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Lightning strikes hurt 15 people at French music festival - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Those injured include children who were in a tent during the event in the north-east.
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Europe
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Parts of France have been placed on alert for violent storms (archive picture)
At least 15 people have been injured, two of them seriously, by lightning at a music festival in the north-east of France, officials say.
The lightning struck in several areas of the Vieux Canal festival in the town of Azerailles, the regional council said in a statement.
Those injured include children who were in a tent during the storm.
The victims were "directly hit by the lightning and suffered burns", the regional council said.
A woman in her sixties and a 44-year-old man are reported to be in a serious condition as a result of the strikes.
Parts of France around this time of the year are often put on alert for violent storms.
Those hurt in the latest incident received first aid from the festival's emergency teams before going on to get treatment from local hospitals.
All of Saturday's performances were cancelled after the incident. Among those due to appear were French electronic act Pony Pony Run Run and pop group Black Bones.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41136592
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Second giant tuna hauled from Neyland waters in two days - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Tuna weighing about 540lbs is hauled in by shark fishermen, making it the second big catch in two days.
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South West Wales
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Mark Evans and skipper Rob Rennie were fishing for sharks when they caught the giant fish
A giant yellowfin tuna weighing about 540lb has been caught in the waters off Pembrokeshire.
Mark Evans and skipper Rob Rennie, from Tiers Cross, spent two hours reeling in the 244kg fish after it was caught accidentally during a shark fishing trip off Neyland
After posing for photographs with the prize, the tuna was then returned to the water and swam away, they said.
It is the second giant tuna to be caught in the area in just two days.
Last week, Andrew Alsop, 49, caught and released a bluefin tuna weighing about 500lb during a fishing trip from Neyland.
Jennifer Clifton, who was onboard the Lady Jue 5 on Saturday when the second big fish was caught, said "it truly was breathtaking and caused a lot of excitement".
On Friday a giant tuna weighing around 500lb was caught at the fishing spot
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-41138585
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IS convoy stranded in Syria desert after US bombing - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The US-led coalition vows not to allow IS fighters and their families to reach Iraq, and bombs their path.
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Middle East
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The US-led coalition says the militants are "experienced fighters"
The US-led coalition says it will keep blocking a convoy of evacuated Islamic State militants in Syria from reaching IS-held territory on the Iraq border.
The hundreds of fighters recently surrendered an enclave on Syria's border with Lebanon.
They agreed with Hezbollah and the Syrian government that they would leave with their families and head eastwards.
But the coalition says it and Iraq were not part of the deal and on Tuesday bombed the road ahead of the convoy.
The buses are now stranded in an area of desert under Syrian government control between the towns of Humayma and al-Sukhnah.
However reports say the Syrian army and Hezbollah are seeking a new route for the convoy and a monitoring group says dozens of people have already left in cars heading for the IS-held province of Deir al-Zour.
"The coalition will not condone Isis [IS] fighters moving further east to the Iraqi border," the coalition said in a statement.
"Relocating terrorists from one place to another, for someone else to deal with, is not a lasting solution," it added.
There are some 300 IS militants on board the convoy, described by the coalition as "experienced fighters".
The convoy is stranded in the al-Sukhnah area, recently recaptured from IS control by the Syrian government
The coalition says it has not bombed them because about 300 women and children are also present, but it says a tank, armed vehicles and other vehicles facilitating the relocation have been targeted.
Food and water has been provided to the convoy, the statement says, and the coalition has also - via Russia - offered suggestions to Syria on possible ways of rescuing the women and children.
Meanwhile the Syrian army and Hezbollah were seeking a new route for the IS fighters and their families to reach IS territory near the Iraq border, Reuters news agency quoted a pro-government military source as saying.
And the UK based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said dozens of people had already left the stranded convoy in cars in a bid to reach Deir al-Zour by themselves.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video shows the militants and their families preparing to leave the Lebanese town of Arsal
Lebanese, Syrian and Hezbollah forces agreed ceasefires with IS militants last week days after attacking the jihadists' final foothold in the Lebanon-Syria border area.
More than 300 militants and their families were allowed to leave for Albu Kamal, a town in the Syrian province of Deir al-Zour that is 6km (4 miles) from the Iraqi border.
After the deal was announced Lebanon's army chief, Gen Joseph Aoun, said he had wanted to recover the bodies of Lebanese soldiers captured in 2014 and not risk any more lives.
But Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi criticised it. "We fight the terrorists in Iraq. We do not send them to Syria," he said.
Meanwhile the US envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurk, said IS militants "should be killed on the battlefield, not bussed across Syria to the Iraqi border without Iraq's consent".
Iraqi forces backed by US-led coalition air strikes have been battling to oust IS fighters from the towns they control in northern Iraq.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41134559
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'I was glad to count every step' - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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BBC Scotland arts correspondent Pauline McLean won a ballot ticket to walk across the Queensferry Crossing.
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Edinburgh, Fife & East Scotland
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BBC Scotland arts correspondent Pauline McLean was lucky enough to be one of the 50,000 people whose name was selected to be one of the first to walk across the Queensferry Crossing.
Security is tight at Edinburgh Park, one of several transport hubs around the crossing.
It's the first time I've been asked to show my passport to get into Fife, but it's swift and friendly and before we know it, we're on a double decker bus for the 15 minute journey to the bridge itself.
The atmosphere is low key and friendly, a steady stream of families, babies in prams, elderly people using sticks and walkers, a large group in fundraiser T-shirts are already making their way across the new bridge - its suspension columns looming ahead in the afternoon sunshine.
The initial first few hundred yards are disappointing, the views along the Firth of Forth well and truly blocked by the 8ft high plastic barricades.
Walkers resort to taking pictures of each other, but as we walk further on, panels are removed at head height to allow us views out over Rosyth and downriver. That's better, says a young mum, who lifts two small boys up for a better view.
My own son, at 12, is slightly underwhelmed. A veteran of the M74 walk - when the extension road was closed for the day to allow pedestrian access - maybe he feels the "once in a lifetime" opportunity has slightly oversold the experience.
It is, as one headline put it, "just a bridge, get over it."
And yet, to stand beneath those concrete towers, and suspension wires, is a very special opportunity.
There's no distraction - no bands or banners. This is about the bridge - and it's a rare chance to get up close and personal and think for a moment about the sheer scale of what was involved in building it.
There's a quiet awe among those strolling along, no-one rushing to get across.
Back on the bus, we head back across the Forth Bridge, the rail bridge shimmering on the left, the new Queensferry Crossing on the right. Three feats of design and engineering from three different centuries, which for two days at least have been seen from a new perspective.
Next time, like most of you, I'll probably be in my car, barely registering the 1.7 mile crossing. Today, I was glad to count every step.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-41137860
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Government names trial areas for 'full-fibre' broadband - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Data download speeds could soon be hitting gigabit speeds in some areas of the UK.
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Technology
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At present, many UK properties offered fibre connections still rely on copper cables for the "last leg" of the journey
Six areas in the UK will soon be trying out broadband technology that provides data at speeds approaching one gigabit per second (gbps).
Businesses, schools and hospitals will be the first to try out the "full-fibre" network technology.
The pilots will be run in Aberdeenshire, West Sussex, Coventry and Warwickshire, Bristol, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
The government will spend about £10m getting the pilots up and running.
The technology involved is known as full-fibre because it takes high-speed cables directly to premises.
By contrast, much of the existing fibre services in the UK connect the fast cables to roadside cabinets and then rely on older, slower copper for the final link to homes and other buildings.
Currently full-fibre networks are only available to about 2% of premises in the UK.
The government hopes that the projects will significantly boost the availability of the technology.
The preferred technology of Openreach, the body that runs much of the UK's fibre network, has to date been fibre to the cabinet.
That means that homes and businesses are connected by a slower copper-based connection to local street cabinets, before the fibre optic network takes over.
Full-fibre broadband uses fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology, which is widely regarded as the best way to deliver fast internet services.
Here, the fast-fibre optic cables run directly to homes and offices, providing a more stable, efficient and reliable connection than the hybrid copper and fibre systems.
They can also support broadband speeds of up to 1Gbps, enough to download an HD TV programme in five seconds.
"How we live and work today is directly affected by how good our broadband connection is," said Andrew Jones, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, in a statement.
Faster, more reliable connections would create jobs, help new industries to emerge and let people work more flexibly, he said.
Some remote homes have struggled to get decent broadband connections
Possible uses of full-fibre broadband would include hospitals sharing high-definition images to aid diagnosis, or schools using video more effectively during lessons.
However, broadband market analysts have pointed out that gigabit-capable cables would be shared with many different premises, suggesting that actual data download speeds would be much lower than the theoretical maximum.
The gigabit speeds that are possible with full-fibre are much faster than the 10 megabits per second (mbps) which the regulator Ofcom says modern families need to meet their requirements.
Last month, the government published information about the work being done on its broadband delivery programme, which aims to improve download speeds across the UK.
It claimed that 93% of premises in the UK can now get superfast broadband services, which run at speeds of about 24mbps.
Cash for the gigabit-speed broadband pilots comes from a £200m fund announced in the budget earlier this year.
The government said it aimed to spend the remaining balance of the fund by the end of 2021.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41122106
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Why don't many British tourists visit Victoria Falls? - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The statue of David Livingstone next to the falls he discovered in 1855, sees few British visitors.
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Africa
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The statue of David Livingstone next to the Victoria Falls has few British visitors
In August 1934, a memorial statue to one of Britain's greatest national heroes, David Livingstone, was unveiled alongside his beloved Victoria Falls.
A thousand people attended the grand ceremony, including British government dignitaries and hundreds of Africans, some of whom had travelled for days to honour him.
Fully 60 years after the explorer's death, Livingstone's almost mythical status was undiminished.
A Christian missionary who risked his life many times to expose - and ultimately end - the evils of the East African slave trade, he introduced the world to one of its natural wonders, and was the first European person ever to walk across Africa from coast to coast, exploring and mapping the geography of the "dark continent".
David Livingstone - shown being attacked by a lion in this 1850 illustration - travelled with few servants and porters
Images of the life-sized bronze on the banks of the Zambezi were broadcast across the British Empire, countless school children thrilling to the stories of Livingstone's adventures and achievements.
Today, visitors still file past the statue on their way to experience the humbling majesty of the Zambezi as it plunges over the towering First Gorge.
But the British are notable by their absence.
Official figures from the Zimbabwe Tourism Ministry show that, since the turn of the millennium, the statue has rarely heard an accent from the United Kingdom, never mind voices from Livingstone's native Scotland.
In 2015, there were more Italian visitors than Britons, about twice as many Australians and French, three times as many Germans and seven times the number of Americans.
David Livingstone dreamed of turning the falls he first saw in 1855 into a major tourist attraction
It was Livingstone's dream to turn Victoria Falls into a tourist attraction, his journals imagining paddle-steamers bringing visitors from the mouth of the Zambezi to witness their splendour.
There is a similar Britain-shaped hole at the quintessentially English Victoria Falls Hotel, where the flying boat from Southampton once stopped on its way to the Cape.
Pink gins are sipped on the lawns overlooking the Darlington-built steel bridge that has spanned the Zambezi gorge since 1905.
Pictures of British kings and queens adorn the walls, alongside animal heads and zebra skins.
The current Queen stayed at the hotel in 1947.
A framed photograph shows the then-Princess Elizabeth with her father, George VI, watching the mighty Zambezi tumble over the precipice, an image that inspired huge numbers of British tourists to follow the Royals to the falls.
A visit by then-Princess Elizabeth and George VI to Victoria Falls in 1947 helped boost the area's appeal
But in recent years, that flood has become a trickle.
Robert Mugabe. Livingstone's statue stands on what is now Zimbabwean soil, and Britain has an uncomfortable relationship with its former colony.
Most UK tourists visit what locals call Mosi-oa-Tunya (The Smoke That Thunders) from the Zambian side, north of the river, where consciences may feel less troubled.
Limited sanctions remain in place against Zimbabwe, although these are mostly to do with arms dealing and individuals, including Robert and Grace Mugabe. Tourists can travel to the country.
And this corner of Zimbabwe is making a plan to woo the British back.
Victoria Falls are regularly dubbed one of the world's seven natural wonders
The border town of Victoria Falls exists only for tourism.
But after President Mugabe began forcibly confiscating land from white farmers in 2000, the country's status as an international pariah saw the number of foreign visitors there dwindle almost to nothing.
A decade later and facing ruin, business leaders in the town met in emergency session.
It was clear the Mugabe government was not in a position to help them.
The economy was in tatters, ravaged by hyperinflation, the national bank had to issue trillion-dollar notes.
Shops were empty and the people haunted by desperate poverty and fear.
The roads had not been maintained, anti-malaria measures had all but been abandoned, the international press painted a picture of a country where white Westerners were treated as the enemy.
What hope of attracting foreign tourists to that?
Victoria Falls hotelier Ross Kennedy galvanised fellow business owners to try to address the town's problems
"If you have a pothole outside your house, there is no point in moaning about it if no-one is going to fix it," says Ross Kennedy, the hotelier behind the crisis meeting.
"We got together and agreed there are times when it is necessary to fix the pothole yourself."
So that's what they did, both metaphorically and literally.
"The town council said it could provide the labour and the trucks. We all chipped in to buy gravel and tar. It was a real town effort - hotel operators, transport operators, activity operators all helped fix the roads," Mr Kennedy says.
It was the same strategy with the fight against malaria. The council didn't have the foreign currency to buy the necessary chemicals to spray, so local businesses funded what was required, offsetting the cost against their rates.
They also tackled the security issue. As the owner of a number of local resorts, Mr Kennedy knew his business could never thrive if guests felt unsafe.
"Myself and three other guys in Vic Falls funded around 10 or 12 people to act as tourist police," he says.
The tourist police are jointly funded by local businesses and the tourism authority
Initially sceptical, the government's tourism authority soon decided the friendly uniformed teams were a great way to reassure potential visitors.
"There are many more tourist police now," Mr Kennedy says.
"We pay half, and the tourism authority pays half.
"The local police have become more supportive, and now train the recruits in basic police work and public relations."
The latest plan is for private business to buy new software that would speed up the issuing of visas at the border, reducing the process from three minutes to 30 seconds, ending the long queues that are many tourists' dreary introduction to Zimbabwe.
As a result of these innovative joint ventures, Victoria Falls has managed to insulate itself from many of Zimbabwe's problems.
"We are in a bubble here," says Africa Albida Tourism's Michele Vickery.
"When the state could not be relied upon, the people of this community just looked out for each other. The result is that tourism is picking up again."
The Americans are coming back, both young backpackers and wealthy baby-boomers. Australians, Germans, French and Italians are beginning to arrive again too. The town is much busier. But where are the British?
"Britain is still a bit behind," Mr Kennedy says.
"I think the main reason is the colonial past. There is an element who say: 'There is no way I am spending a dollar in a country that behaves like that, where X, Y or Z is in power,' to which I say, 'I am not your moral compass.'"
The British Embassy has been lobbied by town businesses to push for the inclusion of a paragraph in the UK's official Zimbabwe travel advice, saying that warnings of violence, assaults by security forces, shortages of fuel and water do not apply to Victoria Falls.
But the advice has not changed.
The UK's relationship with Zimbabwe was formalised following the Congress of Berlin in 1885, part of the so-called scramble for Africa.
This French cartoon from 1885 mocks German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and his fellow European leaders slicing up Africa like a cake
Western powers sat around a table carving up the continent and claiming territorial rights.
Britain walked away with the keys to exploiting the area it would later call Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
The man granted the honour of unveiling David Livingstone's statue on the banks of the Zambezi in 1934 was the explorer's nephew, Howard Moffatt.
A very different personality to his liberal and reforming uncle, Moffatt had just stepped down as prime minister of Southern Rhodesia, having pushed through the Land Apportionment Act of 1930.
The legislation barred African landownership in the British Crown colony, outside special reserves.
The best land was allocated exclusively to white people, farms where the seeds of black grievance and bitterness were sown.
Mr Mugabe's violent seizure of white-owned property 70 years later might be seen by some as the bloody consequence of that colonial arrogance.
In unusually candid comments in 2015, President Mugabe admitted there had been flaws in Zimbabwe's controversial land reform programme
The moral ambiguity that lies behind Britain's relationship with Zimbabwe surely helps explain the persistent reluctance of many in this country to risk association with it.
