UK
|
Every day, Miqdaad Versi searches newspapers looking for errors concerning Muslims and Islam
When one newspaper reported last year that "enclaves of Islam see UK as 75% Muslim" last year, Miqdaad Versi's instinct was to challenge it. He believes errors in the reporting of Muslims have become all too common, and has made it his mission to fight for corrections.
Miqdaad Versi sits in front of a rather geeky-looking spreadsheet at the offices of the Muslim Council of Britain in east London.
He is the organisation's assistant secretary general, but the task in front of him is a personal project.
The spreadsheet has on it every story published concerning Muslims and Islam that day in the British media - and he is going through them looking for inaccuracies.
If he finds one, he will put in a complaint or a request for a correction with the news organisation, the press regulator Ipso, or both.
Mr Versi has been doing this thoroughly since November, and before that on a more casual basis. He has so far complained more than 50 times, and the results are visible.
He was personally behind eight corrections in December and another four so far this month.
Miqdaad Versi tweets diagrams showing corrections and apologies made following his complaints
In the past, corrections to stories were mostly printed when individuals were the victims of inaccurate reporting, but Mr Versi is looking at a whole topic.
"Nobody else was doing this," he tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme. "There have been so many articles about Muslims overall that have been entirely inaccurate, and they create this idea within many Muslim communities that the media is out to get them.
"The reason that's the case is because nobody is challenging these newspapers and saying, 'That's not true.'"
Watch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.
Mr Versi goes through some of the corrections from December. Five of them concerned a review into integration by Dame Louise Casey. The Sunday Times reported that "Enclaves of Islam see UK as 75% Muslim" in a preview of the review.
This was incorrect, with the review actually citing a survey of pupils in one largely Asian school who thought 50-90% of the population in Britain were Asian.
The paper corrected the article, and later apologised. As the same story was reported in other publications, it led to five corrections.
Mr Versi highlights another article, concerning the Muslim president of the National Union of Students (NUS). She was accused on Mail Online of refusing to condemn so-called Islamic State, when she had openly done so.
Also in December, he points out a report in the Sun on Sunday confused the identities of two Muslim individuals - one fighting against extremism and one accused of extremism.
He has met several newspaper editors and has been pleased with the quick corrections he has received in some cases.
But he is concerned that these revisions are not obvious enough to the reader.
"Sometimes the corrections lack a clear acknowledgement of the error they made and often do not include an apology. In addition, they are rarely given the prominence of the original article," he says.
He adds that while he is concerned with "significant failings" in the reporting of Muslims, the same issues "might also be replicated for refugee, migrant or other groups".
One particularly high-profile correction in December last year - that Mr Versi was not behind - involved a 2015 article in which Mail Online columnist Katie Hopkins wrongly suggested Zahid Mahmood and his brother were extremists with links to al-Qaeda, after they had not been allowed to board a plane to the US.
The Mail Online and Ms Hopkins apologised and paid £150,000 in damages.
At his home in Walthamstow, north-east London, Mr Mahmood says he has forgiven her. He now says it is not her original false accusations that he finds the most upsetting, but the public reaction.
"First they were all against us when Katie Hopkins published the article, and then when she made the apology a year later - then they all turn against her.
"There's no middle ground. It's not just about Katie Hopkins, it's the mindset of people - how they can very easily be led against somebody, or in favour of somebody."
Zahid Mahmood says he holds "no grudge" against Mail Online columnist Katie Hopkins
Mr Mahmood says he feels this kind of reaction is causing divisions in society, and - keen to do his bit for unity - tells the BBC he is formally inviting Katie Hopkins to his home for tea and coffee.
"We have no grudge against her, and we would like her to learn and know that we are as British as she is.
"In fact, my wife's grandfather and great-grandfather both fought in World War One and World War Two. They fought for the very freedom of this country."
Mr Versi says he wants to improve community relations too. He thinks inaccurate reporting has far-reaching consequences, especially because negative stories are often widely circulated by far-right groups and then the corrections are not.
Some free speech campaigners, however, are concerned about this kind of work. Tom Slater, deputy editor of Spiked Online, says these complaints could create a fear of reporting certain issues.
"I, like anyone else, want a press that's going to be accurate... but what we're seeing here is quite concerted attempts to try and often ring-fence Islam from criticism."
