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Cohen Bramall: Arsenal to sign left-back from non-league Hednesford Town - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Arsenal's new signing Cohen Bramall could have the same impact as England striker Jamie Vardy, after moving from non-league Hednesford.

Last updated on .From the section Football Hednesford Town defender Cohen Bramall is to move from non-league to Premier League, by signing for Arsenal. The 20-year-old left-back will join the Gunners on a deal worth £40,000. Liam McDonald signed Bramall for the Northern Premier League side and believes he could follow the path of Leicester striker Jamie Vardy, who also started out in non-league. "He's a natural athlete and he's got a great opportunity to develop that now," McDonald told BBC Radio 5 live. "He'll take it in his stride. I'm very positive he'll have a similar impact to Jamie Vardy." • None Arsenal new-boy Bramall 'could have a Vardy impact' - former boss speaks to BBC Radio 5 live. Bramall follows the road taken by Everton and Wales defender Ashley Williams, who started his career at the Staffordshire club. Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday had both reportedly watched Bramall, but only Arsenal agreed terms. He travelled to Arsenal's London Colney training ground on Thursday with his agent Dan Chapman, following an initial period on trial. Bramall, from the South Cheshire area, worked full-time in the Bentley car factory in Crewe until being made redundant, before working in a clothes shop. He spent a short spell at nearby Nantwich Town before joining the Pitmen. "It's fantastic to see players go through like this," Nantwich director of football Jon Gold told BBC Radio Stoke. "He was obviously a great talent when he first came to us but the manager at the time was going with older players. That happens. Jamie Vardy was turned down by many clubs, don't forget, including even Crewe. "Cohen's a lovely lad. I'm not sure he was taking his football that seriously and he went around the area a bit before moving on to Hednesford, but sometimes it can take time. "He played against us earlier in the season and he was man of the match. We're proud to have played even a little part in his development." Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38519179

Washington Post Express 'embarrassment' over gender symbol mix-up - BBC News

2017-01-05

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The Washington Post Express accidentally publishes a male symbol on its front cover promoting a story on women's rights.

US & Canada

The Washington Post Express "erroneously published" the front cover on the left, featuring the male symbol, instead of the front cover on the right with a female symbol. The Washington Post Express has apologised for an "embarrassing" mix-up on its front cover. Leading with an article about a 150,000 strong women's rights march, the Express accidentally used a male symbol instead of a female symbol. Social media users were quick to spot the mistake. The paper - a free daily newspaper published by the Washington Post - was quick to apologise on its Twitter account. One commentator referred to the blunder as a "record for largest typo". "We made a mistake on our cover this morning and we're very embarrassed," the statement from the Washington Post Express read. "We erroneously used a male symbol instead of a female symbol." It also released an image of how the cover should have appeared.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38518943

Princess Diana letters sell for £15,100 at auction - BBC News

2017-01-05

Candid letters written by Prince Diana to an ex-Buckingham Palace steward sell for £15,100

Candid letters written by Prince Diana to an ex-Buckingham Palace steward have sold for thousands of pounds more than their estimated sale price. The notes describe how a young Prince William "swamped" his new baby brother with "an endless supply of hugs and kisses". The BBC's Sarah Campbell spoke to the auctioneer, Luke MacDonald.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38524049

Pence: Ending Obamacare is a priority - BBC News

2017-01-05

President Barack Obama has met fellow Democrats in Congress to discuss how to protect the healthcare reforms he instituted, often called Obamacare.

President Barack Obama has met fellow Democrats in Congress to discuss how to protect the healthcare reforms he instituted, often called Obamacare. Republicans say that repealing the reforms is their "first order of business".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38512800

Chilean family rescue humpback whale caught in fishing net - BBC News

2017-01-05

A family in Chile has saved a humpback whale which became entangled in an industrial fishing net.

A family in Chile has saved a humpback whale which became entangled in an industrial fishing net. Juan Menares Henriquez and his family were boating near Antofagasta when they spotted the whale in distress.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38514255

Mexico and Mr Trump: What will happen to trade ties? - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Caroline Bayley reports on the impact the Nafta trade deal has had in Mexico, and what its potential demise under US President-elect Trump would mean for the country.

Business

Donald Trump is not popular in Mexico Mexico is being blamed by President-elect Donald Trump for taking jobs from the US. He's been putting pressure on US companies not to move jobs south, and this week Ford announced it was investing in its factory in Michigan rather than building a new plant in Mexico. During his election campaign, Mr Trump threatened to rip up Nafta, the free trade agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico, which has been in place for 23 years. But what impact has Nafta had in Mexico, and what would its potential demise mean for the country? In a leafy square in Mexico City on a warm December evening a group of excited children are hitting a brightly coloured pinata stuffed with sweets. A fellow passer-by explains to me that pinatas are a Mexican tradition, particularly at Christmas and birthdays. However, Mexicans also like pinatas "in the shape of everything we want to hit", he says. "The latest trend is Donald Trump pinatas," he adds. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A look back at some of the things Donald Trump has said about Mexicans Mr Trump is not popular in Mexico. He was incredibly rude about Mexicans during his election campaign, and at a time when the world seems to be turning away from free trade he threatened to end the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between the US, Mexico and Canada. The important thing about Nafta is that companies importing and exporting between the three countries pay no tariffs. Mr Trump believes it's been bad for the US as cheaper Mexican labour has meant some US manufacturers have moved production across the border, resulting in job losses at home. Nafta was implemented in 1994 and over the past 23 years Mexico has grown as a manufacturing hub. Today the United States and Mexico trade over $500bn (£400bn) in goods and services a year, equal to about $1.5bn a day. Mexico is the US's second-biggest export market, and the US is Mexico's largest. Thierry Legros says without Nafta his farming business would be under threat Red Sun Farms, a large vegetable-growing firm in central Mexico, depends on the free trade agreement. Its managing director, Thierry Legros, shows me into a vast greenhouse, 200m long, with row upon row of tomato plants. The company also grows peppers and exports 90% of its crop to the US and Canada. So what would it mean if Mr Trump repealed the Nafta agreement completely with its tariff-free trading? "We might need to close the whole company," Thierry tells me. "It would be around 3,000 direct jobs, so with all the indirect that's quite a lot, probably double that." Outside Thierry's office three flags flutter in the wind - one for each Nafta country. The three Nafta flags at Red Sun Farms reflect the company's integration within the free trade area Red Sun Farms even owns a farm in the US and sends Mexican workers over there. However, there's a stark wage differential, with pay significantly higher in the US. "Right now with the exchange rate that's huge," Thierry explains, "it's about one to eight, one to 10." These Red Sun Farms workers in Mexico earn far less than their counterparts in the US As well as enabling Mexico to export freely, Nafta also opened the door to US imports, giving Mexican consumers much greater choice. "It was an achievement, it was against history," says economic consultant Luis de la Calle, who was one of the negotiators of the free trade agreement. "Most Mexicans thought that it was impossible or not convenient to have a strategic association with the US, and many people in the US never thought that Mexico could be their partner." You can listen to In Business: Mexico and Mr Trump on BBC Radio 4 at 20:30 GMT on Thursday, 5 January and at 21:30 GMT on Sunday, 8 January. Increased demand, as a result of free trade, forced Mexican manufacturers to improve quality. Luis de la Calle says that before Nafta Mexico had three producers of TV sets, and the quality was "awful". But today, Mexico is "the largest manufacturer of TV sets in the world". They are exported and are "high quality, completely different from the protected market we had before". The instantly recognisable VW Beetles are manufactured in Puebla, Mexico Mexico is now a centre of manufacturing for overseas companies, such as the motor industry. General Motors and Ford both have factories in Mexico as well as the US. But Donald Trump has put public pressure on US companies not to move production, and has threatened to impose import duties on cars coming in from Mexico. It's a sensitive subject and the American carmakers refused to be interviewed. Donald Trump had this message for the car industry earlier this week However, in the city of Puebla, a two-hour drive from the capital, the German car manufacturer Volkswagen is the biggest employer with 14,000 staff. It's the only place in the world where VW produces its famous Beetle, and as you enter the site you're greeted by a display of Beetles suspended in the air like a piece of installation art. The Golf and Jetta models are also produced here. Thomas Karig from VW Mexico was tight-lipped about whether the firm had come under any pressure about jobs Like the US carmakers, Volkswagen's Mexican production is integrated with its US plant. "We use a lot of parts coming from the US for assembly here in Mexico in Puebla, and our colleagues in Chattanooga in Tennessee - they use a lot of parts coming from Mexico," explains Thomas Karig from Volkswagen Mexico. This integration is possible because there are no tariffs to pay each time components are sent from one Nafta country to another. But when I ask whether Volkswagen has come under pressure from Mr Trump about keeping jobs in the US, the atmosphere cools and there is a curt "no comment". The Nafta agreement has not benefited everyone in Mexico though. Some small farmers were unable to compete with US agricultural imports and big Mexican rivals. According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, from 1991 to 2007 some 4.9 million family farmers were displaced. Some found work with big exporting agricultural companies, but there was still a net loss of 1.9 million jobs. Three of Aurelio's children are illegal migrants in the US An hour's drive from Puebla I meet Aurelio, whose family has farmed a tiny patch of land since 1925. Deep in the dry countryside he raises a few cows. Job opportunities are scarce and three of his five children have migrated illegally to the US where they have found work painting cars. But Donald Trump has said he wants to deport illegal immigrants. Aurelio takes out his mobile phone and calls one of his sons in the US. Is his son worried about this, I ask. His son says that if there is a chance of being deported they will have to look elsewhere, but adds: "Mexico is a tough choice because of lack of opportunities, violence, high taxes and the economic situation, so it wouldn't be easy." President Obama has deported at least 2.4 million illegal immigrants so this isn't a new policy. And according to the Pew Research Center, by 2014 more Mexican immigrants returned to Mexico than migrated to the US. Luis de la Calle says both the US and Mexico benefit from Nafta Mr de la Calle acknowledges that the free trade agreement has split the country. He says there are two types of regions in Mexico. "[There are] parts of the south of Mexico that are disconnected from international trade, that are lagging behind, where Nafta had little impact. Rates of growth are low, there is little investment, and you don't see large manufacturing operations." In contrast to this, he says: "There are 16 or 17 other states that grow very fast, you see a lot of dynamism." These he describes as "Nafta states" with exporting businesses. However, he dismisses Mr Trump's criticism of Mexico. "He says [Nafta's] been great for Mexico, actually his whole argument is that Mexico is doing so well. It's flattering." He also claims that the US is benefiting from its close manufacturing links with Mexico. However, when I ask who would come off worst if Nafta were repealed, the US or Mexico, he answers, "Mexico because we are smaller, but the US would lose quite a bit as well." Donald Trump wasn't the first US presidential candidate to criticise Nafta. Hillary Clinton and even Barack Obama did so on their campaign trails. But abandoning it completely? The US may find it has too much to lose and perhaps Mr Trump has realised that too. In Business: Mexico and Mr Trump is on BBC Radio 4 at 20:30 GMT on Thursday, 5 January and at 21:30 GMT on Sunday, 8 January.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38507482

Yannick Bolasie: Everton winger out for possibly a year, says Ronald Koeman - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Everton winger Yannick Bolasie will be out for 11-12 months with a knee injury, says manager Ronald Koeman.

Last updated on .From the section Football Everton winger Yannick Bolasie could be out for a year with a knee injury, says manager Ronald Koeman. Bolasie, 27, injured his right knee during the Toffees' 1-1 draw with Manchester United on 4 December. Manager Koeman said on Wednesday: "It will be around 11-12 months before he is back. That is a big disappointment but he will come back." Bolasie is due to have a second operation - on his anterior cruciate ligament - in the coming weeks. The DR Congo international signed for Everton from Crystal Palace in a £25m deal in August, and had played in every league game this campaign up until his injury. Manchester United's Memphis Depay could be brought in to fill the position in attacking midfield, with Koeman having this season expressed his desire to sign his fellow Dutchman.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38512945

How a Medieval Welsh town was discovered - BBC News

2017-01-05

Archaeologist Stuart Wilson spent his life savings on the land 12 years ago.

Archaeologist Stuart Wilson, who spent his life savings on a plot of land in Wales 12 years ago, has been proven right after uncovering a 13th century settlement. The ancient town of Trellech was believed by academics to be situated under a modern village nearby, until Wilson and his team of volunteers began making progress.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38510806

Elephant makes a splash in Thailand swimming pool - BBC News

2017-01-05

A five-month old elephant calf receives hydrotherapy after its leg was caught in a trap.

A five-month-old elephant calf has been receiving hydrotherapy after its leg was caught in a trap.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38516158

Daily Politics coverage of PMQs - BBC News

2017-01-05

Prime Minister's Questions on the BBC's Daily Politics.

This video can not be played.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27901933

The mother, the medium and the murder that changed the law - BBC News

2017-01-05

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It was a murder which enthralled a nation, saw police turn to the supernatural and helped change the very law itself.

Nottingham

Mona Tinsley's face smiled out of countless newspaper articles and police leaflets It is 80 years since the murder of 10-year-old Mona Tinsley, a case which was by turns grisly, seedy and bizarre. It enthralled a nation and helped change the age-old principle that a murder could not be proved without a body. "Oh it couldn't possibly be him," said Lilian Tinsley to the assembled police. Officers had a lead in the disappearance of Mona, her slight but sprightly 10-year-old daughter, but needed help. Just hours after she vanished after leaving her Newark-on-Trent school on 5 January 1937, a witness identified a man seen nearby as a former lodger from the Tinsleys' home. Local historian Chris Hobbs said: "The reaction of Lilian and her husband Wilfred, when questioned, was odd. They seemed evasive. The house at the centre of the case has changed little on the outside "When pressed by officers, Mrs Tinsley admitted they briefly had a lodger, known to the children as 'Uncle Fred'. "Eventually she gave a name, Frederick Hudson, and, seemingly with great reluctance, the fact he was a friend of her sister Edith Grimes in Sheffield. "Why would the parents be like this with the safety of their daughter at stake?" Mr Hobbs queried. A possible, and murky, answer would emerge. Mrs Grimes gave them a slightly different name - Frederick Nodder - but insisted she had not seen him for months. This turned out to be a blatant lie. Officers quickly found a neighbour who had seen Nodder in Sheffield just after Christmas, driving a lorry marked 'Retford', a market town in Nottinghamshire. This led them to a haulage firm which provided an address in the nearby hamlet of Hayton. It was only a day since Mona had disappeared. British justice was haunted by the wrongful execution of three people in 1660 Legal historian Benjamin Darlow says: "This principle dates back to the case of William Harrison in 1660, known as the Campden Wonder. Mr Harrison disappeared from near Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, in 1660 and two men and a woman were found guilty and hanged for the crime. "In 1662, Mr Harrison turned up with a story about being kidnapped. This had a dramatic impact on English criminal law and the 'no body, no murder' principle survived for the next 294 years. "The Mona Tinsley case was part of an important narrative in the 20th Century which built up to the abolition of the principle in English Law in 1954. "It was perhaps the most high-profile and widely reported case in this timeline. "There is no longer a 'no body, no murder' principle in English criminal law. "A murder conviction can be based on circumstantial evidence if it is compelling and convincing enough. "While the principle is gone, it is still very difficult to prove murder without a body, unless there is alternative strong evidence pointing to the murderer." Confronted outside his rented house, Nodder, 50, denied any involvement but a girl was seen at the house at about noon that day, just a few hours before. A search found a child's drawings as well as fingerprints on crockery. Nodder was arrested. Witnesses placed him on a bus from Newark to Retford on Tuesday afternoon. He was accompanied by a girl. Faced by this evidence, Nodder asked to see Mrs Grimes, insisting this would lead to Mona being found "alive and well". Nodder's house (centre, between trees) was a short distance from the Chesterfield canal Mr Hobbs said: "It came out that Mrs Grimes had in fact seen Nodder on a weekly basis since he left Sheffield. She knew full well where Nodder lived but did not tell police. "Newspaper reports describe them as being "friendly" but it is striking how both she and Mrs Tinsley tried to deflect attention away from Nodder. "It seems likely Mrs Grimes was having an affair with him but it is surprising both she and Mona's own mother were prepared to obstruct the police investigation. "Had it delayed the search by vital hours?" Hundreds of people turned out to search fields and help police drag local rivers But when they met, Nodder offered only a statement insisting he had sent Mona to Sheffield to see Mrs Grimes. Nobody believed a word of Nodder's new statement - but the lack of a corpse hampered the investigation. After searches of the house, garden, nearby countryside and the ominously close Chesterfield canal, and just beyond it the River Idle, fat with winter rain, no new trace of the girl was uncovered. On 10 January 1937 Nodder was charged, but only with abduction. Divining, or dowsing, claims the twitching of sticks can locate lost objects or water sources The desperate search for Mona used many conventional methods - but also some more bizarre efforts. Diviners - who search for an item with the aid of sticks or rods and mysterious intuition - featured prominently in the hunt for the girl, often seeming to direct the efforts of police. Most prominent was James Clarke of Melton Mowbray, who, carrying one of Mona's shoes and guided by whalebone sticks, focused on a gravel pit. On 14 January he told the Nottingham Post, "Never was I more confident of success. I am so confident that if I was younger I would dig myself." The pit was cleared. Nothing was found. Several mediums featured in the case. The Daily Mirror tested three - gaining access to both the Tinsley family and Nodder's house - but was given vague or conflicting answers. Estelle Roberts, one of the most famous psychics of the 1930s, later claimed to have been chauffeured to the the crime scene by police and told them Mona was in the river. Whatever she revealed to officers at the time, it was not enough to find the little girl. The case made national headlines. The Daily Express offered a £250 reward to find Mona, a different editor was threatened with jail for contempt for publishing a photo of Nodder. Press and public queued to get into hearings. It was reported some were "laughing and joking as they pushed and struggled to their places" and were told off by court officials. Nodder stood trial in Birmingham just two months later. Efforts to solve the mystery even featured in upmarket picture magazine The Sphere His defence argued hard Mona might still be found alive and well and no-one should speculate on her fate. Nodder did not give evidence. The jury took 16 minutes to convict him. He was jailed for seven years. Clearly frustrated by what he felt was a killer getting away lightly, Judge Mr Justice Rigby Swift said: "You have been, most properly in my opinion, convicted by the jury of a dreadful crime. "What you did with that little girl, what became of her, only you know. It may be that time will reveal the dreadful secret which you carry in your breast." The searches had been exhaustive. Hundreds of volunteers had combed the countryside, leaflets had been handed out, an appeal broadcast on radio. The canal had been drained for five miles, the river dredged. As it stood, Nodder just had to bide his time. Nodder was described as unkempt but seemed to have been trusted by the Tinsley children But his luck ran out on 6 June. A family boating on the River Idle, a few miles downstream of Hayton, spotted a suspicious object under the water. When police arrived they found it was a body snagged in a drain. It was taken to a nearby pub where Wilfred Tinsley identified his daughter by her clothes. Injuries to her neck showed Mona had been strangled with a cord. Nodder was charged with murder. Nodder was hanged at Lincoln Prison still maintaining his innocence The law moved with vengeful speed. In November, the second time in a year, he stood trial. This time he gave evidence - still insisting he had put Mona on a bus for Sheffield. A two-day trial saw his defence, which claimed nothing directly proved he had killed Mona and no motive was established, briskly dismissed. Sentencing Nodder to death, Mr Justice Mcnaughton remarked: "Justice has slowly but surely overtaken you". On 30 December 1937, Frederick Nodder was hanged in Lincoln Prison. After the noose had done its work and the Tinsleys were left to grieve, the echo of the murder carried on. Its twists and revelations helped usher in a new way of seeking justice for the dead. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-37577247

Bangalore sex attacks: CCTV captures horror on 1 January - BBC News

2017-01-05

Police in Bangalore say there were no mass sex attacks on 1 January - but what does footage show?

Police in southern India say there is no evidence of mass sex attacks during new year celebrations in central Bangalore, despite a number of women telling the media they had been assaulted by groups of men. CCTV footage of one violent attack in the early hours of 1 January elsewhere in the city has come to light, with four men arrested over the incident. Filmed and edited by Jaltson AC. Produced by Yogita Limaye and Shalu Yadav

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38521725

Veganuary: Is following a vegan diet for a month worth it? - BBC News

2017-01-05

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A record number of people have signed up for Veganuary - swerving meat and dairy for January - but does it do any good?

UK

The Veganuary campaign, encouraging people to try a vegan diet for the month most commonly associated with resolution and change, is under way, with a record 50,000 people signed up. But can forgoing meat, fish, dairy, eggs and honey for 31 days do any good? The adverts are on display, supporters on board and partner restaurants are promoting their meat and dairy-free dishes. Campaign organisers say following a vegan diet, even for such a short spell, can bring benefits. It promotes the animal rights argument - that sentient animals should not be eaten or used in food production. And environmental grounds - warning about the pollution caused by raising animals and as a by-product of agriculture. But it also says a balanced vegan diet can provide the nutrition people need in concord with health benefits - catchy at a time of year when people look to make up for festive excesses. Veganuary spokeswoman Clea Grady told the BBC she feels "brilliant - better than I ever have" as a result of trying, and staying with, a vegan diet. The charity says the change can lessen obesity, cut blood pressure, and lower the levels of type 2 diabetes. "More than 75 per cent of people who have tried going vegan for a month report an improvement in their health. "They said they slept better and they lost an average of 6lbs as a result of their changed diet," the Veganuary website says. There is a lot to be said for "strict dietary changes" says Lucy Jones, consultant dietician and spokeswoman for the BDA, the Association of UK Dieticians. "If people follow a restricted diet, they think about what they're eating - you can no longer pop into the office and eat a biscuit or a cake." They tend to "plan their meals in advance, prepare and cook from scratch". "It is certainly possible to have an awful diet. But, as a vegan, you tend to have more plant proteins, beans and pulses and more fruit and vegetables," she says. "We have to be cautious about what you can achieve. But having a month where you are eating more fruit, vegetables and nuts can't be a bad thing." Proponents say it's a time for change Veganuary can lead to changed eating habits throughout the year. Will all those greens and pulses have an impact on pounds and pressures? "The impact on blood sugars is fairly immediate, cholesterol takes a few weeks and blood pressure takes longer, and comes with the weight loss," says Lucy. All burgers, and all dinners, are not created equal There's a bias in play after years of being told meat, eggs and animal fats are bad for us, she says. "There is a world of difference between hamburgers and hot dogs, fried eggs and pasteurised milk, versus grass-fed organic meat, pastured poultry, poached organic eggs and raw, or at least organic, dairy," she says, touching on the continuing debate about the benefit of organic foods. "Vegan is a plant-based diet with high vegetables but also large amounts of cereal grains (both refined and unrefined) and legumes, both of which are low in bio-available nutrients and high in anti-nutrients such as phytate. "On the other hand wholefood animal produce such as organic meats, fish and shellfish and eggs are among the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat," she explains. Vegans can run low on minerals and vitamins like B12, iron, zinc, D and calcium - in fact the Veganuary website points towards supplementing B12 to ensure it's covered. And, whereas some studies show vegans and vegetarians living longer, she says, they often include people who pursue other healthy lifestyle traits, like exercise and not drinking alcohol, comparing them with the junk food-lovers. In January, both experts observe that anyone going from Christmas excess to a vegan diet plus exercise will feel different. But Kahler warns they can become nutrient-deficient down the line. "People use the words 'balance' and 'in moderation' as a cover to incorporate whatever they want in their diet. Moderation isn't the key to health," she says. "Setting boundaries is the key along with an understanding that there are certain 'foods' - like fizzy drinks and doughnuts - that we consume which simply should not be labelled with the word 'food'". The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38506418

Jill Saward: How Ealing vicarage case changed treatment of rape victims - BBC News

2017-01-05

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The impact of the Ealing vicarage rape case can be felt by victims of sexual assaults 30 years later.

UK

In 1986 Jill Saward, who has died aged 51, was raped after a gang of burglars broke into the Ealing vicarage where she lived. Her father, Michael - the vicar of St Mary's, Ealing - and her boyfriend were beaten with cricket bats by the men, who demanded money and jewellery. It was a sexual attack that shocked the nation, became headline news and was subsequently labelled the "Ealing vicarage rape". The media coverage of the case and the sentencing of the men who attacked Ms Saward - who later became Jill Drake - led to a public outcry about how rape victims were treated. Ringleader Robert Horscroft, then 34, who did not take part in the rape, was sentenced to 14 years in jail for his part in the burglary. Martin McCall, then 22, was given five years for rape and a further five for burglary, while Christopher Byrne, who was also 22, was given three years for his part in the sexual assault and five for the burglary. During sentencing, Old Bailey Judge Sir John Leonard said the trauma suffered by Ms Saward was "not so very great". Ms Saward's case affected the way rape victims were treated and is still being felt 30 years later. The public backlash against the media coverage and subsequent sentencing helped bring about changes to the way sexual assault cases were viewed. In particular, there was uproar at how one of the defendants had been given a longer sentence for the burglary than the attack. Several MPs, including Neil Kinnock, criticised the prison terms handed down - saying they were too lenient. The then-Labour leader said during a Commons debate in 1987: "While it is necessary for judges to remain detached in the name of the law, sometimes they show an insensitivity to the suffering of victims which is difficult to comprehend." And Margaret Thatcher, who was prime minister at the time, expressed her "deep concern" over the crime of rape following concerns about the case. Ms Saward's case also sparked fierce criticisms about press coverage of rape cases after Ms Saward's ordeal became front page news. While newspapers did not name Ms Saward as the victim, several of them published details which led her to be easily identifiable. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jill Saward, who was gang raped in 1986, says her attackers got the same sentence as for aggravated burglary The Sun newspaper printed the location of the attack and a photograph of Ms Saward with her eyes blacked out in the days following the rape. When investigated, the publication relied on the defence that media identification of a victim was only banned after a defendant was charged, which was the case at the time. Speaking in 1987 Ms Saward, who was an identical twin, demanded a change in the law to prevent this from happening. According to the Guardian, she said: "Unless this is done, others may find themselves identifiable by a process of deduction from third parties known to be involved as victims of a crime as I was. "This was very distressing both to myself and my family, and the manner in which some newspapers conveyed this information was highly insensitive and offensive." The law was changed a year later to allow for the right to appeal against lenient sentences and to close a loophole which allowed media identification of a rape victim before a defendant was charged. The Press Council also published guidelines on how rape cases were reported to prevent victims' anonymity being breached through jigsaw identification. The notorious case put the laws on rape under the spotlight and led to calls by women's groups and politicians to call for changes to the way the crimes were viewed. These included making rape within marriage a criminal offence, making oral and anal intercourse classified as rape and tougher sentencing for rapists - all of which have been achieved. In 1990, Ms Saward broke new ground when she became the first rape victim in the UK to waive her right to anonymity. She co-wrote a book, Rape: My Story, which explored her ordeal and she went on to become a fierce campaigner for the rights of sexual assault victims. Her decision to speak publicly was driven by a desire to change attitudes towards victims and strengthen the support they receive. Ms Saward launched a help group for those who had experienced sex crimes and regularly appeared in the media to highlight issues faced by victims. Her commitment to the cause also saw her become a sexual assault case worker and she subsequently provided training to police forces across the country. Over the years, further changes have been made to the way sexual assault cases are handled - taking into account the way victims were treated. These include a ban on allowing an alleged rapist to cross-examine victims while representing themselves in court and restrictions on what evidence can be heard about a victim's sexual behaviour. New guidelines were published on the sentencing of sex offenders in England and Wales in 2013 which gave a greater emphasis on the impact on the victim - something Ms Saward had long campaigned for. Speaking to the BBC, she said: "So long we've felt left out of the system or surplus to requirement, so to actually see victims' needs and what's happened to victims being put at the forefront of this is really, really good." Ms Saward never gave up on her fight for victims' rights, and in 2015 she spoke out against calls to give those accused of sex crimes anonymity. In 1998, she came face-to-face with a member of the gang who devastated her life, but did not rape her, and told him: "You don't need to say sorry." But she also spoke about forgiveness and said in a BBC interview: "I believe forgiveness gives you freedom. Freedom to move on without being held back by the past."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38516389

Nigel Farage to present daily radio chat show on LBC - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is to host a daily hour-long chat show on the LBC radio station.

UK Politics

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is to present a daily chat show on the London radio station LBC. The Nigel Farage Show will air from 19:00 to 20:00, Mondays to Thursdays, with the host describing it as "full of opinions, callers and reaction". He tweeted: "I invite listeners to agree with me, challenge me & together we can lead Britain's conversation." Mr Farage, a friend of US President-elect Donald Trump, is an MEP for South East England. He resigned as UKIP leader last summer, but returned on an interim basis after his successor, Diane James, resigned only 18 days into the job. Mr Farage's former deputy, Paul Nuttall, won the second leadership contest of the year. Mr Trump has said Mr Farage - among the first politicians to visit the president-elect after his victory last year - would make a "great" UK ambassador to the US, but Downing Street responded that there was "no vacancy". The former UKIP leader has previously taken part in occasional Phone Farage shows on LBC. The new regular slot begins next Monday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38517624

Marco Silva: Hull City appoint ex-Sporting & Olympiakos boss - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Former Sporting and Olympiakos head coach Marco Silva is confirmed as Hull City's new manager.