Since 2015, Victoria Falls has had its own international airport with a runway capable of taking the largest passenger aircraft.
The townsfolk have pressed airlines to begin direct flights from Europe, but British carriers have so far not expressed much interest.
UK airlines say there are commercial and logistical reasons for not flying directly to the resort at the moment.
It is easy to find reasons not to step upon the troubled lands of Zimbabwe.
At the moment, the country faces an acute cash shortage. cash machines are usually empty, and American dollars - now the legal currency - are so scarce, hawkers beg tourists for their shoes and clothes.
There are concerns that dreaded inflation is returning.
People worry about social and political instability, with elections next year and, at some point, transition to a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe.
But the fundamentals of this beautiful and enchanting country are pretty solid.
The landscape and wildlife are stunning. The climate is benign and the soil fertile. Communities have become resilient and practical.
There are a few straws in the savannah wind. Some British tour operators have recently returned to Zimbabwe, and hoteliers report UK bookings are creeping up, although there is still a long way to go.
Zimbabwe's Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi points out that visitors to Niagara Falls in North America bring in income double that of the whole of Zimbabwe's economy.
"They are spending $30bn [£23bn] whilst Victoria Falls, a natural wonder of a higher magnitude, receives just $1bn," he told the Zimbabwe parliament.
Victoria Falls can shield itself from some of Zimbabwe's contemporary woes.
But the grim countenance of Livingstone's statue, staring resolutely at the great falls, reminds us of the struggle to navigate a path through the thorny undergrowth of African history.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41083374
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How the demand for sand is killing rivers - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Demand for sand in Kenya is driving the illegal sand harvesting industry, causing loss of ecosystems and even deaths.
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Magazine
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You cannot have concrete without sand. River beds are being dug up across Africa to fuel a building boom, with little thought for what this means for the health of the river, and those who depend on it, as Harriet Constable found in Kenya.
Sand. The word conjures happy holiday memories: building castles from it; watching nervous crabs scuttle across it; digging giant holes in it, and then hiding in them and leaping out at opportune moments to terrify unknowing relatives. Sand is the make up of glittering beaches, hundreds of thousands of years of weathering to create millions and millions of tiny, sparkling, and yet seemingly insignificant particles. Sand is infinite, surely. And yet the world is running out.
A beach in Tiwi, along Kenya's coast, where sand dredging has caused the beach to subside and start to disappear - it's a key nesting ground for sea turtles
It's obvious when you think about it. All the major building materials - concrete, bricks, glass, are made using sand. Exploding population numbers and the knock on need for development have made sand the second most used natural commodity on the planet after water. Billions and billions of tonnes are being used across the globe.
So much so that a UN report estimated global sand use in 2012 alone could have created a concrete wall 27m high by 27m wide around the equator. We need not go to the beach to be surrounded by sand - our cities are essentially giant towering sand castles disguised in concrete.
A sand dredger just beyond the reef in Tiwi kicks up giants plumes of sand in the ocean - it settles over coral, suffocates fish, and muddies the waters for sea turtles who feed on the seagrass at the bottom
The sand used for construction comes mainly from riverbeds and oceans. Desert sand, it turns out, is too smooth for the mix. Huge projects quickly exhausted Dubai's marine sand supply, so, despite being a city built on sand, it now imports the material from Australia. The irony: sand has become such a precious commodity it is literally being sold to the Arabs.
Innocent as sand may seem, the immense demand for it is causing loss of livelihoods, loss of ecosystems and even deaths.
In India, a black market for sand harvesting has emerged, operated by violent sand mafias. In China, the country's biggest freshwater lake - Poyang Lake - is drying up due to sand dredging. Hundreds of locals rely on the lake for fish, as do the millions of migratory birds that stop here each year.
In Kenya, sand dredging from the riverbeds of poor rural counties like Makueni is leaving some communities without access to water.
During the rainy season, water percolates into the sand and is stored underground - then during the dry season, locals dig small wells in the sand to get water
With the country's population expected to double in the next 40 years, massive infrastructure projects like Kenya's new Standard Gauge Railway are necessary. But they need millions of tonnes of sand. Kenya's coast and inland rivers have all been exploited in recent years, but the effect in Makueni has been particularly acute.
Kenya's new Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) spans 609km from Mombasa to Nairobi, and its construction requires millions of tonnes of sand
Throughout the year, temperatures in Makueni soar to over 35C (95F). Seasonal, sand-filled rivers snake their way through the arid land. During the rainy season, water percolates through and is stored underneath. During the dry season, the population of nearly one million people dig holes in the sand to extract water to survive. However, when enough sand is harvested, only the bedrock remains, and during the rainy season the water simply rushes across it. No water is stored.
Anthony Mua Kimeu stares at the steep cliffs of the Kilome Ikolya "dead" River
I visited several sand harvesting sites across the county earlier this year. "We call this the dead river," a local called Anthony told me, staring over the steep, reddish-brown cliff edge into the barren riverbed at Kilome Ikolya River in Makueni.
A couple of years ago this river was flat. Now, there is sheer drop of about 10m from the top of the bank to the riverbed. Tree roots jut out awkwardly from the cliff face, and along the dry, meandering river, bedrock sticks out of the ground, glistening in the sunshine. "No-one can get water here now," Anthony said.
"No-one can get water here now," says Anthony, a farmer
For some, sand is life, and for others, sand is money. In a poor area with few employment opportunities, the reality of what desperate humans will do is stark.
Local Police Officer Geoffrey Kasyoki was well known in his community for trying to stop illegal sand harvesting in Makueni. In February 2011 he was set upon by a group of young men in broad daylight. They shot him with poisoned arrows, crushed his head and slashed his skin.
Irene Nduku Kasyoki holds up a portrait of her late husband Geoffrey, a police officer who died trying to defend his community's sand
Standing over her husband's grave, his widow Irene told me, "He was killed to send a message to the community from the sand harvesters: do not try to stop us". Her chest heaved in and out, shuddering with sobs, and she reached out to touch the sandy mound of earth under which he is buried.
As Anthony and I walked further along the riverbed, we came across harvesters labouring under the baking midday sun, shovelling sand into a pile ready for a truck to collect it.
Harvester Richard Mutinda shovels sand into a big pile to be collected by trucks later - up to 100 tonnes of sand is taken from this stretch of the Nthange River daily
While I watched and wondered whether sand could soon become the stuff of distant childhood memories, others around me had more pressing concerns. For them, sand could mean the difference between eating and going hungry, whether they'd have drinking water or not, or whether they'd ever see their loved ones again.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-41123284
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Rohingya crisis: Johnson warns Suu Kyi over Muslim treatment - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Almost 400 people have died in Muslim-Buddhist attacks in the most recent outbursts of violence.
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UK Politics
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Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has warned Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi that the treatment of the Muslim Rohingya is "besmirching" the country's reputation.
Mr Johnson called on Ms Suu Kyi, the country's de facto leader, to "use her remarkable qualities" to end prejudice against Muslims in Rakhine state.
Violence in the province erupted about a week ago, with some 58,000 refugees fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.
More than 100 people are thought to have died in the violence.
The Rohingya claim that security forces and Buddhist mobs of burning their villages.
Security officials in Myanmar, also known as Burma, claim they are reacting to more than 20 attacks on police posts by Muslim Rohingya militants.
Rakhine, the poorest region in Myanmar, is home to more than a million Rohingya. They have faced decades of persecution in the Buddhist-majority country, where they are not considered citizens.
Rohingya refugees walk on the muddy road after travelling over the Bangladesh-Myanmar border
Ms Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize for her political activism in Myanmar, which led to the first non-military elected head of state in the country since the military coup in 1962.
Although Htin Kyaw was sworn in as president in 2016 - as Ms Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from holding the position - she is considered the de facto leader of the country.
Ms Suu Kyi, who has the title state counsellor of Myanmar, came to prominence in the 1990s when she was placed under house arrest by the military government.
Mr Johnson said: "Aung San Suu Kyi is rightly regarded as one of the most inspiring figures of our age, but the treatment of the Rohingya is alas besmirching the reputation of Burma.
"She faces huge challenges in modernising her country. I hope she can now use all her remarkable qualities to unite her country, to stop the violence and to end the prejudice that afflicts both Muslims and other communities in Rakhine.
"It is vital that she receives the support of the Burmese military, and that her attempts at peacemaking are not frustrated.
"She and all in Burma will have our full support in this."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rohingya Muslim women have been weeping on the Bangladesh border
Burma Campaign UK - which lobbies European governments in a bid to restore human rights and democracy in Burma - believes the foreign secretary could have gone further in his remarks.
Its director, Mark Farmaner, said Mr Johnson should have also criticised the armed forces' commander-in-chief, Ming Aung Hlaing.
He said: "Min Aung Hlaing's soldiers are the ones killing hundreds of Rohingya and he is the only person in Burma with the power to order soldiers to stop attacking Rohingya villagers, shooting children and burning families alive in their homes."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41139319
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Jailed YouTuber: 'Not proud' of prank - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Daniel Jarvis was jailed for 20 weeks for his part in a fake robbery on a major London gallery.
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Technology
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. YouTuber Daniel Jarvis is "not proud" of his part in a fake robbery at a major London gallery
A YouTuber jailed for his part in a prank on the public says he is "sorry if he frightened people".
Daniel Jarvis, 27, is a member of the Trollstation YouTube channel, which has about a million subscribers.
In 2016, he and three others were jailed for a total of 72 weeks after pleading guilty to two counts of threatening behaviour causing fear of unlawful violence.
They staged a fake robbery at London's National Portrait Gallery in 2015.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Stephen Nolan on BBC Radio 5 live, Jarvis said: "I'm not proud. It wasn't meant to be that extreme.
"We were going to go in there and be stupid, dumb, criminals, falling over each other."
The pranksters set off an alarm inside the gallery after carrying in fake paintings, dressed as robbers, causing members of the public to flee.
The video has been viewed nearly one million times on YouTube.
"When the alarm was so loud, it caused too much panic, which was our fault," Jarvis said.
"I can't change the past. I don't like hurting people or making people upset. I do these videos to make people laugh and make them happy."
In court, magistrates warned such "warped" stunts could lead to fatalities.
The prosecutor said the pranksters had caused a stampede in which people had been trampled and one person had fainted.
The prank was also criticised for its timing - just a week after the Tunisian beach massacre, in which 39 people were killed
"A terrorist attack happens in this world every day. This has got nothing to do with terrorism," Jarvis told BBC Radio 5 live.
"I don't like harming people or making people upset. I hate people crying. I like to see people happy and love making people happy. It wasn't a nice feeling to see people scared."
Trollstation has built a reputation for filming staged pranks around London.
In March 2016, a fifth member of the channel was imprisoned following a bomb hoax.
Judge Snow said the men had caused "high levels of fear of violence" and a "risk of death or injury" during the stampede from the National Portrait Gallery, and sought to "humiliate" the victims by "recording their terrified reactions to upload on to the internet".
One of Jarvis's most successful pranks saw him dressed up as a soldier in the Queen's Guard.
He then arranged for his friend to approach him and, uncharacteristically for a soldier in the Queen's Guard, he retaliated.
That video has 25 million views on YouTube.
Jarvis said he had felt the burden of providing videos for fans.
"It is a lot of pressure, if you haven't done a good video in a while and if you've not done an extreme video," he said.
In 2015, he disrupted the diving World Series at the London Aquatic Centre - where Tom Daley was participating - by diving from a 10m board.
Speaking about that prank, Jarvis said: "It made a lot of people laugh, it made a lot of people happy."
Jarvis was challenged about the responsibility that comes with having such a massive, and impressionable, online following.
"It's not that anything can go. You've got to be respectful," he said.
In June, a woman from Minnesota was charged over the fatal shooting of her boyfriend, in what authorities say was a social media stunt gone wrong.
Jarvis said he wouldn't do anything that extreme in the chase for YouTube views.
"Even on the news, extreme stuff goes off.," he said. "I'm not into extreme stuff like that. I wouldn't do anything too dangerous."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40869278
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Steely Dan's Walter Becker dies aged 67 - BBC News
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2017-09-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The band co-founder had been suffering from an unnamed condition, his band mate Donald Fagen says.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Becker also had a career as a solo artist
Walter Becker, co-founder and guitarist for the US band Steely Dan, has died aged 67, an announcement on his website said.
No cause of death or other details were given.
Becker missed the band's July concerts to recover from an unspecified condition, band mate Donald Fagen said at the time.
The jazz-rock group has sold more than 40m albums and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.
"Walter's recovering from a procedure and hopefully he'll be fine very soon," Fagen told Billboard magazine earlier this month.
In a statement, he said his band mate was "smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter.
"He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny," he said.
"I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band."
Becker and Fagen began working on music together as students in New York.
In the early 1970s they moved to California to set up the band with guitarists Jeff Baxter and Denny Dias, drummer Jim Hodder and singer David Palmer.
Steely Dan - named after a sex toy in the book Naked Lunch by William Burroughs - released its first album Can't Buy a Thrill in 1972.
Becker, who also provided backing vocals, and keyboardist and singer Fagen remained the core band members as other musicians and singers came and left.
The band split up in 1981 but reformed in 1993 and released two more albums, one of which - Two Against nature - won the Grammy album of the year award.
Becker also had a career as a solo artist, releasing two albums including Circus Money in 2008.
Musicians and DJs were quick to pay tribute on social media.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41140441
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Royal baby: Duchess of Cambridge expecting third child - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Catherine is again suffering from severe morning sickness, and has cancelled an engagement.
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UK
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The couple took their two children, George and Charlotte, on an official visit to Poland in July
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child, Kensington Palace has announced.
The Queen and both families are said to be "delighted with the news".
As with her previous two pregnancies, the duchess, 35, is suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, or severe morning sickness.
She pulled out of an engagement at the Hornsey Road Children's Centre in London, which had been planned for Monday afternoon.
Catherine is being cared for at Kensington Palace, the statement said.
The duke and duchess have a son, George, who is four, and a daughter, Charlotte, aged two.
With the previous two pregnancies, the couple announced them before the 12-week mark - when most women have their first scan - because of the duchess being unwell with hyperemesis gravidarum.
Her first pregnancy was revealed when she was just a few weeks pregnant with Prince George after she was admitted to hospital in December 2012.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prince Harry gives a thumbs up to the royal baby news
The duchess's second pregnancy with Princess Charlotte was announced in September 2014, when she was treated at the palace for the condition.
Hyperemesis gravidarum affects about one in every 200 pregnancies and results in severe nausea and vomiting - with one of the main dangers being dehydration.
Once again Prince William and his wife - who are very focused on being in control - have been thwarted.
And once again, it's due to circumstances outside their control.
The couple have been forced to make the announcement at a time not of their choosing - and while the duchess is still in the early stages of her pregnancy - because she is suffering from very acute morning sickness.
They were poised to take on more royal duties. They are now preparing to welcome another addition to their family.
An addition that will attract considerable global interest. The child's grandmother is the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
This princess or prince is unlikely to be crowned monarch. As things stand, that future awaits their brother, Prince George.
So there is no constitutional significance to the birth next year.
But an ancient institution that already appears pretty secure has just been further buttressed.
The three Cambridge siblings will fashion the future of the British monarchy well into the 21st Century.
The BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the announcement comes at the start of a "significant week" for the family "because Prince George is due to start at big school."
"Presumably his mother would be keen to take him to that, [but] whether she is going to be well enough to do that remains to be seen," he told BBC News.
"It had also been expected that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be taking a foreign trip this autumn," he added.
"Whether they will be able to do that or whether the duchess will be well enough to do that also remains to be seen."
The expected child will become the fifth in line to the throne behind Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
A change - which stops royal sons taking precedence over their female siblings in the line of succession - came into force in March 2015.
The child will be the Queen's sixth great-grandchild.
To become King or Queen as the third-born royal child is rare - and has yet to happen within the current House of Windsor.
But the third child of George III and Queen Charlotte, William IV, took on the task and ruled from 1830 to 1837.
The Hanoverian king acceded to the throne aged 64 when his older brother, George IV, died without an heir.
He became next in line when he was 62 and his other older brother, Frederick, Duke of York, died.
Arriving in Manchester for a royal visit, Prince Harry - who will drop to sixth in line to the throne when the child is born - said the news was "fantastic" and he was "very, very happy".
Clarence House has tweeted on behalf of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall to say they are "delighted".