Mr Slater says he found a recent correction to a story about a suspected "honour killing" particularly problematic.
Tom Slater worries such complaints are attempts to "ring-fence Islam from criticism."
In May 2016, the Mail Online and the Sun used the phrase "Islamic honour killing" in their headline.
Mr Versi successfully complained to Ipso that Islam does not condone honour killings and that the phrase incorrectly suggested it was motivated by religion.
The word "Islamic" was removed from the papers' headlines, and at the bottom of the articles they wrote: "We are happy to make clear that Islam as a religion does not support so-called 'honour killings.'"
Mr Slater says he found that statement added by the papers "absolutely staggering".
"We all know a religion is just an assortment of ideas and principles. What these papers were effectively asked to do, and what they did do, was to print one accepted interpretation of a religion - and to me this was just like backdoor blasphemy law."
Mr Versi, however, insists his work is about ensuring the facts are right - not silencing critics.
He says there are many examples where Muslims can be rightly criticised and he is not complaining about those.
"All I'm asking for is responsible reporting."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38655760
|
The dying officer treated for cancer with baking soda - BBC News
|
2017-01-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Naima Houder-Mohammed believed Robert O Young, the father of the alkaline diet, could cure her. It didn't turn out as she hoped.
|
Magazine
|
The father of the alkaline diet, Robert O Young, is hailed as an inspiration by one of the UK's most popular food writers, Natasha Corrett, but he faces a jail sentence for practising medicine without a licence. One patient who believed he could cure her cancer, British army officer Naima Houder-Mohammed, paid thousands of dollars for his alkaline treatment, which consisted mainly of intravenous infusions of baking soda.
In May 2009 Naima Houder-Mohammed was commissioned as a captain in the British army. The following year, tragedy struck. Naima was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She received treatment and was declared cancer-free. But in 2012, while training with the army skiing team, it was discovered the cancer had returned. Her condition was so serious she was offered end-of-life care.
"She refused to accept that this was the end," recalls her friend and former fellow officer, Afzal Amin.
"Naima was a fighter. She fought to get through selection for Sandhurst. She fought through Sandhurst and she fought her way through her life in everything she dealt with - army skiing or whatever it may have been. And this for her was another fight in that long list of victories."
As her medical options were limited, Naima did what many of us would do - she turned to the internet for a solution.
She came across Dr Robert O Young, an American alternative health writer selling a message of hope for cancer patients online.
Naima began an email correspondence with him, which reveals how pseudo-science can be used to manipulate the vulnerable.
Young is the author of a series of books called the pH Miracle, which has sold more than four million copies around the world.
These books lay out his "alkaline approach" to food and health which has influenced many others, including the work of the British clean-eating guru Natasha Corrett, whose Honestly Healthy brand promotes her take on an alkaline diet.
In one email Young sent to Naima in July 2012, he told her "there is a great need for a daily regime focused on… hyper-perfusing the blood with alkalinity". He went on: "I would suggest your healing program is going to take at least 8 - 12 weeks. It will not be easy but you will be in a controlled environment that will give you the care you need."
Naima set about raising the money she would need - in one email Young mentioned a figure of $3,000 (£2,440) per day.
Naima's family used their savings, ran fund-raising events and managed to pull together tens of thousands of pounds with the help of a charity so that Naima could be treated by Young.
But the treatment did not have the outcome she was hoping for.
On one recent sun-kissed Californian morning, we drove up into the hills outside San Diego to visit Young. As we turned off Paradise Mountain Road, the parched golden grass eventually gave way to groves of avocado trees and we entered a millionaire's paradise known as the "pH Miracle Ranch".
The front door, preposterously set behind a moat, is reached by walking across some stone slabs.
As Young welcomed us into the ranch, our eyes were drawn to an empty spherical fish-tank built into the wall that separated the living area from the kitchen.
Noting our interest, he began to share his alkaline view of the world, starting with what he calls the fish-bowl metaphor. "If the fish is sick - what would you do? Treat the fish or change the water?"
He went on: "The human body in its perfect state of health is alkaline in its design."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
The pH of our blood is 7.4, which is slightly alkaline, so Young is broadly correct - although different compartments of our bodies, such as our stomach, function at very different pHs.