Last updated on .From the section Football Former Olympiakos manager Marco Silva has been confirmed as Hull City's new boss. The 39-year-old Portuguese has signed until the end of the season at the KCOM Stadium. He replaces Mike Phelan who was sacked on Tuesday with the Tigers bottom of the Premier League. Silva left the Greek side in the summer and had previously been linked with managerial vacancies at Championship sides Wolves and Nottingham Forest. He will take charge of Hull's next game against fellow Premier League strugglers Swansea in the FA Cup third round at home on Saturday. A full-back with only two top-flight appearances in Portugal, Silva started his coaching career in the summer of 2011 with second-tier side Estoril, with whom he had spent most of his playing career. He guided them to promotion to the top flight and a place in the Europa League before moving to Sporting Lisbon in 2014. Under his tenure, Sporting won the Portuguese Cup but he was sacked in June 2015, four days after the victory, reportedly for not wearing an official club suit during a match in an earlier round. He signed a two-year deal with Olympiakos the following month and the Greek side won a record 17 consecutive domestic matches, also claiming a 3-2 Champions League win over Arsenal at the Emirates. But he left last summer after they secured a 43rd Greek title and has been out of work since. Silva has brought in his own coaching team, including assistant Joao Pedro Sousa, first-team coach Goncalo Pedro and goalkeeping coach Hugo Oliveira. "Marco is a young coach who has impressed us with his philosophy and football style," said Hull vice-chairman Ehab Allam. "He has a great track record and we feel this is a bold and exciting appointment in our aim to retain the club's Premier League status. "We are already working hard with Marco and his team to deliver some key additions to our squad during this transfer window."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38516401

What does the future hold for Guantanamo? - BBC News

2017-01-05

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After President Obama failed to close the detention facility, what will President Trump do?

US & Canada

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is it like inside Guantanamo Bay? These are uncertain times at Guantanamo Bay. Not only for the detainees but also those who guard them. After eight years in which President Obama has tried - and failed - to close the detention facility, what will President Trump mean for its future? The first detainees arrived at Camp X-Ray 15 years ago in the early months of what was then called the "War on Terror". I first visited a few weeks later and watched the men in orange jumpsuits in steel cages in the hot Cuban sun. Guantanamo had been chosen partly because it was not US soil and so avoided coming under regular US law. The camp then had a thrown together feel - the Bush administration was improvising and no-one was sure how long it would last. The orange jumpsuits worn by detainees became notorious The next time I visited - two years later - Camp X-Ray had been replaced by the more permanent structure of Camp Delta. Guantanamo was here to stay. Its numbers grew - around 700 at its peak. But on his second day in office eight years ago President Obama promised to close the facility and the pace of transfers increased. On my visit a few weeks ago, I found much of the Camp eerily empty, a lone iguana roaming around the barbed wire. But closing Guantanamo was a promise President Obama could not keep, partly because Congress blocked the transfer of any detainees to the US. Fewer than 60 men are now left. There are 20 currently cleared for release and the Obama administration is trying to transfer some of these out before its term ends. But on 3 January, President-elect Trump made his views clear in a tweet. "There should be no further releases," he wrote. "These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back on to the battlefield." Most of the remaining detainees are held now in Camp Six. Inside a cell in Camp Six at Guantanamo Bay The uncertainty hanging over the base was clear as we toured the detention block. We were able to watch and film detainees in the communal areas of their cell block through one-way glass, an unsettling procedure. The detainees are not supposed to know we are there but clearly they realised as one put up a hand-painted sign showing a question mark with a padlock underneath. They followed the election result like everyone else and Col Steve Gabavics, Commander of the Joint Detention Force, told me: "They were all watching TV - their behaviour was pretty much the same as any other night. "We didn't notice any significant negative response. No-one came to us angry, no-one protested. They were simply interested to see what was going to happen." Colonel Steve Gabavics said they noticed no reaction to Donald Trump's election victory One difference from my early visits is just how much more controlled - even mundane - the interaction between detainees and guards is now compared to the early days. The attacks of 2001 were still raw and there was a tension and sense of underlying aggression on both sides. Now, the atmosphere is much more controlled. Detainees tap on a window to summon a guard when they have a message to pass and the guard proceeds through a door into a cage-like structure inside the cell-block where they can communicate with a detainee. During our visit in December, officials say that the detainees were "compliant". But what does the arrival of President Trump mean? "You know the detainees have questions - are the transfers going to stop when the new president takes office on 20 January? We don't know, they don't know. Their lawyers may speculate, but no-one knows," says Rear Adm Peter Clarke, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo. He did say - before Donald Trump's latest tweet - that "some of them may act up" if they realise they are not going to be transferred. Somewhere else on the base, which sprawls across an otherwise isolated tip of Cuba, is Camp Seven. Its precise location is secret - leading to much speculation from visiting reporters. This is where so-called high value detainees are being held - men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 11 September attacks who is going through the long slow process of a military commission - a form of trial. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in March 2003 and sent to the US detention centre in Cuba in 2006 Might it be not only that transfers out are stopped, but that current detainees find they have some company? "We are going to load it up with bad dudes," Mr Trump said in the campaign trail in February last year. Camp Five was built to hold detainees but now sits empty. What if President Trump decides he wants to not just stop people leaving but send in new detainees? The maximum capacity of Camp Six is around 175 detainees. Camp Five could hold 80 - it has been part-converted to a new medical facility. That means potentially Guantanamo could accommodate more than 100 extra detainees pretty much immediately. More than that would require construction work. Officials say it is a "reasonable assumption" that they would want to segregate new detainees who would be more likely to be members of so-called Islamic State rather than al-Qaeda. "We are prepared to receive some if that was required in the short term," Col Gabavics told us. The Obama administration's push to close Guantanamo also meant there was a reluctance to capture more detainees in counter-terrorism operations around the world, some former officials say. They believe that a policy of "take no prisoners" created an incentive to kill rather than capture, with the administration increasing the pace and the geographical spread of drone strikes which - on occasion - might mean useful intelligence gleaned from interrogation or captured material might be lost. Rear Adm Peter Clarke said he is confident he will not be asked to torture detainees Mr Trump has also said that he would consider returning to the practice of waterboarding detainees. Could that take place at Guantanamo? Rear Adm Clarke said he was "confident" that there will be no torture at Guantanamo. "Whatever orders we receive, by the time they come to me from US Southern Command, I am confident those orders will be legal orders that I will be ready to carry out," he said. In the 15 years since Guantanamo was opened, the contours of America's war on terror have changed. New enemies have emerged and the question of what to do with those America is fighting - where to put them, how to treat them and even whether to kill or capture them - will now be for a new president to decide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38509031

CCTV shows Turkey bomb blast - BBC News

2017-01-05

CCTV obtained from a police officer shows the deadly car bomb attack a courthouse in the Turkish city of Izmir.

Two attackers, a policeman and a court worker have been killed in a car bomb and gun assault on a courthouse in the Turkish city of Izmir, state media say. Officials blamed Kurdish militants for the attack. A third attacker is reportedly still being sought. CCTV obtained from a police officer shows the moment of the blast, as seen on two separate cameras.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38524050

CES 2017: Solos smartglasses help cyclists get fitter - BBC News

2017-01-05

Cyclists are being targeted with a new pair of smartglasses that display training data to help them get increase their performance.

A specialised type of smartglasses designed to help cyclists get fitter is on show at the CES tech show in Las Vegas. Smartglasses as a category have failed to make much impact to date, but Solos believes there is untapped demand for its product, as Chris Foxx reports. Follow all our CES coverage at bbc.co.uk/ces2017

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38526185

Sir Ivan's resignation sign of greater Whitehall strain - BBC News

2017-01-05

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What does the resignation of the UK's ambassador to the EU say about the Brexit process?

UK Politics

For one minister - an enthusiast for Brexit - it was very simple: "You're either on board, or you're not. He wasn't. We move on." The minister sounded rather cheerful. So, Sir Ivan Rogers had gone because his face didn't fit. Now the way was clear for a true believer in the opportunities opened up by the vote to leave the EU. If only winning a good deal for Britain in its divorce from the European Union, and eventually on the terms of trade for the UK outside the EU, was half so simple. But the resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers has revealed more than the difficulty and complexity of Britain's EU divorce. It has highlighted wider strains in Whitehall between some mandarins and some ministers, up to and including Theresa May. Mandarins and ambassadors perennially advise more junior mandarins on the importance of speaking truth to power. On this occasion, Sir Ivan's leaked farewell memo can fairly be read as a protest and a warning. Concern is growing among some high-ranking officials that ministers don't understand or won't admit the scale of the task they're facing. That concern broke surface last week, when the head of the top civil servants' trade union, the FDA, suggested ministers lacked the courage to own up to the difficulties of Brexit for fear of displaying political weakness. Dave Penman's particular worry, as the nearest thing mandarins have to a shop steward, was that ministers might leave the government machine unable to cope adequately with the day-to-day business of government. Of course, trade unions tend to demand more resources on behalf of their members. It's their job. But it was an unusually political contribution from an organisation which represents the most exalted, and rigidly non-political, beings in Whitehall. By extension, if the complaint is justified, refusing to recognise the scale and complexities of Brexit might jeopardise the success of the mission itself. Theresa May has promised to give a major speech on Brexit The mere suggestion that senior officials might lack commitment to the task of making Brexit work as a result of political prejudice makes officials bristle. They insist they don't take sides - they take orders and try to make them work. For their part, Brexit enthusiasts insist Britain's future outside the EU is assured, if only all concerned would recognise the strength of the UK's position as a strategic and trading power. Their conviction is strengthened by a sense that the scepticism they detect in Whitehall and elsewhere is not merely faint-hearted or unpatriotic but also undermining to the prospects of eventual success. No-one can say Brexit is coming off the rails. It hasn't even started. But as if preparing to face 27 other European states, the European Parliament and the European Commission wasn't daunting enough a task to begin with, confidence in Whitehall and Westminster about the negotiations and life after Brexit is being undermined by tension between the people who run the government machine and their new political masters - and by old rivalries between Remainers and Brexiteers, even though that civil war was fought, and lost and won half a year ago. In Downing Street the driving motivation is not ideological passion. Theresa May stood on the Remain side in the June referendum, admittedly with no great display of enthusiasm. Her prime concern now is making the plan work. The prime minister is a pragmatist. The trouble with that, just now, is there's no clear sense of what the plan is. We are promised a major speech by the prime minister in coming weeks, giving more detail of the plan for Brexit. Who knows? It may even relieve some of the steady pressure on her and her ministers for more clarity. Given the fact Mrs May and her team above all want to keep their cards closed, and their options open, I'll believe it when I see it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38509459

BBC iPlayer - BBC News

2017-01-05

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10318089

Chicago attack condemned by Black Lives Matter campaigners - BBC News

2017-01-05

Four black people have been charged over the live-streamed torture of a white man. It comes as supporters of campaign group Black Lives Matter say it has been unfairly linked to the attack.

Four black people face hate crime and kidnapping charges for the Facebook Live-aired torture of a mentally disabled white man. In the video, the assailants can be heard making derogatory statements against white people and Donald Trump. Student Shelby, a supporter of Black Lives Matter, told World Have Your Say the social campaign group is being unfairly linked to the attack. Listen to World Have Your Say on the BBC iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38524551

Mother's quest to find missing daughter in Ghost Ship ashes - BBC News

2017-01-05

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A mother details her bid to trace her missing daughter after a California warehouse fire that killed 36.

US & Canada

When a fire at an underground music event in California killed 36, families whose adult children had been missing for months or years were among those who feared the worst. Daleen Berry explains why she went looking for her daughter at the Ghost Ship. I had moved across the country to find my daughter, Trista, but the deadly warehouse fire in Oakland in December forced me to take the first step, the one I had been dreading. After hearing that people actually lived in the warehouse of artists' studios and performance spaces known as the Ghost Ship, I needed to see for myself, to ensure Trista - the name I'll call her to protect her privacy - was not among the dead. At the scene many had gathered to grieve and pay their respects. There were also people like me, who had lost touch with their loved ones for weeks, months, or even years, and were fearful they were inside when the fire started. I took the advice of an officer and drove to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, where they had set up a makeshift family assistance centre to provide emotional support and privacy for the family members. We waited for updates from Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and found comfort in a safe place, together. On one wall inside the centre were three lists: the confirmed dead, those who had been located and were safe, and those still reported as missing. On that last list were about 150 names. I knew then I was far from alone. Somehow, it made it easier to speak the words I'd refused to let myself believe: "My daughter is missing." Unlike TV, where missing people are portrayed as victims of sexual trafficking or serial murderers, most adults disappear for far less sinister reasons. As of late December, the California justice department had 20,470 reports of missing persons in the state. Of those, 7,854 are like my daughter, classified as "voluntary missing adults". More than 8,000 are runaways. Another 1,060 people were taken by a family member, while 764 disappeared under suspicious circumstances and 114 went missing during a catastrophe. At just 51, stranger abduction cases number the lowest. The 48 hours in the family assistance centre were among the most painful in my life, as I struggled to answer one question after another. When did you last hear from your daughter? Do you have a preferred funeral home? This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Oakland residents held a vigil for victims of the fire A few months earlier I had packed up everything I owned, leaving behind family and friends to follow Trista's path west. I didn't tell them the real reason I was leaving - I wouldn't rest until I knew where Trista was. A kind and caring free spirit, Trista had gravitated to places like the Ghost Ship in the past. I knew that she might have lived there because this was her community: musicians, artists and other creative people. When I went to work for a small start-up in Oakland in 2009, she lived with me, then later followed me back to West Virginia. From there she travelled to Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, meeting up with fellow musicians. She was content to live in her own world, collecting items cast to the kerb and transforming them into beautiful works of art. But by 2014, while I was put the finishing touches on a true crime book about a missing daughter, Trista was becoming increasingly distant and withdrawn. By then, my daughter's temporary forays into seclusion had become legendary. I had been trying to understand them for 10 years because, at times weeks or even months would pass without so much as a word. But I always knew she would reach out to someone - my sister, her brother, my mother. Trista terminated all but two ties in February 2015, when she returned to the Bay Area. By June 2016, the last time I heard from her, she severed the rest. I called her brother in San Francisco: he hadn't heard from her in a year. She changed her cell phone number. All of my emails to her bounced back. "The email account that you tried to reach does not exist," Google repeatedly told me. This wasn't my first trip to Oakland to look for Trista. I drove there one month before the fire. I needed to check out our old neighbourhood in case my daughter had returned. She hadn't. Some of the victims of the fire were LGBT or made outcasts in other ways; people who believed their families had given up on them - or vice versa. But families like mine with missing children don't give up. We may stumble around, accidentally making matters worse. But it is never intentional. I met a few other parents whose children died in the fire. They didn't leave until the last handful of charred ashes was carried from the scene - when they knew for sure their child was truly, finally gone. A day after the fire, I finally forced myself to open the laptop Trista left behind in West Virginia a year earlier. I spent hours reaching out to her friends, fellow musicians, and a previous employer. They hadn't heard from her in years. No one knew anything. It was like Trista had closed the door on her old life, never to reopen it again. But I couldn't just wait for a phone call telling me if my daughter was dead or alive. I had to know myself, so I drove to Oakland from Sacramento. And waited, for as long as it took. After spending two days at the family services centre, I stumbled into my hotel room, still struggling with the enormity of it all. What will I do if they find her? What if they don't? The following morning, one of the mental health professionals on hand to help the families guided me down a corridor and into an office. There, two women greeted me from the state justice department's missing persons unit. "We've located 1,000 people since 2001," they said. "Even a few live Jane Does," they added hopefully. They asked more questions. I signed more paperwork. Then, after careful instructions, a gloved hand gave me what looked like a pink and white emery board. I opened my mouth, did as they directed, and handed over my saliva - my DNA - and the only link to my daughter. I just wanted to find Trista. Beg for her forgiveness. Tell her I was sorry - for me, for my mistakes, and for not understanding her well enough. For my family, who did likewise, and in whose heart she still holds a sacred place. Given that all 36 victims of the Ghost Ship fire have been identified, I have to believe Trista is still alive. Still out there, somewhere. Like the 150 or so other worried mothers of those on the missing list, I have but one thought: I love you. Or - at the very least - phone home. Daleen Berry is a New York Times bestselling writer and author of several books, including Shatter the Silence and Pretty Little Killers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37481071

Guantanamo Bay: What's it like inside? - BBC News

2017-01-05

As Donald Trump tweets that no-one should be released from Guantanamo Bay, the BBC's Gordon Corera takes a tour of the camp.

As Donald Trump tweets that no-one should be released from Guantanamo Bay, the BBC's Gordon Corera takes a tour of the camp.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38512158

French cyclist Robert Marchand sets new record aged 105 - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Robert Marchand sets a new hour record at the national velodrome but regrets not going faster.

Europe

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Robert Marchand: "I'm wondering if it's really true" He may not be the fastest cyclist round a velodrome, but he is easily one of the oldest. Robert Marchand has clocked up 105 years and now a new record for the furthest distance cycled in one hour. The French cyclist managed 22.547km (14 miles) at the national velodrome, taking the top spot in a new category - for riders over 105. Mr Marchand already holds the record for those aged over 100 - 26.927km - set in 2012. He "could have done better", he says, but missed a sign showing 10 minutes to go. "My legs didn't hurt," he told BFMTV. "My arms hurt but that's because of rheumatism." To be fair, he had admitted before the event at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome near Paris that breaking his previous hour record would be tough. "I'm not in such good shape as I was a couple of years back," he told AFP news agency. "I am not here to be champion. I am here to prove that at 105 years old you can still ride a bike," he said. Hundreds of spectators cheered him on trackside. Born on 26 November 1911, Mr Marchand puts his fitness down to diet - lots of fruit and vegetables, a little meat, not too much coffee - and an hour a day on the cycling home-trainer. A prisoner of war in World War Two, he went on to work as a lorry driver and sugarcane planter in Venezuela, and a lumberjack in Canada. No stranger to sport outside cycling, he competed in gymnastics at national level and has been a boxer. The current men's hour record is held by the UK's Bradley Wiggins - 54.526km - which he set in June 2015.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38510439

Pep Guardiola: Manchester City boss clarifies retirement comments - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola insists he is not ready to quit management despite earlier saying he is "arriving at the end" of his career.

Last updated on .From the section Football Venue: Date: Kick-off:Coverage: Live on BBC One, BBC Radio 5 live and BBC local radio; text commentary on the BBC Sport website & app Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has insisted he is not ready to quit management, despite saying he is "arriving at the end" of his career. The 45-year-old made the comments in an interview with NBC, which was aired last weekend. Speaking before Friday's FA Cup third-round tie at West Ham, Guardiola said: "Maybe it was inappropriate to say I'm starting to say goodbye to my career. "I'm not thinking that I'm going to retire." Guardiola took over at Manchester City in the summer, after winning 14 trophies in four years at Spanish giants Barcelona and three successive Bundesliga titles with German club Bayern Munich. "I said in the interview that I won't be a trainer when I'm 60. But I'm 45. I'm not going to retire in two or three years," he continued. "I'm not going to train at 60 because I want to do something else in my life. "I started playing football young and my career was on the pitch. I want to do something else in my life, but in the next three or four or five or six or seven years. "I love my job and I'm in the perfect place to do my job especially here in England." 'I never said this club is below the other ones' Guardiola, whose side are fourth in the Premier League, gave an awkward post-match interview to BBC Sport after Monday's 2-1 win over Burnley. And quotes from the Spaniard appeared in the national newspapers the following day, implying Manchester City are 10 years behind their local rivals Manchester United. But Guardiola clarified his comments, saying: "When I said to compare the titles with Liverpool, Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid, we are behind. If people don't understand that, I'm sorry. "In the last five or six years Manchester City achieved more targets and got better and grew the most. It is one of the best clubs in the world by far. "But in terms of just the titles, winning the Champions League, we are behind other clubs in the last 20 years. "I never said this club is below the other ones. Of course we are going to fight until the end of the season for all the titles."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38518373

Newspaper headlines: Brexit fallout and roadside dementia - BBC News

2017-01-05

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The ramifications of the European Union ambassador's resignation and a link between roads and dementia are the standout stories on the front pages.

The Papers

Sir Tim Barrow is the UK's new ambassador to the European Union The papers offer their interpretations of Sir Tim Barrow's appointment as the UK's new EU envoy after his predecessor resigned, questioning the government's Brexit strategy. The Financial Times believes Theresa May has bowed to pressure by selecting a career diplomat, allaying concerns about the civil service becoming politicised. The Times and the Guardian both argue that the prime minister wanted to calm the row about Brexit after the resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers highlighted strains between some mandarins and ministers. The Guardian says the attacks on Sir Ivan's impartiality by former Conservative ministers had angered some senior civil servants, with some privately claiming they were considering stepping down. For the Sun, Britain's new ambassador to the European Union is a "wily behind-the-scenes fixer". It hopes Sir Tim will show ambition and optimism when it comes to leaving the EU. The Daily Telegraph criticises what it sees as Sir Ivan's "distinctly undiplomatic" resignation message and calls on the civil service to demonstrate the loyalty and discretion it expects from ministers. According to the Daily Mail, theology students at the University of Glasgow are being warned they may see distressing images while studying the crucifixion of Jesus and are being given the chance to leave classes if they fear being upset. The paper says this is part of a trend among a number of universities to let students know about parts of courses that might be disturbing. Advocates say this helps protect the mental health of vulnerable students but critics believe people are left unable to face the realities of the world. Other examples, according to the article, include veterinary students being warned they will have to work with dead animals; while those studying forensic science are alerted that some lectures contain images of crime scenes. Several papers are concerned about the growing scale of household debt. The Daily Mirror says it has reached crisis levels with consumer credit standing at £192bn, the most since the economic crash of 2008. In particular, the Mirror highlights the plight of those aged 18 to 34 who are struggling in the face of low wages and rising rents. For its lead, the Sun has been speaking to a refugee from Syria who says he was was waved through border control despite having a bogus passport. He tells the paper that he bought the forged document for £300. The Sun says this is evidence of a security shambles which leaves Britain wide open to an attack from the Islamic State group. The Border Force declines to comment directly on the case but does tell the paper that technological changes have improved its ability to spot forged documents. The Telegraph offers a wry assessment of the fallout after the Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough barely noticed it had been struck by one of the biggest earthquakes to hit the UK in almost a decade. The paper says that during the 3.8 magnitude tremor, which happened two nights ago, a woman reportedly lost control of her frying pan and afterwards people tweeted pictures of fallen wheelie-bins and capsized deckchairs, together with the slogan "We will rebuild".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-38514237

CES 2017: Danny’s amazing earbud adventure - BBC News

2017-01-05

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A UK entrepreneur brings his earbuds that auto-translate languages to CES - but will he stand out from the crowd?

Technology

It sounds like a game-changing innovation: earbuds that auto-translate other languages. But what was supposed to be their big coming out week isn't going quite as planned. If you're a tech company wanting to grab the world's attention this week, then Las Vegas could be the worst place to be. Why? Well in the biggest CES yet with nearly 4,000 exhibitors you really have to shout very loud to be heard above the hubbub. If you're a giant company like Sony or Samsung, you pour your marketing millions into spectacular press conferences and ridiculously lavish show floor exhibits where visitors have to wade through deep pile carpet while being deafened by loud music and shouty demos. So, to arrive here as a one-man start-up with an innovative idea and try to get some attention requires both courage and optimism. Luckily Danny Manu has both in spades. When I met this young man from Manchester on the Las Vegas strip, he was desperately tired. His cheap flight from the UK had been delayed by eight hours on a Miami stopover - so he'd dashed from the airport to his AirBnB to drop his luggage, then came straight on to see me. "I've not slept for 24 hours but I'm still moving and looking forward to it," he says. Danny's product is called Clik and he bills it as the world's first truly wireless earbuds with live translation. The idea is that you speak in one language and another person hears what you say in their own tongue, either via their own earbuds or via the MyManu smartphone app that Danny has already developed. Smart wireless earbuds and instant translation are ideas which giants like Apple and Google are addressing with vast investments - so it seems ridiculously ambitious for a one-man band to take them on. He has already had a few setbacks. He'd hoped to have a working model ready for CES, but says delays in manufacturing in China mean the earbuds won't be ready for a few weeks. Instead, he demonstrates the system on a set of ear headphones, getting me to say Bonjour into an iPad which then comes out of his headphones as Hello. We struggle with bad connectivity - often an issue when thousands are using the mobile networks at once - but Danny is hoping for a smoother demo in any of 37 languages when his stand is set up at the show. It has been an extraordinary journey to get this far. He's been working on the idea for four years while holding down a full time job as an engineer at a major aerospace company. He tells me that when he went to China to sign a deal with Foxconn to manufacture his product he could only take three days leave, so spent just one day in Shenzhen - to the amazement of his hosts - then got back on the plane. He has funded Clik from his own savings and a crowdfunding campaign and exhibiting at CES is costing him a tidy sum. So, is it worth it? "I've had so many emails from companies that wanted to see the product," he says. "That's the main reason I've come to CES." He is also hoping to link up with distributors, manufacturers and other possible business partners. Let's be honest, the odds aren't great on Danny Manu beating the tech giants to launch a product that could transform the way we interact with people who speak a different language. In fact, he might be better to head to the roulette tables and pick a number to put his life savings on. But this brave young British entrepreneur, with the courage to stake everything on an innovation he believes could change the world, is just what CES should be all about. Follow all our CES coverage at bbc.co.uk/ces2017 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38514399

Top business tips for 2017 - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Some of the best business leaders profiled in 2016 for the BBC's The Boss slot give their advice on setting up and running companies over the next 12 months.

Business

Have you thought of your goals for the year ahead? With 2017 now five days old, any business leader worth his or her salt has got their plans in place for the next 12 months. Be it a strategy to boost sales, a schedule to expand into new territories, or a way to deal with problems, this is the time of year to look ahead. Here, some of the best business leaders profiled in 2016 for the BBC's The Boss slot share their plans or thoughts on running a business in 2017. It shouldn't be forgotten that your employees are your most important asset, and wellness at work - ensuring that your workforce is well looked after - has become a hot topic. Include a regular slot in the working day or week for staff to work out together or alone, followed by a healthy communal lunch. This is a great way of bringing staff together socially, whilst improving their physical and mental health. This leads to a happier, more productive and collaborative workforce. The best advice I have for someone running a business is listen to the winds of change. Every industry is being transformed directly or indirectly by technology, and the rate of change will increase in the next few years. So think not about what your business is doing now, but how it can be positioned in order to be a part of that technological transformation. Then, as always - work hard, learn from mistakes and keep evolving. Stay curious and hunt for inspiration in unexpected places. We always try to look beyond the shop shelf, and I'd encourage all businesses to do the same. Define your purpose. Major global events of 2016 mean that having clear direction, beyond your annual targets, is more important than ever before. In the digital age of everything, keep it simple. Without bottomless pockets, you need to prioritise and have the discipline to focus on the real strengths of your team. But also remember to keep things light and have fun. We make popcorn, we're not saving lives, but it's easy to lose sight of that sometimes. Don't forget to spend time and effort making sure people know what you have to offer. I see so many people who have great shows, great products and great ideas but decide to cut the marketing budget, or just think that it will work because it's clever. I always say you could invent a kettle that boiled in a second, but if people don't know about it then it doesn't matter. Get people excited. Think of interesting and amazing ways to get people involved and get your message out there. Create a community and harness the power of social media. Be brave and try new things. Become an expert in your field. Above all, have fun and people will soon be shouting it from the rooftops. These are uncertain, challenging times, so businesses need to be brave and not be paralysed by fear of the unknown. At Unruly, for example, we haven't let Brexit brouhaha put the brakes on our growth - on the contrary, our foot is flat on the pedal, and we've accelerated international expansion into India. It's also important that you nurture the wellbeing of the team. Make sure your team understands the value they bring to your organisation, and mentor them so they are prepared for the challenges ahead. Over the long term, the only strategy for an uncertain future is to keep and feed an open mind. Keep listening, keep learning, keep reading, keep evolving, keep experimenting, keep questioning, keep agile. Only then can you can keep on being at the cutting edge of trends that are reshaping the world we live in. I'm an optimist at heart and believe that if we build purposeful businesses with collaborative cultures, then rather than worrying about the future, we can help to shape it. I have four "Ps" as my guide. Firstly, passion - you must be totally passionate about what you do, because customers and employees will only be as passionate about your product or service as you are. Secondly - people. It is important that you employ great people. This will allow you to build a sustainable business with amazing customer loyalty and retention. Thirdly - product. Make sure that you give a quality product that will allow you to build a business that customers and potential staff will want to be aligned to. Finally - profit. It is vital that you understand your numbers and know what is gross and net profit, and work hard to protect your margins. Business is like life - you get out of it what you put in. For me it is all about hard work, persevering and not giving up. Success in business is about finding the right balance between pushing yourself to your limits, and knowing when to take time out to re-energise, regroup, and to take a moment to plan your next big push. Many of us are great at the pushing bit, but forget about the importance of the other side, which can lead to burnout or perhaps a growing underlying resentment of the dream you're following. In order to allow you the time to do this, it's essential that you build a strong team around you, who all share the same values. Empower them, give them space to grow, and reward them in the way that pushes them forwards individually - what motivates your team will vary drastically between individuals. Every business needs to expect even more work and new challenges in 2017. Here in Brazil there is an economic crisis that can't be ignored, but it is important for any company to spend more energy finding new ways to make things work out rather than cursing the current situation. We're not letting geography determine who we hire - we want to find the perfect person for the role. They could be based in London, the Czech Republic, the US or Canada. All that matters is that they elevate the team and help us achieve our goals. I think this approach will slowly become the norm, and we'll see more big businesses adopt this way of doing things. Technology is making the world a lot smaller, and communication has never been easier, which means you can always be in touch no matter where you are in the world. Obviously there are processes you need to put in place to make sure everyone's doing the job that's being asked of them and to maintain a strong company culture, but once this has been ironed out the benefits are undeniable. Build a team you can rely on. Over the last couple of years I've built up a strong senior management team who I am heavily reliant on for the day-to-day running of the business. This has helped to give me space to breathe and focus on taking my business to new heights. Also, take time off occasionally. I think it's extremely important to completely switch off from work every now and again. I spent Christmas in Sri Lanka, turned off my emails and focused on me. It means that I come back to work in January - one of the busiest months in our industry - refreshed, focused and ready to tackle the year ahead. Be clear about what you want to achieve in 2017. I have set myself half a dozen key things I want to realise this year. If you get to the end of the year without achieving any or all of them, the things you identified at the start of the year were either not important, or you failed to deliver them. If they weren't important after all, you called it wrong at the start of the year, which can be just as bad for your business as failing to achieve them. Always be alive to what is going on with your competition, and with the market uncertainty we'll experience over the next couple of years this will be even more critical. Too many people are too insular within their business, and they don't see who's in front and, even more importantly, they don't see who's coming up from behind.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38287871

Exec pay under fire on 'Fatcat Wednesday' - BBC News

2017-01-05

Execs will have earned more by midday on January 4, than ordinary workers earn in the entire year, says the High Pay Centre think tank.