Prime Minister Theresa May has tweeted her congratulations to the couple, calling it "fantastic news".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41148027
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BBC 100 Women: Nine things you didn't know were invented by women - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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To mark the launch of the 100 Women Challenge, meet the female inventors behind everyday innovations such as computer software to the dishwasher.
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World
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Asked to name important inventors and you might start with Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell or Leonardo da Vinci.
But what about Mary Anderson? Or Ann Tsukamoto?
You might not know their names, but they are just two of the female inventors behind everyday objects and scientific innovations.
BBC 100 Women, the season featuring stories of inspiring and influential women, is taking on a new challenge.
This year, women from around the world will be asked to come up with innovations to tackle some of the biggest problems they face.
Scroll down for more information about 100 Women - and, for more inspiration, here are nine inventions we wouldn't have, if it weren't for ground-breaking women.
After joining the US Navy during the Second World War, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper was assigned to work on a new computer, called the Mark 1.
It wasn't long before she was at the forefront of computer programming in the 1950s.
She was behind the compiler, which could translate instructions into code that computers can read, making programming quicker and ultimately revolutionising how computers worked.
Hopper also helped popularised the term "de-bugging" that we still use on computers programmes today, after a moth was removed from inside her machine.
"Amazing Grace", as she was known, continued working with computers until she retired from the navy as its oldest serving officer, aged 79.
Dr Shirley Ann Jackson is an American theoretical physicist, whose research from the 1970s is responsible for caller ID and call waiting.
Her breakthroughs in telecommunications have also enabled others to invent the portable fax, fibre optic cables and solar cells.
She is the first African-American woman to gain a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the first African-American woman to lead a top-ranked research university.
On a winter's day of 1903, Mary Anderson was visiting New York City when she noticed that her driver was forced to open his window, just to the clear the snow from his windscreen.
Every time the window was open, the passengers in the car got colder.
Anderson started drawing her solution of a rubber blade that could be moved from inside the car, and in 1903 was awarded a patent for her device.
But the invention proved unsuccessful with car companies, who believed it would distract drivers.
Anderson never profited from her invention, even when the wipers later became standard on cars.
It might not have the catchiest name on this list, but the long cycle-life nickel-hydrogen battery has helped power the International Space Station, so it's pretty important.
Olga D Gonzalez-Sanabria, who is originally from Puerto Rico, developed technology which helped create these batteries in the 1980s and is now director of engineering at Nasa's Glenn Research Centre.
BBC 100 Women names 100 influential and inspirational women around the world every year. In 2017, we're challenging them to tackle four of the biggest problems facing women today - the glass ceiling, female illiteracy, harassment in public spaces and sexism in sport.
With your help, they'll be coming up with real-life solutions and we want you to get involved with your ideas. Find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and use #100Women
A frequent entertainer, Cochrane wanted a machine that would wash her dishes faster than her servants, and be less likely to break them.
Her machine, which involved a motor turning a wheel inside a copper boiler, was the first automatic dishwasher to use water pressure.
Cochrane's alcoholic husband had left her with masses of debt after his death and this motivated her to patent her invention in 1886 and open her own production factory.
A nurse, who was often home alone, Marie Van Brittan Brown came up with an idea that would make her feel safer.
Together with her husband Albert, Van Brittan Brown developed the first home security system in response to the rising crime rates and slow police responses of the 1960s.
The device was complicated, with a camera powered by a motor which moved up and down the door to look through a peephole.
A monitor in her bedroom also came equipped with an alarm button.
Her patent was awarded in 1991 and since then Tsukamoto's work has led to great advancements in understanding the blood systems of cancer patients, which could lead to a cure for the disease.
Tsukamoto is currently conducting further research into stem cell growth and is the co-patentee on more than seven other inventions.
This chemist invented the lightweight fibre used in bullet-proof vests and body armour.
Since her discovery in 1965, the material, which is five times stronger than steel, has saved lives and is used by millions every day.
It's found in products ranging from household gloves and mobiles phones to aeroplanes and suspension bridges.
A man named Charles Darrow is often credited with creating the most popular board game in history, but the rules were in fact invented by Elizabeth Magie.
Magie wanted to demonstrate the problems with capitalism with an innovative game in which players traded fake money and property.
Her design, which she patented in 1904, was called The Landlord's Game.
The game of Monopoly that we know today was published in 1935 by the Parker Brothers, who discovered that Darrow was not the sole creator and had, for just $500 (£385), bought Magie's patent and, well, monopolised the game.
There are many more female inventors out there, so let us know your favourites by getting in touch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, using #100Women.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-40923649
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Manchester attack: One family's story of surviving the bomb - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Two sisters and their family describe their recovery after being caught up in the bombing.
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Manchester
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Eve Senior and her mother Natalie later returned to visit the Arena
The morning after the Manchester Arena bomb an image of one girl filled the front pages of almost every newspaper.
Her name is Eve Senior. She's 14 but looks older in the photo - she had dressed up and done her make-up to go to the Ariana Grande concert.
She was a few metres from Salman Abedi when he detonated his suicide bomb, killing 22 people.
In the picture, half her jeans had been cut off by paramedics and she needed help to walk because of 14 shrapnel wounds she had suffered. Once at hospital medics operated to remove the lumps of metal from her legs.
For many people the photograph conveyed the awful reality of the attack. An attack targeting a concert packed with children.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Eve Senior, 14, speaks on the effect of the Manchester Arena attack on her
But another image that has stayed with me is of Eve's younger sister.
On the night of the bomb I watched as 11-year-old Emilia was scooped up by her father and carried away from the arena. She is too tall for her dad to carry very far. But he tried.
Once through the police cordon she was hugged and kissed by her grandparents. I heard her quietly say to them that she was one of the lucky ones.
That night, Emilia told me they had been leaving the concert when the bomb went off.
"We walked out and then suddenly something really hot flew over us," she said. "We all dropped to the floor."
Her mother and sister were still inside waiting to go to hospital. Emilia wiped her face and said: "My sister's really bad."
She was remarkably calm and articulate. But looking back at footage of that interview now, you can see the fear.
Four weeks later, I met Emilia again at her home near Bradford, West Yorkshire. She told me that as she left Manchester Arena on the night of the bomb she was convinced her big sister was dying.
This was also the first time I met Eve. She was still struggling to walk because of the shrapnel wounds and nerve damage. As a teenage girl and talented dancer, the way her legs looked and worked was important to her.
She had been told she still had months of physiotherapy ahead of her and doctors had mentioned the possibility of plastic surgery.
"Some of my friends don't understand how long it's going to take," she said. "I don't think I understand."
Her parents Andrew and Natalie told me Eve had good days and bad days. The bad days were really tough.
Emilia's hearing in one ear was damaged by the blast, but she escaped any other physical injuries. Her parents' main concern was about the psychological impact.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Emilia Senior was at Manchester Arena on the night of the attack
As she talked to me about the way her mind played and replayed what she saw that night, it became clear why.
"I see all of it. I see the flashing lights of the explosion," she said.
"I see the people being thrown in the air who were probably dead. And then you play it. And then you pause it. It's like my mind took a photo. That's what it feels like when you think about it."
Her father was sitting quietly next to her, taking in what she was saying.
Her mother, who was also injured in the explosion, said: "For an 11-year-old child to have seen the things she saw, it's going to be a long process."
By early July, when I next met the family, Emilia had turned 12 and Eve was walking without crutches.
I went with them to their local hospital where Eve and her mother had a physiotherapy session.
They had made huge progress, but for Eve it wasn't fast enough.
Emilia Senior (centre) and Eve, pictured with their mother, Natalie
"It feels like I'm not improving at all," she said. "I know I am. But it feels like that, because I just want to be able to do all the stuff I did before."
For her mother, each physiotherapy session had been a reminder of how far they had come.
"We've turned a real corner," she said. "Eve's getting a lot more mobile which has been a big thing for us."
They had been for days out together and one of their outings was to Manchester.
Like other survivors, the family had been offered the chance to visit the arena before its scheduled reopening. They had doubts in the days before the visit. The girls' parents hoped it would help them move forward, but feared the girls would find it totally overwhelming.
In the end it did help. It helped them fill in the gaps and get a better sense of what happened. They calculated that Eve was 5m from Abedi when he detonated the bomb.
Police urged people to stay calm and move away from the area on the night of the attack
"I was really scared to go," Eve told me. "I was crying before I even went in. But as soon as I got in there, you felt more calm."
Her mother said that for weeks after the attack she'd pictured the Arena foyer as a cold and frightening place. But going back changed that.
"It was as if you were going back somewhere where you found a bit of peace," she said.
Eve's face lit up when she talked about the staff at Manchester Children's Hospital.
"Before Manchester I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grow up," she said.
"But staying in hospital and seeing what the nurses do and how good they are - when I'm older I want to be a nurse."
Emilia has also found ways to cope. As her mother and sister worked out at their physio session, she chatted to me while colouring-in.
It is easy to forget how young she is. Her colouring book reminded me. She told me her trauma counsellor had suggested colouring as way to block out the images that had been filling her mind.
Remarkably, she said she did not hate the man who carried out the attack.
"You have to forgive and forget in life, or else you're not going to get anywhere."
This family is one of hundreds deeply and permanently affected by the Manchester attack. But despite all they have been through, they still regard themselves as the lucky ones.
Alongside hospital appointments and counselling sessions, they have found the time to hold fundraising events for the Manchester Emergency Fund and Victim Support.
Mr Senior told me he constantly thinks about the fathers whose children did not survive.
"It changes your perspective on things," he said. "We're always going to have Manchester as a part of our family now."
Inside Out North West is at 19:30 BST on BBC One in the North West and later on BBC iPlayer for 30 days.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-41088956
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Daca: Trump 'to scrap' amnesty for young immigrants - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The president is set to end the Daca programme but he may still change his mind, sources say.
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US & Canada
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Many recipients of the Daca programme have taken to the streets to defend it
US President Donald Trump has decided to scrap a programme that protects young undocumented immigrants, according to reports.
He will give Congress six months to draw up legislation to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), sources quoted by US media say.
The decision, first reported in Politico, is considered a compromise amid strong support for the scheme.
However, the sources cautioned that Mr Trump could still change his mind.
He is due to formally announce his decision on Tuesday.
The Obama-era Daca programme protects hundreds of thousands of so-called "Dreamers" from deportation and provides work and study permits.
Candidate Trump promised to do away with Daca, and it appears that's what he's going to do, despite warnings from a cross-party collection of politicians. Or, knowing this president, those objections from "the establishment" only make him more determined to act.
Fortunately for him, unlike repealing Obamacare or building his Mexican border wall, he doesn't need Congress's help here.
In fact, by setting a six-month fuse on Daca's destruction, Mr Trump puts all the pressure on legislators if they want to protect undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children.
While the votes may be there for some type of fix, Congress already has its hands full with other pressing issues - hurricane relief, budget resolutions, the need to authorise new government debt and, at some point, tax reform.
Mr Trump may not care, but he's putting Republicans with tough re-election races in a difficult spot. If the president's Daca bomb goes off, they will face angry constituents just as the campaign season gets into gear.
The president, however, satisfies his anti-immigration base with this move - and washes his hands of the matter. The loyalists who have stood by him are rewarded, others in his party be damned.
According to Politico, the White House informed House Speaker Paul Ryan of the president's decision on Sunday morning.
Mr Ryan last week urged the president not to scrap the scheme, arguing it left many young people "in limbo".
"These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don't know another home," he said.
President Trump has previously said he "loves" the Dreamers
Mr Ryan is one of a growing number of Republican lawmakers and business leaders to speak out against scrapping the programme.
While campaigning for office, Mr Trump took a hard-line on immigration and said he planned to "immediately terminate" the Daca programme.
But since then he has said he finds the subject "very, very tough".
He said he intends to show "great heart" in dealing with what he described as, in many cases, "incredible kids".
The decision to give Congress six months to draft an alternative is seen as a compromise after Republican lawmakers and business leaders from companies including Google, General Motors and Microsoft urged Mr Trump to retain the programme.
On Sunday, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted: "Thanks to Dreamers' courage & resolve, #DACA has allowed thousands of young people to contribute to our society. We're better for it."
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Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican Representative from Florida, also took to Twitter to vent her frustration, saying: "After teasing #Dreamers for months with talk of his 'great heart,' @POTUS slams door on them. Some 'heart'."
The Daca programme protects roughly 750,000 people in the US from deportation and provides temporary permits for work and study.
In order to qualify for Daca, applicants under the age of 30 submit personal information to the Department of Homeland Security.
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They must go through an FBI background check and have a clean criminal background, and either be in school, recently graduated or have been honourably discharged from the military.
In exchange, the US government agrees to "defer" any action on their immigration status for a period of two years.
The majority of so-called Dreamer immigrants in the US are from Mexico and other Latin American countries.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41144231
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North Korea: China's 'nightmare neighbour' does it again - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Chinese people felt the ground tremble, but the government is more like to be shaking with anger.
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Asia
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Chinese President Xi is, again, dealing with the crisis while in the middle of hosting an international summit
In the small Chinese city of Yanji, the ground was moving.
This Korean-speaking region sits on the border with North Korea and soon local bloggers were posting images on social media of things shaking.
What they could not have known was that this earthquake was man-made.
Not far away, the government in Pyongyang was soon declaring the successful test of a hydrogen bomb - its most powerful to date.
The timing was a clear slap in the face for Beijing.
Just hours after the underground nuclear test, President Xi Jinping was due to make a speech as the head of state for the nation hosting the Brics summit, which would welcome delegates from Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa to Xiamen.
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It is conceivable that North Korea did not necessarily choose the opening day of this major diplomatic gathering for its test but it certainly did not see the need to call it off for fear of offending China.
And, what is more, these weapons test "coincidences" are now starting to mount up when it comes to Xi Jinping.
In March, just before the Chinese leader was set to meet United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Beijing, North Korea announced the successful test of a new type of rocket engine.
Then in May President Xi was preparing to open the One Belt One Road forum. The leaders of dozens of nations had come to the Chinese capital to discuss economic development and transport infrastructure around the Chinese leader's signature foreign policy initiative. Then, whoooooosh! Off goes another North Korean missile test to steal the limelight before the summit could even get going.
That this could have happened again with the Brics summit is incredible.
Xi Jinping - who is also the chair of the Central Military Commission in China - cannot be happy with this emerging pattern.
People look across to North Korea from Tumen
The North Koreans, in turn, would be furious with the behaviour of their old Cold War allies. China has not only backed sanctions against them in the United Nations Security Council but, as the isolated regime's principal trading partner, it has also been the principal implementer of these sanctions, turning back coal shipments and the like.
Yet most observers know that, if it really wanted to, Beijing could bring crippling economic pain to North Korea. Heading into winter, it could freeze oil and gas supplies.
Then there are the banks.
North Korea is thought to conduct an enormous amount of laundered business via Chinese financial institutions. Various front businesses have been set up to facilitate money and products to flow in and out of the country with the assistance of these bodies. The Chinese government cannot be unaware of this and they could pull the plug on it tomorrow if they wanted to.
But they don't for one reason.
The Chinese government does not like the regional instability that their neighbour's nuclear weapons testing programme brings, but Beijing fears something even more.
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They worry that total regime collapse in Pyongyang, leading to a unified Korean Peninsula dominated by the South, could lead to US troops on the border within marching distance of Yanji and they will put up with an awful lot from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as long as this does not happen.
The Environment Ministry here has announced that it has now started "emergency radiation testing" along the frontier. The government's displeasure would be significant if Chinese territory has been contaminated.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry's official response to this latest North Korean nuclear weapons test condemned it strongly but, with increasingly loud calls coming for this country to do more to pressure Kim Jong-un to give up intercontinental ballistic missile ambitions, there would be serious frustration within the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party as to what they can realistically do next.
The North Korean leader has made his nuclear ambitions a hallmark of his administration to the extent that it is hard to see what type of offering or threat could alter this situation.
That is, unless the US and China have come up with a secret agreement which would see American troops leave Korea in the event of unification… if that was in place it could change everything.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41141099
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Post workers recruited by gangs to steal bank cards - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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A gang offers £1,000 a week to Royal Mail staff to steal bank cards, a BBC investigation finds.
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England
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Postal workers are being offered £1,000 per week to steal bank cards, a BBC investigation has found.
Online adverts offer huge sums to tempt Royal Mail staff to intercept letters containing cards and PINs.