But then Young's "alkaline living" vision becomes complete fantasy. Young believes that in order to maintain the pH of our blood, we have to eat "alkaline" foods.
The main problem with this view is that it doesn't appear to take into account the stomach, which functions at a pH of about 1.5 and is the most acidic compartment in the body. Thus, everything we consume, regardless of its starting pH, becomes acidic before passing into the intestines.
Also, the categorisation of foods into alkaline or acidic does not appear to follow any consistent rules, with certain citrus fruits (full of citric acid) considered to be alkaline, for instance.
However, Young's view that alkalinity is good and acidity is bad goes beyond food. He told us: "All sickness and disease can be prevented by managing the delicate pH balance of the fluids of the body."
He believes that when your blood becomes acidic, something weird happens, and your blood cells transform into bacteria - a phenomenon he calls pleomorphism - thereby resulting in a diseased state.
This, frankly wild, view goes against all current scientific understanding.
When we put this to him, he simply disagreed, saying: "Germs are nothing more than the biological transformation of animal, human or plant matter. They're born out of that."
Dr Giles Yeo with Robert O Young at the "pH Miracle Ranch"
The biggest problem is that because Young believes that disease emerges from acidity, then by extension disease can be reversed with alkalinity - echoing his fish-bowl metaphor that you don't treat the disease, but you change the environment.
When Young said Naima would be cared for in a controlled environment, he meant the pH Miracle Ranch, which has a large area set aside as a "clinic" to treat cancer.
Young told us he uses the term "cancerous" as an adjective to describe a state of acidity.
Since 2005 he has brought more than 80 terminally ill patients to stay at his ranch for months at a time. Treatment has included intravenous infusions of an alkaline solution of sodium bicarbonate - the same Arm and Hammer stuff you stick in your fridge to absorb smells.
This was the "healing programme" that was being sold to Naima.
There is no doubting the impact of Young's message. In an email, Naima wrote to him: "I'll be pronounced text book perfect in a few months."
According to her friend Afzal Amin: "Naima was supremely confident that, with her willpower and this therapy, she would be healed. That was the overriding emotion in her that yes, I am going to better."
We put it to Young that someone like Naima, in a terminally ill state, who was desperate for a cure, would buy anything, try anything to help get better.
He responded: "But I wasn't selling her anything… I didn't force her to come here, it was her decision."
Yet, in one email Young insisted on Naima paying for her treatment, before she stepped on to the plane.
All in all, Naima and her family paid Young more than $77,000 (£62,700) for the treatment.
Young told us: "The doctors need to be paid and the people that are doing the massages need to be paid and the colonics, but I gave her the best price to make sure that those people were paid."
There is no evidence whatsoever that infusing an alkaline solution into your bloodstream will do anything against cancer. When we raised this with Young, he said: "These things need to be studied."
After about three months at Young's facility, her condition worsened and she was taken to hospital. Naima was brought back to the UK and died with her family. She was 27.
Afzal Amin told us: "They feel utterly betrayed. It's just horrific that somebody could exploit people for money. This is I think for them the most disturbing element, that for something as cheap as money he was just able to destroy people's lives."
Young's activities at the pH Miracle Ranch have not gone unnoticed by the authorities.
In 2011 the Medical Board of California began an undercover investigation after concerns were raised by a woman treated there.
Investigators were able to establish the prognosis of 15 cancer patients treated at the ranch - none of them outlived it.
One patient, Genia Vanderhaeghen, died from congestive heart failure - fluid around the heart - while being treated. Young told us he was "out of town" at the time.
According to an invoice we obtained, she had been given 33 intravenous sodium bicarbonate drips, each charged at $550 (£448), over 31 days. Some were administered by Young himself.
Last year Young was convicted of two charges of practising medicine without a license, and now faces up to three years in prison.
In court it was revealed that he is not a medical doctor and bought his PhD from a diploma mill.
We asked him if he felt remorse for what he had done. He said: "I don't have remorse because of the thousands if not millions of people that have been helped through the [alkaline diet] programme."
We asked Natasha Corrett to comment on the influence of Robert Young on Honestly Healthy. She told us: "We believe that our bodies should be fuelled with healthy and nutritious ingredients but we also believe that life is about having things in moderation."
Update, October 2018: Robert O Young was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison in 2017 for practicing medicine without a license.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38650739
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.