Execs will have earned more by midday on January 4, than ordinary workers earn in the entire year, says the High Pay Centre think tank.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38512258

David Tennant's film about RD Laing to close Glasgow Film Festival - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Scots actor David Tennant will bring the curtain down on this year's Glasgow Film Festival with a film about psychiatrist RD Laing.

Glasgow & West Scotland

David Tennant plays RD Laing in Mad To Be Normal Scots actor David Tennant will bring the curtain down on this year's Glasgow Film Festival (GFF). The former Dr Who star will attend the closing gala on 26 February for the world premiere of his latest film, Mad To Be Normal. Also starring Michael Gambon and Gabriel Byrne, the film is about the life of Scots psychiatrist RD Laing. The 13th festival opens on 15 February with a screening of Handsome Devil, starring Sherlock actor Andrew Scott. GFF co-director Allison Gardner said: "I am so excited to share the news about our great opening and closing galas. "Handsome Devil is a real crowd-pleaser with a joyous spirit that makes it a perfect film to launch the festival. "David Tennant gives an absolutely stunning performance as RD Laing in Mad To Be Normal and it seems only fitting that Glasgow should have the honour of hosting the premiere of a film about one of the city's most complex, charismatic figures." RD Laing was seen as a radical when he set up a medication-free community for psychiatric patients in London in the 1960s. The film also features Elizabeth Moss who starred in Mad Men and Girl, Interrupted. A documentary series about influential art writer John Berger, titled The Seasons in Quincy, has also been added to the GFF schedule after his death on 2 January. The result of a five-year project by Tilda Swinton, Colin MacCabe and Christopher Roth in collaboration with the composer Simon Fisher Turner, the documentary is made with four films on different aspects of Berger's life and will be shown on 24 and 25 February. The full festival programme is to be detailed later in January but events already announced include a live music performance involving Alex Kapranos and Stuart Braithwaite. The ABC show will follow a special screening of documentary Lost In France, looking at the rise of Scotland's independent music scene and bands such as Mogwai, Arab Strap and Franz Ferdinand. The 2017 GFF programme also celebrates Canadian cinema and the role of women in thrillers. Glasgow City Council leader Frank McAveety said: "GFF is a highlight on the city's cultural calendar. "The opening gala is always an exciting event, heralding the beginning of 11 packed days of film in the UK's cinema city. "It's particularly great to see that a famous Glaswegian will be depicted on screen for this year's closing gala film." The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38512736

Bernie's giant Trump tweet gets hijacked by your memes - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Bernie Sanders put a Trump tweet on a poster and took it into the Senate - now the internet has gone mad.

Newsbeat

People have been making fun of Bernie Sanders after he used a poster-sized tweet by Donald Trump during a debate. The Democrat politician was attempting to make a serious point. He wanted to show the difference between what the president-elect had said about healthcare in the past and what he's now saying. But the internet was ready. And there are now dozens of memes, replacing Trump's tweet with other ideas. If you can't read the tweet, here's the original from May 2015. But if you put a big Donald Trump tweet on a screen, then you're asking for the predictable to happen... And it didn't take long for them to start flooding in. For example, @kept_simple went back to 2012, to remind us how Donald Trump thought Robert Pattinson should dump Kristen Stewart. Others used an old tweet to suggest Bernie Sanders was talking about sport... There was also the search for the answers to some important life questions. Some memes featured personalities we thought we'd left behind in 2016, including Harambe and Cecil the lion. And of course, no meme list would be complete without the obligatory "Ed Balls". Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/articles/38520603

Qatar Open: Sir Andy Murray extends winning streak to 26 matches - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Sir Andy Murray extends his winning run to 26 matches with a 7-6 (8-6) 7-5 win over Austrian Gerald Melzer at the Qatar Open.

Last updated on .From the section Tennis Sir Andy Murray reached the Qatar Open quarter-finals with a battling 7-6 (8-6) 7-5 win over Austrian Gerald Melzer. World number 68 Melzer produced a gutsy display, saving eight first-set points before eventually succumbing to the world number one in the tie-break. The Austrian broke as Murray served for the match at 5-4 but the Scot won the next two games and will next play world number 44 Nicolas Almagro of Spain. Murray extended his career-best winning streak in competitive matches to 26. He paid tribute to Melzer, saying: "He played great tennis and dominated large parts of the match. If he plays like this again this year he'll move higher and higher up the rankings. "I played pretty good. The depth in men's tennis is great right now." After shaking hands at the end of the contest the Argentine asked for a selfie with the Serb 12-time Grand Slam champion. "That was the first time that I ever had this kind of experience in my career,'' Djokovic said. "So, Horacio, well done. Very original." Meanwhile, Roger Federer was defeated by German teenager Alexander Zverev at the mixed teams Hopman Cup in Perth. The Swiss 17-time Grand Slam winner lost 7-6 (7-1) 6-7 (4-7) 7-6 (7-4) in two hours and 30 minutes in a match of high quality. The tournament in Australia is the 35-year-old's first after a six-month knee injury lay-off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38512939

Marijuana brands aim for high-end retail in Canada - BBC News

2017-01-05

As brands fight for a share of the Canadian cannabis market before the drug is fully legalised, one store wants to make "seedy" so-called head shops a thing of a the past.

With retailers jockeying for position before cannabis is fully legalised in Canada, "seedy" so-called head shops could soon be a thing of the past.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38500023

Pep Guardiola: First FA Cup tie with Manchester City will be 'special' - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Pep Guardiola is looking forward to a "special" first FA Cup game in charge of Manchester City in Friday's third-round tie at West Ham.

Last updated on .From the section FA Cup Coverage: Live on BBC One, BBC Radio 5 live and BBC local radio; text commentary on the BBC Sport website & app Pep Guardiola says he is looking forward to a "special" first FA Cup game in charge of Manchester City in their third-round tie at West Ham. City face the Hammers at London Stadium on Friday night, live on BBC One. "The cup is special because the lower team can beat the big teams, which is why it is fascinating," said Guardiola. "I'm looking forward to it, but of course it's a Premier League game so it will be tough. We were unlucky in the draw." West Ham manager Slaven Bilic said the tie is a "big game" for both sides and the fans. "They will put out a very strong team because it is a big chance for them to get a trophy," he added. The game at London Stadium is the first of 32 third-round ties across four days this weekend. BBC One also has live coverage of Tottenham v Aston Villa on Sunday (16:00 GMT) while 5 live Sport's Mark Chapman presents Saturday's show from Sutton United ahead of their tie with AFC Wimbledon. City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo was uncertain in the air in the 2-1 win over Burnley on Monday, failing to deal with a corner that led to Ben Mee's goal for the visitors. It was the latest in a series of mistakes by Bravo, but Guardiola said the Chilean - who could come up against West Ham's powerful striker Andy Carroll on Friday - is adapting to the physical nature of English football. "I see many goalkeepers who had the same problems as Claudio with these balls and when they fight for them, it's not only Claudio Bravo," said the Spaniard. "He's intelligent enough, he has experience enough, he was nominated one of the five best keepers in the world, he has experience in Europe, all around the world, in South America, where the intensity of the games is so tough. "He realised immediately with these sort of balls into the box he had to be careful because it's special. "It's not necessary to read the newspapers or the comments of the coach saying, 'Go there, be careful here, it's quite different'. He realised already." 'Pep knew what he was in for' Guardiola also insisted he is not ready to quit management, after he had said he was "arriving at the end" of his career following the Burnley match - when he also gave a testy post-match interview to BBC Sport. When asked about Guardiola's conduct, Bilic said: "I saw his interview but maybe he was just tired after a couple of games in three days. "Maybe after the great start they made some fans or pundits expected them to cruise in the league, especially with Guardiola. "But it is never easy in any league, especially here. They are not struggling but for their standards, to be however many points from the top is probably not what they expected. "He's never worked in a smaller club, he's never fought against relegation or mid-table or anything different than 'we have to win the league'. "Is it Barcelona, is it Bayern, is it Man City? It's the same. He knew the intensity of the English league, he was well prepared for a difficult season. He didn't expect anything less than he is getting or has faced so far." Guardiola has said he will play a full-strength side on Friday, while midfielder Soufiane Feghouli is available for West Ham after his red card against Manchester United on Saturday was rescinded. Bilic also confirmed on-loan striker Simone Zaza will not play for West Ham again to avoid having to pay a £17.1m permanent-deal fee to parent club Juventus, which would have been triggered after 15 first-team appearances. Zaza was signed on a season-long loan in August for a initial fee of £4.2m but has not scored in the 11 games he has featured in and has not played in the league since November. Sign up for the 2017 FA People's Cup and take your chance to win tickets to the FA Cup final in May and achieve national five-a-side glory. "He is still our player until he goes somewhere but mainly because of the situation with his contract he is finished here," said Bilic. "Unfortunately we had to judge him on six, seven, eight games which is not a big pattern to judge a player in general. "He is definitely a good player but like many times in football, it just didn't happen." Sign up for the FA People's Cup is under way - head to bbc.co.uk/getinspired to get involved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38525445

CES 2017: Intel reveals credit card-sized modular computer - BBC News

2017-01-05

Intel reveals a handheld computer that can operate as a PC or act as the brains of other equipment.

Intel has revealed a computer that is roughly the size of a credit card. The Compute Card can operate as a PC or act as the brains of other electronics. The US tech firm gave BBC Click's Spencer Kelly an exclusive first look before its official launch. Follow all our CES coverage at bbc.co.uk/ces2017

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38515472

Tiger Woods to open 2017 season at Farmers Insurance Open, Torrey Pines - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Tiger Woods' first event of 2017 will be the PGA Tour's Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, which starts on 26 January.

Last updated on .From the section Golf Tiger Woods' first event of 2017 will be the PGA Tour's Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego, which starts on 26 January. The 14-time major winner last played at the Farmers in 2015, but withdrew injured during the first round. Woods, 40, will then compete in the European Tour's Dubai Desert Classic, which begins on 2 February. He will also play the PGA Tour's Genesis Open, starting on 16 February, followed by the Honda Classic. Woods finished 15th at the Hero World Challenge in December after 15 months out through injury. World number two Rory McIlroy, Open champion Henrik Stenson and Masters champion Danny Willett will all compete alongside Woods in Dubai. "I've always enjoyed playing in Dubai and it's fantastic to see how the city has grown from when I first started playing there," said Woods, who won the event in 2006 and 2008. "When you win in Dubai, you know you've beaten an outstanding field," he added. On competing at the Genesis Open, Woods said: "I'm very excited to come back to Riviera. "This is where it all started for me. It was my first PGA Tour event. I was 16 years old, I weighed about 105 pounds. It was a life-changing moment for me."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/38312523

Terrorism 'first-aid training needed' - BBC News

2017-01-05

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People are being urged to learn lifesaving skills in case they are caught up in a terror attack.

Health

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CitizenAID aims to help the public save lives before the professionals arrive People need to learn lifesaving skills in case they are caught up in a terror attack in the UK, a team of senior military and civilian medics has said. They say people need to know how to help each other because it could take some time before it is deemed safe for paramedics to arrive on the scene. The idea is supported by counter-terrorism police. Security services say a UK terror attack is highly likely. Although an individual's chance of being caught up in an incident is small, Brig Tim Hodgetts and Prof Sir Keith Porter, co-developers of CitizenAID, say it is a good idea for people to have a plan and the knowledge and skills to help each other. Their app, pocket book and website suggest how best to deal with injuries in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting or bombing incident. The system includes instructions on how to treat severe bleeding - one of the major causes of death in these scenarios. It guides people through packing, putting pressure on and elevating a wound, and how to use a tourniquet safely, for example. The programme also explains how to prioritise those who need treatment first and what to tell the emergency services once they arrive. CitizenAID is not a government initiative but its developers say it builds on national advice from national counter-terrorism police to: The system describes how to make a tourniquet out of a scarf to help stop bleeding The CitizenAID system says people should follow these steps and then go one step further. It suggests once people are safe, they should start treating casualties. Ch Insp Richard Harding, head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, told the BBC: "One of the challenges we have is that when a serious incident, particularly a terrorist incident occurs, the first responders from a police perspective to a terrorist incident will inevitably be trying to deal with the people causing the threat. "They won't have time to deal with the people who are injured and that gap is vital to saving people's lives. "So we are really interested in the concept of CitizenAID. It allows the public and people involved in very rare incidents like this to help themselves and help others and their loved ones survive the situation." According to its founders, CitizenAID builds on lessons learnt on the battlefield. Sir Keith Porter, professor of clinical traumatology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, told the BBC: "I have treated hundreds of soldiers whose lives have been saved by simply the applications of tourniquets when they have been shot or blown up. Teaching individual soldiers these skills has saved lives. "And I think it is essential we train the public in those skills and that is exactly what CitizenAID does." Brig Tim Hodgetts, medical director of the Defence Medical Services, told the BBC; "We don't know when the next incident will be that will involve blasts or gunshots so we need a critical mass of the general public to learn these first aid skills. "They are the people who are always going to be at the scene. They are the ones who are going to make a difference." He added: "I think we are doing the opposite of scaring the public, we are empowering the public. ''By giving them a step-by-step system we take away the anxiety because the decisions are already made and the right decisions in the right order can save lives." The app is free to download and the pocketbook costs £1.99 to order. Sue Killen, of St John Ambulance, added "First aid can be the difference between life and death. Knowing basic first aid in a terror attack or in an everyday emergency at home or in the community, will give you more confidence to deal with a crisis. "First aid is easy to learn and our first aid techniques cover a wide range of injuries that could occur in a terrorist incident including severe bleeding, crush injuries and shock. "We encourage anyone who would like to learn first aid to go to our website to view our first aid videos, download our app or attend a first aid course." What do you think? Join the conversation on Facebook. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38495234

Bob, aged 95: Loneliness ruined my New Year's Eve - BBC News

2017-01-05

Bob Lowe, who is 95, says spending New Year's Eve alone was miserable.

We are all living longer. The number of people over 85 has increased by nearly a third over the past 10 years. A report from the Academy of Medical Science concluded that while our life expectancy is increasing, our healthy life is not increasing at the same rate. Bob Lowe is 95. He lives in Barton on Sea in Hampshire and told the Today programme the only thing he wants to see is Crossrail opening. He describes the loneliness of his New Year's Eve.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38516764

The spy with no name - BBC News

2017-01-05

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In 1977 a woman thought she had finally tracked down the son she had abandoned as a baby. What followed was an extraordinary tale of deception and heartbreak.

Magazine

In 1977, Johanna van Haarlem finally tracked down the son, Erwin, she had abandoned as a baby 33 years earlier. She immediately travelled to London to meet him. What followed, writes Jeff Maysh, is an unbelievable story of deception and heartbreak. It was a cold Saturday morning in April 1988 when a van full of detectives arrived outside the North London home of Erwin van Haarlem. The self-employed art dealer, 44, lived alone in sleepy Friern Barnet, a smattering of brick homes beside the grim North Circular ring road. The Dutchman's apartment building on Silver Birch Close had become the centre of an investigation led by the British intelligence agency MI5. It suspected that Van Haarlem - whom neighbours described as an "oddball" - was not in the art business at all, but a sinister foreign agent. Inside, Van Haarlem was hunched over a radio in his kitchen. He was still wearing his pyjamas, but his hair was parted neatly to one side. He was tuned in, as he was every morning, to a mysterious "number station". In his earpiece, a female voice recited numbers in Czech, followed by the blip-bleep of Morse code. At 09:15 detectives from Special Branch, the anti-terror unit of London's Metropolitan Police, crashed into his apartment. Van Haarlem tried to lower his radio's antenna. It jammed. When he pulled open a drawer and grabbed a kitchen knife, an officer tackled him, and yelled: "Enough! It is over! It is over!" Hidden among his easels and paintings, detectives discovered tiny codebooks concealed in a bar of soap, strange chemicals, and car magazines later found to contain messages written in invisible ink. Investigators suspected Van Haarlem was not really from the Netherlands, but was a spy for the UK's Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union. Under a bright spotlight at a police station in Central London, Van Haarlem protested his innocence. Then, 10 days later, things turned really strange: a visitor arrived claiming to be the prisoner's mother. Johanna van Haarlem was a Dutch woman in her early sixties, who peered at detectives from behind huge glasses. Her son was no spy, she insisted, but an honest Dutchman - the child she had abandoned in 1944 and rediscovered 11 years earlier. The baffled detectives allowed her to visit their suspect. "Tell me, I'm hearing all these strange stories," she said. "You're not really a spy, are you?" "We have a saying that where you see the smoke, there will be a fire," Van Haarlem told her. "But this time it is not true. Too much of the smoke and no fire. I did absolutely nothing that could harm England." Johanna sighed with relief. "But why? Why all of this, then?" she said. "Don't ask me. Ask them." And then he noticed a tiny red spot on her forearm. The DNA blood test results from the Home Office laboratory indicated, with near certainty, that they were not related. Johanna van Haarlem broke down in tears as her world collapsed. Johanna van Haarlem was 52 on her first visit to London to meet Erwin On 6 February 1989, at London's Old Bailey, prosecutor Roy Amlot told a jury that the defendant had stolen her son's identity. "You may think that if he knew all along, it was a cruel thing to do to her," he said. The trial captivated the press. The Daily Express described Van Haarlem as "an old-fashioned... slick-suited spy who inhabited a world of dead letterboxes and secret codes". Exotic beauties came forward to kiss-and-tell about their love affairs with the spy. But the most wounded victim stood in the witness box, the tragic Dutchwoman, Johanna van Haarlem. On 4 March 1989, at 11:45, the judge sentenced Erwin van Haarlem to 10 years in prison for espionage. "He is probably the first person to be tried at the Old Bailey under an alias," one senior Scotland Yard officer told a reporter. The "spy with no name", as the newspapermen called him, would take his secrets with him to his cell. After months of negotiation and false starts, I met Erwin van Haarlem on a spring day in Prague, in 2016. Although he had lived quietly as a free man for the past 23 years, spies famously do not talk. Introduced to me by the Czech crime journalist, Jaroslav Kmenta, Van Haarlem arrived at a restaurant near the city's Old Town Square, wearing a smart blue blazer. After carefully checking my identification he began, in accented English, to tell me his story. It began on 23 August 1944, when he was born Vaclav Jelinek in Modrany, a small village near Prague. His father had owned a small bakery there, selling biscuits and ice creams, until the Communists took power. Young Jelinek enlisted in mandatory military service, and, as the Cold War intensified, he graduated to a position in the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior. He dreamed of military valour and excitement. But what he got was mind-numbing shifts and grunt work. One day his superiors caught him studying German vocabulary instead of guarding a checkpoint in the snow. They marched him to an upstairs office where he expected disciplinary action. Instead he was introduced to two members of Statni bezpecnost - the Czechoslovak secret State police. The StB was a shadowy spy agency that reported directly to the Soviets. The StB agents had studied his file and learned that Jelinek was defiant, a womaniser, highly intelligent, prone to violence, patriotic, and a risk-taker. In other words, perfect spy material. After careful training, they decided he was ready to begin an undercover mission abroad, spying on the West. The StB searched through its files of missing persons and assigned Jelinek a false identity - that of a Dutch boy, abandoned at an orphanage in Holesovice, Prague, at the end of World War Two. The child had been born just one day before Jelinek. "Your new name," they told him, "is Erwin van Haarlem." He applied for a Dutch passport, and arrived in London by train in June 1975. To the boy from Prague, it was an alien city swarming with traffic, fashion, and danger. He took a job at the 24th-floor Roof restaurant at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, Mayfair, hoping to spy on the Royals down the road at Buckingham Palace. At night, he exchanged coded messages with his home country via radio. One of his first ideas was to try planting listening devices in the Queen's furniture, he recalls, though he and his bosses realised it was technically unrealistic. His secret career was running smoothly until late 1977, when he received a disturbing message from Prague: "YOUR MOTHER IS TRYING TO FIND YOU IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA WITH THE HELP OF THE RED CROSS. SHOULD THE RED CROSS FIND YOU, A MEETING IS TO BE AGREED WITH." He read the message over and over again. In October of that year, Van Haarlem received a handwritten letter from Johanna van Haarlem. The Dutch embassy had given her his address, she wrote. She was thrilled to find him. As he had been ordered, the spy politely replied in November, enclosing some photographs. He began the letter: "Dear mother". When he sent a cordial invitation to visit him in London, she left immediately. Johanna woke up early on 1 January 1978, in a West London hotel. Her stomach was knotted with nerves. She stepped on to the street littered with the detritus of New Year's Eve. It was her plan to arrive early and check out her son's address. But on the opposite side of the street a familiar-looking young man walked past. "Are you Mrs van Haarlem?" the spy said, stopping in his tracks. "Hello Mother, it's your son." They embraced in the middle of the street. Johanna stepped back to look at him. Tears were rolling down her face. "Your father did not have such dark hair," said Johanna, studying him. Then she commented that he was shorter than his father. Inside his apartment a champagne cork popped as Johanna breathlessly told him her life story. The bottle had frozen in the refrigerator but Van Haarlem managed to pour a couple of glasses. She had grown up in The Hague, in Holland, and was an 18-year-old virgin when she met his father on a train, in November 1943. Gregor Kulig was a Nazi. He was blue-eyed, 23, and Polish. Handsome. At a party four weeks later, she said, he raped her. And when her father discovered she was pregnant, he exploded. "You are a sinner!" he told her. He ordered her to take the child to a distant town and give him away. Full of sadness and desperation, in autumn 1944 Johanna travelled to Czechoslovakia by train. After a brief effort to survive there as a single mother, she walked into an orphanage in Holesovice, Prague. Sobbing, she kissed baby Erwin goodbye, and returned to Holland alone. Her father - a Jew who had joined the National Socialist Movement to protect his family - destroyed the adoption papers and banned her from ever speaking about her son. Over the years, dozens of letters arrived from the orphanage asking Johanna to take back her child. They went unanswered. But every year on his birthday, Johanna silently remembered her missing son, his name she could not even speak: Erwin van Haarlem. Now she had found him. As they finished their champagne, he took her hand in his. "You have to believe it," he told her. "I am your son." Shortly after their emotional "reunion", Johanna invited Erwin to meet the Van Haarlem family in Holland. When the spy arrived at her bungalow in early 1978, one-by-one he shook hands with the whole family. They studied him like a specimen in a zoo. Johanna's niece approached Van Haarlem, and seemed to scan him from head to toe. Did she know? "He has the nice Van Haarlem legs," she told the crowd, approvingly. Back in London, having a Dutch, Jewish mother only improved Van Haarlem's cover. His main task, the spy told me, was to gather information about Refuseniks, the Jews held in the Soviet Union despite their requests to emigrate, who had become political pawns in Cold War peace talks. He also gained prize information about underwater sonar chains, which alerted Nato to Soviet submarine movements. British defence journalist Kim Sengupta later described Van Haarlem in this era as "a brilliantly successful deep penetration agent", who, over the years, visited the Polaris submarine base at the British Admiralty's Underwater Research Unit, as well as "a string of sensitive military installations". For these fantastic intelligence scores, Van Haarlem received a medal from the Soviet Union at a private party held in his honour in Prague. "He moved a lot," Johanna later told a Dutch radio station. "From that small apartment I visited the first time to bigger, fancier places… I had no idea why he moved so much. He was doing better and better, you could tell by his clothes, shoes and houses that he was going in the right direction." Erwin showered Johanna with presents including a Wedgwood vase, a gold and sapphire ring, and a gold coin. But at heart he was tiring of this relationship with his "fake" mother. In his mind she was a Nazi, a fascist, and a collaborator with foreign soldiers. He recalls travelling to Holland to introduce a girlfriend to Johanna - keeping up appearances. Inside the Dutch restaurant, folk music played and locals danced. Johanna got carried away, he said. A local man whirled her around the dance floor, and suddenly the spy saw her as a young girl, dancing with the Nazi soldiers. A blind rage swept over him like a fire. "She is at that again," he thought. "She never changes. She is 60!" One of the men held Johanna close, and gave a friend a suggestive wink. It nearly tipped van Haarlem over the edge. Some time later, back in London, Van Haarlem's telephone shrieked. The blissful silence in his apartment was shattered. He sat up in bed and checked the time. It was 03:00. "Dear son, I could not help it, I had to hear your voice." Johanna was slurring. Van Haarlem guessed she had been drinking. "I will sell my house and come to London," she said. "We will live together." "I absolutely understand why you are so upset, Mum," he said. "Of course it would be wonderful to live together, especially since our fate prevented us doing so in the past. Mum, you know what? Let's go to bed now and think about it overnight. I will call you tomorrow." He slammed down the phone but could not drift back to sleep. He was growing increasingly concerned about her behaviour. He simply couldn't afford her to be a liability. His life depended on it. But there was little he could do - he was stuck with her. On her next visit, mother and son were driving through Golders Green in North London when Van Haarlem forgot to give the right of way to another car. The other driver slammed on his brakes to avoid a crash. "Sorry, friend!" said Erwin pleasantly, with a wave of his hand. Johanna snapped. "Why are you apologising?" she shouted. "You are so yielding, so soft! A typical Slav!" Van Haarlem was shocked. "He had the right of way," he said. "Right of way! Right of way!" she parroted. Gripping the wheel, the spy fumed. "You'll pay with interest for that," he thought. But he would never get the chance. One afternoon in autumn 1986 Van Haarlem noticed two cars driving closely behind him, pulling manoeuvres he recognised from his spy training. "They must be tailing someone," he thought. Then the penny dropped: "They are tailing you! You stupid ass!" He had by now quit his job at the Hilton - after rising from a lowly waiter to assistant purchase manager. He had set up himself up as a freelance artist and art dealer, and paid cash for the unassuming flat in Friern Barnet. It should have been the last place anyone would look for a foreign spy, but it soon became a hotbed of chicanery. There was the technician who came to "fix" his telephone, the new postmen, and the dedicated window cleaners who washed his windows not weekly, but seemingly daily. Van Haarlem was not the only one who noticed peculiar goings-on. Mrs Saint, 61, who co-ordinated the local Neighbourhood Watch Scheme, said she telephoned the police in November 1987 to report strange noises and a "Morse code" interference which affected her television reception every night at 21:20. Soon afterwards, in April 1988, that mysterious van parked outside Van Haarlem's apartment. Johanna van Haarlem heard about the arrest on BBC radio. Then investigators arrived at her home and asked her to testify against the spy at his trial. "When we finally made eye contact I felt hurt. I didn't see any sign of remorse, not a wink, no warmth, nothing," she said of the trial. A part of her was in denial, continuing to look in vain for a son's affection. "He showed me coldness," she said, "and looked at me like this was the end." Van Haarlem was sent to Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight. After five years, the end of the Cold War, and a hunger strike, he was released and deported to what had by then become the Czech Republic. I asked if he ever felt any compassion for Johanna. "I had no pity whatsoever," he said. "She was rather dominant and I had to put up with her. Sometimes I had enough of her," he added, describing many real mother-son relationships. During the five years he spent in a prison cell, he went on, one thing about his case remained a puzzle. It was a statement that Johanna made about how she found him. "Without being asked," he told me, "she said only on her own, from her own will, she started the whole action, trying to find me." From her own will. It was a funny thing to say, he thought. Was it a coincidence that Johanna's motherly instincts awakened just months after his application for a Dutch passport? Who else might have inspired her to track down her son, and why? We may never know, as Johanna van Haarlem died in 2004. However, the spy has his own theory. "We thought she was under the guidance of MI5 or the Dutch security service," he said. Could Johanna also have been a spy? Though it seems unlikely, in this world of disguise and deception, anything is possible. Adapted from The Spy With No Name by @JeffMaysh (Amazon Kindle Singles), published today. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

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Handwritten Diana letters sell for £15,100 at auction - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Six handwritten letters from Princess Diana sell for £15,100 at auction.