More than 11,000 people in the UK have been affected by this type of fraud in 2016, where bank cards are stolen in transit, according to UK Finance.
Royal Mail would not disclose how many workers had been convicted but claimed "the theft of mail is very rare".
It added its security team was investigating the findings by BBC Inside Out West Midlands and it had no evidence of its employees being involved.
West Midlands Police said its economic and fraud teams are not aware of the BBC's findings and it has not had any reports of this type of fraud.
A BBC journalist posed as a postman and responded to an advert offering £1,000 per week to intercept letters.
After a few weeks working to build up the gang's trust, he was able to persuade a member to meet him.
Adverts posted online promise up to £1,000 a week for postal workers willing to intercept letters
Our reporter secretly filmed a meeting outside the bus station in Lewisham, south-east London, where the gang member explained what was expected.
"We're going to tell you, for example, that Ms *****, she's going to have a letter from NatWest," he told the undercover journalist.
"Any letters from NatWest for Ms *****, intercept. As simple as that.
"If you open up a new account you're going to get your card and you're going to get your PIN, right? Two letters, that's all it is.
"We do that, you intercept the letters, bring them back to us, you get paid."
The gang member said his contact in Birmingham works with "a number of postmen"
One gang in Birmingham has been operating for 30 years, according to the unidentified member who said the leader has "been in the game for 30 years".
"I've worked with two. One was in the Midlands - Coventry - and one was on the outskirts of London, Romford area.
"But my guy, he lives in Birmingham and I obviously do the work, he sorts out the other side."
When confronted, the gang member offered no explanation for the gang's crimes
On their second meeting in a south London park, the undercover journalist confronted his contact.
The gang member offered no answer and ran away when asked why he was trying to recruit postal workers to commit fraud.
Royal Mail would not comment on how many of its workers had been prosecuted for stealing mail since it was privatised in 2013.
However, 1,759 Royal Mail workers were convicted of theft between 2007 and 2011.
Figures from UK Finance show the problem does not seem to be getting any better with the number of cases, and the cost to card issuers, rising each year since 2014.
In 2016, there were 11,377 cases of fraud where a card is stolen in transit, costing card issuers £12.5m.
UK Finance said it works closely with Royal Mail to target these types of gangs. It has its own police unit with prosecution powers.
"We do have our own police unit and they target organised criminality," Katy Worobec, head of fraud detection at UK Finance said.
"They try and get the people who are actually organising the criminality behind the scene.
"Once you've taken that part of the gang out, the thing falls apart.
"We've got a very good relationship with Royal Mail to help target these types of gangs and we've seen some good successes in the past."
Royal Mail said: "We take all instances of fraud - alleged or actual - very seriously.
"Our security team is reviewing the programme's findings as a matter of urgency and will continue our close and ongoing cooperation with the relevant law enforcement agency.
"The overwhelming majority of postmen and women do all they can to protect the mail and deliver it safely. The safety and security of mail is of the utmost importance to Royal Mail.
"We deliver millions of items safely every day and the theft of mail is rare. The business operates a zero tolerance approach to any dishonesty. We prosecute anyone we believe has committed a crime."
Mr Blythe is blind and said he was left depressed and unable to get out of the house when his money was stolen
Darren Blythe, from Banbury, had his bank card intercepted by postal worker Damon Alvey in 2013.
He sensed something was wrong when the new bank card he requested did not arrive within the estimated time.
"I was waiting and waiting and eventually I rang the bank and that's when they told me my bank account had been wiped out totally."
Alvey, from Thame, was jailed for 10 months in 2014 for the fraud which saw about £3,000 taken from Mr Blythe's account.
"He left me with just over £2 in my account," Mr Blythe said.
"It made me really depressed. I was stuck indoors for days and days on end."
Although his money was refunded by the bank within two weeks, Mr Blythe said he did not "trust postmen any more really".
You can see this story in full on BBC Inside Out West Midlands at 19:30 BST on BBC One on Monday 4 September, or via iPlayer for seven days afterwards.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41081396
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Charlie Stillitano: The US football 'player' you've never heard of - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Sports promoter Charlie Stillitano is possibly the football world's most influential American.
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Business
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US soccer promoter Charlie Stillitano has been called many things in the past 18 months or so - with "power broker" and "mogul" among the more flattering descriptions of the ebullient New Yorker.
On the downside, for his apparent suggestion that a European super league might be an idea worth talking about, he has been called "a poster boy for greed" and even "a corporate goblin".
Stillitano is the executive chairman of Relevant Sports, which organises the International Champions Cup, an annual summer tournament held mainly across the US - although other countries also host matches - featuring the world's top football clubs.
But it was for organising a meeting of executives from Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea - where they discussed the possibility of restructuring the Uefa Champions League - that he found himself in the firing line.
"It was not our [Relevant's] intention to be a stalking horse for the creation of a European Super League, that was never the intention," he tells me.
"I would never advocate a closed-shop Champions League or any closed European league. I know it sounds cliched but I was misquoted, or rather I was asked a question about whether closed leagues can ever work.
Stillitano has been a football fan since his childhood days in the 1960s
"And in some circumstances they can - look at NFL American football, one of the most successful leagues in the world. But I know that closed leagues are anathema in Europe."
The 57-year-old says discussions about the format of European football first emerged because clubs came to him and asked if the Champions Cup could become more than just a pre-season event, and be put on a more official footing.
Stillitano says he got sucked into a Champions League controversy inadvertently
"So things were coming about more as a reaction to teams approaching us," he says. "We caused a stir unintentionally. And clubs are still coming up to us.
"Anyway, the big European clubs ended up cutting new commercial and sporting deals, including the changes at Uefa with the Champions League," he adds, referring to the deal where bigger nations such as England are guaranteed more places.
Stillitano's partner in the International Champions Cup is US billionaire and Miami Dolphins American football team owner, Stephen Ross.
Indeed, he says it is Ross's lack of a traditional soccer background that has enabled him to put together some of the bigger Champions Cup matches.
"We brokered the biggest game, the Real Madrid v Barcelona Clasico, in Miami this summer," he says. "Steve Ross has the advantage of not being a massive soccer follower, so he just said 'let's get it' without even considering it might not be possible.
"From the beginning Mr Ross and his business partner Matt Higgins could see there was something out there, a huge untapped soccer market.
Five English clubs took part in the 2017 event
"The Champions Cup sits in a nice pre-season niche. It gives us the opportunity to own the month of pre-season, and build a viable business.
"We get to show the best players in the world, and they are able to perform in a relaxed atmosphere without the the pressure of a regular season game. It allows the teams to build for their seasons."
The tournament has just completed its fifth year, with Ross investing roughly $100m over the period since 2013.
"We are making money out of it, we have turned the financial corner, I think the investment has paid off," says Stillitano.
Stillitano says the Champions Cup is creating a new generation of US soccer fans
"I know it is not a Champions League or regular season games. But the fans love it and lots of cities and clubs would live to have Champions Cup games to host.
"We are helping to cultivate the new US soccer fan. The biggest crowd ever for a Manchester United v Real Madrid game was in America this summer. Clearly we have something that has caught the imagination of the US sporting public."
Grew up watching Italian and German football on cable TV
Director of Giants Stadium at the 1994 World Cup
In 1996 became general manager of MLS team New York/New Jersey MetroStars (later Red Bulls)
Set up Champions World series of games in the US featuring major European teams in the 2000s
Stillitano says the next step is to make the event more of an entertainment property.
"We saw it for the first time in Miami with the Clasico," he says. "We had legends games, concerts, activities for kids. That is something we want to expand, make it a fun day out, not just the match. The NFL Super Bowl is currently the only event that gets that mix right.
"The next part is also to attract more cities to take part - Singapore is a good example of a city that has come on board with us."
Games have also been held in England, Italy, Spain, Canada, Mexico and China; Mr Stillitano says there is interest in Argentina, Brazil, the Middle East, and South Africa.
"It is good for the economies of host cities," he says. "Three quarters of the people who came to the Miami Clasico were from out of state. And there were 70,000 at the game, and 40,000 at the training sessions."
Fifa took over the former Intercontinental Cup/Toyota Cup
So, does this growth signal that the Champions Cup is indeed ripe for becoming a part of the official football calendar?
"Different people own different football spaces... but things change," he says. "Look at how Fifa decided they wanted to take over the old Intercontinental Cup, and moved in on it.
"However, are we going to morph into something more official? I don't think so."
And on the subject of competitions morphing into something else, Stillitano has a final riposte for those who accused him of trying to set up a closed-shop European league.
"I think we are already in danger of creating a closed league, through financial fair play," he says, referring to Uefa rules which generally mean clubs can only spend what they make, and break even.
PSG are emerging as one of clutch of super-wealthy European teams
"It means there are five, six, clubs that are wealthy enough to dominate the Champions League over the next 20 years - the likes of Paris Saint Germain, Manchester City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich.
"A Celtic or Ajax will never win the cup again, while the likes of AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, and other historic big names are condemned to almost second tier status."
He laughs: "But I am the one who got all the trouble and criticism!"
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41092764
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Stranded British rowers rescued from Norwegian island - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The group, including a British Olympian, say they achieved 11 world records before seeking help.
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UK
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The Polar Row crew were taken to mainland Norway by the Norwegian coastguard
A group of rowers has been rescued by the coastguard from a remote Norwegian island, where they had been stuck for more than two weeks.
The crew, including British Olympian Alex Gregory, had been stranded on Jan Mayen since 19 August, a month after starting to row from Norway to Iceland.
The group, who were taken to the Norwegian mainland, sought refuge on the island because of ill health.
Despite not completing the row, they say they achieved 11 world records.
In a post on the group's Polar Row Facebook page, they said: "The Polar Row crew and boat is now on mainland Norway!
"Thanks to the great hospitality of the Norwegians on Jan Mayen and the Norwegian coastguard who gave us a lift to the mainland.
"It's been an extremely successful trip, although some amendments due to the circumstances, we are extremely happy to have accomplished the expedition."
They said the group's injuries were better and Gregory's "infamous" hands - which he pictured on social media on 30 August - were healing and "looking less like he should be in a morgue every day".
The crew of nine, which included four Britons and men from Iceland, India, the United States and Norway, are now due to fly home.
They were looked after by the Norwegian military on the island while they awaited rescue.
In a Facebook post, Oxfordshire-based Gregory said it had been "one extraordinary month, something unexpected and interesting at every turn".
"Hopefully now the flights are simple and straightforward because I need to get home in time for my daughter Daisy's first day of school tomorrow!"
On 20 July, the group set out from Tromso, Norway and headed north towards Svalbard, a group of islands which lie midway between the mainland and the North Pole.
In nine days the crew completed the 521 nautical miles (965 km) and achieved eight world records.
They spent two nights in Svalbard making changes to the crew and preparing for the second leg of the row to Iceland.
On 7 August, the group began the next part of their expedition, and three days later they reached the Arctic sea ice, becoming the first recorded rowing boat to reach such a northerly latitude.
But soon after, the weather became overcast, and after five days of no visible sun the boat's solar-powered batteries had drained.
Eight days after leaving Svalbard, the power had stopped all electrical equipment from working.
Alex Gregory said it had been an "extraordinary month"
The crew had to resort to manual steering and without navigational aids decided to head towards the island of Jan Mayen - 370 miles (600 km) from Iceland.
In a post on 18 August, while still at sea, the group said they had had a "phenomenally tough 72 hours".
"I've never been so wet and cold. It's seeping into my bones, there is absolutely no escape from it. Two degrees, 99% humidity [so] nothing will dry," said Gregory.
A day later they reached the island. Its only inhabitants are Norwegian Armed Forces personnel, and a small number of people working for the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
Due to ill health, four members of the crew then decided they would not continue to Iceland.
The rowers set out from Tromso, Norway, on 20 July
Fiann Paul, captain of Polar Row, said that despite his attempts, he was unable to get a new crew in to complete the row.
"Regardless of that, the project was a spectacular success," he said.
"We missed one record but we got 11.
"Looking at the entire project I can proudly say that there will be no other ocean row that successful ever again."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41147038
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Kirsty Gallacher admits drink-driving in Eton - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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The Sky Sports presenter was found to be at more than three times the legal limit, a court hears.
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Berkshire
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Kirsty Gallacher was more than three-times the drink-drive limit when she was pulled over in Eton, Berkshire
Television presenter Kirsty Gallacher has admitted drink-driving after being caught at more than three times the legal limit.
The Sky Sports presenter, 41, was arrested in Eton, Berkshire, the day after she had been drinking, Slough magistrates heard.
She was on her way to meet her children to visit Windsor Castle on 12 August.
She received a two-year driving ban and was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid community work.
Gallacher, who is divorced from former rugby union player Paul Sampson, was seen driving her BMW X4 erratically before police tracked her down using CCTV.
Her alcohol level was found to be 106 micrograms per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35 micrograms per 100ml of breath.
Kirsty Gallacher appeared at Slough Magistrates' Court wearing black and spoke only to confirm her name, address and plea
Jennifer Dempster, mitigating, said Gallacher very rarely drank, and had taken a taxi home before going to collect her car the following morning.
She said Gallacher's children had not been in the car at the time.
"This is of course the morning after drinking, and it is a topic which is a hot one at present," Ms Dempster said.
"This is in many senses unintentional drink-driving.
"What this defendant did was exactly right until 11:00 BST the next morning."
Probation officer Jasvir Kaur Bhatti said Gallacher was "very remorseful" and "very much regrets what happened".
District Judge Davinder Lachhar said the charge was "very serious" and described the level of alcohol in her system as "very high".
The defendant, of Virginia Water, Surrey, appeared wearing black and spoke only to confirm her name, address and plea.
Gallacher, a former Strictly Come Dancing contestant, was told her driving ban could be reduced by six months if she opted to take part in a driving safety course at a later date.
She was ordered to pay £85 in court charges and a separate surcharge of £85.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-41146248
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Oxford head attacks 'tawdry politicians' on university pay - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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University bosses' pay reflects a global marketplace and not higher fees, says Oxford head.
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Education & Family
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Louise Richardson says top universities have to compete for staff in a 'global marketplace'
Oxford University's vice-chancellor says it is dishonest of politicians to link high levels of pay for university leaders with increases in tuition fees.
She said that pay rates reflected a "global marketplace" and counterparts in the US were much better paid.
Universities minister Jo Johnson and Labour's Lord Adonis have warned against "excessive" pay levels.
"I think it's completely mendacious for politicians to suggest that vice-chancellors have used the £9,000 fees to enhance their own salaries," said Prof Richardson, speaking in London at the Times Higher Education World Academic Summit.
"We know that the £9,000 fees were a substitute for the withdrawal of government funding.
"My own salary is £350,000 - which is a very high salary compared to our academics - our junior academics especially, who are very lowly paid."
But Prof Richardson said university heads' pay might not look so high compared with footballers or bankers.
She said that leading UK universities wanted to attract heads from around the world - and that meant competing financially in a "global marketplace".
Jo Johnson says vice-chancellors will have to explain their high levels of pay
In the United States, she said that more than 40 university leaders earned more than $1m (£770,000) and that some received more than $2m (£1.54m).
Universities have come under pressure over high levels of pay for senior staff - at a time when tuition fees and levels of student debt are increasing in England.
But Prof Richardson accused politicians of using this to undermine the higher education sector.
"I think this is just the politicians, and I wish they wouldn't do it, not because it's embarrassing for me or my colleagues but because it's damaging.
"Why would you want to try and damage what is one of the most successful aspects of the British economy?
"The calibre of university education is something that should be celebrated on a daily basis - not just trying to drag it down by making spurious correlations between fees and salaries."
Universities minister Jo Johnson has warned of the "upward spiral" in vice-chancellors' pay.
He told universities in July that they needed to do more to respond to students' concerns about value for money - "especially when some vice-chancellors take home a wage that in some cases exceeds that of the prime minister".
Labour's former education minister Lord Adonis has attacked the rising levels of pay for university leaders - at a time when students faced increases in fees and interest rates on loans.
Four MPs have resigned from their roles at the University of Bath, in protest at the pay received there by Prof Dame Glynis Breakwell, who is the highest-paid vice-chancellor in the country.
"At what point does it become justifiable to pay someone £450,000?" asked Bristol East MP, Kerry McCarthy, as she resigned.
Oxford head Prof Richardson also challenged universities to protect free speech on campus and to resist those who wanted to stop the airing of controversial views.
She said that students did not have a right not to be offended - and that universities had to be places where people might hear opinions they did not share.
"I've had many such conversations with students who come to me and say they don't feel comfortable because their professor has expressed views against homosexuality," said Prof Richardson.
"They don't feel comfortable being in class with someone with those views.
"And I say, 'I'm sorry, but my job is not to make you feel comfortable. Education is not about being comfortable. In fact, I'm interested in making you uncomfortable'.
"If you don't like his views, you challenge them, engage with them, and figure out how a smart person like that can have views like that.
"Figure out how you can persuade him to change his mind. It is difficult, but it is absolutely what we have to do if we believe in what we say, and I certainly do."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41149074
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New camera can see through human body - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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The device has been designed to help doctors track medical tools during internal examinations.
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Edinburgh, Fife & East Scotland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The device has been designed to help doctors track medical tools known as endoscopes within the body
Scientists have developed a camera that can see through the human body.
The device has been designed to help doctors track medical tools, known as endoscopes, during internal examinations.
Until now, medics have had to rely on expensive scans, such as X-rays, to trace their progress.
The new camera works by detecting light sources inside the body, such as the illuminated tip of the endoscope's long flexible tube.
Prof Kev Dhaliwal, of the University of Edinburgh, said: "It has immense potential for diverse applications, such as the one described in this work.
"The ability to see a device's location is crucial for many applications in healthcare, as we move forwards with minimally invasive approaches to treating disease."
Early tests have shown the prototype device can track a point light source through 20cm of tissue under normal conditions.
Beams from the endoscope can pass through the body, but usually scatter or bounce off tissues and organs rather than travelling straight through.
That makes it problematic to get a clear picture of where the tool is.
The equipment is sensitive it can detect individual photons
The new camera can detect individual particles, called photons, and is so sensitive it can catch tiny traces of light passing through tissue.
It can also record the time taken for light to pass through the body, meaning the device is able to work out exactly where the endoscope is.
Researchers have developed the new camera so it can be used at the patient's bedside.
The project - led by the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University - is part of the Proteus Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration, which is developing a range of new technologies for diagnosing and treating lung diseases.
Dr Michael Tanner, of Heriot-Watt University, said: "My favourite element of this work was the ability to work with clinicians to understand a practical healthcare challenge, then tailor advanced technologies and principles that would not normally make it out of a physics lab to solve real problems.
"I hope we can continue this interdisciplinary approach to make a real difference in healthcare technology."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-41140654
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McDonald's hit by first UK industrial action - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The fast food chain has seen 14 workers walk out of two of its stores in a dispute over contracts.
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Business
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Lewis Baker is one of the workers on strike
McDonald's workers are staging their first UK strike after walking out at two stores in a dispute over zero-hours contracts and conditions.
Some workers at Cambridge and Crayford, south-east London, began the 24-hour action at midnight. A union called it a "brave" move by low-paid staff.
The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union said staff wanted a wage of at least £10 an hour and more secure jobs.
McDonald's said only 14 of the 33 union members balloted had joined in.
"A small number of our people representing less than 0.01% of our workforce took strike action in two of our 1,270 UK restaurants," said the company.
"As per the terms of the ballot, the dispute is solely related to our internal grievance procedures and not concerning pay or contracts."
But Ian Hodson, the union's president, disputed that.
"For far too long, workers in fast food restaurants such as McDonald's have had to deal with poor working conditions, drastic cuts to employee hours, and even bullying in the workplace - viewed by many as a punishment for joining a union," he said.
Speaking to the BBC, at a union protest near the Houses of Parliament in London, two of the striking McDonald's employees outlined their grievances.
Shen Batmaz, who serves customers in the company's Crayford branch, said that being on a zero-hours contract meant that some staff were anxious about going to work because they feared being bullied.
"Zero-hours contracts are the reasons why bullying managers can cut down on our shifts drastically," she said.
"When we had a bullying business manager in, when I stood up to him my hours were cut down from four days a week to one.
"A friend had the same shift pattern for five years but when he stood up to the bullying manager, he was cut down from five days a week to one," she said.
Steve Day, a striking staff member from the McDonald's branch in Cambridge
Steve Day, a McDonald's worker from Cambridge, said encouraging his colleagues to join the BFAWU and go on strike had been very difficult and 10 staff out of about 90 had travelled to the protest in London.
"We have had managers from everywhere coming into our store, the place has been crawling with them, our main organiser in Cambridge is followed everywhere, it's like we are being policed," he said.
McDonald's, which employs about 85,000 people in the UK, announced in April that workers would be offered a choice of flexible or fixed contracts with minimum guaranteed hours, saying that 86% had chosen to stay on flexible contracts.
And it pointed to a series of pay rises as evidence that it treated its staff well.
"McDonald's UK and its franchisees have delivered three pay rises since April 2016, this has increased the average hourly pay rate by 15%," said the firm.
The union has taken advice from protesters in the US and New Zealand who have campaigned for better conditions at McDonald's there, Mr Hodson said.
The staff have also won backing from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
"Our party offers support and solidarity to the brave McDonald's workers, who are making history today," he said.
"Their demands - an end to zero hours contracts by the end of the year, union recognition and a £10 per hour minimum wage - are just and should be met."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41143869
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Lego job application from boy, 6, claiming 'lots of experience' - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Stanley Bolland is given work experience at the theme park after writing: "I am the man for the job."
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Hampshire & Isle of Wight
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Stanley Bolland, now aged seven, said he was "the best man for the job" of model maker at Legoland
A job advert for model builders at Legoland Windsor attracted one standout application - from a six-year-old boy.
In a handwritten letter, Stanley Bolland, from Waterlooville, Hampshire, said: "I am the man [for] the job because I have lots of experience."
The company did not give him the job but did arrange a day's work placement with the theme park's model makers.
Staff member Paula Laughton said: "Stanley showed great promise, so we hope this will inspire him."
Merlin Entertainments Group advertised earlier this year for Lego model designers to help design and build animated figures for the Windsor theme park.
The advert asked for experience in product design, IT and design packages, as well as an "interest or knowledge about Lego and creation of Lego models".
In return, the company promised a "competitive annual salary", 20 days of holiday and 40% discount on Lego kits.
Stanley saw the advert and felt he was a perfect fit for the role.
He applied, saying: "Dear Sir/Madam, I am six years old and I love Lego [and] have a box of it.
"I hide my Lego so my brother cant get it. I am the man [for] the job because I have lots of experience. Love, Stanley. (ref: model builders job)"
In its reply, the company said: "Loving Lego is the first step to being a model maker, so it certainly sounds like you'll be perfect for the job (once you've finished school of course).
"In the meantime, and because you say you're the man for the job, we'd love to offer you a one-off work experience day with our model makers."
Stanley, who has now turned seven, spent the day shadowing Ms Laughton, seeing how the model makers carry out checks and repairs on the Lego constructions throughout the theme park, and getting a behind-the-scenes tour.
He said: "It was awesome to spend the whole day at Legoland meeting the model makers and learning all about what they do every day. I loved it and I can't wait to tell all my friends about it at school."
Legoland staff showed Stanley how they take care of the models, including this 5ft dragon
Stanley learned the importance of keeping key attractions - such as this replica of the London Eye - clean
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-41141813
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Alps murders: 'No progress' five years after al-Hilli shooting - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Zaid al-Hilli says he has no faith in the French investigators' search for his brother's killer.
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Surrey
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alps Murder: 'No progress' five years on
The brother of a British man shot dead while on a family holiday in the French Alps says he is frustrated with the lack of progress in the investigation.
The bodies of Saad al-Hilli, his wife Iqbal and her mother, Suhaila al-Allaf, were found on 5 September 2012. French cyclist Sylvain Mollier was also shot.
The couple's two young daughters survived the shooting near Lake Annecy.
The French lead prosecutor said it was the most complex case she had worked on.
Zeena al-Hilli, then four years old, was discovered hiding under her mother's body inside the family car, eight hours after the shooting.
Her seven-year-old sister Zainab was found with serious head injuries after being shot and beaten.
Zaid al-Hilli says he has no faith in those investigating the shooting of his brother and his family
The bodies of the couple from Claygate, Surrey, along with Ms al-Allaf and Mr Mollier, were found on a remote road in Chevaline near where they had been on holiday.
Mr al-Hilli's brother Zaid said: "There hasn't been any progress in the case. The initial investigation [by French investigators] has been a total failure.
"They made claims against the family which they couldn't prove."
In 2013, Surrey Police arrested Zaid al-Hilli, who lives in Chessington, as part of the French investigation.
He was later released, with British police saying there was not enough evidence to charge him.
Surrey Police said it was continuing to provide support to the French investigation as part of the joint investigation team (JIT) established following the deaths.
It said officers had worked closely with the French authorities to progress a number of lines of enquiry in the UK.
The force said: "This is a complex inquiry. However, Surrey Police remains committed to helping find answers to what happened."
He said the last time he had been in contact with the French authorities was "very briefly" in 2015.
The two daughters have been given new identities since the shootings.
"The girls are fine and doing well, and I'm in touch with them," Zaid al-Hilli said.
The French lead prosecutor, Veronique Dizot, said work was being carried out to identify the previous owners of the guns used in the attack, but she said there were no potential suspects in the case.
She said: "We have certain technical information about the weapons, but we have not yet identified the previous owner or owners of the weapons."
She told the BBC it was the most complex case she had worked on but there had been no progress in solving it.
The killer of Saad al-Hilli may never be found, his brother fears
"The only way forward is for a British judge to look into the investigation and give us some conclusions," Mr al-Hilli said.
"I don't think the French authorities were honest and we don't trust them and we don't have faith in them.
"Five years on I don't think we'll ever find out what happened."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-41150373
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Barnier: EU's Brexit negotiator seeks to clarify remarks - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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EU official says it is not time to "teach lessons" but to "explain" benefits of EU to all its members.
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UK Politics
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Michel Barnier has clarified remarks he is reported to have made about Brexit.
The EU negotiator was quoted as saying he saw the process as an opportunity to "teach" the British people and others what leaving the single market means.
Mr Barnier said he actually told a meeting it "was an occasion of great explanation for everyone in the EU".
The BBC understands he was talking in Italy about explaining the benefits of the single market to a broad European audience, not just specifically the UK.
The latest round of negotiations over the UK's exit from the EU concluded last week, with the two sides due to officially meet again later this month.
The UK, which is keen to move on from issues directly related to its withdrawal to talk about its future relationship with the EU, has said it would like to "intensify" the pace of talks, with Downing Street saying it is open to holding negotiations on a rolling basis.
There has been unconfirmed speculation that Prime Minister Theresa May is to make a major speech on Brexit later this month in the run-up to the Conservative Party conference.
Speaking at a conference in Italy on Saturday, Mr Barnier said he did not want to punish the UK for voting to leave the EU in last year's referendum.
But he reportedly warned that "there are extremely serious consequences of leaving the single market and it hasn't been explained to the British people".
"We intend to teach people… what leaving the single market means," he reportedly told the Ambrosetti forum.
Responding to the remarks, a No 10 spokesman said "the British people have heard those arguments."
Mr Barnier tweeted on Monday that what he had said was that Brexit was an "occasion to explain single market benefits in all countries, including my own".
He added "we do not want to "educate" or "teach lessons".
The former French minister, who met the Irish Republic's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney for talks on Monday, later reiterated these comments when speaking to a BBC reporter outside the European Parliament.
Amid growing tensions between the two sides about the progress of talks and the priority given to different issues, a senior EU official has said talks about the UK's financial obligations after Brexit are going backwards.
Gunther Oettinger, the European Commissioner responsible for the EU budget, said "the Brits have to accept that their obligations are going beyond March 2019".
"In July we had been thinking 'yes, they are on the way to accept it'. Now in the last few days they are coming back," he told a technology conference in Brussels.
BBC Brussels reporter Adam Fleming said Mr Oettinger had told him he believed that progress made on the issue in the July round of talks had been reversed during last week's session.
A source at the Department for Exiting the EU said it did not recognise this description and that there had been a robust debate about money.
Last week British officials gave a three-hour long presentation on the legal basis of the EU's request for a Brexit financial settlement.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41151962
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Newspaper headlines: Prince William and Catherine's new baby - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Most newspapers lead on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's baby announcement.
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The Papers
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Prince William and Catherine already have two children, George, who is four, and Charlotte, aged two
Bets are on for what the third royal baby could be called, with many papers leading on the announcement that the Duchess of Cambridge is expecting.
The Guardian and the Telegraph are just two of the papers which say Alice and Arthur are the most popular possible names for Princess Charlotte and Prince George's new brother or sister.
Others are taking a punt on the date and location of the child's conception. "The Warsaw Act" is the Sun's headline, referring to the royal couple's recent trip to Poland. But the Star reckons it's a south London baby, quoting a palace source who said "they both have so much fun during Wimbledon".
There's widespread concern over the United States' warning that North Korea is "begging for war". Writing in the daily Telegraph, former Foreign Secretary William Hague says there are no sanctions that will deter Kim Jong-un from pursuing his nuclear weapons programme - and only China can halt his ambitions.
The Daily Express agrees, saying Beijing now has the chance to show its maturity as a world power. But in its analysis, the Times thinks the crisis has highlighted the weakness in North Korea and China's relationship. It says China has lost control over its neighbour.
And in the Daily Mirror, former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen asks whether force is the next step in standing up to the atomic threat.
Meanwhile, the Guardian leads on its investigation uncovering a secret scheme to launder more than £2bn from Azerbaijan through a network of UK companies.
According to the paper, some of the cash from the so-called "Azerbiajani Laundromat" was spent on lobbying to deflect criticism of the country's president, who is accused of human rights abuses and rigging elections.
A journalist in Baku jailed for investigating government corruption, Khadija Ismayilova, says it is a kleptocracy which perpetuates the poverty of ordinary citizens.
Rohingya refugees walk on the muddy road after travelling over the Bangladesh-Myanmar border
There's criticism of the de facto leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, in both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
In its leader column, the Telegraph says she must speak out against the persecution of the Muslim Rohingya minority if she is to live up to her worldwide reputation as a defender of the oppressed.
Mail commentator Peter Oborne goes further, accusing her government of complicity in genocide and mass rape. The journalist has travelled to Sittwe in Myanmar and spoken to Rohingyas who have been forced to live in a tiny ghetto with no access to proper healthcare.
Criminals are launching hundreds of successful cyber attacks on UK universities each year, the Times reports. The groups are targeting scientific, engineering and medical advances including research into missiles.
A cybersecurity expert tells the paper that many attacks go completely untraced, as most universities have "fundamentally backward-looking defences".
Finally, the paper also says Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been toying with the idea of veganism.
He announced he was "going through the process" of eliminating animal products from his diet but his love of Somerset brie has been holding him back.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-41155563
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Newspaper review Trump, N Korea, and police custody deaths - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Most newspapers highlight growing tensions with North Korea after its most recent nuclear test.
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The Papers
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The tensions between North Korea and US President Trump feature on many of Sunday's papers
The Financial Times says US President Donald Trump has opened the door to launching an attack on North Korea, while both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail also highlight warnings by the US that it is ready to "annihilate" the country.
The Times lays part of the blame at the door of the US president. It says the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has been emboldened by the incoherence of Mr Trump's attitude towards him.
The Guardian says it has learnt that a long-awaited official report on deaths in custody, which has yet to be published, will call for far-reaching reforms to the police and justice system.
It says the review - ordered by Theresa May when she was home secretary - will recommend that police cells should be completely phased out as a place to hold people who are believed to have mental health problems.
It will also say that the families of those who have died in police custody should receive "free, non-means tested" legal advice.
The Daily Mail says people who overload their bins risk being fined £2,500 and getting a criminal conviction.
The figure rises to £20,000 for businesses such as corner shops. The paper says councils are threatening to impose the penalties on households under anti-social behaviour laws.
Putting bins out too early or too late is also said to be on the list of "offences".
The Times reports that Theresa May is using the threat of a reshuffle to bring Tory troublemakers into line as she seeks to tighten her grip on Downing Street. The paper says that Conservative backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg is being lined up for a ministerial job to test his suitability for higher office.
An investigation by the Telegraph has found that people who make false allegations of sexual abuse are being allowed to keep tax-payer funded compensation.