UK

Six handwritten letters from Princess Diana have sold for £15,100 at auction. One candid letter from Diana to ex-Buckingham Palace steward Cyril Dickman, revealed Prince Harry was "constantly in trouble at school". Another note described how young Prince William "swamped" his baby brother with "an endless supply of hugs and kisses". The letters form part of about 40 lots from Mr Dickman's former estate, which sold for £55,000 in total - exceeding the estimate price of £13,000. Cheffins, a Cambridgeshire auction house, said the lots were "a unique collection of royal memorabilia". Bidders from as far away as Australia, Japan and the US were trying to purchase the items. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Auctioneer tells the BBC that the bidding was "extraordinary... [it] never seemed to stop" In a letter on headed Kensington Palace paper dated 20 September 1984, Diana thanked Mr Dickman for "such a lovely card" following the birth of her youngest son, Harry. She wrote: "William adores his little brother and spends the entire time swamping Harry with an endless supply of hugs and kisses, hardly letting the parents near!" "The reaction to one tiny person's birth has totally overwhelmed us and I can hardly breathe for the mass of flowers that are arriving here!" That letter sold for £3,200, having had an estimated auction price of £400-600. In another, dated 17 October 1992, Diana says how both young princes "are well and enjoying boarding school a lot, although Harry is constantly in trouble!". This sold for £2,400 - after an estimate of £600-900. The items were being sold by the family of the late Mr Dickman, who was head palace steward for more than 50 years. Described by Cheffins as "a favourite of every member of the Royal Family", he received handwritten notes from other senior royals dating back more than 30 years. The collection sold at auction also included letters, cards and photographs from Prince Charles and Princess Margaret, and Maundy money. In one letter from the Queen written on Windsor Castle headed paper, she thanks Mr Dickman for his "thoughts and sympathy" following the death of the Queen Mother. More than a dozen Christmas cards, including some from the Queen, Princess Diana and the Prince of Wales, were bought for £2,200. Unopened boxed wedding cake from the Queen's marriage to Prince Philip in 1947 also sold for a few hundred pounds.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38508089

Harry Arter: Non-league player 'ashamed' over tweets to Bournemouth midfielder - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

The non-league player sacked after abusing Harry Arter over the death of his baby daughter says he feels ashamed of his actions.

Last updated on .From the section Football The non-league player sacked after abusing Bournemouth midfielder Harry Arter on Twitter has said he is ashamed of his actions. Bournemouth lost a three-goal lead to draw 3-3 with Arsenal in the Premier League on Tuesday. Hitchin Town player Alfie Barker, 18, later posted: "Big hype just for a disappointment like the nine months leading up to your child's birth." Arter and his partner Rachel's baby daughter Renee was stillborn in December 2015. Barker earlier made an apology for his "disgraceful comments" and said he would accept any punishment given to him. He initially claimed his account, which has now been deleted, had been hacked, before apologising. 'I'm just so sorry' Barker, who takes medication to combat the symptoms of ADHD and a mild form of autism, told Stevenage-based newspaper The Comet he was "distraught" at upsetting Arter and his own family, including his aunt who had suffered two miscarriages in the last five years. "I was watching Arsenal at home and I was hyper. At 3-0 down they weren't playing well and I was annoyed," he said. "I'd had a couple of beers and was frustrated at the way the team was playing and I just lashed out. I have no idea why I focused on Harry Arter and his family and I am so, so sorry for what I have done. "It was a moment of madness. It's the worst thing I've ever done in my life, but it is so out of character. I honestly don't know why I did it. "I also completely understand why Hitchin Town took the action they did and I completely agree they did the right thing." Seventh-tier Hitchin issued a statement saying: "In the light of the player's irresponsible and anti-social behaviour, we are terminating Alfie Barker's registration and relationship with the club with immediate effect." Speaking to BBC Sport before the statement was released, Hitchin boss Mark Burke said: "I've seen the tweets and I'm disgusted with them. They're vile and I can't condone them in any way." Bournemouth have referred the matter to the Football Association, who have contacted Barker for observations in relation to postings on social media. Barker has seven days from Thursday, 5 January to respond to the FA's request. Outcomes of previous FA investigations into inappropriate comments on social media have ranged from warnings and fines to bans. Codicote FC, where Barker is on loan, said: "We have no choice but to terminate our relationship with him. "We would like to make it clear that Codicote FC cannot and will not tolerate this behaviour; we have a responsibility to our community, supporters and the football family to stamp this behaviour out." Barker was also subject to an approach by Stotfold with a view to him signing for the Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division side. But Stotfold chairman Phil Pateman told the Press Association: "This was prior to grotesque comments made by Barker in regard to the tragic loss of Harry Arter's daughter Renee. "As a result of those comments Stotfold FC have, with immediate effect, withdrawn our interest in the player."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38507682

Who is Hugh Jackilometresan? - BBC News

2017-01-05

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In what could be a 'find and replace' error, Trivial Pursuit fans have found a curious renaming of Australian actor Hugh Jackman.

UK

Spot the mistake: Hugh Jackman has been renamed 'Hugh Jackilometresan' in a Trivial Pursuit question spotted by Twitter user John E Lewis. It's a Christmas staple with many families. When the turkey's gone cold and the evening's drawn in, it's the Trivial Pursuit board which often comes out. And it was a "newish" Christmas gift of the popular board game from his nephew which prompted John Lewis, 47, to share a picture of the game on social media that has subsequently been shared thousands of times. Lewis - not the department store, not the US man who is frequently mistaken for a department store on Twitter, but a journalist and editor from London - was playing the Family Edition of the game on Tuesday when his daughter discovered an unusual error. Reading a question about 2008 film Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, Lewis' daughter was baffled. A mysterious 'Hugh Jackilometresan' appeared to have supplanted Jackman as the film's leading man. "She showed us the card and we all found it hilarious," Lewis said. "As an editor, I also immediately guessed how it had happened." Lewis is not the first social media user to spot the error. @JackStooks and others noticed the problem back in 2015. Lewis believes that the error could have been caused by a "cavalier find-and-replace command" where 'km' had been substituted for 'kilometres' by the game's makers. Hasbro has been approached for comment. And he says that was not the only example he spotted. "There is another error I later found in the same pack," he said, "where 'kg' has been universally replaced to 'kilograms'. "So the question reads: 'What U2 song plays in the 'backilogramsound' of the famous Friends episode where Ross tries to get Rachel back after they were on a break?" Lewis shared his image on Facebook and Twitter, where his post has attracted thousands of retweets and likes. "I don't even use Twitter that much," he said. "But this Trivial Pursuit tweet has had something ridiculous like 8,000 likes and more than 5,000 retweets in the last 36 hours."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38518939

Ivan Rogers resignation: Dear Sir, I quit! The resignation quiz - BBC News

2017-01-05

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How much do you know about famous resignations?

Magazine

Sir Ivan Rogers has quit his job as British ambassador to the EU, issuing a resignation statement that urged his team to "continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking". But he's not the first person to make headlines with a biting departure. Test your knowledge about some of history's more celebrated resignation statements. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38510071

Johanna Konta reaches Shenzen Open semi-finals but Kerber loses in Brisbane - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Britain's Johanna Konta reaches the Shenzhen Open semi-finals but world number one Angelique Kerber loses in Brisbane.

Last updated on .From the section Tennis British number one Johanna Konta continued her good start to 2017 by reaching the semi-finals of the Shenzhen Open in China. The world number 10 defeated Kristyna Pliskova of the Czech Republic, ranked 60th, 6-4 6-7 (11-13) 6-3. Her next opponent will be another Czech, Katerina Siniakova, who beat Serbian Nina Stojanovic 6-3 6-4. Konta is now the highest-ranked player left in the event after world number three Agnieszka Radwanska's exit. The Polish top seed was beaten 6-2 3-6 6-0 by American world number 39 Alison Riske, who will face Camila Giorgi of Italy in the last four. Konta looked in control early on against her opponent - the twin sister of world number six Karolina Pliskova - as she took the first set with a single break of serve. Neither player could force a break point in the second set and in the resulting tie-break Konta wasted two match points before the big-serving Pliskova levelled the match on her fifth set point. But Konta stayed firm in the final set, claiming the break and reaching the semi-final on her fifth match point. "I am very happy to have extended my stay here," she said. "She is one of the best servers on tour so I knew I was going to have a hard time on her service games. I was very happy I was able to get that break in the third and see it out in the end." Top seed Angelique Kerber lost 6-4 3-6 6-3 to Ukraine's Elina Svitolina in the quarter-finals of the Brisbane International. The world number one looked to have turned things around after losing the first set but Svitolina, the world number 14, hit back to win the decider. Kerber said she was not worried about how the early loss would affect the defence of her Australian Open crown in Melbourne later this month. "I think Grand Slams are always completely different," she said. "It doesn't matter how you play before." WTA Finals champion Dominika Cibulkova, the second seed, also went out, going down 6-3 7-5 to France's Alize Cornet. French Open champion Garbine Muguruza did reach the last four, beating Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-5 6-4, and third seed Karolina Pliskova was a 3-6 6-2 6-2 winner over Roberta Vinci. Meanwhile, Germany's Julia Goerges staged a brilliant fightback to defeat third seed Caroline Wozniacki 1-6 6-3 6-4 in the ASB Classic quarter-finals in Auckland.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38515777

Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Chelsea - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

A Dele Alli double halts leaders Chelsea's Premier League winning streak and takes Tottenham up to third.

Last updated on .From the section Football Tottenham ended Chelsea's attempt to make Premier League history with a 14th successive victory as the title pacesetters were well beaten at White Hart Lane. Spurs moved up to third place as headers from Dele Alli either side of half-time made the difference to leave Chelsea five points ahead of Liverpool in second place. Alli rose to meet Christian Eriksen's cross in first-half stoppage time and the same pair combined to put the game out of Chelsea's reach in the 54th minute. Eden Hazard had Chelsea's two best chances in each half but Spurs closed out the victory in comfort to put north London rivals Arsenal out of the top four and leave themselves seven points off the top after their fifth successive league win. Read more: Spurs can challenge for title - Conte Tottenham's season was at a tipping point after a disappointing Champions League exit at the group stage and the poor performance in defeat at Manchester United in early December - but they have responded magnificently. Mauricio Pochettino's side are gathering impressive momentum, illustrated by the manner in which they overcame a Chelsea side that was starting to carry an air of impregnability. The 4-1 wins at Southampton and Watford served as a warning that Spurs were approaching the sort of form that carried them close to the title last season and this performance confirmed their growing confidence and stature. Spurs have recaptured their intensity and energy and when this is bolted on to the quality provided here by the likes of Alli and Eriksen, it makes them a formidable prospect. Manchester City had already found Spurs too hot to handle at White Hart Lane this season - and Chelsea suffered a similar fate. Alli endured a quiet start to the season, perhaps in the aftermath of England's debacle at Euro 2016 - but the 20-year-old is firing on cylinders now. Alli's headed double here made it seven goals his last four games, the third time in succession he has scored twice in a game after doing the same at Southampton and Watford. Pochettino said before the game that he regarded Alli as "the most important player to emerge in English football in recent years". And here the £5m signing from MK Dons backed up his manager's confident words with a consummate all-round display crowned by the two towering headers which proved decisive. Alli received a standing ovation when he was replaced in the closing minutes after showing the quality that will make him an integral part of the future of both Spurs and England. Chelsea's perfectionist manager Antonio Conte and his players will be bitterly disappointed they could not achieve Premier League history with a 14th successive win that would have matched the mark set across the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons by Arsenal. However they remain in prime position in the title race. They still have a healthy five-point lead over Liverpool in second place and have come a long way since their last Premier League defeat at Arsenal on 24 September, a 3-0 loss that left them eight points adrift of then-leaders Manchester City in eighth place. Conte has transformed the mood around the team and the club and while their superb run may be at an end, this is a team fully equipped to go the distance in the title race. Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino: "It is a massive victory, a very important three points to reduce the gap at the top of the table. It was a very tough game, we were playing one of the best teams in Europe, so the value of the victory is massive. "It makes us very proud and we showed character and were competitive. It is one step forward for the team and is important to keep going. Football is about belief. "We have shown we can challenge for the big things. We are in a good position, Chelsea is in a very good position, but we are fighting to get points and to reduce the gap above us." Chelsea manager Antonio Conte: "I saw a game with a great balance. It is not easy to play against Tottenham. But we played with a good personality to create the chances to score a goal, but we could not take them. "It is strange for us to concede these goals because we are defending well, and they are in a crucial moment. At the end of the first half and then in the second half after we miss the chances to score, but this can happen. "We must work hard and be pleased with our position in the table, but know this league is tough until the end for the Champions League, for the title." • None Chelsea have not won at White Hart Lane since a 4-2 victory in October 2012 (drawing two and losing two since). • None Tottenham are unbeaten at White Hart Lane this season, winning eight and drawing two; their longest unbeaten start to a Premier League season at home since 2000-01 (13 games). • None Spurs haven't lost a Premier League London derby at White Hart Lane under Mauricio Pochettino (winning eight and drawing four). • None Tottenham scored with their only two shots on target in this match. • None Dele Alli has equalled his 2015-16 goal tally (10). He has managed to do this in 19 appearances this season, compared to 33 last season. • None Spurs have never lost a Premier League match that Alli has scored in (16 games - winning 12, drawing four). • None The only midfielders to reach 20 Premier League goals quicker than Alli (52 games) are Rafael van der Vaart (44) and Matt Le Tissier (50) • None Only Mesut Ozil (22) has more Premier League assists since the start of 2015-16 than Christian Eriksen (20). • None This was only the fourth occasion this season in the Premier League where Diego Costa has failed to produce a goal or an assist. Tottenham play Aston Villa in the FA Cup third round on Sunday before resuming their league campaign at home to West Brom on Saturday 14 January. Chelsea take on Peterborough in the FA Cup on Sunday before travelling to defending Premier League champions Leicester six days later. • None Attempt missed. David Luiz (Chelsea) header from the centre of the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by César Azpilicueta with a cross. • None Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. • None Substitution, Tottenham Hotspur. Moussa Sissoko replaces Dele Alli because of an injury. • None Attempt blocked. Diego Costa (Chelsea) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Cesc Fàbregas. • None Offside, Chelsea. Cesc Fàbregas tries a through ball, but Diego Costa is caught offside. • None Attempt missed. Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left from a direct free kick. • None Offside, Chelsea. Eden Hazard tries a through ball, but Pedro is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38447903

CES 2017: Samsung and LG TVs battle to blend in - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Samsung and LG launch TVs that aim to better blend in to consumers' living rooms at the CES tech show.

Technology

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. LG unveiled its "wallpaper TV' at the CES tech show in Las Vegas South Korean tech giants LG and Samsung have launched TVs that aim to better blend in to consumers' living rooms. LG showed off a set that can be fitted almost flat against a wall while Samsung teased a new kind of TV - designed to look like a painting - that displays art when not in use. Samsung also unveiled a flagship set boasting greater brightness levels than before. Others, including Sony, also revealed new models. Samsung's flagship 75in (190cm) QLED 4K TV features the latest version of its quantum dot technology - tiny particles that emit different colours of light. These now feature a metal material that the firm says allows for better colour reproduction. Samsung has decided to stick with a curved display for its high-end models - despite criticism from some experts that viewing angles suffer with such designs. Samsung's quantum dots are tiny particles that emit light of different colours The QLED TV can achieve HDR (high dynamic range) brightness of between 1,500 and 2,000 nits - one nit equalling the light from a candle. "It's insanely bright," said Jack Wetherill, a tech analyst at Futuresource. "That is pretty power hungry one would imagine, but if they're going down the route of getting as good a picture as they can out of it, then fair enough." This sets it apart from other set makers who use another premium TV screen technology, OLED (organic light-emitting diode). Such screens use a carbon-based film allowing the panel to emit its own light, rather than being backlit - this enables the ultra thin designs. Quantum dot TVs might not be able to display the deepest blacks possible with OLED, but they are generally brighter. LG's newest TV sticks out just 3.85mm from a wall when mounted against it LG's new OLED 4K TV was as thin as last year's - just 2.57mm thick - and will be available in 65 and 77in models. But the firm has now designed a new mount that uses magnets so the set can be fixed flat against a wall, which the firm says means it doesn't cast "a single shadow". LG also announced its latest TVs would support four HDR formats - including Hybrid Log-Gamma jointly developed by the BBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK. This will allow sport and other live broadcasts to be shown in the format. Many experts agree that HDR makes a huge difference to the TV picture, making it seem richer and allowing for higher levels of contrast between light and dark tones. "It is more vibrant, the colours are more distinctive," said Mr Wetherill. "It does bring a much more impressive and immersive experience - no question about that." It is not yet clear which format will become popular with content-makers, so LG's inclusion of all four should ensure it does not become obsolete if and when a winner emerges. The Samsung Lifestyle TV could be mistaken for a painting Samsung also showed off images of its new Lifestyle TV, which it described as "a beautiful, always-on, truly smart display that transforms the TV to art". It comes in a wooden frame, in an attempt to look like a painting. Sony also announced a new 4K OLED TV - its first - the latest in its Bravia range. As well as an HDR processor that can upscale standard dynamic range content to "near 4K HDR quality", the set has also dispensed with in-built speakers. Instead, it emits sound via vibrations produced on the surface of the screen itself. The new Bravia TV doesn't have speakers - the screen vibrates instead, which emits sounds This wasn't demonstrated at the press conference, noted Mr Wetherill, but it was, he said, "an interesting concept". Panasonic did not discuss its OLED TV plans at its press conference, though it is possible a prototype will be on the CES trade show floor. At last year's consumer electronics show IFA in Berlin, the company had said it would release details of the TV during the winter. Follow all our CES coverage at bbc.co.uk/ces2017 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38514171

Laura Muir smashes a 25-year-old British indoor 5,000m record in Glasgow - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Laura Muir breaks Liz McColgan's 25-year-old British indoor record over 5,000m at the Glasgow Miler Meet at the Emirates Arena.

Last updated on .From the section Athletics Laura Muir broke the British indoor record over 5,000m at the Glasgow Miler Meet at the Emirates Arena. "I am delighted to get it and it is nice to know now where I am at in terms of the 5,000m," said Muir, 23. "I've been in South Africa training, and the sessions there since we came back were at PB times for 5,000m so I felt good going into tonight's race." Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland on Thursday, McColgan described Muir as "world class", but questioned if her feat satisfied all the criteria to make the record stand. British Athletics has since confirmed that Muir's time is official. Muir broke her own British 1500m record at the Diamond League meeting in Paris in August and reached the 1500m Olympic final at Rio 2016. The Scot will next captain the Great Britain team competing at Saturday's Great Edinburgh International Cross Country, which will be shown live on BBC One from 13:15 GMT. Muir lines up as part of the mixed 4x1km relay team, while Sir Mo Farah competes in the men's 8km race and Gemma Steel and Steph Twell in the women's event over 6km.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/38514094

Jose Fonte: Southampton captain hands in transfer request - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Southampton club captain Jose Fonte asks to leave the club, after rejecting a new contract from the Premier League side.

The 33-year-old Portugal defender has 18 months left to run on his current deal, which he signed in October 2015. Southampton's director of football Les Reed says the player has had the chance to sign an improved contract, but Fonte has now asked to leave the club. "He's had several opportunities to improve the situation. He's reserved his right not to do that," Reed told BBC Radio Solent. "He's made it very clear he would like to explore the opportunities for a transfer. "That's where we are at the moment, Jose wants to leave the club. He's formally asked for a transfer." Reed confirmed the club have not yet received any formal bid for the player, who joined Saints from Crystal Palace in January 2010 and has made 288 appearances. Fonte was linked with a move to Manchester United in the summer after helping his country win Euro 2016, and he wrote on Instagram last month: "Just to set the record straight I did not reject a new contract. In fact, I have been informed by Southampton that they are not offering me a new contract." However, Reed insists new terms have been offered to the former Benfica player: "What was offered to Jose was, in my view, quite significant off the back of the contract he signed in October 2015. "Six months later we were prepared to improve that contract and extend it. He has turned down the opportunity to increase his salary, and he's turned down the opportunity to get another permanent year on his contract."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38523114

CES 2017: LG's super-thin TV lies flat against the wall - BBC News

2017-01-05

The BBC takes a first look at LG's "wallpaper TV", which protrudes just a few millimetres beyond the surface it is hung upon.

LG has unveiled a TV that hugs the wall, protruding just a few millimetres beyond the surface it is hung on. The firm says the design prevents the screen "casting a single shadow" - but owners will have to pay a high premium for the privilege. Dave Lee reports from the CES tech show in Las Vegas. See all our CES 2017 coverage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38514090

Qatar Open: Sir Andy Murray reaches semi-final after Nicolas Almagro win - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

Sir Andy Murray reaches the last four of the Qatar Open with a hard-fought victory over Spain's Nicolas Almagro.

Last updated on .From the section Tennis Sir Andy Murray progressed to the Qatar Open semi-finals by beating Spain's Nicolas Almagro 7-6 (7-4) 7-5. The top seed was broken in his opening service game by 31-year-old Almagro, ranked 44th in the world, but recovered to take the first set tie-break. The pair exchanged breaks early in the second set before the Briton prevailed. Murray will face third seed Tomas Berdych in the semis and, if he progresses, could meet Novak Djokovic in Saturday's final. Djokovic, whom Murray replaced as world number one in November, beat veteran Radek Stepanek 6-3 6-3 in their quarter-final to book a meeting with Fernando Verdasco of Spain in the last four. Elsewhere, Britain's Aljaz Bedene beat Slovakia's Martin Klizan to reach the quarter-finals of the Chennai Open in India. And Australia's Nick Kyrgios was beaten 6-2 6-2 by Jack Sock at the mixed teams Hopman Cup, in the tie between Australia and the United States. Kyrigos was defeated in under an hour and later pulled out of the mixed doubles event with a knee problem. His injury comes less than two weeks before the Australian Open - the first Grand Slam of the year in Melbourne.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38524526

The guide dog that spies on people who ignore its owner - BBC News

2017-01-05

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The guide dog filming evidence for its blind owner of the discrimination he may unknowingly face.

Disability

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Amit Patel's guide dog, Kika, carries a camera which records the discrimination he can't see Unable to see the world around him, Amit Patel fitted his guide dog with a camera and set about recording evidence of the discrimination he faced but could not see. "The city is a scary place. It's like someone put you in the middle of Trafalgar Square, turned you in a circle and said 'find your way home'." That is Amit Patel's new reality after he lost his sight unexpectedly in 2012, 18 months after he got married. He now relies on guide dog Kika to get him around the once familiar streets of London. But the footage captured by his canine guide hasn't always shown a city willing to help him. "The video came out of necessity," Patel says. "Kika was getting hit by peoples' bags and she was getting a lot of abuse. A woman stopped me one day and had a go at me for holding everyone up and said I should apologise, which was a real shock." The former doctor found a solution - attach a GoPro to Kika's harness and film every journey. Patel's wife, Seema, can then review the footage if it is felt there was something amiss about that day. And when alterations were made to a London train station the camera came into its own. "I asked for help and no one came," Patel recounts. "The video shows lots of staff standing around me and this one guy looking over many times. "Eventually when the staff member actually came to me the first thing he said was 'sorry I didn't see you' and that really bugged me. He wouldn't say that to someone who wasn't visually impaired. "It really makes me angry. It's the fact that someone is fobbing me off." An image from Kika's footage of the Network Rail incident in London The footage was sent to Network Rail giving Patel the "valuable evidence" needed to lodge a formal complaint about an incident he couldn't see. "It made me feel vulnerable but having the footage was a godsend," he says. "Having the camera, having the voice, having the actual scenario played out in real time it actually gives me something to go back to the company and say 'this is what happened to me and it needs to be sorted'." The video had an impact and Network Rail investigated before giving further training to its staff. Kika's camera captures an image of Amit on the London Underground "While in this instance the event and associated disruption was not organised by or held at the station itself, we do recognise that the station can be a complicated place to navigate," a spokesman says. "That is why we have hired many extra staff to look after passengers." For newly blind Patel, standing alone for several minutes can feel like hours. "One of the things I noticed with losing my sight is how lonely it is. If I'm travelling by public transport I will be the scared little boy sat in the corner. You can't listen to music because you're listening out for dangers or to station announcements." Patel says it is only since he lost his sight that he has become aware of the discrimination visually impaired people can face. Patel learned he had keratoconus - a condition which changes the shape of the cornea - in the final year of medical school. Lenses to push the corneas back into shape stopped working and six cornea transplants were rejected by his body until he was told "no more". It was a series of burst blood vessels which caused the unexpected loss of sight within 48 hours. Patel says: "I woke up every morning thinking I'd get my sight back. For about six months I was quite shut off, depressed and I would go to the bathroom and have a cry. "The one thing that stayed in my mind was that I would never see my loved ones. It was holding on to the last memories I had." "There are taxi drivers who will see you and won't stop. You phone the company and they say they didn't see you, but you look at the footage and see them having looked at you and driving right past." Other incidents he says highlight a lack of thought - especially on London's Underground. "People assume, because I have a guide dog, I can walk around them but they make us walk near the tracks or I can say to Kika 'find me a seat' and I'll put my hand down on one and someone will sit on it and refuse to get up." The loss of his sight led Patel to change his life dramatically. The former University College Hospital doctor moved to New Eltham in south London so his wife didn't have to travel so far for work and wouldn't spend so much time away from him. The view of New Eltham High Street from Kika's camera Patel says he had assumed, as a doctor, he would know where to get support, but he found that wasn't the case and he became frustrated at the simple mistakes he made - miscalculations led to stair falls and fingers were burnt from trying to find out how full his coffee cup was. Beyond the major life changes there were more subtle experiences too. "Your balance goes awry. I felt like I walked on a cloud sometimes, and if I find a pair of shoes I'll buy three pairs because a change in grip makes a real difference. "My hearing's increased and my sense of smell, and the way I touch things." There have also been more unexpected side effects. The camera has given Amit the confidence to go out alone with Kika and his baby son "I have small pixels of light coming into my eyes and my brain interprets that as images. It'll put four pixels together and build a photo - so you may be sitting on the couch while thinking a car's coming towards you." Patel now supports people who have lost their sight unexpectedly and gives talks to community organisations using the GoPro footage to demonstrate what Kika sees. Despite all the challenges he has faced, including coming to terms with never seeing his baby son, Patel has accepted his new world. "My life at the moment is so much more vivid, it's more colourful than it was when I had sight. "It still fills me with dread leaving the house, because I have no control and am completely reliant on Kika, but we're out all of the time - any excuse." For more follow on Twitter and Facebook and subscribe to the weekly podcast. Join the BBC Stories conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-38027203

CES 2017: Intel VR headset turns living room into game - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Intel shows off a virtual reality headset that replaces pre-scanned objects in a living room with video game scenery.

Technology

Intel's Project Alloy headset was announced last year - but the CES demo was brand new Intel has shown off a headset that can replace a room's pre-scanned furniture with more appropriate video game scenery in virtual reality. The capabilities of the firm's Project Alloy headset, currently in development, were demoed at the CES tech show in Las Vegas. Chief executive Brian Krzanich said Intel planned to license the technology to manufacturers by the end of 2017. But one analyst said VR remained a difficult market to target. The headset does not require a separate PC or a connection to a power source - both computer and battery are built in, noted Mr Krzanich as he introduced the latest prototype. Two players in a mock living room demonstrated on stage how the headset could create a virtual replica of the room featuring scanned obstacles such as furniture. In the demo, the bookcases and coffee table were then replaced, digitally, by similar-sized scenery more suited to the game - a futuristic spaceship. The headset converted scanned objects into more appropriate bits of video game scenery Project Alloy was first unveiled in August last year, but this was its most advanced demo yet. "It was certainly interesting," said tech analyst Brian Blau at Gartner, who also praised the freedom offered by an "all-in-one" headset without a cable. However, he said it would have been even more impressive had the living room been scanned by the headset itself. "They did say [the room] was pre-scanned, so I was a little bit disappointed by that." The device will not be manufactured by Intel, but instead it will offer the technology to other tech firms to build products around. Intel hopes this process will begin in the final quarter of 2017. But the project's success may rely on others being willing to make content for it. "They can enable all kinds of stuff but if it is not for the rest of those pieces they'll just have the parts out there," said Mr Blau. A demo of Project Alloy last year showed how the wearer's hand could be represented within the virtual world The firm also showed off a variety of other uses for a wide range of VR headsets - including high definition 360-degree video captured at a waterfall in Vietnam. Mr Blau said the use of volumetric video - which lets viewers peer around objects as though they were really present in the captured scene - was impressive. "It is something we won't really see en masse for a long time because of its heavy data requirements," Mr Blau added. Other chip makers besides Intel have been developing virtual reality headset technology. Nvidia, for example, has been working on software and processors to power computing-intensive experiences. AMD is developing its Sulon Q headset, which - like Project Alloy - incorporates a computer and battery onboard, meaning no need for tethers or cables. Chip maker AMD recently announced it's own Sulon Q VR and AR headset. There is some optimism around the potential for growth within the virtual reality market at CES. US unit sales of VR headsets are predicted to reach 2.5 million in 2017, according to a presentation at the trade show by the Consumer Technology Association. But during Intel's event, Mr Krzanich acknowledged that many were still unsure if the technology would become truly popular. "A lot of people are questioning is virtual reality going to take off, is it going to go anywhere?" he acknowledged Follow all our CES coverage at bbc.co.uk/ces2017 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38514888

Premier League festive fixtures 2017-18: Six games in 17 days next Christmas - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

If Premier League managers were annoyed at this season's festive fixture list, what about next season's?

Last updated on .From the section Football Arsene Wenger calls it "unfair", Jose Mourinho says it "creates problems" and Sam Allardyce thinks the person responsible for it should be sacked. But with a shortened season next year to help England prepare for the 2018 World Cup, fixture congestion over the festive period could be even worse. The Premier League has confirmed that a draft fixture schedule for next season could see six rounds of games over Christmas and New Year in 2017-18, as opposed to four this year. That could see clubs playing six games in 17 days from 16 December 2017 to 1 January 2018 inclusive. There are still several stages of the fixtures process to go, with nothing confirmed until June and final dates remaining subject to change after that announcement. Yet should those factors result in two extra games during the festive period, the debate over the difference in rest between games for each side and calls for a winter break looks set to continue. What is the draft fixture schedule for 2017-18? On Monday's Match of the Day, host Gary Lineker revealed next season's draft fixture schedule includes six games between the dates of 16 December 2017 and 1 January 2018 inclusive. It is unlikely there will be a full round of 10 fixtures on each of the six matchdays, with games set to be moved in order to be televised. But if the six potential matchdays represent separate rounds of top-flight action, then fans can look forward to 60 Premier League games in total over the course of that period. How does this compare? This season saw 40 Premier League games over a similar period, with each club having four fixtures between Saturday 17 December 2016 and Wednesday 4 January 2017 inclusive. Those 40 fixtures were played on 12 separate matchdays, including a particularly busy run which saw at least one Premier League match on every day bar one between 26 December and 4 January. The 2015-16 campaign also included 40 games played between Saturday 19 December 2015 and Sunday 3 January inclusive, but the fixtures were played on nine separate matchdays. Perhaps the biggest difference between the last two seasons is evident in the Boxing Day fixture lists, with all 10 games played on 26 December 2015 whereas only eight games took place on the same day this season - with televised games between Liverpool and Stoke and Southampton and Tottenham following on 27 and 28 December respectively. That greater spread of games resulted in widespread debate amongst Premier League managers over discrepancies in the amount of rest between games for each club. Hours taken to play all three festive matches 26 Dec-4 Jan Hours from start of first game, to end of third What have the managers said? Arsenal manager Wenger was especially critical of this year's festive fixture list, calling it the "most uneven Christmas period" he has seen in 20 years. He added: "The difference of rest periods is absolutely unbelievable, compared to the other teams it is unbelievable." Wenger was far from alone, with Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho claiming, "it looks like the fixtures are chosen to give rest for some and to create problems to others". All the way back in October, an incredulous Jurgen Klopp looked at Liverpool's festive fixture list and simply asked: "How do you prepare a team for this?" Not all title-chasing managers were fazed by the fixture list though, with Chelsea boss Antonio Conte saying his rivals were "angry for our position [as leaders] not for the fixtures". The stakes are just as high at the bottom of the table with Sam Allardyce claiming the fixture scheduling contributed to his "shattered" Crystal Palace side losing to relegation rivals Swansea on Tuesday. Even Swansea first-team coach Alan Curtis acknowledged the discrepancy, adding: "We had 24 hours more rest compared to them and that may have made a difference." Referring to the lucrative television rights deal signed by the Premier League, Wenger said: "I don't know any more whether the Premier League is the master of the fixtures." While TV broadcast selections alter the specific dates of games, the initial fixture list is compiled by international IT services company Atos, on behalf of the Premier League. The first step is inputting international dates from world governing body Fifa, then dates of the European club competitions from Uefa, before the Football Association adds in their competitions, leaving the dates on which league and League Cup matches can be played. This process is complicated for the 2017-18 season due to an agreement with the FA to finish seasons early in tournament years - in this instance to give the England manager a month with his squad to prepare for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Where possible, the Premier League and FA will also try to establish a stand-alone date for the FA Cup final. There are then numerous other factors including the distribution of home and away games and travel issues to consider, as well as further discussion and checks before the fixture list is released in mid-June. The live TV broadcast selections for December 2017 will not be confirmed until four to six weeks before the start of the month, so managers will have to wait to see how they fare in terms of rest between games. But two extra fixtures to fit in are unlikely to be a welcome Christmas gift for most.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38497382

Cowboy lassoes runaway calf on highway - BBC News

2017-01-05

A Tennessee cowboy named David Bevill has lassoed a runaway calf on a highway from the bonnet of a sheriff's car.

A Tennessee cowboy named David Bevill has lassoed a runaway calf on a highway from the bonnet of a sheriff's car.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38524053

British Grand Prix: Silverstone race 'under threat because of costs' - BBC Sport

2017-01-05

The future of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone is reportedly under threat because of the financial risk of staging it.

Last updated on .From the section Formula 1 The future of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone could be under threat because of the "potentially ruinous risk" of staging the loss-making race. Circuit owner the British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC) is considering giving notice to exercise a contract-break clause at the end of 2019. A letter written by BRDC chairman John Grant - seen by ITV News - says a decision will be made by "mid-year". The BRDC's contract with Formula 1 runs until 2026. Silverstone first hosted the British Grand Prix in 1950 and has been the event's permanent home since 1987. Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone told ITV News: "If they want to activate a break clause, there is nothing we can do. "Two other tracks have contacted us and we are keen to keep a British Grand Prix, there is no doubt about it, we want to have one." Three-time world champion Sir Jackie Stewart added: "I think it's a credible threat, not impossible for it to happen. I would be very sad if it did. "There's no other race track that would be able to host the British Grand Prix." For anyone who has followed Formula 1 for the last decade or two, another story questioning the future of the British Grand Prix is about as surprising as cold weather in winter. There is no doubt the British Racing Drivers' Club mean it when they say they are considering activating a break clause. But, equally, there is no doubt that it fundamentally amounts to posturing - Silverstone does not want to lose the British Grand Prix any more than do the 140,000 fans who went there to watch it last year. The issue is the cost of the 17-year contract - £12m in 2010; a 5% annual escalator means the race will cost nearly £17m this year and more than £26m by 2027. This is small by comparison with Russia, which pays $50m (£40.3m) a year. It's not that far out of line with the new deal signed by Italy for €68m (£58m) over 2017-19, which averages out at £19.3m a year. But Silverstone - almost alone among grands prix - receives no government funding of any kind. No other circuit in Britain is even remotely close to being able to replace it - so ignore any suggestions from F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone to that end. The solution lies in new F1 owner Liberty Media, which has made it abundantly clear it wants to retain and nurture the historic European races, home of the sport's core audience, as a bedrock of its new-look F1. Liberty will complete its takeover deal before the end of the first quarter of this year. So expect some time between then and this year's British Grand Prix on 16 July a compromise deal that revises the terms of the contract and secures the race's future.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/38526002

Cuba says 'yes' to English as tourism flourishes - BBC News

2017-01-05

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Cubans are increasingly learning English as tourism flourishes on the Communist-run island.

Latin America & Caribbean

As Cuba slowly opens up its economy to the rest of the world, more and more Cubans are learning English. The Cuban government has made proficiency in English a requirement for all high school and university students. As Will Grant reports from Havana, that approach differs from the Cold War, when Russian was the preferred foreign language. At the annual Havana Jazz Festival, the audience members, much like the music, were a mix of international and Cuban. Sitting on plastic chairs at the open-air venue, visitors from the United States, Europe and China mingled with local jazz aficionados. On stage, a saxophonist who lives in Denmark was reunited with some old Cuban friends. At such an international event, the common language is generally English. Many Cubans are already learning the language themselves, and if not, they are trying to make sure their children are. Morning assembly at Jesus Suarez Gayol Secondary School on the outskirts of Havana begins with the school's anthem. Secondary school pupils are expected to reach a certain standard in English The school is named after one of the guerrillas who fought alongside Ernesto "Che" Guevara but these teenagers are growing up in an increasingly different Cuba to the one Jesus Suarez did. For a start, a certain proficiency in English is now a requirement for all secondary school children and university graduates. During the Cold War, students could choose between learning English and Russian but Cuba's educational authorities told the BBC they now consider English a necessary skill for all of the nation's youth. "As an international language, English has always had a place in our curriculum," says Director of Secondary Education Zoe de la Red Iturria. "But we are now rolling out new techniques to evolve our learning of the English language," she adds. Zoe de la Red Iturria wants to modernise English-language learning in Cuba But language-teaching methods remain quite traditional, relying heavily on textbooks, parrot-fashion repetition and with only very limited Internet access. Olga Perez, national adviser for English teaching in Cuba, says the authorities are hoping to tackle that last issue. "It would be very good for us if we had the internet in the schools. And we hope that in the future, we'll not only have the internet, we're also dreaming of installing language laboratories in every school." And it is not just in the classrooms that English can be heard more frequently but on the streets of Havana, too. In what was a record year for tourism to Cuba, many Cubans have tried to teach themselves English without the help of any formal classes. Darvis Luis sells second-hand books and posters to tourists. He says he learnt English entirely through computer games, music videos and rock songs. "I have to make conversation because I need to make money to eat," he says in easy-flowing, fast English. "I have to learn how to speak with them and I have to get better and better. I tell them a story because books aren't so easy to sell. So you have to make them believe in what you're saying." Darvis Luis taught himself English to be able to better sells his second-hand books to tourists Resources for Anglophiles and budding English-language students like Darvis Luis are limited in Cuba. One place they can go is Cuba Libro, the island's only English-language bookstore. Nestled in the leafy Havana district of Vedado, it is the brainchild of US healthcare journalist and long-time Havana resident Conner Gorry. Ms Gorry says that after some initial misgivings, local residents "welcomed us with open arms" once they saw "the free cultural programming, high-quality literature and community outreach" on offer. "Literature is not subversive," she says. "A Cuban government-run publishing house just published George Orwell's 1984 and that's available in state-run bookstores." "With increased tourism and increased business connections to the wider world, the Cubans are encouraging people to learn English. So we've become a resource," she adds. In the past months, as well as the jazz festival, Havana has hosted the annual film festival and the international ballet festival. The Latin American Film Festival has drawn Cubans and tourists to Havana It is at events like these that the thaw in relations with the US seems clearer than ever. The decision by the Obama Administration and the Castro government to rebuild their diplomatic ties has undeniably brought Cubans and Americans closer together. It has also brought about some potentially lasting collaboration in science and the arts. There are people on both sides who fear those steps could soon be reversed, especially in light of comments made to that effect by President-elect Donald Trump. For now though, the young students at Jesus Suarez are just keen to keep improving their ability to communicate with the rest of the world.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38467299

David Weir: GB wheelchair coach Jenni Banks 'belittled' me at Rio Paralympics - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Paralympic champion David Weir accuses British Athletics coach Jenni Banks of making 'belittling' and 'hurtful' remarks.

Last updated on .From the section Disability Sport Six-time Paralympic champion David Weir has accused British Athletics wheelchair racing coach Jenni Banks of making remarks that were "belittling" and "hurtful", after confirming he will never race for Great Britain again. Weir, 37, did not win a medal at the Rio Paralympics - his fifth Games. He told BBC Sport he was "gobsmacked" by the way he was treated, and claimed Banks had told him he was a "disgrace to the country". Banks said she did not want to comment. "Not once did she come and see if I was OK that week," said Weir. "I felt it was a bit poor given the amount of medals I have won and because I had one bad week." Weir, who will compete in April's London Marathon, also said Banks accused him of not performing to the best of his ability in the 4x400m T53/54 relay heats in Rio. Britain finished a distant second behind China and failed to qualify for the final. "She said 'I know you have done that on purpose'," Weir said. "I just felt why would I throw a race? To upset her? I was here to win medals for myself and my country." Weir was, however, unable to confirm reports Banks had thrown his racing wheelchair during a row in Brazil. "I don't really know about the chair because I didn't see it," he said. "It's only what I have heard from other people." 'There was a frank exchange of views' She had previously worked with the Australian Paralympic Committee and at one stage coached Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. Banks is in her native country with a training group of British wheelchair racers including Hannah Cockroft, who she coaches. British Athletics said in a statement officials had met with Weir to get his feedback on his experiences in Rio and are working to learn from them. "We can confirm there was a frank exchange of views between an athlete and the relay coach following the race when the GB men's wheelchair team failed to qualify for the final," the statement read. 'I could never represent Britain with her on the team' Weir, who won four gold medals at London 2012 to add to the two he claimed in Beijing four years earlier, was critical of Banks's appointment. His long-time coach and mentor Jenny Archer was among those passed over for the role. But he insists his decision to quit track racing and miss this summer's World Championships in London is final, even if Banks were to leave her role. "I could never represent Great Britain if she was still on the team," he said. "It wouldn't be fair on the team. I don't want younger athletes to see there is an atmosphere. "But this will not take anything away from what I did in London. Rio was Rio. No-one can take away the biggest sporting achievement of my life. "I have put my heart and soul into racing for Great Britain. I've had a lot of pressure on me over the years to deliver medals."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/disability-sport/38770498

Venus and Serena Williams set for Australian Open final - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Serena Williams says facing her elder sister Venus in Saturday's Australian Open final will be a great occasion.

Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live and live text on the BBC Sport website; TV highlights on BBC Two and online at 13:15. Serena Williams says facing elder sister Venus in Saturday's Australian Open final will be a great occasion. Serena, 35, is bidding for an Open-era record 23rd Grand Slam, while Venus, 36, is targeting her eighth major, and first since Wimbledon in 2008. "This probably is the moment of our careers so far," said Serena, who has beaten Venus in six of their eight Grand Slam finals. "I never lost hope of us being able to play each other in a final." Saturday will be their first Grand Slam final against each other since Wimbledon 2009, when Serena won in straight sets, and their 28th meeting in total. "Nothing can break our family," added Serena. "If anything, this will definitely bring us closer together, knowing that I want to see her do the best that she can possibly do. "I know that she definitely wants to see me do the best that I can do. This is a story. This is something that I couldn't write a better ending for. This is a great opportunity for us to start our new beginning. "It's the one time that I really genuinely feel like no matter what happens, I can't lose, she can't lose. It's going to be a great situation." Serena drew level with Germany's Steffi Graff on 22 Grand Slams when she claimed her seventh Wimbledon title last year, but lost in the US Open semi-finals to Czech Karolina Pliskova. A seventh title at Melbourne Park would add further credit to her claim as the greatest of all time, despite being one short of Australia's Margaret Court, whose 24 major titles were split between the amateur and professional eras. Venus failed to reach a single Grand Slam quarter-final between 2011 and 2014 as she battled injuries and Sjogren's syndrome, an auto-immune disease that causes fatigue and joint pain. Now, however, Venus is enjoying a late resurgence, backing up her run to the last four at Wimbledon six months ago by going one step further here. Serena would regain the world number one ranking from 2016 champion Angelique Kerber if she wins the title, while Venus would move back into the top 10 if she wins on Saturday. Serena Williams says that she could not write a better ending to the sisters' remarkable story, but this may not be the final chapter. Venus is the oldest woman in the field, but has proven beyond doubt that she still has the power and the defensive skills to defeat younger challengers. Whether that includes Serena remains to be seen. The 22-time Grand Slam champion is yet to drop a set in Melbourne: the tougher the opponent, the better she plays. And no-one has more respect for Venus Williams than Serena Williams. 'Serena is super-awesome but I can compete' Venus, the oldest finalist at Melbourne Park in the Open era, knows her sister doesn't have many weaknesses in her game. "When I'm playing on the court with her, I think I'm playing the best competitor in the game. I don't think I'm chump change either, you know," she said. "I can compete against any odds. No matter what, I get out there and I compete. "So it's like two players who really, really can compete, then also they can play tennis." "OK, it won't be an easy match," she added. "You have to control yourself, then you also have to hopefully put your opponent in a box. This opponent is your sister, and she's super-awesome." *Overall Serena has a 16-11 win-loss record against Venus Find out how to get into tennis in our special guide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38774498

Steven Gerrard: Liverpool return makes ex-captain 'nervous and anxious' - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Ex-Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard tells BBC Sport he is "nervous and anxious" about his impending return to Anfield as a youth coach.

Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard says he is "excited" but also "nervous and anxious" about his impending return to Anfield as a youth coach. Gerrard, who made his Reds debut in 1998 and retired from playing last year, will begin the job in February. "Liverpool are prepared to help me an awful lot. They want to help me to become a better coach or a better manager," Gerrard, 36, told BBC Sport. "But at the same time I've got to commit to it and put in the hard work." • None said he is in no rush to take up a managerial role as he does not yet know if he'll be "good enough"; • None revealed Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has "gone out of his way" to welcome him back to the club; • None backed Liverpool to overcome their current "blip" and said he was "absolutely delighted" to have Klopp as manager Midfielder Gerrard left Anfield at the end of the 2014-15 season to join MLS side LA Galaxy before retiring in November after a 19-year playing career. Jurgen does it his way and we all respect that and we're happy to have him The former England captain said he was "really happy" to be "back at the club I love and being back home with my family" - but insisted his return was not down to sentiment. "With me and Liverpool there will always be an emotional pull. But the decision to go back as a coach and what that entails, I couldn't really make that decision on sentiment or emotion because I'd have been doing it for the wrong reasons," he said. "I'm very excited but at the same time a little bit nervous and a little bit anxious because it's a brand new role, one that I'm really looking forward to getting my teeth into." • None Listen: Lawrenson feels move is good for Gerrard and Liverpool When will Gerrard move into management? Gerrard was linked with the manager's job at League One side MK Dons soon after announcing he would leave LA Galaxy, but said at the time the opportunity had come "too soon" for him. He is working towards his Uefa A coaching licence, which is required to manage in the Premier League, but he says it is still too early to predict the path his future career will take. "There's no rush, no timescale," he said. "The silly thing for me would be to rush and go in when I'm not ready. "I've got incredible people around me and hopefully in the future there'll be some exciting opportunities. "I've a lot of dreams and aspirations to be the best I can be in terms of coaching and management - but we'll have to wait and see if I'm going to be good enough." Gerrard was at Anfield on Wednesday to see his club knocked out of the EFL Cup after a 2-0 aggregate defeat by Southampton in the semi-finals. That result continued a difficult start to 2017 for Klopp's side, who have managed just one win in seven games this year - a third-round FA Cup replay victory at League Two Plymouth Argyle. "I hope it's just a blip," added Gerrard, who was speaking at a media event for Star Sixes, a new football tournament for former international players to be held at The O2, London, in July, in which he will be a team captain. "I've experienced it myself and blips are difficult to play your way out of, but I believe we've got the talent and personnel to do it. "We've been one of the most exciting teams to watch [during Klopp's time in charge]. "There's a bit of a sticky patch the past three or four weeks - but I'm absolutely delighted he's our manager."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38762265

Avocado anxiety over Trump's border tax - BBC News

2017-01-27

The White House proposed a 20% "border tax" on Mexico and it sparked some avocado anxiety.

The White House has proposed a 20% "border tax" on Mexico as one of the ways to recoup the costs of building a US-Mexico border wall. The wall is a campaign promise that is wildly popular among President Trump's supporters, but news of the tax sparked anxiety among some for the price of avocados and tacos.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38766675

Reality Check: Did millions vote illegally in the US? - BBC News

2017-01-27

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President Trump claims that he would have won the popular vote had it not been for fraud. Is he right?

US & Canada

The claim: Donald Trump would have won the popular vote in last year's US presidential election had it not been for people voting illegally. Reality Check verdict: There is no evidence to support the assertion that at least 2.86 million people voted illegally. White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed on Tuesday that President Donald Trump stands by his concerns about illegal voting. The disclosure came after the president was reported to have claimed in a closed meeting on Monday that between three and five million unauthorised immigrants had voted for Hillary Clinton. At the end of November, Mr Trump tweeted: "I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." While the president won the election via the electoral college, he actually received 2.86 million fewer votes than his rival. So his suggestion is that at least 2% of the people who voted did so illegally, assuming that they all voted for Mrs Clinton. Non-citizens of the United States, including permanent legal residents, do not have the right to vote in presidential elections. Voter registration requires applicants to declare their citizenship status, and they could face criminal punishment if they falsely claim citizenship rights. In addition to being registered voters, in two-thirds of states, voters are required to bring identification to the polls in order to be allowed to vote. In all states, first-time voters who register to vote by post must provide valid identification before voting. Donald Trump and his team have referred to two studies they say show the threat posed by unauthorised voting; both have been challenged. A 2014 study published in Electoral Studies found evidence that suggested non-citizens do vote and "can change the outcome of close races". Donald Trump referred to this study on the campaign trail in Wisconsin on 17 October. The research has been roundly criticised by political scientists who said it misinterpreted the data. The team behind the research used data collected by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), which is a national survey taken before and after elections. The CCES published a newsletter that disputed the findings and said "the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is 0". During the campaign, Mr Trump also referred to a 2012 Pew Center on the States study that found 1.8 million dead Americans were still registered. The deceased, alleged Mr Trump, were still voting. The report, however, does not make any statements about this claim. Although it is not impossible for non-citizens to break voting laws, there is no evidence that millions of immigrants without the right to vote influenced the outcome of the popular vote. Election officials, including those from the Republican Party, have said there was no evidence of mass electoral fraud and senior Republicans such as House Speaker Paul Ryan have distanced themselves from the claim. But President Trump tweeted from his personal account on Wednesday to say that he would be asking for a major investigation into voter fraud. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38744612

Theresa May's name misspelled in US memo - BBC News

2017-01-27

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A press note about Theresa May's meeting with Donald Trump misspells the Prime Minister's first name.

UK Politics

A White House schedule sent to journalists ahead of a press conference with US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May has misspelled her name. The schedule referred to the prime minister three times as "Teresa May", leaving out the "h" in her first name. The mistake happened after the prime minister addressed US politicians in Philadelphia on Thursday. In her speech, Mrs May called for closer ties between the UK and US. The press schedule, which was sent from the office of the new White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, originally said: "In the afternoon, the president will partake in a bilateral meeting with United Kingdom Prime Minister, Teresa May." Part of the uncorrected White House schedule sent out on Friday. It later repeated the mistake, saying: "The president participates in a working luncheon with Teresa May, Prime Minister of United Kingdom." The same error was also made once in a guidance note from the office of Vice-President Mike Pence. The prime minister's name was, however, spelled correctly elsewhere in the same note. The White House press office later sent out an updated guidance note with the correct spelling. The White House press secretary later tweeted about the day, including Theresa May's Twitter handle Mrs May's speech on Thursday mentioned the "special relationship" between the UK and US eight times. The phrase is an unofficial term for the close cultural, historical and political relationship between the United States and the UK. It was first coined by Prime Minister Winston Churchill - a political hero of the new American president - during a 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri. Mrs May's meeting on Friday will be the first between a foreign leader and President Trump.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38771176

Can Barrow stem flow of young Gambians heading for Europe? - BBC News

2017-01-27

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New President Adama Barrow must improve economic prospects for The Gambia's youth, if the number of migrants heading for Europe is to be cut.

Africa

The Gambia is one of the poorest countries in the world Considering its population of less than two million, The Gambia accounts for a high proportion of those crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. The BBC's Alastair Leithead asks whether the new president can change this. In a tiny shop unit along a dark corridor and through a narrow alleyway in The Gambia's biggest market, Samba Ceesay is sorting through the clothes he has for sale. He arrived back last November - just before the election - after 15 months away from home following what everyone here calls "the back way". It's the well-trodden migrant path to Europe through Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso to Niger, and then north through Libya to the coast, to risk a Mediterranean crossing. Mr Ceesay, 26, got as far as Burkina Faso before he was captured by an organised crime syndicate. "They said they would help me but they took everything I had - all my money and my things - and locked me up," he said. "They threatened to kill me unless my family sent ransom money, but we have nothing. They held me for a month." Eventually they released him, and despite having lost all his money he kept going. Samba Ceesay had a terrible experience trying to reach Europe He reached southern Libya, but with no job or chance of making the money needed to cross the Sahara or pay for passage across the Mediterranean, he gave up. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) office in the migrant hub of Agadez in Niger, helped him return home to The Gambia. Mr Ceesay's family were initially disappointed he hadn't made it - they'd supported his plan to head to Europe and try to earn money to send home. Now Famara Njie from the IOM is helping him re-integrate through training to help improve his chances of getting a job. "If you don't make your way to Europe and you come back empty-handed without any means to re-start your life, it makes things very, very difficult to re-integrate yourself back in the community," he said. It's known as "irregular migration" - most people leaving The Gambia are economic migrants, and for the size of the country there are a lot of them. There are less than two million Gambians, and by percentage of population more people head to Europe than any other nation. "It is a growing problem, because we've seen people from all walks of life - policemen leaving their jobs, teachers leaving their jobs embarking on this way," said Mr Njie. "Minors - those who should be in school to complete their basic education… we have seen them embarking on this journey, which is a really, really very troubling situation for the country." Top women's football side, Red Scorpions, lost their goalkeeper, who drowned in the Mediterranean last year Across The Gambia thousands of people are leaving their homes. Less than an hour's drive from the capital, in the village of Kitty, many people have left using "the back way". People here are poor and it's strikingly clear whose relatives have made it to Europe, because they are building fantastic new homes. Money goes a long way here and so remittances are paying for gleaming tin roofs, houses with fancy pillars and large courtyards. There are satellite TV dishes attached to the walls and plots of land cleared and pegged out waiting for construction to begin. It's this obvious incentive which drives many people to risk everything. In a dusty clearing in central Banjul, amid the beautiful, orange, late afternoon light, the Red Scorpions are training. They're the country's top women's football team and many also play for the national side. Their goalkeeper, Fatim Jawara, 20, went missing last year, and then word came that she and her friend had drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean. "She was so friendly, humble, always laughing - we were like twins," said her brother Momodou Jawara, 36, sitting with a photograph of her wearing her football strip. "Thousands and thousands of people have gone - I wish I knew why. "I don't have that kind of mentality, but what we believe is people always talk about greener pastures, wanting to be out doing something for their family as most of them complain about a lack of jobs." He thinks she might have gone to try and play football in Europe "but I'm not in her mind, and I'm not sure what put her in it". Fatim Jawara: She was so friendly, humble, always laughing, says her brother With the return of new President Adama Barrow, there are great expectations that life will improve after 22 years of Yahya Jammeh's rule. Under Mr Jammeh, human rights and freedom of speech were not respected. While this might change with a new government, it will be more difficult to raise living standards in what is one of the poorest countries in the world. "It will take time. What kind of factories are we going to build, what kind of industry are we going to provide for the youths?" asks Mr Jawara. A huge deposit of oil was recently found off the coast of neighbouring Senegal. It's believed that find may extend into Gambian territorial waters, which could provide a huge boost to the economy over the coming decades. The new president will serve just three years and is barred from standing in the next election, so it's hoped he can focus on laying foundations for the economy to improve. Big new houses built in poor villages show what reaching Europe means But people have high expectations, which will be hindered by the complexities of coalition politics. Seven different political parties joined forces, plucking Mr Barrow from relative obscurity to drive President Jammeh from power. "This new government coming in will help the youths to have more job opportunities, schools will be available for them. I can see a bright future for the Gambian youth," said striker Adama Tamba, 18. "This new government, it will help us a lot," agreed Fatou Fatty, 19, the captain of the national team. But there's a lot of work to do to prevent people being lured to take "the back way" to bring money home and lift their families out of poverty.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-38756060

Arsene Wenger: Arsenal boss gets four-match touchline ban - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger receives a four-match touchline ban after accepting a Football Association charge of misconduct.

Last updated on .From the section Football Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has been given a four-match touchline ban and £25,000 fine after accepting a Football Association charge of misconduct for his behaviour in the win over Burnley. Wenger, 67, was charged with verbally abusing and pushing fourth official Anthony Taylor after being sent off. His ban starts immediately so he misses Saturday's FA Cup game at Southampton. If that tie needs a replay, Wenger will return for the Premier League game against Hull on 11 February. However, if the match is settled on Saturday, the Hull game will be the fourth and final one for which the Frenchman is banned, following Premier League games against Watford and Chelsea. Wenger reacted angrily to Burnley being awarded a 93rd-minute penalty at Emirates Stadium on Sunday, one they scored to level at 1-1. After being sent to the stands by referee Jon Moss, Wenger moved away from the pitch but stood at the tunnel entrance and refused to move as he tried to watch the remaining few minutes of Sunday's match. As Taylor encouraged him to move away, Wenger was seen to push back against him. Arsenal were then given a penalty of their own, which was converted by Alexis Sanchez. Immediately after the match, Wenger apologised, saying: "I should have shut up - I apologise for not having done that. "It was nothing malicious. I should have kept my control, even if it was in a hectic time."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38777152

Theresa May's foreign policy speech is 'new and important' - BBC News

2017-01-27

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The PM's speech in Philadelphia is the biggest by a British leader in the US for almost 20 years, the BBC's James Robbins says.

UK

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May: "We must renew the special relationship for this new age" Theresa May's Philadelphia speech is hugely significant - arguably the biggest by a British prime minister in the US since Tony Blair's in Chicago. Eighteen years ago - in 1999 - Mr Blair first advocated active military interventionism to overturn dictators and protect civilians. Now, Mrs May has repudiated much of what he said then. She talked of "the failed policies of the past", before making her crucial declaration of new foreign policy doctrine: "The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over." Of course, by saying that she was also overturning the approach of her predecessor, David Cameron. The current prime minister has also dismissed her predecessor's armed intervention in Libya. Its aftermath - a failed state, far from recovery - haunts Britain still. This declaration of an apparently radical shift in policy by the prime minister should be read in conjunction with what appears to be an extraordinary British U-turn over Syria, which was set out in colourful terms by her foreign secretary only a few hours earlier. Boris Johnson conceded the most bitter and recent failure of British foreign policy when he openly acknowledged what amounts to a fundamental defeat over Syria. He called Britain's stance "catastrophic", shifting from the pledge of support over many years to the non-jihadist opponents of President Assad, to a position where Britain - together with the United States - retreated from the field and left it open to Russian military dominance. Mr Johnson told a committee in the House of Lords that President Assad should now be permitted to run for election as part of a "democratic resolution" of the civil war - although he did also make clear there could be no sustainable peace in Syria as long as he remains. He admitted the downsides of doing "such a complete flip-flop", but said the UK had been unable at any stage to fulfil its mantra that the Syrian president should go. Boris Johnson said the UK's stance on Syria had been "catastrophic" Mr Johnson was accepting Russia's victory - and at the same time swallowing the bitter pill of defeat for London and for Washington. He said that had flowed from the refusal of the House of Commons, in August 2013, to back punitive British military action against President Assad for his use of chemical weapons - something the Syrian leader still denies. Within days, President Obama had followed Britain in retreat. Public appetite in both countries for almost any military intervention overseas had drained away after the years of intervention in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in Libya. It is very difficult to see circumstances in which Britain or the US will send forces against a sovereign government in the future. Extremists - non-state actors - are almost the only acceptable target now. The Foreign Office does not believe their political master was as explicit as I suggest, and believe that the essentials of British policy on Syria have not fundamentally changed. Certainly, the prime minister did leave herself some wriggle room. She argued against the sort of increased isolationism which President Donald Trump has championed, and urged the maintenance of the "special relationship" as a way to provide joint leadership in the world. She said the two nations should not "stand idly by when the threat is real". Nevertheless, the political presentation of British foreign policy by the prime minister and foreign secretary has deployed a distinctly new and sometimes startling language. The direction being set in response to past failures and disappointments is different. It may be largely a public recognition of some brutal realities, which have been emerging over several years, but it is new and important.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38776377

The Spicer Doctrine: Holding the press to account - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Donald Trump's new press secretary plans to take a tough line with the press, says Amol Rajan.