The paper says thousands of pounds paid out to fake victims has not been clawed back even after their claims have been exposed as false. It believes the problem has been compounded by a compensation culture that has included lawyers touting for business from sex abuse victims.
And the Daily Mirror leads on a report that hundreds of people died needlessly last year while waiting for a transplant organ.
It quotes figures showing that nearly 460 lives could have been saved by a change in the law so that people are assumed to consent to being donors after they die.
The government's chief mouse catcher has been earning his keep, according to the Sun.
Palmerston the Whitehall cat has caught 27 mice since arriving from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home last year, says the paper. Although volunteers who look after him have told the Sun that based on reported sightings, the number is "likely to be much higher".
And the Telegraph reports the white cliffs of Dover are under threat of development. It says the rolling chalk cliff tops could be sold if the National Trust cannot raise £1m in three weeks to buy it from the landowner.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-41143819
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Coastal communities among worst off in UK, report finds - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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The economic gap between coastal and non-coastal areas has grown, a think tank finds.
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UK
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The decline of the busy port of Ardrossan in Ayrshire
The UK's coastal communities are among the country's worst off for earnings, employment, health and education, a report for the BBC has found.
The Social Market Foundation said the economic gap between coastal and non-coastal places has grown.
Average wages are £3,600 a year lower in these "pockets of deprivation", according to the think tank.
Meanwhile, the minister for coastal communities has announced £40m in funding to help coastal areas.
The report, produced for BBC Breakfast, found that five of the 10 local authorities in the UK with the highest unemployment rate for the three months to March 2017 were coastal.
These were Hartlepool, North Ayrshire, Torridge, Hastings, South Tyneside and Sunderland.
It also found those in employment in coastal areas were likely to be paid less.
Of the 98 local authorities on the coast, 85% had pay levels below the UK's average in 2016.
Great Yarmouth ranked lowest in England and Wales for post-16 education
In terms of health, 10 of the 20 local authorities in England and Wales with the highest proportion of people in poor health are coastal: Neath Port Talbot, Blackpool, Bridgend, Sunderland, Barrow-in-Furness, Carmarthenshire, East Lindsey, South Tyneside, County Durham and Hartlepool.
And the two local authorities in England and Wales with the smallest proportion of over-16s holding level four and above qualifications [certificates above A level] are Great Yarmouth in Norfolk and Castle Point in Essex.
Report author, SMF chief economist Scott Corfe, said a lack of local job opportunities and poor transport links contribute to badly-performing economies.
There is currently no official definition of a coastal community, which the SMF believes is a problem.
For its analysis the SMF defined them as a local authority area with a coastal border.
"Despite the evident social and economic problems these places face, there is currently no official definition of a 'coastal community'," Mr Corfe added.
"The government needs to do more to track - and address - economic problems in our coastal towns."
The SMF warned that some areas - particularly in the South East - "are pockets of significant deprivation surrounded by affluence - meaning their problems are often overlooked by policymakers".
The report found the economic gap between coastal and non-coastal areas has widened from 23% to 26% from 1997 to 2015.
In Blackpool, individual health is among the poorest in the UK
Meanwhile, the government announced on Monday that it was providing £40m for coastal areas from the Coastal Communities Fund.
Having launched in 2012, it has so far provided £170m for 278 projects across the UK in five rounds of funding.
Some of the projects to have received funding include a new conference centre in Blackpool's Winter Gardens and improvements to Southport Pier.
Coastal Communities Minister Jake Berry said: "From the world-renowned Blackpool illuminations to Brighton's i360, our coastal towns and cities have a lot to offer all year round.
"This year is already looking like another record year for staycations and our latest round of funding will help attract even more visitors to the great British coast so that our coastal communities can thrive."
• None The dark side of the British seaside
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41141647
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'Why I'm proud to be a paparazzi photographer' - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Photographer George Bamby has hidden in bushes and worn disguises to snap photos of the rich and famous.
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UK
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Paparazzi photographer George uses an array of disguises to photograph the rich and famous
George Bamby grabbed his first photograph of Coleen Rooney when she was 16-year-old Coleen McLoughlin, as the Liverpool schoolgirl was shopping.
"I got a tip-off. She was still in her school uniform, it was mental," says George, who takes pride in his 20 years as a paparazzi photographer.
In the wake of newspaper allegations after husband Wayne Rooney's arrest for suspected drink driving, Coleen, who is now 31, says she has "had enough" of "dangerous" paparazzi photographers - accusing them in a tweet of following her and her three children in the car.
"Following someone in a car isn't dangerous, it's what we do for a living," says George, although he insists he never takes pictures of celebrities with children.
Whatever their methods, these freelancers' unofficial and often unflattering photos feed the showbiz news cycle. So what is life like behind the lens?
"It's like being a private detective," says Devon-based George, 45, who travels across the UK so he can sell celebrity photos to tabloid newspapers and celebrity magazines.
"I've got disguises - wigs, hats glasses, false beards - everything from fishing gear to jogging gear, scuba diving gear."
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George aims for anything unusual or different.
He has recently photographed Dawn French while buying French crepes, David Cameron surfing in Cornwall and Poldark actor Aiden Turner vaping in-between filming on set.
"Get a picture of David Cameron on the beach and you can sell it all over the world," he says.
He claims newspapers are prepared to pay thousands of pounds for a single photo, but is reluctant to reveal how much he earns. "I make a good living," he says.
He admits bending the truth for a front page photo - on one occasion, he says, he asked a friend to give TV presenter Judy Finnigan a bottle of wine as a "gift", before snapping a picture of the celebrity.
"A magazine rang me and said, 'We think Judy's an alcoholic, get us some evidence," he says. "The headline was 'Judy out of control' - there wasn't any truth in it whatsoever."
His methods have been the subject of a Channel 4 documentary and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) recently cancelled his press card.
But George has little sympathy for celebrity couples like the Rooneys. "They're public property at the end of the day," he says.
"Everything they do is scrutinised by the press and quite rightly so - they get paid millions and millions of pounds."
George recalls how photographers raced to be the first to snap the teenage Coleen, after the press found out she was going out with football prodigy Wayne.
"We were going round Liverpool trying to find her," he says. "We just got information off people and got tips."
Wayne Rooney and Coleen, who have gained media attention since their teens
The Rooneys have kept George in business for years.
A decade ago, he camped in Manchester United's training grounds, going undetected for three days, to get a picture of Wayne Rooney and his team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo.
It came shortly after the 2006 World Cup, when Ronaldo had appeared to wink after Rooney was sent off during an England v Portugal game..
"One morning the lads came out training and one of the balls landed in the bushes. John O'Shea literally picked the ball up from outside the door of my tent but didn't see me.
"I had a little camping stove, but I didn't do any cooking until the players left," says George, adding: "I got the picture - £7,000."
He relies on celebrities' family, friends, agents and managers to give him tips - as well as his own luck.
George's first photo came purely by chance - when he spotted cricketer Freddie Flintoff leaving a shop in Manchester with a bag of nappies.
"He got in his car, then he blew his nose into a nappy, so I took a photo," he says. "I thought, that's really good, and rang up the Daily Star and they gave me £500.
"I was doing nothing at the time, just working in a hotel as a porter carrying people's bags."
George thinks of his job as more of a hobby.
"Every day is different. It's the thrill of the chase in the celebrity world - finding out things before everyone else."
The story-chasing paparazzi have been known to get into scuffles with famous people, from Prince Harry to Liam Gallagher.
Harry Potter actress Emma Watson claimed a photographer tried to take a photo up her skirt during her 18th birthday.
Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace has asked the press to not publish paparazzi pictures of the royal children.
George admits the methods employed by some photographers are controversial, but he says: "There's a difference between following someone and chasing them.
"The problem is you get loads of young kids who think 'that's a really good job', buy a camera for £15.99, jump in a car and do anything they can to get a photograph."
Actor Aidan Turner was spotted by George using a vaping device on the set of BBC One's Poldark
The job does not require qualifications - George left school by the age of 14 - but he says a thick skin and a network of contacts to supply tip-offs are essential.
George says he has been dragged into the back of a car by security guards "to terrify me", but that he never let bad experiences put him off.
"I have two rules," he says. "I don't take pictures of anybody mentally unwell, and I don't take pictures of celebrities with children with them."
There is no code of conduct to be a paparazzo, unless a photographer joins a body such as the NUJ, although newspapers are prohibited from publishing misleading photos or pictures of people in private places without their consent.
But George thinks photographers have become less invasive than when he first began taking photos in Manchester in the late 1990s.
"We'd hide in people's gardens, wheelie bins, sheds, you could do anything you wanted," he says.
George's next job is in Manchester, where he is driving for four hours to - once again - snap Wayne Rooney.
"I got a tip-off," he says.
• None Diana's embrace: The legacy she left her sons
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41147422
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Dame Vera Lynn in urgent Dover white cliffs preservation plea - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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The National Trust wants to buy land at the top of Dover's white cliffs in order to preserve them.
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England
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Dame Vera said the white cliffs still represented important British ideals
An urgent plea to raise £1m in weeks to protect Dover's white cliffs has been backed by Dame Vera Lynn amid fears the land could be sold to developers.
The National Trust wants to buy 700,000 square metres of "iconic land" behind the cliffs when it goes up for sale.
General manager of the white cliffs, Virginia Portman, said she would be "devastated to lose this opportunity".
Dame Vera, who famously sang about the landmark during World War Two, said preserving the cliffs was "vital".
"They were often the first sight of home for our brave boys," she said.
The trust is bidding to raise the £1m by 22 September.
Dame Vera, who celebrated her 100th birthday at her home in Ditchling, Sussex, this year, became known as the Forces' Sweetheart after her performances of the 1942 classic, The White Cliffs of Dover.
She added: "They continue to represent important British ideals such as hope and resilience even in the most difficult of times.
"It is vital that we do all that we can to preserve this important historical site."
The charity wants to restore chalk grassland, protect military structures and improve access
The trust bought the cliff top in 2012, but later found 700,000 square metres of land had become available after the vendor recognised it could support conservation work on the cliffs.
Ms Portman said: "This unique coastal habitat should be open for the whole nation to enjoy.
"I'd be devastated to lose this opportunity to protect it forever."
The land, known as Wanstone Battery, has more than 40 species of flowers and grasses.
It provides a habitat for butterflies including the Adonis Blue and Marbled White, and birds including the peregrine falcon and skylark.
The site also has several structures from World War Two including two large gun emplacements.
The trust wants to return the land to chalk grassland, make the military structures watertight and create access routes for visitors.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41142193
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No interest rate rise for at least a year, economists say - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Uncertainty over Brexit is likely to stop the Monetary Policy Committee raising interest rates.
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Business
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Many economists do not expect UK interest rates to rise until 2019 despite inflation remaining above target, according to a BBC snapshot.
They believe that the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will be reluctant to raise rates during Brexit negotiations.
Inflation stood at 2.6% in July - well above the Bank's official target of 2%.
Half the economists contacted by the BBC think wages growth will outpace inflation in the first half of 2019.
Last week, one MPC member, Michael Saunders, said a "modest rise" in rates was needed to curb high inflation.
The base rate has stood at a record low of 0.25% since August 2016 - the first move since March 2009, when it was reduced to 0.5%.
In June, three MPC members voted for a rate rise - the first time since May 2011 that so many had wanted to tighten policy.
The same month the Bank's chief economist, Andy Haldane, also made a call for a rate rise this year.
However, Mark Carney, the Bank governor, said in his Mansion House speech in late June that "now is not yet the time" to start raising rates once more.
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has cast doubt on an imminent interest rate rise
Stuart Green, of Santander Global Corporate Banking, told the BBC he did not expect a rate hike to happen before 2019.
"We believe that policymakers will be reluctant to tighten monetary policy until greater clarity emerges around the UK's post-EU trading framework, and our expectation of declining inflation through 2018 should also reduce the pressure for an interest rate rise," he said.
Others expect it to be even longer, with economists at Morgan Stanley not expecting any movement until March 2019 at the earliest, with Andrew Goodwin at Oxford Economics suggesting it would not happen until the third quarter of that year.
Similarly, Fabrice Montagne, at Barclays, expects rates to stay on hold until "at least 2019".
But there are those who argue that the Bank will raise rates sooner. Howard Archer, chief economic adviser at the EY ITEM Club, said he had one increase, to 0.5%, pencilled in for late 2018, adding: "I would not be at all surprised if it was delayed until 2019."
Michael Lee, at Cambridge Econometrics, expects a rise to come in either the second or third quarter of next year as he thinks inflation will stay above the Bank's 2% target for the next two to three years.
Philip Rush, at Heteronomica, is more specific, settling on May 2018.
The one outlier is George Buckley at Nomura, who expects the MPC to jump in November.
The BBC also asked the economists when they expect inflation to peak in the UK. Both Mr Rush and Mr Archer think it will hit 2.9% in October, with the latter predicting it will then start to fall back "as the impact of the sharp drop in sterling following the June 2016 Brexit vote increasingly wanes".
Several others, such as Mr Green, Mr Lee and Mr Goodwin, expect inflation to hit 3% in the final three months of the year before starting to retreat.
Morgan Stanley is more pessimistic, however, predicting a peak of 3.2% in Spring 2018.
Holiday makers planning trips to the continent in the next few months should prepare themselves for more pain, according to Morgan Stanley.
Its currency strategy team expect sterling to weaken against the euro by a further 10% by March 2018.
Mr Green at Santander also forecasts more weakness for the UK currency over the course of the next year, with an average of $1.25 to the pound and just 96 euro cents in the final quarter of 2018.
Mr Archer thinks the pound will sink to about $1.25 by Christmas, but recover to trade about seven cents higher by the end of 2018.
Heteronomica's Mr Rush is also a little more optimistic about sterling, expecting it to be stronger within a year.
The last time interest rates went up was 5 July, 2007. They rose by a quarter of a percentage point to 5.75%. The next month the credit crunch struck, and so began a series of cuts, down to 0.5% in March 2009.
These were supposed to be emergency measures. Then came the Brexit vote, and in August 2016 the official rate dropped to a fresh record low of 0.25%. That compares to a typical range of between 5% and 13% for most of the 1990s.
Emergency rates are the new normal. That carries dangers. If we hit another slump, we've run out of road; there won't be much the Bank of England can do to help by cutting interest rates.
While some members of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee think we should start restoring interest rates to non-emergency levels this year, that is a minority view, as our snapshot of economists' forecasts shows.
You could draw a number of conclusions. You might decide interest rates aren't effective on their own - so the government should rely less on the central bank stimulus and instead use fiscal policy such as cutting taxes or raising spending.
You might take the view that rates should rise to help savers and pension schemes.
Or you might take the view that an early rise could worsen the economic slowdown. You might even believe that we need to find ways to get the official rate below zero (so that I, the lender, pay you, the borrower, to take my money).
Take your pick, but whichever you choose, normality ain't what it used to be.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41141453
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North Korea nuclear test: 'Tunnel collapse' may provide clues - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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It's the biggest test yet for North Korea, but what can we hope to learn about its nuclear progress?
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Asia
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The USGS put the site of the quake near the Punggye-ri test site
North Korea has hailed its sixth "perfect success" of a nuclear test. The seismic readings indicate it is bigger than any other it has conducted, but the apparent collapse of a tunnel at the nuclear test site could provide valuable information, nuclear defence analyst Catherine Dill writes.
Seismic readings from the US and China place the explosion at a magnitude of 6.3, so we already know that this is likely to be the most powerful of North Korea's nuclear tests.
This magnitude roughly corresponds to the lower end of predicted yields of a thermonuclear weapon - basically the second generation of nuclear weapon, which works in two stages by having one bomb set off another bomb to generate a larger explosion
It is not yet clear exactly what nuclear weapon design was tested, but based on the seismic signature, the yield of this test definitely is an order of magnitude higher than the yields of the previous tests.
Some estimates say that this latest test comes in at about 100-150 kilotonnes. For comparison, Hiroshima was about 15 kilotonnes. North Korea's last test in September 2016 was estimated at between 10 and 30 kilotonnes.
We can guess this because equations have been developed that translate magnitude of a tremor into the estimated yield of a nuclear device tested, which is basically the strength of the bomb.
But it also depends on the geology of the test site and how deep the tunnels are. We don't have all that information and that's why the information about the yields are all so preliminary.
So what else can we tell from this latest test? This is where an apparent tunnel collapse reported at the nuclear test site could be very useful.