Entertainment & Arts

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sean Spicer: "We can disagree with the facts" Some journalists are scum, many are incorrigible egoists, and yet the vast majority, in my experience, are decent coves with a high-minded view of the trade they belong to. Whether they report on the courts, local football matches, or the latest film openings, part of the job is spreading knowledge and joy - or, as Lord Reith put it, to "inform, educate and entertain." But there is a deeper attraction to the trade. This is the principle of holding power to account. Obviously many journalists fall short of achieving this. Some become corrupted by power themselves. But journalism at its best is the industrialisation of scrutiny. The presence of mischievous, determined, nosy hacks stops people who have immense power - some of it unjustifiably, arbitrarily or illegally obtained - from getting away with misdeeds. You might think that's pompous, but, frankly, I don't mind. Nor, I'm sure, do the White House press corps who were assembled for the astonishing press conferences that Sean Spicer, new press secretary to President Trump, gave earlier this week. I'm not interested, for the purposes of this blog, in whether or not the assertions made by Mr Spicer were true or false. President Trump wants to take his message "directly to the American people" I am interested in these words he uttered, the consequences of which are immense for politics, media and public life: "There's been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable. "And I'm here to tell you it goes two ways. "We're going to hold the press accountable, as well. "And as long as he serves as the messenger for this incredible movement, he will take his message directly to the American people, where his focus will always be". Put aside the almost biblical imagery and the clear indication that, through talk radio and social media, President Trump will cut out journalists and go straight to voters. Those four words "it goes two ways" are doing a lot of work there. Last night, Steve Bannon, the former chief of Breitbart News, went even further than Spicer in an interview with The New York Times. He said: "The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." As one of the most powerful voices in Trump's ear, clearly Bannon's view that the media should be subject to ferocious scrutiny now holds considerable sway in the White House. I have decided to call this notion that it is the job of government to hold the press to account The Spicer Doctrine. Here are five thoughts about it: One: Totalitarian states use propaganda to control public information, spread fear and rally support against external foes. Donald Trump has a powerful democratic mandate: he is no totalitarian. But he seems immensely frustrated at his inability to control public information - so much so that he uses Twitter to circumvent the media, and sent out his spokesman to lambast and threaten journalists. President Trump and Mr Spicer will soon find out that, especially in the digital age, they have no hope of controlling public information. There will always be stuff that annoy this administration and send them into a fury. So expect more individual journalists to suffer the fate of the Time magazine journalist who got his facts wrong. Two: There is a serious question of credibility and trust at stake here. As promised, I won't pass judgement here on the veracity of the statements Mr Spicer is making. But in just his first week as president, Mr Trump has obliterated the basic faith that many Americans had that what the White House says is true. You might argue that this faith was decimated by the Iraq War. It had, however, been rebuilt since. And the issue isn't whether anyone believes Mr Spicer when he says Mr Trump's inauguration was better attended than Barack Obama's. The problem will arise when he says something more substantial about a terror threat or America's next war. Who will believe him then? Does it matter if the press corps, who relay his message to millions of Americans, think he's not credible? Three: The traditional media is caterwauling about Mr Trump's fondness for exaggeration. Do his supporters care? Possibly not. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Where do Donald Trump supporters get their news from? The fact is, with Fox News and various internet outlets supporting his cause, Mr Trump believes that the nationalist media who so helped him to win the presidency are also on board now. Interestingly, as a president he seems to have made little effort to unify the country: instead, he seems intent on energising his base. And that base cares less and less for the - as they see it - pompous bloviating of coastal correspondents and editors. Four: While journalists at that same traditional media are outraged by The Spicer Doctrine, seeing it as an affront to natural justice, their colleagues in the commercial department are delighted. Frankly, Mr Trump's relationship with the traditional media, while hateful, is a marriage of convenience. Subscriptions to the Hillary-Clinton-endorsing New York Times have rocketed. It turns out that the "two way" process Mr Spicer mentioned is a case of you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. This is a theme I shall be returning to. Five: In one sense, democratic governments have always tried to regulate the media while paying lip service to media freedom and plurality. After all, government designs the laws under which media operate. But government is too hard, too complicated, and too relentless to accommodate a war against traditional media outlets. Just as opponents of torture argue that co-operation is the better route to good intelligence, so a constructive and open relationship between government and media is better for both, so long as there is honesty about conflicting interests. Right now, The Spicer Doctrine is a useful way of energising the roughly half of Americans who backed Mr Trump. Soon enough, it could be bad for democracy, by wasting government time, preventing proper scrutiny, and filling cyberspace with sound and fury that signify nothing - of which there is no shortage of supply already.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38763232

What is going wrong with the prison system? - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Levels of violence are up, staff numbers are down, and complaints about overcrowding are widespread. Why are prisons under pressure?

UK

Levels of violence are up, staff numbers are down and complaints about overcrowding are widespread. Why are prisons in England and Wales under pressure? "There's an incident at height - the prison's in lockdown." I was in the gate-lodge at High Down Prison in Surrey when a message came through from the governor. The Ministry of Justice - which controls prisons in England and Wales - had, unusually, granted permission for me to visit a jail for a radio documentary about prison violence. They had chosen High Down, a prison built on the site of an old mental hospital and now home to 1,100 male inmates. I waited in the visitors centre worried my visit might be cancelled, but half an hour later the incident had been resolved. Ian Bickers, the High Down governor at the time of my visit in December 2014, brushed aside what had happened. A prisoner had clambered on to the safety netting under a landing because he was unhappy with the regime and wanted to move to another jail. Mr Bickers explained that prisoner protests were a common occurrence, but required adept handling. At that stage, High Down was on the edge of instability. Since then, a number of jails in England and Wales have fallen over the edge. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The footage is understood to have been filmed by inmates of HMP Birmingham The recent disturbances at Lewes, Bedford, Birmingham and Swaleside prisons; the fatal stabbing of an inmate at Pentonville, followed by the escape of two of its prisoners; and the record number of prisoner suicides and assaults on staff all provide concrete evidence of the turmoil behind bars. In 2015, in his last annual report as Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick said jails were in their worst state for a decade. Last year, David Cameron, in one of his final domestic policy speeches as prime minister, said reoffending rates and levels of prison violence, drug-taking and self-harm "should shame us all". Even Liz Truss, who as justice secretary has overall responsibility for prisons, acknowledges that they're "not working" and are under "serious and sustained pressure". There have always been problems. For many years, internal reports painted a picture of daily outbreaks of violence, cell fires and self-harm across the prisons estate. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The aftermath of the 1990 Strangeways Prison riot The worst disorder in the history of the prison service came in 1990 when two people died and hundreds were injured during rioting at Strangeways, in Manchester. It evolved into a 25-day protest against the squalid conditions and was followed by disturbances at eight other prisons. The report into Strangeways was meant to be a watershed. It did lead to some improvements, including the beginning of the end of the practice of slopping out, where prisoners used chamber pots in their cells, but it did not herald an end to prison overcrowding. The principal reason is numbers. England and Wales went from almost 45,000 prisoners in 1991 to 85,000 two decades later - an increase of nearly 90%. Justice and policing are devolved matters for Scotland and Northern Ireland. There has been nothing like the same rise in the jail population in Scotland, where the latest figure, around 7,200, is the lowest it has been for a decade. In Northern Ireland, there are some 1,500 people in custody, about 300 fewer than in the mid-1990s. So why did numbers rise so steeply in England and Wales? Some lobby groups and criminologists point to a "moral panic" following the murder in 1993 of the toddler James Bulger. Experts describe a sentencing "arms race" between political parties vying to be the strongest on law and order. Former Conservative leader Michael Howard's "prison works" versus former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Whatever the reasons, average sentence lengths have crept up, more offenders have been jailed for life or indeterminate terms and growing numbers of released prisoners have had to return to custody for breaching their licence conditions. New jails have been built, but have not kept up with demand. The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) calculates that an average of 20,000 prisoners, almost a quarter of the total, are held in overcrowded conditions. Many share cells designed for one. At times, when Labour was in power, there was so little spare capacity that cells at police stations and in court buildings were used to hold inmates. To ease the pressure, a scheme was introduced to let prisoners out up to 18 days before their standard release date, halfway through their sentence. Eighty-thousand inmates were freed under the scheme - in addition to those released early under an existing programme which required them to wear electronic tags. Overcrowding has a corrosive effect. It is, in the words of Strangeways report author Lord Woolf, "a cancer eating at the ability of the prison service" to deliver effective education, tackle offending behaviour and prepare prisoners for life on the outside. When the Coalition Government came to power in 2010 it began to look for savings, as part of its effort to reduce overall public spending. Five years later the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), which is responsible for prisons in England and Wales, had reduced its budget by nearly a quarter. Wandsworth Prison is one of the country's most overcrowded Old jails that were expensive to operate were shut - 18 have closed since 2011. But the other tactic in the efficiency drive has been a programme of "benchmarking". Publicly run jails are required to peg their costs to the same level as the most efficient prisons, including those in the private sector. Fourteen jails in England and Wales, and two out of 15 prisons in Scotland, are operated by private firms - G4S, Serco and Sodexo. And benchmarking has certainly led to savings. The Ministry of Justice estimates that the average annual cost of a prison place fell by 20% between 2009-10 and 2015-16 to about £35,000. Benchmarking has involved major changes to the regime in prisons and cuts to staffing. A standardised "core day" has been introduced in some jails, with the aim of making the most of prisoners' time out of their cells and giving them certainty about what activities they are doing. But the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Peter Clarke, said jails which had brought in the new core days had not increased the amount of prisoners' time spent unlocked. Under half of jails were assessed as delivering "good" or "reasonably good" purposeful activities compared with more than two-thirds in 2009-10. With the benchmarking programme and other cost-cutting, there was a dramatic reduction in staff numbers. Posts were cut in the Northern Ireland Prison Service as well, but in Scotland staff numbers have risen. The overall number of staff employed across the public sector prison estate in England and Wales has fallen from 45,000 in 2010 to just under 31,000 in September 2016. Although a small part of the reduction has been because of employees switching to jails transferred to the private sector, the decline is substantial by any measure, with the number of prison officers working in key front-line roles down by more than 6,000. The jobs market in areas such as London and south-east England has been so competitive that prisons have found it hard to attract and retain replacements on a £20,500 starting salary. Many experienced prison officers have taken voluntary redundancy - with their know-how and jail-craft sorely missed. About 200 staff each month are brought in from other jails to work at prisons where vacancies cannot be filled. Last November, members of the Prison Officers Association took part in a 24-hour walkout in protest at what they said were the "chronic staff shortages and impoverished regimes" in jails which they claimed had resulted in staff no longer being safe. As thousands of prison staff departed, a seemingly intractable drugs problem began to arrive in jails - "legal highs", also known as new psychoactive substances (NPS). Sold under names such as Spice and Black Mamba, by 2013 the synthetic cannabis compounds had become a major problem. In contrast, Scottish prisons have had no record of any seizures of the drug. Synthetic drugs are becoming an increasing problem in England's prisons The health dangers, bizarre behaviour and violence associated with NPS led to them being banned in the UK last year. In prisons, they have proved to be an unpredictable, and occasionally lethal, alternative to cannabis. Between June 2013 and April 2016, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman identified 64 deaths in jail where the prisoner was known or strongly suspected to have used or possessed NPS before they died. Despite the dangers, these synthetic drugs are popular because they are hard to detect using conventional drug testing methods and they provide a diversion to the boredom and frustration of prison life. The drugs are a source of income for criminal gangs whose illicit use of phones and drones, combined with the help of a number of corrupt staff, has helped the trade thrive behind bars. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch a drone deliver drugs and mobile phones to London prisoners in April 2016 The destabilising impact of synthetic drugs, together with the loss of so many staff in such a short space of time, against a backdrop of overcrowding, has proved to be a dangerous cocktail for our prisons. The government's policy document, entitled Prison Safety and Reform, published in November, acknowledges the scale of the challenge. An extra 2,500 prison officers are being recruited, there will be financial incentives for staff to stay in their jobs, while sniffer dogs and new methods of drug testing are being deployed. Labour said the announcement was "too little, too late", saying earlier staff cuts had created a "crisis in safety". And there are calls for far more radical measures. Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister in the Coalition, together with the former Home Secretaries Jacqui Smith and Ken Clarke, said prisoner numbers must be steadily cut back to the levels of the early 90s, a reduction of some 40,000 inmates. "We believe that an escalating prison population has gone well beyond what is safe or sustainable," they wrote in a letter to the Times. There are no signs, however, that Liz Truss, the justice secretary, has any intention of arbitrarily cutting the jail population. Sentencing changes and early release schemes are simply not on her agenda. Justice Secretary Liz Truss wants to cut prisoner numbers by reducing reoffending Michael Spurr, the chief executive of NOMS, has even gone as far as to say that he cannot see an end to prison overcrowding until at least after the next parliament - 2025, at the earliest. Instead, Ms Truss believes that any drop in prisoner numbers should come through a reduction in reoffending - fewer people going through the revolving door of the criminal justice system. She is hoping that extra staff and security improvements will steady the ship while longer-term changes to the management of prisons take effect. Governors will have greater autonomy, there will be closer monitoring of prison performance and education and investment in modern facilities. HMP Berwyn in north Wales will be the UK's biggest prison A new jail, HMP Berwyn, opens in north Wales next month. It has cost £250m to build and will house more than 2,000 male prisoners - making it the biggest prison in the UK. The extra places will help relieve some of the pressure on a system that still relies heavily on jails constructed in the Victorian era. But more important, Berwyn sends a clear message that in spite of all the recent trouble, tensions and turmoil within prison walls, the government remains committed to the concept of imprisonment itself. UPDATE: The graphs in this piece were updated on 2 August to reflect new figures published • None How dangerous are our prisons?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38596034

Jose Mourinho: Man Utd boss says 'it was 1-1' at Hull, despite 2-1 scoreline - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

A tetchy Jose Mourinho says his Manchester United side "didn't lose" despite a 2-1 defeat at Hull in their EFL Cup semi-final second leg.

Last updated on .From the section Football Manager Jose Mourinho said his Manchester United side "didn't lose" despite being beaten 2-1 by Hull in their EFL Cup semi-final second leg. Having won the first leg 2-0, United joined Southampton in the final - to be played at Wembley on 26 February - with a 3-2 aggregate success. But Mourinho refused to acknowledge Hull had scored a penalty during the second leg at the KCOM Stadium. "I only saw two goals," said the Portuguese. "It was 1-1." Hull went in front on the night through a penalty from Tom Huddlestone. Replays showed two tussles in the area as the visitors defended a corner - Phil Jones tangling with Oumar Niasse, and Marcos Rojo briefly holding the shirt of Harry Maguire - and referee Jon Moss awarded the spot-kick. United levelled through Paul Pogba, only for Niasse to give Hull victory. Mourinho said: "I saw the Pogba goal and their goal was a fantastic goal - great action, great cross and the guy coming in at the far post. 1-1." The defeat ended United's 17-match unbeaten run, and Mourinho's frustration was clear as he walked out of a television interview after about 30 seconds. "I behaved on the bench, no sending-off, no punishment so no more words," Mourinho, on his 54th birthday, told Sky Sports. "To speak about the performance, I have to speak about things I don't want to speak about because the game was totally under control - the game was dead. "The game was totally under control and something happened to open the game." Mourinho said he did not believe United would be favourites when they meet Southampton next month. "It doesn't matter where we play," said Mourinho. "I don't think we are favourites against nobody." Despite his frustration, Mourinho now has the chance to win the League Cup for a fourth time, equalling the record held by former United boss Sir Alex Ferguson and ex-Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough. Southampton will be attempting to win just the second major trophy in their history, after beating Liverpool 2-0 on aggregate in the other semi-final. Mourinho, who won the trophy in all three of his finals as Chelsea manager, added: "Wembley is Wembley. It is for professionals with passion for football. "It has a special meaning, a special feeling. Of course I am happy to be there. Of course I am happy to bring many thousands of our fans because I think also for them it is something they will always remember." 'A close shave' - what the papers say

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38764869

Robert Snodgrass: West Ham sign Hull City midfielder for £10.2m - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

West Ham complete the signing of Hull City midfielder Robert Snodgrass for a fee of £10.2m on a three-and-a-half-year deal.

Last updated on .From the section Football West Ham have completed the signing of Hull City midfielder Robert Snodgrass for a fee of £10.2m. The Scotland player, 29, has signed a three-and-a-half-year deal at London Stadium. "I'm delighted, this is a massive club with great tradition," said Snodgrass, who scored seven times in 20 Premier League games for Hull this season. He becomes West Ham's second signing this month after the arrival of defender Jose Fonte from Southampton. The Hammers saw off competition from Burnley and Middlesbrough to sign Snodgrass, and boss Slaven Bilic could hand him his debut in the home league match with Manchester City on Wednesday. "The owners and the manager are trying to build something here and I just can't wait to get started," added Snodgrass, who joined Hull from Norwich in 2014 for a fee in excess of £6m. "I feel this is a club with real ambition, with the new stadium, great players and a manager of his calibre at Premier League level. "The club has had a few good weeks with results and if I can add to that, great. I'm just looking forward to meeting my new team-mates and getting started." Snodgrass made just three outings after joining Hull before he suffered a career-threatening knee injury at QPR on the opening day of the 2014-15 season that kept him out of action for 16 months. He recovered to play a significant role in the Tigers' promotion from the Championship last season before starting this season in superb form, hitting the winner in the opening-day victory over champions Leicester and rescuing a point with a last-minute free-kick at Burnley. Hull then triggered a one-year contract extension to tie him to the club until the end of the 2017-18 season. He is the second high-profile exit from the KCOM Stadium in January following Jake Livermore's £10m move to West Brom. Hull boss Marco Silva had been reluctant to part with Snodgrass, with the club 19th in the Premier League, but has promised to bring in three or four more players before Tuesday's transfer deadline.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38775507

Growing up a prisoner in a cult - BBC News

2017-01-27

At exactly 11:15, the front door of a council flat in Brixton opened. Two women stepped out on to a quiet residential street. The younger woman, Rosie, had an awkward gait. Her movement was stiff and clunky, as though she simply wasn't used to walking any distance. In fact, she had spent the past 30 years - her whole life - in captivity. Now she was ill and needed urgent medical attention. Born into a “collective”, she was not allowed to see a doctor, had never been allowed outside alone and had been told that if she tried to leave she would spontaneously combust and die. Worried she might not survive her illness, on 25 October 2013, Rosie and another woman, Josie, sneaked out. Waiting for them just round the corner were members of an organisation that helps people who have been abused, trafficked or enslaved. Along with the police, they had helped organise the escape. It soon became apparent that Rosie and 57-year-old Josie weren't the only women who lived in the flat, and when police officers returned they met Aisha - a 69-year-old woman originally from Malaysia. At first she didn't want to leave, but as they talked, she changed her mind. In the weeks that followed, it became clear how extraordinary their life had been. All three women seemed extremely frightened, often referring to an all-powerful force called Jackie, which they believed might seek retribution or cause them terrible harm. They were terrified of electricity, which they called “eeee” and seemed anxious that household appliances might blow up or explode. As they revealed details of their existence and Rosie gradually became more confident, she decided to change her name to Katy, inspired by the lyrics of Katy Perry's song, Roar, which is about a woman overcoming a difficult relationship and finding her voice. Katy's own story, and everything she had managed to overcome, proved far stranger than anyone could have imagined.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-b0af7ef5-1031-4e1f-a3ac-b3c21ef0f932

Trump's voter fraud talk has liberals worried - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Donald Trump's concerns about widespread election fraud could lead to new voting restrictions.

US & Canada

During a television interview on Wednesday, Donald Trump made some of his most detailed allegations about the fraud he says was responsible for Hillary Clinton's popular vote victory in the recently concluded presidential election. He said some Americans are registered and cast ballots in multiple states and that dead people and undocumented migrants are voting in droves. He added, confidently, that none of these illegal votes were for him. "They would all be for the other side," he said, possibly forgetting that one of the few arrests for voting fraud in 2016 was of an Iowa woman who tried to vote for him twice. When pressed for evidence to support his claims, Mr Trump cited a 2012 Pew study. When ABC's David Muir noted that the author of that report had said he found no evidence of fraud, Mr Trump got personal. Donald Trump continues to talk about voter fraud in an election he won "He's grovelling again," he said of the report's author, David Becker. "You know, I always talk about the reporters that grovel when they want to write something that you want to hear but not necessarily millions of people want to hear or have to hear." In fact, while the Pew report did find that many voting rolls contained outdated or inaccurate information, Becker said at the time and has since repeated that there was no evidence that these problems - often caused by voters moving or individuals dying without election registrars receiving updates - constituted evidence of fraud. Mr Trump's comments have been accompanied by a raft of tweets over the course of the week. In one instance, he cited a conservative activist from Alabama, Gregg Phillips, who created a smart phone app that crowd-sources claims of voter fraud. (It is currently unavailable on the Apple app store and has fewer than 5,000 downloads on Google Play). "Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand," Mr M . "Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!" Although Phillips has made these assertions since election day, he has yet to provide information on how he arrived at this number. Scientific studies conducted over the past decade have found scant evidence of any voter fraud. Both Mr Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence have promised that the administration will conduct a "major investigation" into voter fraud. A formal executive action ordering such a inquiry could be issued in the coming days. "Depending on the results, we will strengthen up voting procedures," Mr Trump tweeted. That last line is likely painfully familiar to liberals. Although Mr Trump's comments were over the top and easily debunked, they mirror more nuanced justifications Republican politicians have offered at the state level to justify tightening voter registration procedures, imposing strict polling place identification rules and curtailing early voting opportunities. They are part and parcel, critics say, of a comprehensive plan to limit turnout of Democratic-leaning voting groups that are less likely to have necessary identification, less able to take time off to vote on election day and less comfortable navigating through voter registration procedures. "Donald Trump is lying to the American people about undocumented people voting because he wants to set the stage for more voter suppression," Congressman Keith Ellison, a candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee, told Washington's The Hill newspaper. "Expect Trump and his henchmen to push restrictive photo ID, limit early voting and make it harder to register." A national version of the state-level laws in places like Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina - which Democrats attribute to causing lower turnout levels for Mrs Clinton in those key swing states - would be a worst-case scenario for liberals. But it's just part of the current battle over voting procedures. Chief Justice John Roberts penned a Supreme Court opinion that opened the door to new voting regulations The courts have been the site of some of the fiercest fights over voting rights in the past decade. There are multiple ongoing cases dealing with voter identification measures being considered by lower-level courts, including a challenge to a Texas law that had been supported by the Obama administration but could now be opposed by Trump lawyers. Perhaps the most significant change in US voting law came from the Supreme Court in 2013, when it struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act that required the federal government to pre-authorise any changes in balloting procedures in certain states and jurisdictions, many in the South, that had a history of voting discrimination. That decision made it significantly easier for previously covered areas to implement the aforementioned voting restrictions - identification laws and early voting curtailment, in addition to the closing or relocation of polling stations. Conservatives have responded that such measures are necessary to ensure voting security - and, in any event, things like early voting are a recent development that have no constitutional protections. They argue that photo identification, required to board a plane or cash a cheque, are an everyday fact of life that present no significant burden to voters. Make no mistake, however, this fight over voter fraud is - at its heart - a nakedly partisan battle. As Republican legislators North Carolina made clear when they studied voting demographics and photo ID possession while crafting their state's election laws, it's a way to cut into their opposition's base. Civil rights activists in North Carolina protest to defend their voting rights "Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, they would have kept early voting right where it was," long-time North Carolina Republican strategist Carter Wrenn told the Washington Post. "It wasn't about discriminating against African Americans. They just ended up in the middle of it because they vote Democrat." Democrats, one the other hand, tend to exaggerate the impact of identification laws and dismiss studies that show little effect on turnout. "Despite Republican legislators' best attempts to suppress minority voters, study after study has found that voter ID laws have little to no effect on voter turnout," writes Vox's German Lopez. "At worst, the effect is small - barely detectable even in studies that employ multiple controls. At best, there's no effect at all or even an increase." Other voting changes, like polling place consolidation and early voting curtailment, could have a more pronounced impact, however - and while it's unlikely any move in that regard would come at the national level, Mr Trump's rhetoric could provide cover for further state efforts. In particular, the Trump administration may be taking particular aim at Democratic states. During a recent briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer said that the coming voting fraud investigation could take a closer look at California and New York - two traditionally Democratic states that overwhelmingly backed Mrs Clinton last year. ' Add that to the already released plans to put the squeeze on cities - primarily in liberal states - that offer "sanctuary" to undocumented workers, and it seems increasingly like the Trump administration has political payback on its mind.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38764653

Quiz of the week's news - BBC News

2017-01-27

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A weekly quiz of the news, 7 days 7 questions.

Magazine

It's the weekly news quiz - have you been paying attention to what's been going on in the world over the past seven days? If you missed last week's 7 days quiz, try it here Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38760062

Derby County 2-2 Leicester City - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Wes Morgan salvages an FA Cup replay for Leicester in a game with Derby which will be remembered for Darren Bent's own goal.

Last updated on .From the section Football Wes Morgan salvaged a replay for Leicester City in an FA Cup fourth-round tie with Derby County which will be remembered for a remarkable Darren Bent own goal. Rams striker Bent put the Premier League champions ahead when he scuffed a clearance into his own net while under no pressure trying to clear a corner. However, the former England forward made up for that when he headed Will Hughes' cross into the right net to level the scores. Craig Bryson put Championship side Derby ahead when he picked the ball up 25 yards out, surged past three Foxes defenders and fired the ball across Kasper Schmeichel with a slight deflection off Robert Huth. Leicester, who hit the post through Demarai Gray, looked as if they were heading out of the cup before captain Morgan headed home Gray's corner. Derby had a late penalty appeal turned down when Abdoul Camara's shot hit Huth's hand. The replay at the King Power Stadium will be played on Wednesday, 8 February (19:45 GMT). Bent has made a career from close-range tap-ins, but he has never 'scored' one like his opener before. Marc Albrighton's corner was headed towards goal by Foxes defender Huth. The ball fell to Chris Baird, who tried to control the ball on his thigh but it went away from him back towards team-mate Bent. The former Sunderland striker, standing just in front of the line, had plenty of time to control the ball or smash it to safety. But as he swung his foot to clear, the ball hit the side of his boot and flew behind him into the back of the net. Match of the Day summariser Graeme Le Saux called it "just the most bizarre goal". The former England defender added: "It is just terrible. From an experienced player, he's got time, he sees the ball. How he fails to get decent contact on it, baffling. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. He almost kicks it backwards into the net." BBC Radio 5 live's Andy Townsend said: "He could have taken a touch before clearing. He didn't need to slash at it." "I don't know what happened," said Bent after the game. "I lost concentration and tried to hit the ball as hard as I could and it flew into the net. It wasn't the greatest start. Fair play to us to stick at it." Bent made amends with a goal at the right end when Schmeichel punched a corner to Hughes, whose cross was met by Bent with a glancing header to turn the ball past the keeper into the corner of the net. "It was playing on my mind, I thought 'what have I done here'? But I scored at the other end," he added. The 32-year-old striker has now scored in 10 of his past 11 FA Cup games, including all five for Derby. The Foxes rescue a replay they scarcely want Leicester named a strong team, with nine of their regular starting 11 from last season's title-winning team starting - and a 10th, Riyad Mahrez, coming on midway through the second half. But as has been the case for most of their title defence so far - they sit five points above the relegation zone - they looked nothing like the 2015-16 legends. However, they did have enough chances to score before eventually equalising. Half-time substitute Gray should have levelled when Albrighton's cross was punched away by Scott Carson to the winger, who fired the rebound straight at the former England keeper. And then moments later, he went even closer when his low shot from the edge of the box hit the post. The ball fell to Shinji Okazaki, whose first effort was blocked and his second - like his team-mate had done a minute before - went straight at Carson, who was on the ground. And, as if to sum up the difference between this season and last, Jamie Vardy - scorer of 24 goals last term and six this time around - headed straight at Carson from about six yards out. But Morgan kept them in the cup with his late intervention, albeit in a replay neither side really wanted. While Derby are challenging for the play-offs, Leicester now have to juggle a Premier League relegation battle, a campaign in the Champions League knockout stages and an FA Cup replay. Derby boss Steve McClaren joked after the game that he would have brought on more strikers at the end to force a winner for either side if he could. Man of the match - Will Hughes (Derby County) Manager reaction - 'We have to concentrate' Derby manager Steve McClaren: "We did everything we could, we came across a team who were at it tonight. Our character was fantastic, we dug in in the second half and Scott Carson made some saves when we needed him to. "The penalty incident? It's hit his hand and it's on target. I've seen them given but we didn't get the luck. We fought to the end, neither of us wanted a draw but what a cup tie. It was a great game, great atmosphere and I am proud of the players." Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri: "It was a tough match. We started well and scored but slowly we lost our calm. They played well and scored twice. In the second half we again started well and created two or three chances. It was tough to score but thankfully Morgan got one for us. "We have to concentrate. Too many times we concede. We can only work and be more focused." The stats you need to know • None Derby are unbeaten at Pride Park in all competitions since Steve McClaren took charge in October 2016 (W7 D3). • None Bent became the first player to score at both ends in an FA Cup game since Aidan Hawtin (Brackley v Newport) in November 2015. • None Tom Ince (nine) and Darren Bent (six) have scored 15 of Derby's past 22 goals. • None Wes Morgan scored his first goal in 28 appearances in all competitions. • None Leicester are unbeaten in all of their past eight FA Cup games against teams from a lower division (W6 D2). Both sides have away trips on Tuesday. Derby, outside the Championship play-offs by two points, visit mid-table Ipswich Town, with Leicester going to Burnley in the Premier League (both 19:45 GMT kick-offs). • None Attempt saved. Jacob Butterfield (Derby County) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Chris Baird. • None Attempt saved. Daniel Drinkwater (Leicester City) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Riyad Mahrez. • None Attempt blocked. Abdoul Camara (Derby County) left footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Chris Baird. • None Delay over. They are ready to continue. • None Goal! Derby County 2, Leicester City 2. Wes Morgan (Leicester City) header from the centre of the box to the high centre of the goal. Assisted by Demarai Gray with a cross following a corner. • None Delay over. They are ready to continue. • None Delay in match Tom Ince (Derby County) because of an injury. • None Attempt missed. Ahmed Musa (Leicester City) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right. Assisted by Andy King. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38686583

Why this Chinese New Year will be a digital money fest - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Chinese New Year will see billions of cash-filled "red envelopes" sent digitally to friends and family.

Business

Are the traditional red envelope gifts at Chinese New Year being replaced by digital versions? Over this weekend's Chinese New Year celebrations, millions of people will give each other cash-filled red envelopes, called hongbao in Mandarin. But this year, a record number of these red envelopes will be digital and sent online over social messaging services such as Tencent's WeChat, usually via smartphone. Over the six-day Chinese Spring Festival period last year, 516 million people sent and received 32 billion digital red envelopes - 10 times the number as over the same period in 2015. And this year forecasters are expecting up to 100 billion digital envelopes to be sent and received by Chinese well-wishers around the world. It's a vivid illustration of how the world of money is changing, given that we can now send money to each other as easily as sending an email or text. Global research firm Ovum thinks the value of these mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) payments could top $270bn (£214bn) worldwide in 2019. 2017 is the Chinese Year of the Rooster So why is sending money this way proving so popular, particularly among younger people? "Social messaging has become the defining app of the smartphone era," says Jeremy Allaire, chief executive of P2P payments app, Circle Pay. "Social payments has been a natural extension of this phenomenon - it's going to be the locus of most communications activity." Paying somebody by text is quick and easy, removing the hassle of having to go out to a cash machine and hand over money in person. All you usually need is their mobile phone number or email address. Even if they haven't yet downloaded the app they receive a message telling them money is waiting for them once they've registered. Whether you're splitting a dinner bill between friends, contributing to shared household costs, or simply sending a gift, payment apps offer convenience within an encrypted, secure environment. And the fact that these payment apps can sit within messaging apps means you can settle bills without even interrupting your group chat. Circle Pay's Jeremy Allaire thinks social messaging and payments are the future The Chinese social media platforms operated by the tech giants Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu have spearheaded the social payments explosion in Asia. While in the US, PayPal-owned Venmo has been growing at a phenomenal pace and looks set to reach about $20bn in annual transaction volume this year. In Africa, M-pesa has blazed a trail and is also now available in India. Facebook Messenger, which now claims to have more than one billion users globally, has been offering in-app payments since 2015 in the US, but is now poised to expand the service throughout Europe after acquiring the relevant "e-money" banking licenses. "There's an opportunity to create the WhatsApp of payments and to make this work globally," says Mr Allaire, whose payment service is also available within the Apple iMessage app. He envisages a world in which there are no barriers to sending money anywhere. Young people in particular are happy to use their phones as digital wallets "I can send and receive content instantly for free, by text, email and video - so why can't I do the same with money? It's just data and software," he says. Circle's service is built on crypto currency Bitcoin's blockchain system, which enables transactions to be verified and completed quickly and securely, even across borders. And it is this crossborder facility that offers great potential, Mr Allaire believes, largely because banks tend to charge far more than P2P platforms. "I can beam money to my kids wherever they happen to be in the world at a cost of 0.3%, whereas banks will typically charge 3%," he says. But smartphones have been around for nearly a decade, so what has changed to explain this sudden surge in the popularity of social payments? "The regulatory environment improved," says James Morton, head of UK and Netherlands for Mangopay, a P2P payments platform powering several other apps, such as Pumpkin. Are we entering the era of low-cost borderless money transfers? "To hold client money you have to be regulated, which was a big hurdle to overcome. And the payments infrastructure was quite archaic, working only from bank to bank with a complex structure of issuers, acquirers and processors - it was a very manual process." Allowing firms to become "e-money issuers" opened the door to tech companies to automate a lot of these background processes, including the authentication, data protection and money laundering requirements imposed by regulators. An international bank-to-bank money transfer can still take days to clear - despite efforts to introduce faster payments - whereas P2P payments can be completed in seconds. And now that younger generations trust the security of their apps and phones - verifying transactions by fingerprint or even facial recognition - P2P service providers are interposing themselves between banks and acting as money repositories themselves. For example, Venmo enables its 12 million users to load their Venmo accounts with money and use this fund to pay other people and make in-app purchases. A Chinese student returning home for the Spring Festival pays her fare using the Alipay app Chinese networks Alipay and WeChat allow users to pay utility bills from their accounts. They can also transfer money back to their main bank account within a business day. It's the kind of service PayPal already offers for its customers through its PayPal.me service. "If you look at how the gig and sharing economy is growing, I think payments infrastructure will remove the necessity for having your bank debit account for anything other than paying bills," says Mr Morton. New P2P payment providers have sprung up all over the place: Square Cash, FaceCash Payfriendz, TransferWise, the relaunched Google Wallet, People Pay, Popmoney, Snapcash, Dwolla - the list goes on. Not that the big banks are twiddling their thumbs while tech upstarts steal their business. In the US, a company called Early Warning, which is owned by big names such as Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, has set up a P2P payments business called ClearXchange with access to more than 100 million customers. All you need to send money to someone else's bank account for free is their email address or mobile phone number, much like the UK's PayM system. Card issuers Visa and Mastercard have joined up with ClearXchange to allow people to make P2P payments via their MasterCard Send and Visa Direct platforms. These are exciting times in the world of P2P payments - more competition, more convenience, lower costs. But in the Chinese Year of the Rooster, it remains to be seen whether a digital red envelope will bring as much luck and good fortune as the traditional paper one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38746298

Special relationship gets a new lease on life - BBC News

2017-01-27

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UK Prime Minister Theresa May visits US President Donald Trump, building a new friendship between the US and the UK.

US & Canada

President Trump invited Prime Minister Theresa May to the White House and has been trying to strengthen US-UK relations. Not everybody is happy about that. President Trump loves the UK - and seems pleased with the way that Britons voted to leave the European Union (EU). As the Atlantic Council's Reginald Dale said, describing Trump's views: "He's very pro-British, and he doesn't like the EU." For critics of the administration, Trump's invitation to May - she's the first foreign leader to meet with the new president - and his efforts to build a closer relationship with the UK are a troubling development. These critics see Brexit, a term that's used to describe a country's process of leaving the European Union, as a disaster. The detractors worry that Trump will try to leverage his friendship with May and her fellow Britons as a way to express support for Brexit - and in this way will encourage more countries to leave the European Union. On Friday afternoon, Trump and May stood together in the White House's East Room, an open space with an oak floor. The room was decorated with marble-topped fireplaces, white candles and heavy, gold curtains (a George Washington portrait, one that was first hung on a wall in the room in 1800, was not in its usual spot). The two leaders were in a place that was steeped in tradition - as is the so-called special relationship, a friendship between the US and the UK that dates back generations. For Trump and May, though, it's all new. They'd met only the day before in Philadelphia, where they were both attending a US congressional retreat. When White House officials first sent out a schedule for the president's meeting with May, they spelled her name wrong, inadvertently dropping the "h" in Theresa. Still, they had good intentions - and big plans. At the White House, the two leaders discussed Russia, counterterrorism and defence issues. They're open to the possibility of a trade deal between the US and the UK. It could only be signed once the UK leaves the European Union, a process that will take years. But on Friday they seemed eager to get started. "Opposites attract," May has told reporters. Understated and reserved, she has a different style than Trump. Still, she said recently that she's "not afraid to speak frankly to a president of the United States". On Friday - at least in the East Room - they got along well. It was an auspicious beginning for a "most special relationship", as he put it. They stood at identical lecterns - six to eight feet apart. She wore a paisley scarf, while he had on a bright-red, wide tie. For most of the 18-minute press conference, they smiled at each other. At one point she congratulated him on his "stunning" victory. He looked at people in the audience, a group made up of presidential aides and reporters, as if he wanted to make sure that they'd heard what she said. "We're going to have a fantastic relationship," he told them. A moment later he spoke exuberantly about Brexit. Then the mood changed, slightly. Up until that point, she'd been all smiles. As he spoke about Brexit, though, she looked sombre. She glanced at the people in the audience, as if she were trying to gauge their reaction to his remarks. Afterwards she spoke briefly about the way that they both value "ordinary working people". Then he picked up his notes, which had been typed out on sheets of paper, and put them into the pocket in his jacket. They left the room together in a show of solidarity. Their alliance rests on a solid foundation. In a speech on Thursday, May spoke about the friendship between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, two icons for conservatives in the US. Conservatives at think-tanks in Washington have been quick to bring up this friendship when talking about the relationship between the current prime minister and the president. "Instinctively, Trump - you know - really likes Britain," said Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation. So do Trump's aides. When Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, uses the phrase, "special relationship", he's not being snarky. "I think we've always had that special relationship," he told a reporter at a White House briefing on 23 January. "But we can always be closer." Things were different with the Obama White House officials. They liked the Britons, too, but they gently mocked the phrase "special relationship". This reflected their views about foreign policy in Europe. As Charles Kupchan, who was a senior adviser in the Obama White House, told me the relationship between the US and the UK was important. But the president was focused on Berlin, not London. "Diplomacy," Kupchan said, "tilted towards the Continent". This became more pronounced after UK voters expressed their desire to leave the European Union. Obama focused on the special relationship, but not to the exclusion of Europe Trump administration officials supported the decision of UK voters to leave the European Union, and in the aftermath they've been hoping for a deeper friendship between Americans and Britons and their leaders. The perception of a newfound closeness of the two leaders has rattled some Europeans. Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgium prime minister, was visiting Washington this week to promote his book, Europe's Last Chance: Why the European States Must Form a More Perfect Union. While speaking with reporters on Thursday, he described ways that Trump has tried to undermine the European alliance. Verhofstadt said he believes that Trump is "hoping" more countries will leave - and "disintegrate the European Union". Gardiner knows that not everyone is happy about the renewed relationship between the US and the UK or about the developments in Europe. But he wishes they'd embrace the new order. "Brexit is about sovereignty, self determination and freedom," Gardiner told me. "These are all great things." Anyway there's not much the detractors can do about it, he said, adding: "The winds of change are blowing through Europe." • None Trump and May - Do opposites attract?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38773198

'Pink girly toys don't deter women from engineering' - BBC News

2017-01-27

Meet the Sellafield engineer who says playing with pink toys will not deter girls from science careers.

Parents were warned against buying pink, gender-stereotyped Christmas presents for girls by the Institution of Engineering and Technology last month. It claimed such toys could deter girls from getting into science-based careers. But a number of women who work in that field contacted the BBC's Family and Education News Facebook Page to say they disagree. We went to meet Jade Leonard, a 30-year-old welding engineer for Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant. She told us: "Growing up I adored my Barbies, my dolls, dressing up, make up and all things girly. None of this influenced my decision to get a maths degree or my BEng. "Love, encouragement and reassurance of what I was good at from my parents, sister and school teachers did. This gave me the confidence to go for what I wanted to do, whether I liked the colour pink or not!" Join the conversation - find us on Facebook

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38760602

Federer v Nadal's 2008 Wimbledon final: 8 magical moments - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Relive some memorable points from Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal's famous 2008 Wimbledon final.

Relive some memorable points from Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal's famous 2008 Wimbledon final, regarded as one of the greatest tennis matches in history. READ MORE: Nadal wins epic to set up Federer final COVERAGE: Listen to live coverage of Sunday's Australian Open men's final from 08:30 GMT on BBC Radio 5 live/online, with highlights at 13:00 on BBC Two/online. Available to UK users only.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38772977

Stillbirth campaign: 'I want recognition baby existed' - BBC News

2017-01-27

Sarah Henderson's daughter was stillborn at 23 weeks and 4 days, but did not qualify for a birth certificate.

Sarah Henderson's daughter was stillborn at 23 weeks and 4 days, but did not qualify for a birth certificate. She has launched a petition to allow certificates for babies stillborn before 24 weeks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38767821

Obituary: Tam Dalyell - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Veteran Labour MP who first articulated the West Lothian Question.

UK Politics

Tam Dalyell was a political contradiction, an aristocratic Old Etonian who became a socialist politician. It was he who articulated what became known as the West Lothian Question, which festered at the heart of Scotland's relationship with Westminster. A former Conservative activist, he became a thorn in the side of the Thatcher government. But he won admiration from across the political spectrum as an honourable and principled member of parliament. Thomas Dalyell Loch was born in Edinburgh on 9 August 1932. His father Gordon Loch, a civil servant, adopted his wife Nora's maiden name in 1938. It was through his mother that Dalyell later inherited the Dalyell baronetcy, although he never used the title. The Suez crisis made him an opponent of British military intervention He went to Eton before doing his National Service as a trooper with the Royal Scots Greys, having failed his officer training. After he was demobbed, he went to Cambridge where he was chairman of the University Conservative Association. It was while working as a teacher that he experienced a political conversion, brought about by the Suez Crisis in 1956. The debacle, in which Britain, together with Israel and France, unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of the Suez Canal, made a deep impression on him Not only did he join the Labour Party, but the aborted invasion made him a committed opponent of future British military involvement overseas. In 1962, he won the seat of West Lothian in a by-election, fighting off a strong challenge from a future SNP leader, William Wolfe. Less than two years after he entered parliament, Dalyell was appointed parliamentary private secretary to Dick Crossman, then Minister for Local Government. Dalyell (r) arrived at Westminster in 1962 as the newly elected member for West Lothian The position of PPS was seen as the first step to a ministerial career, but Dalyell's independent stance on issues irritated the party establishment. That irritation turned to anger in 1967 when he was heavily censured for leaking minutes of a select committee meeting about the Porton Down biological and chemical warfare establishment to the Observer newspaper. Dalyell claimed he thought the minutes were in the public domain but he did not escape a public dressing-down by the Speaker. In a parliamentary debate on devolution in 1977, Dalyell first proposed what would become known as the West Lothian Question. A vocal opponent of Scottish devolution, Dalyell contrasted the town of Blackburn in his own constituency, and Blackburn in Lancashire. "For how long," he asked, "will English constituencies and English Honourable Members tolerate at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important and often decisive effect on English politics?" It was Enoch Powell who coined the term West Lothian Question, in his response to Dalyell's speech. He fought to uncover the truth about the Lockerbie bombing When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 she found Dalyell a persistent critic of her policies. He supported the Troops Out movement in Northern Ireland and attacked the prime minister's proposed boycott of the Moscow Olympics. But it was the Falklands War that raised his public profile. He described the conflict as "like two bald men fighting over a comb," quoting the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. He strongly condemned the decision to sink the Argentine cruiser, General Belgrano, insisting the vessel had been steering away from the conflict when torpedoed by a British submarine. His political opponents called him Daft Tam, ignoring the methodical and painstaking preparation he put into sourcing the facts to back up his arguments. He was no slave to parliamentary protocol and was suspended from the House on numerous occasions, twice for calling Mrs Thatcher "a liar" over the Falklands campaign. "She is a bounder, a liar, a deceiver, a cheat, a crook and a disgrace to the House of Commons," was one notable contribution during a 1987 debate. However, some felt that his intemperate language did nothing to win him support. Former Conservative MP and later political commentator, Matthew Parris said that "this element of personal vendetta seriously weakens his case". Dalyell was persistent in trying to uncover the truth about the Lockerbie bombing and consistently said he did not believe Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi was responsible for the outrage. He was, predictably, bitterly opposed to the Gulf War, "Kuwait is the 19th bloody state of Iraq," and went to Baghdad in 1994 to negotiate with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. The election of a Labour government under Tony Blair in 1997 failed to deter Dalyell from speaking his mind. In 1999, he decided that he would no longer vote at Westminster on purely English issues, defying a number of three-line whips. He was one of 25 MPs who opposed military action in Kosovo. "I am one of a dwindling number of MPs who have actually worn the Queen's uniform," he said. He continued to live in the ancestral home "Perhaps we are a bit less relaxed about unleashing war than those who have never been in a military situation." He had little time for the New Labour project, describing Tony Blair as the worst of the eight prime ministers who had held power while he was a parliamentarian. In 2001, he became Father of the House, the longest continuous serving MP, using his position to attack the US led invasion of Iraq. "These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world," he said. "I am appalled that a British Labour prime minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing." Dalyell stood down from the House of Commons in 2005, after serving 43 years as an MP, first for West Lothian, then, from 1983, the redrawn constituency of Linlithgow. Behind Tam Dalyell's somewhat shambling and eccentric demeanour was a keen analytical brain and a passion for meticulous research. Unrepentant about his dogged approach, he claimed that "you must not be afraid to be thought a bore". He was that rare thing among politicians, a man who stuck to his principles, regardless of how unpopular it made him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29367988

Ant & Dec: The secret of their success - BBC News

2017-01-27

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What's the secret behind the unstoppable rise of these side-splitting sidekicks?

Entertainment & Arts

The pair were honoured for services to broadcasting and entertainment The nation's favourite TV duo Ant and Dec were given the royal seal of approval today when they were awarded OBEs for services to broadcasting and entertainment by the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace. Earlier this week they scooped three prizes at the National Television Awards, including best TV presenter for the 16th year in a row. But why do we love these cheeky chums so much? What's the secret behind the unstoppable rise of these side-splitting sidekicks? The duo's first presenting job was on CBBC's The Ant & Dec show in 1995 TV producer Conor McAnally witnessed the transformation of Ant and Dec from success-hungry teenagers to grown-up lovable comrades. He saw instant potential in the two when they took on their first proper presenting gig on The Ant & Dec Show in 1995 on CBBC. "As a producer, you're looking for that spark in a new presenter," says McAnally. "Someone who can reach through the camera and grab an audience. Presenting skills, technical skills, hitting your marks, all that sort of stuff is less important in the initial stages because all that can be trained. "But with Ant and Dec there was a symbiosis. They were each other's genuine best friend. They each thought the other was the funniest guy in the world. They wanted to hang out all the time, even off camera. You can't fake that. "These guys could dance, they could sing, they could act, and they could talk to the camera like it was their best friend." They got their first break in 1989 on children's drama Byker Grove. Unusually, Dec is on the left in this picture It's Ant and Dec's uncanny knack for talking directly to their audience that lies behind their genius. To many, it feels like watching friends rather than frontmen. Thick Geordie accents have helped to forge this bond with viewers - in a 2010 survey by call centre managers Sitel, Geordie was found to be the UK's friendliest dialect. "They seem so natural and so off the cuff, but most people don't know that is because they work very, very hard," McAnally continues. "Their early training as actors meant they really studied their scripts. "Beyond that, they really go down in to the essence of the show. What's it about? What's their role in it? What are they bringing to the audience? They're both great students of entertainment television." Behind the seemingly effortless on screen camaraderie lies an unparalleled understanding of TV expertise, believes McAnally. "They're both really canny business guys. They understand their value. They understand the business end of television and rights and royalties and the value of the shows they've done. They're sometimes very tough negotiators." Ant and Dec also fronted Pop Idol from 2001-03, which brought back talent shows to prime time TV While Ant and Dec have mastered being front of the camera, they also perfected the art of being behind it. Over the years the pals struck numerous lucrative TV rights deals through their production companies Gallowgate, which they sold in 2012, and Mitre, launched in 2013. As rights holders for many of their productions, in 2015 they pocketed a reported £1m per episode to license Saturday Night Takeaway to US networks. The series bombed across the pond - perhaps because its host Neil Patrick Harris couldn't recreate the Geordie duo's mischievous magic - but it didn't stop them netting a cool £15m by the time the series was axed, contributing to their total net worth of around £62m. Ant & Dec have won the best TV presenter prize at the National Television Awards for 16 consecutive years It's this TV prowess which has prevented Ant and Dec from becoming over saturated, despite having touched almost every audience demographic. Today, their three biggest shows - I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!, Saturday Night Takeaway and Britain's Got Talent - each run for short bursts at a time, with gaps in between long enough to leave audiences wanting more. Perhaps Ant and Dec's biggest appeal is that they seem at home on screen. We've watched them grow up and adapt to the challenges of 21st Century television. "As people they became more and more confident and comfortable with being Ant and Dec," says McAnally. "When I started working with them on The Ant & Dec Show, they had been PJ and Duncan. "It was a transition period when they went from playing characters on television to playing themselves, but they tackled that head on. Each new show brought new challenges and new opportunities to expand what they could do on screen." Not every challenge resulted in new opportunities of course, but the pair have taken each bump on the road to stardom with grace and humility. Most notably, their 2008 attempt to bring gameshow Wanna Bet? to US audiences was branded "unintelligible" by critics. It was cancelled after six episodes due to issues with viewers being unable to understand the duo's Geordie accents as well as the dull format. The pair signed a new three-year deal with ITV in November After The Ant & Dec Show, McAnally went on to produce five more shows with the pair - Ant & Dec Unzipped, Slap Bang, Friends Like These, CD:UK and SMTV. But it wasn't always plain sailing. "There were moments where I wondered whether they would stick together. It happens a lot with duos, because working together over extended periods of time inevitably leads to conflict. "They both had slightly different ambitions, but they both understood that their friendship was bigger than anything, and that working on their own wasn't as fun. It was a case of one plus one makes four, not two." In November, the Geordie duo signed a new deal with ITV rumoured to be worth £40m which will see them stay exclusively with the channel for another three years. So there's no chance of them slipping off our TV screens any time soon. McAnally concludes: "There might be better presenters out there in a technical sense, but they absolutely deserve every single award they get, because no one else has ever gotten in to the hearts of the UK population like Ant and Dec." Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38770335

The deaf Iraqi boy facing deportation from UK - BBC News

2017-01-27

Lawand Hamadamin's family fled Iraq, scared so-called Islamic State would kill him because he's deaf - now they could be deported from the UK.

Lawand Hamadamin's family fled Iraq in 2015 because, they say, so-called Islamic State had threatened to kill disabled children. They came to the UK after a year in a French refugee camp and he's now at a British school, learning sign language But the family are facing deportation to Germany because they entered the UK illegally.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38767822

The 19-year-old Dunkin' Donuts worker behind Ashley Judd's viral #NastyWoman poem - BBC News

2017-01-27

Meet the 19-year-old Dunkin' Donuts worker behind Ashley Judd's viral #NastyWoman poem.

Actress Ashley Judd's performance of the feminist slam poem #NastyWoman was one of the most shared videos of the Women's March in Washington DC. But alongside the praise, many have condemned the poem - particularly the personal attacks it makes against President Trump. Trending spoke to the unlikely author of the poem, 19-year-old Dunkin Donuts worker Nina Mariah Donovan from Tennessee. 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-38738645

Ghent Library moves home via human chain - BBC News

2017-01-27

Volunteers in Ghent, Belgium, have their local library move covered.

Volunteers in Ghent, Belgium, have helped their local library move down the road.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38766326

Australian Open 2017: Rafael Nadal eyes Roger Federer final - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Rafael Nadal takes on Grigor Dimitrov in the Australian Open semi-finals on Friday with the aim of reaching a final against old rival Roger Federer.

Last updated on .From the section Tennis Coverage: 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. Rafael Nadal is hoping to meet old rival Roger Federer in the Australian Open final by beating in-form Grigor Dimitrov in their semi-final on Friday. Spaniard Nadal, 30, has not reached a major final since winning his 14th Grand Slam at the 2014 French Open. Federer, 35, is going for a record 18th major title after an epic semi-final win over fellow Swiss Stan Wawrinka. "I have to play my best because Grigor is playing with high confidence," said ninth seed Nadal. The pair meet at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne about 08:30 GMT on Friday. • None Watch highlights of Thursday's matches on BBC Two from 17:00 GMT • None 'Federer v Nadal final could be most important in Grand Slam history' - Roddick Nadal has been troubled by injuries in recent years, but reached his first Grand Slam semi-final since 2014 with a superb quarter-final victory over Canadian third seed Milos Raonic. If Nadal beats 25-year-old Dimitrov then all four singles finalists will be aged over 30, as 35-year-old Serena Williams meets older sister Venus, 36, in the women's final. Dimitrov, who has never reached a Grand Slam final, is aiming to prevent Federer, Nadal and the Williams sisters contesting the two finals at a major for the first time since 2008 Wimbledon. The Bulgarian 15th seed is playing some of the best tennis of his career having won the Brisbane International earlier this month and then carrying on his form in Melbourne. He beat 11th seed David Goffin of Belgium in straight sets in the quarter-finals to record his 10th successive victory. "I feel like I have all the tools to go further and my job isn't over yet," he said. "I'm looking forward to my match. I think I'm prepared. "I'm ready to go the distance. I don't shy away from that. I'm confident enough to say that as I feel good physically, and overall on the court." If Nadal wins his semi-final, he and Federer would contest their ninth Grand Slam final - and their first since the French Open in 2011, when the Spaniard won in four sets. "Rafa has presented me with the biggest challenge in the game," said Federer, who is seeded 17th after returning from a six-month lay-off to rest his left knee. "I'm his number one fan. His game is tremendous. He's an incredible competitor. "I'm happy we had some epic battles over the years and of course it would be unreal to play here. I think both of us would never have thought we would be here playing in the final." Federer has a perfect record against Dimitrov, winning all five of their previous meetings. "He has got a very complete game. He can mix it up really well. He's very confident and you never want to play confident players, but it's him or Rafa," said Federer, who last won a Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2012. "It's going to be tough either way."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38760568

Artes Mundi: The 40-minute video that won £40,000 - BBC News

2017-01-27

A 40-minute video art installation inspired by migration and religious persecution wins a £40,000 prize.

A video art installation inspired by migration and religious persecution has won a £40,000 prize. London-based film-maker John Akomfrah won the Artes Mundi award for his "substantial body of outstanding work", including his latest video installation - the 40-minute film, Auto Da Fe. Will Gompertz went to meet him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38770326

May meets Trump: Three key things - BBC News

2017-01-27

What should we take from Prime Minister Theresa May's first meeting with President Trump?

What should we take from Prime Minister Theresa May's first meeting with President Donald Trump?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38778452

What would happen if Donald Trump tries to bring back torture? - BBC News

2017-01-27

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BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner asks what would happen if Mr Trump brought back torture.

US & Canada

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Trump has indicated that he is considering a return to the sort of harsh interrogation techniques of "enemy combatants" that have been widely condemned as torture, as well as a return to so-called CIA "black sites". In his first interview since becoming US President, Mr Trump said intelligence officials had told him that "torture absolutely works", but that he would defer to advice from his new CIA director and his secretary of defence. The latter, retired Marine Corps officer Gen James Mattis, says torture does not work. So what are the global implications if the president goes ahead, asks BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner. There is a South African proverb, dating from the apartheid era, that goes like this: "How do you catch an elephant? You catch a mouse and keep beating it up until it admits it's really an elephant." Ridiculous as this may sound, there is an echo of truth here. Torture hurts. That's the whole point of it. So if someone is tortured badly enough they will say anything to make it stop, including making things up that they think their tormentors will want to hear. Prisons in certain Middle Eastern countries, especially Syria, are crammed full of people who are being abused so badly they will eventually sign any "confession" to make the treatment stop. In some countries forced confessions remain to this day the primary tool in the prosecutor's armoury. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 the US intelligence community, having failed to prevent the worst attack on the US since Pearl Harbor, became convinced that a second catastrophic attack was on its way. As President George W Bush's "war on terror" got underway, the normal safeguards of respect for human rights and the rule of law were cast aside in a desperate hunt to find "the ticking bomb". Top al-Qaeda planners like Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh, Abu Zubaydah and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, all caught in Pakistan, were "rendered" (transported) to so-called "black sites" for extreme interrogation. These were secret, unacknowledged prisons, run by the CIA and scattered around the globe in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, Romania and other countries. There they were subjected to repeated waterboarding, which makes the bound and helpless victim feel like they are drowning. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded a staggering number of times, well over 100. And yet years later, when in 2014 the US Senate's Intelligence and Security Select Committee issued its report on the use of torture under the Bush administration it concluded that torture was "not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees". On Thursday, the US House Speaker, Paul Ryan, said torture was not legal and that the committee agreed it was not legal. Senator John McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, also opposes it. "The president can sign whatever executive order he likes," he said, "but the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the USA." There would be strong resistance too from both America's allies and from within the intelligence community itself. There is a general acceptance now, in most of the world, that those practices carried out in the early years after the 9/11 attacks - extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, enhanced interrogation - were not only morally wrong, they were also counter-productive. They very rarely produced useful, actionable intelligence. They traumatised not only the victims, some of whom were completely innocent, but also those who witnessed the shocking dehumanising of an individual. Undoubtedly this has given the green light to some unscrupulous practices by regimes who see America's earlier use of torture as a license to do what they like to their own citizens. Unthinkable as it sounds now, the US even rendered one "high value detainee" to his own country - Syria - for interrogation, knowing that there would be few restraints on his treatment there. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. John McCain said he'd have Donald Trump in court in 'a New York minute' if he reinstated waterboarding There is also the legal aspect. In 2010 David Cameron, who was then UK prime minister, set up a judge-led, independent inquiry into allegations of complicity by MI5 and MI6 officers in torture. Career intelligence officers who had thought they were doing the right thing at the time - such as, hypothetically, being within earshot of the harsh interrogation of a suspect in a Pakistani jail - found themselves being questioned by detectives from the Metropolitan Police. The inquiry was eventually scrapped but it has at least led to a widespread rethink on respect for human rights inside intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Senior intelligence officers who lived through this difficult period are likely to strongly resist turning the clock back and returning to those days. It is also questionable whether the US would find willing partners to host black site prisons amongst those countries only too relieved to have closed that chapter in their national histories.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38763801

Beware hate speech, says Auschwitz Holocaust survivor - BBC News

2017-01-27

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On Holocaust Memorial Day, one concentration camp survivor warns that civilisation is "veneer-thin".