The other way to learn is to monitor the composition of radionuclides released, which are the products of the nuclear reaction that are released into the atmosphere. In the past the tests have been very well contained as the tunnels where the tests took place were sealed. So we have not had much to analyse in recent years.
But this explosion was large and it also looks like a portion of the tunnel collapsed. The US Geological Survey recorded a second event approximately eight minutes after the test. The USGS, as well as China, have assessed this event as a "collapse" of the cavity.
Why would the tunnel collapse? It could be that the tunnel was not constructed sufficiently to handle an explosion of that size. It's also possible that they intended for this collapse to occur - a way of signalling to the world that this was an authentic test through radionuclide release, a serious advance. It is still too early to tell.
The news came hours after state media showed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting what it said was a hydrogen bomb
What it does mean is that we are likely to get information to analyse this nuclear explosion to determine what happened under the mountains of the test site. This will take weeks or even months as monitoring sites run by the CTBTO detect these radionuclides.
The information they give us may tell us the composition of the warhead: how much fissile material there was and what kind - was it plutonium or highly enriched uranium? North Korea produces both and has capability for both.
North Korea's sixth nuclear test is not definitively a thermonuclear weapon from the seismic signature alone, but it appears to be a likely possibility at this point.
This progress is not surprising, though the magnitude of this test is a stark reminder of the seriousness of the current moment. According to South Korean government seismologists, this test was five to six times more powerful than past tests.
So what is next for North Korea and where could they go from here? Part of this depends on how the US responds.
The concern among some analysts is that North Korea will feel compelled to prove this warhead they have just tested can actually fly on an ICBM. They could want to try a live firing exercise or even an atmospheric nuclear test, which was how the earliest nuclear devices were tested until that was banned. This would be among the most provocative gestures they could make in the testing arena.
The timing of this test may or may not be politically significant. US-ROK joint exercises recently concluded. North Korea has been intimating that a test may occur this year, and the exact timing of this test may be for technical reasons more than political.
And there is no doubt that they will glean useful technical information from this test and be able to make slight adjustments to the warhead to be confident it will work in the future.
In the official state announcement after the test, Pyongyang claimed a successful test of a two-stage hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb ready to be deployed on an ICBM that Kim Jong Un inspected the previous day.
Cautious analysts have reason to continue to debate the exact nature of the device, but with the results of this test it will be difficult for observers to continue to claim that North Korea does not yet have a working nuclear weapons program.
Catherine Dill is a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/41139740
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'I was told I'd be fired because of migraines' - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Employers are not good enough at supporting staff with migraines, say three UK charities.
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Health
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Fiona McKenzie was made to feel she was "making a fuss over nothing" when she had migraines
Many employers do not understand the terrible effects of migraines and could do more to support staff with the condition, three UK charities say.
With one in seven people affected, their research suggests more help and awareness from bosses is needed.
Fiona McKenzie, 33, was told by one of her former employers she would be fired if her absences due to migraines didn't improve.
She says migraine pain is "like someone hitting my brain with an ice pick".
In a survey of more than 2,000 UK adults by the Migraine Trust, Migraine Action and the National Migraine Centre, 64% said they thought employers were not properly informed about the nature of migraines or how they affected employees.
One in five believed health professionals were not fully aware of the impact of migraine on their patients either.
Nine million people in the UK are thought to have them, with women more likely to be affected than men.
The most common migraine symptoms are:
Fiona, who lives in London, says she has some of her worst migraines at work.
At their worst, they affect her vision, cause a stabbing pain in her head and leave her unable to talk. She also becomes sensitive to loud noises, light and smells.
Although she has had some very understanding managers, she says she has also experienced a complete lack of support.
"[Some time] ago, I had 16 headache days in one month, and it had a real impact on my work, although I tried hard not to take sick days."
But her employer simply told her to pull her socks up and be more resilient.
Fiona says: "I found it very hard, it pushed the onus on to me, but it was not something in my control.
"It feels like you're fighting an illness all by yourself.
"I came home and cried on the sofa because I couldn't magically make myself better."
Although migraine can be classed as a disability if it is severe enough to affect work, charities says the legislation is unclear and many employers are reluctant to act.
Every year, an estimated 25 million days are lost because of migraines in the workplace and in schools in the UK.
Simon Evans, from Migraine Action, said most people with migraines "kill themselves to get in to work".
He said employers should consider how lighting and computer screens could affect staff with the condition, and offer a sick room that is dark and quiet where people could go to recover. They should also send home those affected, if necessary.
Employers could be more understanding towards staff with migraines, charities say
"No two migraines are the same. People feel they can't say they are suffering because it's often used as an excuse for a sickie."
Fiona says she would like employers to be more sympathetic, offer flexible working and encourage staff to seek help and treatment.
She had to push to see a neurologist because her GP was sceptical that anything more could be done to relieve her migraines.
Yet there are a variety of treatments and preventative medicines available, depending on how regular and how serious the migraines are.
If you are having four or more migraine attacks per month, the advice is to discuss how to prevent attacks occurring with your GP - rather than taking painkillers once they start.
New research, published in the journal Headache, found that measuring daily stress levels could help predict when migraine attacks were going to occur in those who got them frequently.
Arlene Wilkie, chief executive at The Migraine Trust, said charities were able to provide everyday support for migraine sufferers and campaign for more support in the workplace.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41147026
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Inmates moved after trouble at Birmingham jail - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Twenty eight inmates are moved out of HMP Birmingham after disorder led by 10 'key protagonists'.
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Birmingham & Black Country
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. HMP Birmingham, operated by G4S, was the scene of 12 hours of disorder in December 2016
Twenty eight inmates have been moved out of HMP Birmingham after trouble flared when prisoners refused to return to their cells, security firm G4S said.
The disorder on Sunday involved a "small number of prisoners" on one wing, the Prison Service said, and saw 28 cells suffer water damage.
It began at about 17:00 BST and was resolved by 23:45. No injuries have been reported.
The moved prisoners include 10 "key protagonists" who led the disorder.
G4S, who took over running the jail from the Prison Service in 2011, said it expected the cells to have dried out by later on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.
The prison was the scene of 12 hours of disorder in December 2016, which required riot teams to be deployed.
Trouble flared after a group of prisoners refused to return to their cells, G4S said
G4S said it would review what had caused the latest outbreak of trouble at the Category B and C prison in the Winson Green area of the city.
A spokesman said trouble flared "after a group of prisoners refused to return to their cells" at the end of evening association.
He said: "Staff have successfully resolved disorder on one wing at HM Prison Birmingham.
One inmate was taken to hospital for an unrelated medical matter
"No staff or prisoners were injured during the incident and the rest of the establishment was unaffected."
One inmate, believed to be in his 20s, was taken to hospital for an unrelated medical matter.
Support staff were drafted in on Sunday evening
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Brexit: A lakeside view of Barnier's tough talk - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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The European elite have been meeting on the shores of Lake Como, as the EU firms up its negotiating position.
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UK
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It's a pretty place for some very hard talking by the EU's man in charge of Brexit talks.
The stately hotel the Villa d'Este, on the shores of magnificent Lake Como replete with baroque chandeliers, statues of nymphs and marble columns is not a hard sell.
No wonder former prime ministers, current ministers, US senators and European commissioners are happy to mingle under the watchful eye of the dozens of varieties of Italian police, some complete with sabres and tall plumed hats, at this high powered forum of the Italian think tank Ambrosetti - The European House.
They are the European elite - and feel their project is in remission. Over the weekend there's been torrential rain and thunder but now Lake Como's waters are only slightly choppy - a timely European metaphor.
This time last year, the subject for discussion here was the possibility of the disintegration of the EU. Brexit and Trump were feared as harbingers of nationalists taking power across Europe. It didn't happen in the Netherlands. Then it didn't happen in France. Now they are sure it won't happen in Germany this autumn and fairly confident it won't happen next spring in Italy either.
The mood could be best summed us as 'phew!' Perhaps the tone was set by one prominent guest who, in a voice full of passion, spoke of the EU as the greatest experiment in history - a club which ensured peace and prosperity.
His voice rising, with an orator's power, he said he was born in the 1970s and had known only peace. But his father was a child of the 1930s - he remembered war, remembered American soldiers bringing the new tastes of freedom and chocolate to a ravaged continent. His grandfather too had known war, and his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grand father. That was why now he said Europe was a synonym for peace.
In this telling of the story the UK had only a bit part, hardly mentioned except as one of the issues still haunting the Continent: the refugee crisis, the legacy of economic crisis, terrorism and Brexit.
This view from the lakeside goes a long way to explain the position of the conference's star turn, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier.
His purpose at the conference was, seemingly, not to rile British politicians or throw some red meat to the British press, but instead to start building a solid foundation for the EU for life after Brexit, to put the past behind it, to make it a singular earthquake not the remaking of an entire landscape.
His opening statement was not the most newsworthy but central to his purpose. He said his first principle was that the future of Europe is more important than Brexit. Far more important.
Michel Barnier said he wanted to teach the British people and others what leaving the EU means
Indeed that appears to be the view of most EU leaders, that Britain - having made a rather strange decision - must go now and try not to slam the door.
Although the EU is often portrayed in the UK as a monolith run by faceless bureaucrats, actually policy is usually a fudge between the competing interests of left and right, West and East, small and large, North and South and so on.
The unity over Brexit is fairly remarkable and Mr Barnier will hold tight to his mandate to make sure it does not shatter. He's also well aware that while French and Dutch voters didn't go the whole hog, the hard right strengthened its position and those very critical of the EU consensus are in power in Poland and Hungary.
He said that any adverse impact on the UK is not a punishment in itself but a logical consequence of decisions made by the British voters and subsequently by the British government, and he intends to educate people about that.
This position has two parts. One, being out of the EU cannot be as good as being in the club. And secondly, the separate choice to leave the single market has even more consequences.
On free trade, Mr Barnier said the 60 or so such deals negotiated by the EU in the past were a result of a slow process of countries converging, coming together, with the EU.
Some in the UK argue that means a free trade deal for us should be easy - as we have been converged for decades. Mr Barnier said that is not the point - the UK has deliberately chosen now to diverge after 40 years together and the EU needs to know how wide the new gap will get.
Does it imply breaching rules of the single market about workers' rights? Environmental standards? Undercutting tax costs? Will a deal for Toyota mean a break with state aid rules? He wants guarantees that won't happen.
Mr Barnier said he wanted to teach the British people and others what leaving the single market means, hence his reference to being a teacher, a pedagogue.
It was notable that he singled out one person by name, the leader of the Eurosceptic, right-wing Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, who wants the Netherlands to follow the UK out of the EU. He said the "education" was for him and those of a similar mind.
Dutch Euro-sceptic Geert Wilders, had some choice words for Mr Barnier
I asked Mr Wilders what he made of this.
"Mr Barnier who is, of course, a person I respect, is talking a lot of nonsense," he said.
"I am a politician and I asked a British institution to make a survey about what would happen if the Dutch would leave the EU. They came up with a result which proved it would hurt, like it is hurting Britain in the short term, but in the long run after three or 4 years our GDP would grow by more than 10%. There are many chances so Mr Barnier will have to look in the mirror if he wants an education."
But Mr Barnier is probably the sort of man who only looks in the mirror with a certain sense of satisfaction.
Using the contents of their well coiffured grey heads, few in the EU leadership want a bad relationship with the UK. They want a firm foundation for a good and inevitably close alliance. But both their hearts and their heads tell them anything that encourages further fracture of a project that is still very fragile, anything that looks like suggesting leaving the EU is a primrose path rather than a road to possible perdition, is a non-starter.
Michel Barnier concluded by pointing out again that he was, like Theresa May, a walker, a mountaineer used to taking one step after another, watching out for problems but always with his eyes fixed on the peaks.
The EU is determined that it will not stumble just because one member of the team is giving up on getting to the summit, particularly when it thinks that member never really believed in the sunny uplands in the first place.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41141650
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Northern lights linked to North Sea whale strandings - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Scientists connect the solar storms behind the Aurora Borealis to the deaths of 29 whales in the North Sea.
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Science & Environment
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This sperm whale was one of a number stranded on this beach in the Netherlands
Large solar storms, responsible for the northern lights, may have played a role in the strandings of 29 sperm whales in the North Sea early in 2016.
A new study says these geomagnetic disruptions may have confused the whales' ability to navigate, diverting them into the shallow waters.
Trapped and lost, the whales died on European beaches, attempting to escape.
The research has been published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
Researchers have been puzzled by the losses as autopsies showed that the animals were mainly well fed, young and disease-free.
The 29 strandings generated a great deal of public interest and a large number of theories among scientists.
These ranged from poisoning, to climatic changes driving prey into the North Sea which the large cetaceans followed to their doom.
Sperm whales live in deep, warm-to-temperate waters all around the world. Many groups live around the Azores in the eastern Atlantic.
When they are between 10 and 15 years old, young males head north towards the polar region, attracted by the huge quantities of squid found in the colder waters.
Two sperm whales that washed up on a beach near Gibraltar Point in Skegness in January 2016
Their journey sometimes takes them up along the west coasts of the UK and Ireland and into the Norwegian sea. They normally return by the same route.
But in less than a month in early 2016, 29 sperm whales were found stranded on the coasts of Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and France.
Now a team of researchers say they think they understand what happened to them.
The argue that sperm whales navigate using the Earth's geomagnetic field.
Rather than being uniform, the field is stronger in some places and weaker in others, and scientists believe that species learn to read these anomalies and use them for navigation in the way that humans read contours on maps.
Dr Klaus Vanselow from the University of Kiel, Germany, and his colleagues say that large-scale solar storms may have distorted the magnetic field and caused the whales to lose their way.
Triggered by coronal mass ejections from the Sun, these storms contain large amounts of charged particles and radiation.
When they hit the Earth's upper atmosphere, they produce the spectacular displays of the polar lights over the Arctic, however the most powerful storms can also damage communications systems and satellites.
Scientists already have some evidence that solar storm activity can impact the navigating abilities of birds and bees.
This map shows the 'magnetic mountain' anomaly off the coast of Norway. The whales should have followed the white arrow but the authors argue that the solar storms made the mountains invisible and the whales instead followed the red arrow to the North Sea
Dr Vanselow and his colleagues studied the connection between whale strandings and two major solar storms that took place at the very end of December in 2015.
These produced huge displays of the Aurora Borealis that were seen in many parts of Scotland and elsewhere.
Looking specifically at the region around Shetland, the scientists found that these solar events would have caused short-term shifts in the magnetic field of up to 460km, in the area between the islands and Norway.
This could have caused sperm whales in the region to move in the wrong direction.
They also believe that sperm whales see a regular magnetic anomaly off the Norwegian coast as a "geomagnetic mountain chain", a kind of guardrail that prevents them from entering the North Sea.
The solar storms may have nullified this effect, rendering the mountain chain invisible and allowing the whales to swim through into the North Sea.
"Where the polar lights are seen, that's the region with the most geomagnetic disruptions on the Earth's surface," Dr Vanselow told BBC News.
"Sperm whales are very huge animals and swim in the free ocean so if they are disrupted by this affect, they can swim in the wrong direction for days and then correct it.
"But in the area between Scotland and Norway, if the whales swim in the wrong direction for one or two days, then it is too late for them to go back, they are trapped."
Dr Vanselow believes that his theory makes sense with the timeline of the discovery of the stranded whales up to six weeks after the storms.
He believes that because young males grow up around the Azores, an area that sees minimal impacts from solar storms, the creatures have little experience of the abrupt and powerful events that affect the poles.
Dr Vanselow's research is a theory that is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove.
However, other scientists say it is plausible.
This whale was beached at Hunstanton and was one of the last to die in the stranding event in early 2016
"It would be difficult to say that 'yes this was the cause', we would be cautious in saying that," said Abbo Van Neer from the University of Hannover who carried out the autopsies on the 16 whales that stranded in Germany.
"But it is a valid hypothesis and a potential reason for the stranding."
Nasa has also been investigating the question of whether solar storms can affect a whole range of cetaceans around the world.
A team of researchers is shortly to publish a research paper on the connection between strandings in Cape Cod and geomagnetic storms. They say the Venselow paper is "well founded".
"It is one potential mechanism for having animals confused, I think it's a credible theory," Dr Antti Pulkkinen, who is leading the Nasa project, told BBC News.