Europe

More than a million people, mostly Jews, were killed at Auschwitz At the age of 13, Susan Pollack - now a retired grandmother living in north London - was taken from her home in rural Hungary, loaded into a cattle truck and transported by rail through German-occupied Poland. She and her family were told they were going to be resettled. The journey took six days and some in the truck died on the way. "There was some straw on the floor," she told me. "It was dark, it was cold, it was so hostile. And hardly any space for sitting down. There was a lot of crying, lots of children. And we were trapped. Doors were shut, we knew this was not going to be any resettlement but we had no imagination of course of what was to come." Susan Pollack survived because she lied about her age There, on the railway platform, Nazi officers separated those chosen to live and work from those sent immediately to die. Susan lied about her age. A prisoner on the platform whispered to her that she should say she was 15. It saved her life, but her mother was sent immediately to the gas chamber. "There were no hugs, no kisses, no embrace. My mum was just pushed away with the other women and children. The dehumanisation began immediately. I didn't cry, it was as though I'd lost all my emotions." The Nazis had abandoned the camp days earlier, leaving much of it intact. More than a million people, mostly Jews - but Poles, Roma and political prisoners as well - had been murdered there. Those railway lines - which can be still seen at Auschwitz-Birkenau today - extended to almost every corner of Europe. The Holocaust was not a solely German enterprise. It required the active collaboration of Norwegian civil servants, French police and Ukrainian paramilitaries. Every occupied country in Europe had its enthusiastic participants. After 1945, a great silence fell across the continent. The Jews who survived found that the world beyond the perimeter wire of the camps did not much want to know their story. These children were photographed by a Red Army soldier on the day the camp was liberated It was only in the 1960s that popular consciousness began to catch up with the crime perpetrated against an entire people. Holocaust denial persists. The internet is full of claims that the destruction of the Jews never happened. "Sometimes they want to call themselves revisionist historians," says Pawel Sawicki, who works at the Auschwitz site, which now attracts two million visitors a year. "But they are not. They hate others. This is anti-Semitism." At the Nuremberg trials after the war, leading Nazis were held accountable for the state-sponsored crimes that had been committed in Germany and German-occupied territories. For the first time, two new terms entered the grim lexicon of wartime atrocity - crimes against humanity and genocide. This is the Nazis' judicial legacy - that from 1945, sovereign states no longer had legal carte blanche to treat their own citizens as they pleased. "That's the amazing, revolutionary, remarkable change that happened in 1945," says Philippe Sands, an international human rights lawyer who has worked extensively on war crimes prosecutions. "Before 1945, if a state wished to kill half its population, or torture or maim or disappear, there was no rule of international law that said you couldn't do that. The change that occurred in 1945 - as we know very sadly - has not prevented horrors from taking place. Hermann Goering was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials in 1946 "But it does mean that when horrors occur, there is now at least an objective standard that says to governments, to individual states, that as a matter of international law: 'you cannot do what you are doing'." Near the blockhouses where Auschwitz prisoners were housed, there is a large open trench about the size and shape of a swimming pool. During the war it was filled with water. Why? It was required by the camp's fire insurance policy. There is something grotesquely chilling about this - that a camp whose purpose was mass extermination would, at the same time, concern itself with sensible precaution and compliance with insurance law. And the company that insured the camp is still trading. There is a warning in this to posterity - to us, here today. As the UK marks Holocaust Memorial Day, Mrs Pollack issues a stark warning about the importance of learning the lessons from history. "We're not talking about barbarians," says Mrs Pollack. "We're not talking about primitive society. "The Germans were well-advanced, educated, progressive. Maybe civilization is just veneer-thin. We all need to be very careful about any hate-propaganda. "This is very important. It starts as a small stream, but then it has the potential to erupt - and when it does, it's too late to stop it." Correction 28 January 2017: This article has been amended to remove a reference to Polish train drivers being among those who collaborated with Germany. They were in fact conscripted back into work by force after the German occupation. • None BBC iWonder: Why did ordinary people commit atrocities in the Holocaust? The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38745115

Tiger Woods struggles as Justin Rose leads in San Diego - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Tiger Woods struggles with a round of 76 at his first full-field event for almost 18 months, as Justin Rose leads the Farmers Insurance Open.

Last updated on .From the section Golf -7 -6 -5 B Fritsch (Can), B Hossler, C Howell III, T Mullinax, G Woodland (all US); -4 J Blixt (Swe), S Cink, B Snedeker, P Rodgers, R Streb, P Perez, B Stuard, B Harman, R Brehm (all US), G DeLaet (Can), W Kim (Kor) Fourteen-time major champion Tiger Woods hit a four-over-par 76 in the opening round of his first full PGA Tour event for almost 18 months. England's Justin Rose leads the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego on seven under after carding a first-round 65. Woods, 41, dropped five shots in four holes on the back nine at Torrey Pines, where he won the 2008 US Open, the most recent of his major titles. It is the American's second tournament since 15 months out with a back injury. The former world number one's competitive return came at the Hero World Challenge in December, when he tied for 15th out of 17 at the invitational event. In his first full-sanctioned PGA Tour event back, Woods again struggled, following up consecutive birdies at 10 and 11 with three straight bogeys and then a double bogey at 15. A further bogey at 17 followed before Woods birdied the last on the South Course, leaving him in a tie for 133rd in a field of 155 competitors and in danger of missing the cut. "I fought my tail off out there, I fought hard. But I didn't really hit it that good," Woods said. "I was in the rough most of the day and it was tough." The competition sees players split the first 36 holes between the North and South Courses at Torrey Pines, before playing the final two rounds on the South Course at the weekend. Playing on the North Course, Rose reached the turned at one under before surging up the leaderboard with a blistering back nine. After a birdie on his 10th hole, the Olympic champion struck two eagles and two birdies in the final five holes, a bogey at the par-three eighth the only blemish. Rose leads by one shot ahead of Canada's Adam Hadwin, who hit a six-under 66 on the South Course. Defending champion Brandt Snedeker of the United States is tied for eighth place on four under.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/38766243

The economy - pain cancelled or delayed? - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Preliminary figures show the economy performed more strongly than expected in 2016, but the chancellor told me there are still uncertainties ahead.

Business

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. EU no longer wants to "chastise" the UK, says Philip Hammond It is the big question swirling around government. After another set of economic figures stronger than expected, is this economic pain cancelled, or simply postponed? On that central issue rests the fate of the government's economic policy. If it is pain cancelled that means better real incomes for voters. It means higher tax receipts for the government, lower levels of borrowing and more leeway to spend money on public services. And, of course, confidence tends to beget confidence. If consumers - the most important drivers of the UK economy - feel the world around them is feeling positive, they tend to spend. For businesses, it is not a lot different. Larry Fink, the head of the world's largest asset managers, BlackRock, made an interesting point at the World Economic Forum at Davos last week. Asked why consumer confidence hadn't collapsed following the referendum - or at least had recovered strongly after some initial uncertainty - Mr Fink answered that for lots of people who voted for Brexit or who voted for Donald Trump, the victories were not a negative event. "They won," he said, simply felt good and kept spending. "Car sales went up." For the UK economy, it is worth considering two points. The Bank of England increased financial support for businesses after the Brexit vote First, the gloomy forecasts before the referendum about the possible effects of a vote to leave the European Union were based on Article 50, the mechanism for leaving the EU, being triggered immediately after the vote as David Cameron promised. That could have led to a chaotic departure from the EU and certainly would have created greater economic dislocation. Second, the Bank of England cut interest rates and increased financial support for businesses and banks, soothing market fears. These two points are not enough to explain all of the resilience in the economy, but they go some of the way. In my interview with the chancellor, he admitted that he was now "more optimistic" about the process of leaving the EU and the single market. He said that European leaders were no longer in chastising mood over Brexit, that had now past. A good deal is on, he said. A weaker pound is set to push up the price of everyday goods But, and of course there has to be a but when considering how an economy will perform - a judgement at its most basic on how a million different decisions by human beings will play out. The rate of inflation is increasing as the value of sterling declines. Jobs are being moved out of the UK and on to the continent in sectors such as banking and finance as businesses prepare for Brexit. The UK has, of course, not actually left the EU yet and at the moment is enjoying the stimulus of being in the EU's huge single market with a considerably weaker currency. That goldilocks situation will not last and the chancellor told me of his concerns about business investment. It was the Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter, who argued that shocks to an economy can boost growth. "Creative destruction" may be a little strong to describe the Brexit vote, but innovation can flow when the demands of uncertainty rise. After Britain fell out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, the precursor of the single currency, many predicted that inflation would rise and economic growth would stutter. In fact, the UK economy bounced back, inflation remained in check and the pound rose - after an initial fall. That is not to say that all "dynamic" shocks have such an effect. The financial crisis of 2008-09 has negatively affected economic growth for far longer than most expected as the financial services sector contracted rapidly, liquidity disappeared and businesses and consumers paid down debt. That is why it is still too early to say definitively whether the robust state of the UK economy today means the forecasts for economic pain made before the Brexit vote can now be safely ignored.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38754634

Wayne Rooney: Man Utd striker eyeing future in management - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney says he would relish the opportunity to manage once he stops playing.

Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney reflects on his record-breaking goals tally for the club and reveals he would relish the opportunity to manage once he stops playing. READ MORE: Ferguson on signing Rooney & why goals record will never be surpassed Watch more on Football Focus, Saturday from 12:00 GMT on BBC One and an extended version before BBC One's live coverage of Manchester United v Wigan, Sunday, 15:35 GMT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38771516

Newspaper headlines: No more wars like Iraq, May tells US - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Theresa May's speech to Republican politicians in the US dominates the front pages, as the PM seeks to renew ties between the two countries.

The Papers

Theresa May's upcoming meeting with Donald Trump features on many of the front pages The Daily Telegraph focuses on Prime Minister Theresa May's promise that there will be - in the words of its headline - "no more wars like Iraq". It says she was cheered by Republican politicians on Thursday night as she made what the paper sees as "the biggest shift in UK foreign policy for more than 20 years". Mrs May, the paper's editorial argues, is "embracing realism" in a change that in many ways mirrors that outlined by Donald Trump. "May buries Blair doctrine in nod to US," is the headline for the Financial Times. It believes she was, in some respects, bowing to the inevitable, but notes what it sees as her "plea to the president" on the duty of both countries to provide world leadership. It says she received rapturous applause after vowing "no more failed foreign wars" and welcomes what it calls "an end to the era of Blair follies". "Let's stand together and halt eclipse of the West" is the headline for the Times, which believes the main message of the prime minister's speech was urging President Trump not to shirk his "obligation" to lead the world. It says she also matched parts of Mr Trump's controversial foreign policy, including admitting it was time to engage Russia in the search for peace in Syria. But, for the i, Mrs May invoked the "spirit of the Cold War", warning the president that the UK and the US needed to engage with the Kremlin from a position of strength. The Sun believes her "radical change of course" was a "direct slap-down" to David Cameron on Libya, as well as to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also much coverage of the prime minister's comment about Mr Trump that "sometimes, opposites attract". For the Times, Mrs May's response was "verging on the coquettish" - acknowledging there are few obvious connections but allowing, it says, for "the possibility of a spark". The Guardian's editorial cautions it would be naive for her to treat the visit as "traditional statecraft" but says it is not impossible she may be able to steer the president towards more balanced approaches - "she must try", it says. The Financial Times believes her upbeat comments did little to conceal the complexity of developing the special relationship when, it says, she disagrees with Mr Trump on many fundamental issues. The Daily Mirror believes her remarks risk enraging millions of women. It says it hopes she can secure the best outcome for Britain, without having to get too close to what it calls "this odious and increasingly offensive leader". But the Sun argues it does not matter what anyone in Britain personally thinks of the new president, even Theresa May; "her sole duty", it says, is "to promote Britain's interests". The Telegraph's cartoonist, Bob, captures "the special relationship", as Mr Trump looks into a mirror. The i newspaper says the prime minister has "a superb chance to recast Britain's relationship with America" and advises that to command Mr Trump's respect she must "show the forceful confidence of a world leader". The Telegraph reports that Mrs May is preparing to abandon plans for a British Bill of Rights after leaving the EU. It quotes government sources as saying plans to scrap the Human Rights Act - already shelved until after Brexit - may now be abandoned entirely, because the sovereignty of British courts will already be significantly strengthened. "Corbyn facing MPs' Brexodus" is the headline for the Daily Mirror, after Tulip Siddiq quit as shadow education minister in response to the Labour leader ordering his MPs to vote to trigger Article 50. It says Mr Corbyn is facing a walkout by his frontbench team, while the Mail reports what it calls a "farcical development" - the party whip, Thangam Debbonaire, apparently telling MPs she will vote against the bill. But, the i says, while the bill has reinforced Labour divisions, several shadow cabinet members known to be worried appear to have fallen in behind Mr Corbyn. The lead for the Daily Express is what its headline describes as a "huge boost" for pensions. It says payouts have surged to their highest level since the financial crisis in 2008, thanks to what the paper calls Britain's Brexit boom. For the Daily Mail, the main story is what it calls the new pain threshold test designed to save the NHS millions: denying patients hip or knee replacements unless their pain is so severe they cannot sleep through the night. It says three health trusts in the Midlands hope to slash operations by a fifth. The Times says "the latest NHS rationing plans" come as the number of such operations is increasing by about 8% a year. The Times reports that visitors to Britain face the prospect of a tourist tax to stay in popular cities, as councils "scramble to raise cash to pay for local services". The paper says London Mayor Sadiq Khan will today back charging visitors a hotel levy in a move that could raise tens of millions of pounds for City Hall, and which, if successful, could be replicated up and down the country. The British film industry is, according to the Guardian's headline, "flying high thanks to Superman and Star Wars". They are among 200 movies that began shooting in the UK last year, 48 of which were funded overseas with a total spend of £1.6bn. The i points out that the three most successful films in 2016 were made here: Rogue One, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Bridget Jones's Baby. And finally, a study about canine musical tastes produces a panoply of puns. "Pooch-ini? Bach?" asks the Mail, "no, your dog would rather listen to reggae." The Telegraph says the research by the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Glasgow University suggests they prefer music "with a little more bite", with soft rock also said to make dogs calmer and more relaxed. The i, which dubs them "Super woofers", says the charity now intends to install sound systems at all its kennels.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-38766393

Texas tornado lifts woman in bath outside - BBC News

2017-01-27

A woman describes her lucky escape after a tornado ripped through 12 homes in Madison County, Texas.

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Labour's Brexit dilemma - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Why is Jeremy Corbyn ordering his MPs to back the Article 50 bill - when many of them oppose Brexit?

UK Politics

Labour's Brexit bind is not hard to grasp. The vast majority of Labour MPs campaigned to keep Britain in the EU. But most now represent constituencies that voted to leave. And as Parliament prepares to vote on triggering divorce talks with Brussels, Labour MPs are being ordered to approve the start of Brexit by a party leader who spent his backbench career ignoring similar demands for discipline. These are agonising days for a parliamentary party struggling to maintain a coherent position on the biggest issue facing British politics for a generation. Let's start with Jeremy Corbyn's decision to impose what, in parliamentary parlance, is called a three-line whip. As far as the political parties in Westminster are concerned, MPs are not sent to Parliament to carefully weigh up each issue and vote according to their own judgement or conscience. No, they are there to vote as their party leadership tells them to. Over the weekend, all MPs will receive a letter from their party's whips office telling them how to vote on various Bills before the Commons next week. Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty sets out how countries can leave the EU. The most important by far will be the Second Reading of the bill to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. It will not be the end of the parliamentary process for the Bill (a Committee stage will follow the week after and the Lords needs to approve it too) but it's a big moment. And in the letter Labour MPs will receive, the name of the bill will be underlined three times. That means they must vote as their party managers instruct - no ifs, no buts. In this case, they must vote to support the government's plan to trigger Article 50 by the end of March. It's an instruction that gives Labour MPs no wiggle-room or freedom to vote according to their conscience. Of course, Labour MPs can choose to ignore the instruction but for backbenchers that would normally mean a big black mark against their name by the party whips and for front benchers such insubordination would mean resignation or the sack. So why has Mr Corbyn decided to issue a three-line whip on Article 50? First, he has made it clear Labour will respect the result of the referendum and not block the start of Brexit in Parliament. Mr Corbyn believes it is imperative his party has a clear position on the issue. For him personally, triggering Article 50 may not cause too much discomfort. He campaigned for Remain but has been an EU sceptic most of his political life. But there are obvious political considerations at play too. Roughly two thirds of parliamentary constituencies represented by Labour MPs voted to leave the EU. UKIP leader Paul Nuttall hopes to gain from Labour's position on Brexit. As the shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said: "You have to remember how this looks to people in post-industrial Britain, former mining areas, the North, the Midlands, south Wales - it would look as if elites were refusing to listen to them". Swathes of Labour's traditional working-class heartlands voted to leave the EU and the leadership believes the party must stand firmly behind their decision. There are imminent electoral tests for Labour too: By-elections in Copeland and Stoke on Trent. Stoke voted to leave the EU by 69.4% and UKIP's leader Paul Nuttall is running in the city he is describing as the "capital of Brexit". If the Labour leadership was to look flaky on the question of triggering Brexit, the party could give up on holding Stoke Central now. And as Labour MPs who represent similar seats look ahead to the next general election they will make the same calculation. Bristol West MP Thangam Debbonaire is expected to defy her own whip. I've spoken to former Labour ministers who passionately believe that leaving the EU will be bad for Britain, but feel they must respect the referendum result. And if they want to keep their seats, they have little choice. However, there is a second category of Labour MPs with a very different perspective. According to BBC research, about 70 Labour MPs represent constituencies that voted to remain in the EU. Just four of those MPs campaigned to leave (including Kate Hoey in Vauxhall and Gisela Stuart in Birmingham Edgbaston) which means dozens of Labour MPs who wanted to keep Britain in the EU represent seats that voted the same way. And many of them look set to defy Jeremy Corbyn's orders on Article 50. Even two Labour whips - Jeff Smith and Thangam Debbonaire - have said they will refuse to vote in favour of the Article 50 Bill, in a bizarre show of parliamentary self-flagellation. It seems likely a number of front bench and even shadow cabinet Labour MPs will do the same. The question is, whether Mr Corbyn sacks them or allows some tacit elasticity. As one Labour MP said to me this week, party discipline on the issue is rapidly breaking down and MPs were going "feral". Mr Corbyn rebelled against the Labour whip 428 times during Labour's years in power and it's clear many of his MPs aren't cowed by calls for party discipline now. Remember too, polls conducted before the referendum showed a large majority of Labour Party members were strongly in favour of remaining in the EU. They will be making their views felt at constituency meetings. In the end, the government will get its Article 50 Bill through Parliament with ease. Even if dozens of Labour MPs join other opposition parties and vote against the bill or abstain, the government seems certain to secure a hefty majority. But the choice being weighed up by Labour MPs goes to the heart of what Members of Parliament are for. In this case, is it to endorse the decision of a national referendum? Is it to reflect the wishes of their constituents? Is it support the position of their party in Parliament? Or is to judge, individually, what they think is in the best interests of the country? Perhaps not since the Iraq vote in 2003 have Labour MPs faced such a testing decision.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38769838

FA Cup: Derby County 2-2 Leicester City highlights - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

Wes Morgan salvages a replay for Leicester City in an FA Cup fourth-round tie with Derby County, which will be remembered for a remarkable Darren Bent own goal.

Wes Morgan salvages a replay for Leicester City in an FA Cup fourth-round tie with Derby County, which will be remembered for a remarkable Darren Bent own goal. Watch all the best action from the FA Cup fourth round here. Available to UK users only.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38778133

India v England: Eoin Morgan, Joe Root and bowlers seal T20 win in Kanpur - BBC Sport

2017-01-27

An impressive England bowling display lays the foundation for a seven-wicket victory over India in the first Twenty20 international.

Last updated on .From the section Cricket An impressive England bowling display laid the foundation for a comfortable seven-wicket victory over India in the first Twenty20 international. Expertly varying pace and length, England restricted India to 147-7, off-spinner Moeen Ali's 2-21 the standout. Sam Billings took 20 from the second over of England's reply, with Eoin Morgan (51) and Joe Root (46 not out) completing the chase in 18.1 overs. The second of the three T20 matches is in Nagpur on Sunday. England will look to wrap up the series after putting in their best performance of a tour that saw them heavily beaten in the Tests and squeezed out in the one-day internationals. The home side rested spin-bowling tormentors Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, but even their presence would have been unlikely to derail an England side that won their first T20 match in India since an agonising defeat in the final of the 2016 World T20. It was England's bowling which was found wanting in what turned out to be the highest-scoring three-match ODI series of all time. But in Kanpur they learned quickly after initially bowling too full, pace quartet Tymal Mills, Chris Jordan, Liam Plunkett and Ben Stokes mixing back-of-a-length with changes of pace. Moeen also went through his repertoire, conceding only one boundary and having the incredibly dangerous Virat Kohli superbly held at mid-wicket by Morgan from his first delivery. KL Rahul, Yuvraj Singh and Hardik Pandya fell to the short ball, the latter giving pacy left-arm T20 specialist Mills his first international wicket. India found the boundary only three times between the 10th and 19th overs and it was left to former captain MS Dhoni, who took 12 from the final over, to add some respectability. Still, the hosts seemed at least 20 below par on a good pitch, with England so in control that leg-spinner Adil Rashid was not called on to bowl. Any suggestion that India would find a way back was snuffed out by Billings, opening in place of the injured Alex Hales. Jasprit Bumrah was battered for three fours and a ramped six as England's chase began with a sprint. A slight wobble came when Jason Roy, who himself hit two sixes, and Billings were both bowled in the same over by leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal. But, with the required rate under control, Root and Morgan were afforded time to rebuild with pressure-free accumulation. In between taking the singles on offer, Morgan lofted four sixes over the leg side before holing out to long-off from off-spinner Parvez Rasool one ball after reaching an eighth T20 half-century. That ended a stand of 83 with Root, who was joined by Stokes and survived being bowled off a Bumrah no-ball to accelerate England home. 'Our bowlers were outstanding' - what they said England captain Eoin Morgan: "Our bowlers were outstanding. Everyone in the unit executed the plans we talked about. We showed a lot of experience. "The opening batsmen got off to a flier and that releases any pressure on the guys coming in after them. Sam Billings hasn't played much this tour but he has taken his chances when he has had an opportunity." India captain Virat Kohli: "England played better cricket - with the ball and the bat they were precise. They were deserving winners and we need to stand up and applaud them. "This is a format you need to enjoy and play at your intense best. We need to address the things we want to and not take too much stress from this. We need to just enjoy and not put too much pressure on the youngsters." Former England captain Michael Vaughan on Twitter: "Not many teams give India a T20 masterclass, especially not in their own back yard. England have to find a way of getting Sam Billings in the ODI team."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/38760089

Prince Harry runs with homeless youngsters in London - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Prince Harry steps out for a jog on the streets of north London with youngsters and charity volunteers.

London

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Residents were surprised to see the prince running down their street Prince Harry has been turning heads in his running gear - as he went for a jog with a group of young homeless people. He donned tights, shorts and trainers to pound the pavements in Willesden Green, north London, for a 17-minute run. The royal drew double-takes from motorists as he stepped out with young people and volunteers from the Running Charity. Prince Harry joined warm up before jogging with volunteers and young homeless people Programme officer Claude Umuhire, 26, took the runners, including a Met Police protection officer, through a strenuous warm-up session then led the more gentle run. He said about Harry: "He didn't find any of it hard, I think he's been training just for today. "I tried to get him in the warm-up but he did pretty well, he kept giving me looks though every time I said five squats." Despite apparently coping well with the run, the Prince suggested he might prefer a lighter form of exercise on future visits. When he left, he referred to a pool table in the charity's HQ and joked: "Next time I will come and play pool maybe." Prince Harry looked at a picture of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, after arriving at Depaul Trust Hostel Mr Umuhire added: "There was a woman who was pulling out of her driveway then she realised who he was and she drove in front of us and started taking pictures of him. "And as we were leaving, there was a guy at the traffic lights who looked across and did a double take - the joy in his face it was so funny, his eyes just opened up, he was so happy." The charity is working with some of the residents from a hostel founded by the Depaul charity. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38763350

Holocaust survivor Frank Bright saw mother led to gas chamber - BBC News

2017-01-27

A Holocaust survivor told of the moment he saw his mother led to a gas chamber in Auschwitz.

A Holocaust survivor has told of his memories of being separated from his mother at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War Two. Frank Bright, now 88 and living near Ipswich, was 16 years old when he lost his parents in the Nazi genocide against Europe's Jews. His journey had taken him from the family home in Berlin to Auschwitz via Prague and a Jewish ghetto in Czechoslovakia. His father had been transported to Auschwitz two weeks before he was sent there by train with his mother in 1944. On arrival at Auschwitz, he was deemed fit for slave labour and put to work, while his mother was sent to the gas chambers. "It was the stench of death," he says. "People had the power of life and death over you. It was hell on Earth."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-38764434

Will the government take over Southern trains? - BBC News

2017-01-27

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Would putting Southern rail back into public ownership solve the long-running dispute?

Business

Would putting Southern rail back into public ownership solve the long-running dispute? "I would welcome this". It's something you wouldn't expect to hear - Tory MPs don't normally offer a warm greeting to the idea of renationalising part of the rail network. That's how topsy-turvy the Southern situation has become. Chris Philp, the Conservative MP for Croydon South, has been calling for the government to strip the company of its contract since last May. It would mean placing it back into public hands, at least for the time being, but it's a price Chris is willing to pay. "The franchise is too big and the current finance structure doesn't incentivise the company to perform", he says. "The unions must take their share of the blame, but the company has also been incompetent." Unusually for a Conservative MP, Chris Philp would be in favour of a return to public ownership, for now Labour is pushing to renationalise the entire rail network, but its Hove and Portslade MP, Peter Kyle, isn't convinced that a Department for Transport (DfT) takeover is the right move for Southern. "I worry that passengers will believe, falsely, that all the problems can be solved with a quick wave of the wand. Public ownership might solve some of the problems, but not all." Peter says he wants "muscular" government intervention, but not necessarily officials taking charge. What other options might be on the table for ministers? The DfT is currently crunching the numbers, trying to work out if Southern's parent company, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), has broken its contract promises on delays and cancellations. If it has, (and they've been arguing about it for months. Does a big rise in sick days, for example, count as unofficial industrial action?) ministers have the option of ditching the deal. But would that really help? Not necessarily: don't get the impression that there is a team of rail super-sub bosses sitting on the sidelines poised to make the trains run on time. The role of the guard is central to the dispute between workers and the company If the government did take over, it would remove the top layer of executives, replacing them with yet more top executives, probably semi-retired former rail bosses. The rest of Southern's staff would stay the same. And they'd be facing the same problems: And I haven't even mentioned the debilitating upgrades to the Thameslink part of the franchise, including rebuilding London Bridge. Experts had predicted it would cause 10,000 delay-minutes per year. In reality, it's caused 10,000 delay-minutes per week, and there's plenty more to come. Then there's what happens afterwards. Any new team would only be caretakers until a new company was brought in and that process takes at least 18 months. Talks between the unions and the company have so far failed to reach agreement Talking to people at other train operating firms, they feel they dodged a bullet not winning the current GTR contract, so would they really bid for a new one? National Express has just pulled out of trains completely. It used to be Britain's biggest player in the sector. The government is legally obliged to keep the trains running whatever happens. It's hardly surprising that officials have been kicking around options if GTR gets ditched. They've a person in mind to be the temporary boss. Pressure is mounting for the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to take direct action, but renationalising part of the railway goes against every bone in his political body. It would be a humiliating loss in the government's effort to sell privatisation as a success story. Chris Philp MP still thinks it's worth it, though. "You can't point at this and say privatisation doesn't work", he says. "This situation isn't like anywhere else." His belief is that they tried something different with this franchise and it didn't come off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38771216