"But does their paper prove that is the case? I don't think so."
"Having looked at this problem from a data analysis point of view, it is not a single factor that contributes to this.
"Things need to line up from multiple different perspectives for these events to take place."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41110082
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Germany election: Merkel holds ground in TV debate - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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The German chancellor fends off her rival Martin Schulz in a televised election face-off.
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Europe
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Media polls after the broadcast put Angela Merkel ahead in the run up to the 24 September vote
This was supposed to be the highlight of a lacklustre election campaign. For months German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives have enjoyed a significant lead over their nearest rival - and current coalition partner.
The TV stations prepared their viewers for an impassioned, furious debate. But those hoping for rhetorical bloody noses were disappointed. As were the viewers hoping that Martin Schulz, who is unlikely to take Mrs Merkel's crown, might at least taste victory on national TV.
Angela Merkel has been in the job for 12 years, and it showed.
The chancellor is not known for her skilful oratory and she doesn't relish this kind of public debate. Nevertheless, Mrs Merkel appeared relaxed, credible and experienced, effortlessly parrying her opponent's attacks.
It was her best debate performance, according to the German news site Spiegel online. Which doesn't say much, given that she lost the first three.
But then Martin Schulz was always going to struggle to land a blow. It is tricky, for example, to attack Mrs Merkel's refugee policy when you are on record as having said that the faith in Europe that each migrant brought with them is worth more than gold.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Germany's election: What you need to know
During the election campaign, Mr Schulz has focused on social justice; a subject to which he returned on Sunday night.
He spoke about unemployment, poverty. Mrs Merkel batted both away. Five million people were unemployed when she began her first term - the figure is now at two and a half million.
As for poverty, Mr Schulz's own party was responsible for the Harz IV welfare reforms that shape German social policy today.
Under Mr Schulz's leadership, the social democrats are promising tax cuts. But Mrs Merkel's conservatives, who have a habit of stealing the best bits of a rival campaign, are offering similar breaks.
Which left foreign policy. Mr Schulz was on bullish form. Donald Trump, he said, had brought the world to the brink of disaster several times with his tweets. It was time the world sought a solution to the North Korea crisis without President Trump, he said.
And, as for Turkey, were he the German chancellor he would call off EU accession talks. Mr Schulz challenged Mrs Merkel to do just that.
Mrs Merkel - who has never wanted Turkey to become an EU member - said she had ruled out that course of action for now. Nevertheless, she said, she would speak with other EU leaders to see whether they could develop a common position on ending the talks.
Dramatic language, but Mrs Merkel could draw on years of crisis management. Her rather more measured language and approach appears to have appealed to viewers. Polls suggest they found her more believable and convincing.
Before the TV duel, Mr Schulz said that he was confident his performance would sway undecided voters and create momentum. It is unlikely to be in the direction he intended.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41143988
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Bell Pottinger expelled from trade body for South African campaign - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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The penalty follows a controversial media campaign in South Africa that "incited racial hatred".
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Business
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James Henderson has resigned as chief executive of Bell Pottinger
Bell Pottinger has been expelled from the UK public relations trade body for its work on a controversial contract in South Africa.
It is the first time that the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) has ejected a PR firm as prominent as Bell Pottinger.
PRCA director-general Francis Ingham said it was "highly questionable" whether the firm would survive.
Bell Pottinger said it "accepts that there are lessons need to be learned".
The PR firm's work on a campaign for Oakbay Capital, a South African company owned by the wealthy Gupta family, had "incited racial hatred" and was "absolutely unthinkable", Mr Ingham said.
He expected more clients to abandon Bell Pottinger following the sanction.
South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance complained to the PRCA, accusing Bell Pottinger of a "hateful and divisive campaign to divide South Africa along the lines of race".
The campaign emphasised the power of white-owned businesses and used the #WhiteMonopolyCapital hashtag.
South African President Jacob Zuma has faced corruption allegations and suspicion over his ties with the Guptas. Mr Zuma and the Guptas have consistently denied all allegations.
South African President Jacob Zuma is attending a BRICS summit in China this week
Chief executive James Henderson resigned ahead of the five-year expulsion from the PRCA. His departure was "necessary, but not sufficient", Mr Ingham said.
"Bell Pottinger has brought the PR and communications industry into disrepute with its actions, and it has received the harshest possible sanctions," he added.
The firm was found to have breached two clauses of the PRCA's professional charter and two clauses of its public affairs and lobbying code of conduct.
The law firm Herbert Smith Freehills was commissioned by Bell Pottinger to conduct an internal review following the Oakbay controversy.
Its review, released on Monday, criticised the PR firm's senior management: "Bell Pottinger senior management should have known that the campaign was at risk of causing offence, including on grounds of race.
"In such circumstances, BP ought to have exercised extreme care and should have closely scrutinised the creation of content for the campaign. This does not appear to have happened."
Herbert Smith also found that certain material created by Bell Pottinger for the economic emancipation campaign "was negative or targeted towards wealthy white South African individuals or corporates and/or was potentially racially divisive and/or potentially offensive and was created in breach of relevant ethical principles".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bell Pottinger's founder, Lord Bell, tells Newsnight the PR firm is unlikely to survive
In a statement Bell Pottinger said it "acknowledges the PRCA ruling, accepts that there are lessons to be learned but disputes the basis on which the ruling was made".
It added: "The overwhelming majority of our partners and employees played no part in the Oakbay Capital account and have not been accused of breaching the PRCA code. Many of them will now consider applying for individual membership.
"With the Herbert Smith Freehills findings made publicly available and the PRCA ruling published, the business can refocus on delivering outstanding work for our clients and looking after our people."
Bell Pottinger has already lost clients over the affair, including luxury goods company Richemont and investment firm Investec. The further reputational damage could see other clients sever their ties.
On Tuesday, Labour peer Peter Hain was due to table questions in the House of Lords asking if Bell Pottinger's actions contravened any UK trade policies.
The PR firm, founded by Lord Tim Bell, was closely associated with Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party in the 1980s.
Speaking on Newsnight on Monday, Lord Bell, who resigned from Bell Pottinger last year, said the PRCA report marked a "disappointing" day for the company.
He stood down, he told Newsnight, because it had been wrong to take on the Oakbay account. Lord Bell denied accusations he played a role in securing the business.
Bell Pottinger has gone on to accept contracts from many controversial clients, including former South African president FW de Klerk, when he opposed Nelson Mandela; Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian president Bashir al-Assad; arms manufacturer BAE Systems; and the South African athlete Oscar Pistorius after he was charged with murder.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41151361
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'I lost my wife and unborn daughter to sepsis' - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Craig Stobo's pregnant wife Fiona died from sepsis and he almost lost his own life due to the condition.
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Scotland
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Craig says he and Fiona had a wonderful life ahead of them
Five years ago Craig Stobo suddenly lost his wife and unborn daughter to a condition he knew nothing about - and he almost died himself.
His wife Fiona was a GP in Bo'ness and it was her concern at Craig's symptoms that led him to seek medical help.
Fiona, who was 35 weeks pregnant with their second child, phoned him as she was on the way for an antenatal scan.
Craig was meant to have attended the scan but he told her he was feeling unwell with a severe headache and nausea.
His doctor wife was concerned that it did not sound like a cold or flu and said he needed to get checked out quickly.
When he did, Craig was diagnosed with sepsis and immediately treated with intravenous antibiotics.
Craig's wife Fiona Agnew was a GP and he says she saved his life
However the next day, while he was still in hospital in Edinburgh he learned that 38-year-old Fiona had also been taken ill with the same condition.
Both Craig and Fiona developed septic shock but, possibly because she was pregnant, doctors could not save her.
Craig, who is now 47, says: "We lost our daughter, she was stillborn.
"She was literally the first part of Fiona's system to shut down.
"The medics then battled for a further 24 hours to try to save Fiona but without success."
The cause of the illness was never established.
Craig says he was "bewildered" by what had happened.
Fiona was just 38 when she died
"Fiona was perfectly fit and healthy, as was I, and it happened so quickly that it was profoundly shocking and devastating," he says.
It is estimated Sepsis kills about 44,000 people every year in the UK - more than breast, bowel and prostate cancer combined.
It is caused when the body's immune system overreacts to infection.
In Scotland, the government quotes the figure of 3,500 deaths although statisticians admit it is an estimate and they do not know the full picture.
Experts agree that the key to lower mortality rates is early diagnosis and treatment within an hour if possible.
For each hour that passes the chances of survival lower considerably.
Craig is now the chairman and trustee of the Fiona Elizabeth Agnew Trust (FEAT), the Scottish sepsis charity he set up in his wife's memory.
Unlike his wife, Craig's background was in tax law so he says that he had only vaguely heard of blood poisoning and septicaemia before that day in 2012.
"I started asking a lot of questions of the medics to try to understand it," he says
"I heard about the figures for the number of people who were affected and I was horrified.
"I had never heard of this and I did not think that I was completely ignored.
"I thought 'how many other people have not heard of it?'.
"'How can people not have heard about something that affects so many people and is so devastating and so indiscriminate?'"
Craig Stobo with his wife Fiona and son Robert at Christmas 2010
The charity he set up has been campaigning to raise public awareness of the disease.
He says: "I am extremely fortunate to be here because I was diagnosed and treated very quickly.
"I owe my life to Fiona. She was a good doctor and a good mum.
"She was only 38. We had a lovely life together, we were very lucky and we had it all ahead of us.
"It all changed over the course of 62 hours and life literally had to be started again."
Craig's son Robert was just two when his mother died.
He says he has been honest with him at all times about what happened to his mother and sister.
"Frequently it was not easy, particularly in the very early stages," Craig says.
"It has been hard and there have been many long, dark nights of the soul but so far so good.
"He is a happy and active wee chap.
"We still talk about his mum. He knows he had a sister and we are completely open about that and I think it is the best way to be."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41097469
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What if Trump cut ties with North Korea's trade partners? - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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China, Russia, India, Singapore, Germany, and France are among those that traded with the North in 2016.
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Business
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How realistic is cutting off trade ties with all of the countries that do business with North Korea?
This is what US President Donald Trump has threatened on Twitter following North Korea's sixth nuclear test, its biggest so far and one it claims is the successful test of a hydrogen bomb.
Sorry, we're having trouble displaying this content. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
The international community has tried everything short of military action to get North Korea to stop, but nothing - not sanctions, not isolation, or even the threat of annihilation appears to have dented its nuclear ambitions.
So now, instead of just punishing North Korea, President Trump has tweeted that he will punish all countries who still do business with North Korea by stopping US trade with them.
To look at how realistic that might be - first we have to look at which countries do business with North Korea.
According to figures from KOTRA (Korea's Trade Investment Promotion Agency) there were around 80 countries that traded with Pyongyang in 2016 including:
North Korea's total trade with all of the countries on the list last year was worth US$6.5bn. That figure has been growing by about 5% a year. Granted, the amount of trade for some of these countries is small and decreasing. But there are some fascinating insights.
Singapore - which is number 8 on the list of largest traders with North Korea - saw trade with Pyongyang fall by 90% in 2016.
Meanwhile the Philippines - saw a massive 171% jump in trade with North Korea.
Both are economic partners of the US.
In fact, many of the countries on this list are trading partners with the US and most are doing far more business with the US than they do with the tiny North Korean economy.
But there is one country that potentially holds all the right cards. No prizes for guessing who is Pyongyang's biggest customer and supplier - China.
90% of North Korea's trade comes from China.
Beijing is mainly buying coal and other minerals from Pyongyang, and crucially supplying food and fuel for its citizens. The data from 2016 doesn't clearly reflect what's going on now, as China banned North Korean coal in February.
So when Trump says that the US would stop doing business with countries trading with Pyongyang, it would almost certainly have to include China.
But frankly it is hard to see how that would happen without some damage to the US economy. This it how it breaks down:
Goods: The US bought more than $450 bn worth of goods from China last year and exported $115bn to China.
Jobs: Cutting off trade with Beijing would cost the US almost a million American jobs connected to goods and services exported to China.
Consumer prices: As I've written about before, even Trump's threats of imposing tariffs on China for being a currency manipulator would have disastrous effects on prices of goods in the US, boosting the cost of an iPhone for instance by about 5%.
Don't forget - anything that affects China would necessarily also affect the global economy. Global research house Capital Economics says if the US were to stop buying goods from China altogether, it would cost the country some 3% of GDP.
Which would have a knock-on effect of that on economies in Asia, most of whom count China as their biggest trading partner, and buyer of goods.
All of that is possibly why Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has come up with a less direct way to "punish" these countries - he said in a Fox TV news interview on Monday that he was preparing a sanctions package that would cut off "all trade and other business" with Pyongyang, adding that there's "much more" the US can do economically.
But that just looks like more of the same stuff we've seen before.
So what we are left with is a US that appears to have increasingly few economic options left on the table when it comes to negotiating with Pyongyang.
Even if President Trump follows through with his trade threat, it would almost certainly result in a congressional backlash.
It's hard to see how the president would be able to sell a policy with such questionable effectiveness, and one that would damage the US economically more than it would limit North Korea's nuclear options.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41144687
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Japan's Princess Mako announces engagement - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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She will lose her royal status, but Princess Mako says she loves Kei Komuro's "smile like the sun".
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Asia
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The couple smiled at each other through the announcement
Japan's Princess Mako has formally announced her engagement to a non-royal after receiving the emperor's approval.
This announcement kicks off a lengthy marriage process, and it also means the princess will lose her royal status.
Under a controversial Japanese law, female imperial family members forfeit their status upon marriage to a "commoner" whereas male members do not.
At a press conference, she said she was first attracted to Kei Komuro's "smile like the sun".
"I've been aware since my childhood that I would lose royal status once I married," Princess Mako said. "While I've worked to help the emperor and fulfil duties as a royal family member as much as I can, I've been cherishing my own life."
The formal announcement came from Japan's Imperial Household Agency on Sunday, after local media reported news of the planned engagement in May.
The princess was not in line to the throne, as a 1947 succession law states that only men from her family's lineage can become emperor.
Her fiancé, Kei Komuro, is a 25-year-old law firm employee. The couple met five years ago while studying at the same university.
In the televised conference, he described the princess as someone who quietly watched over him "like the moon".
Princess Mako, 25, is the eldest child of Prince Fumihito, whose official title is Prince Akishino. She is pursuing a doctorate and works as a museum researcher.
The announcement was originally expected in July, but was postponed after a rain disaster hit western Japan. The wedding is expected to take place next year, according to the public broadcaster NHK.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41144306
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Los Angeles wildfires: City battles 'largest fire in history' - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Some residents are allowed to return home as the largest fires ever to hit LA appear to be easing.
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US & Canada
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Planes tried to tackle the flames
Hundreds of Los Angeles residents have been allowed to return home, as the largest wildfires in the city's history appear to be easing.
The fires, covering about 5,000 acres, started in La Tuna Canyon on Friday, triggering a state of emergency.
"We've turned the corner, but this is not over," Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Sunday as he warned of "strong" winds.
At least three homes have been destroyed and four people are reported to have been injured.
The evacuations around the Glendale and Burbank suburbs were lifted on Sunday as rain and cooler temperatures helped firefighters to tackle the blaze, the Los Angeles Fire Department tweeted.
The fire caused hundreds of people to evacuate their homes in Burbank, California
But Mr Garcetti, who earlier described the blaze as "the largest fire in the history of LA city in terms of its acreage", told reporters on Sunday that the situation remained dangerous.
"We do not have this fire contained," Mr Garcetti said, adding: "But we do have a good sense of, in the next day or two, how we can bring this fire to rest."
He said four firefighters had suffered dehydration or minor burns.
Mr Garcetti declared an emergency on Saturday night and a further emergency order was made by California Governor Jerry Brown on Sunday.
The declarations allowed state and federal funds to be provided as soon as possible.
California has been in the grip of a heatwave and strong winds have helped to fan the flames of the Los Angeles wildfire.
Major fires are also affecting other areas of the western US.
The government has already declared states of emergency in Montana and Washington state and thousands of residents there have been evacuated.
The fires were clearly visible from the centre of Burbank
The La Tuna fire has already ravaged about 5,000 acres
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41143987
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Burning fuel hits crowd at Australian motoring event - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Twelve people are injured after a racing car performing burnouts sends flames into spectators.
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Australia
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Twelve people have been injured after a car sprayed burning fuel over fans during a burnouts competition in central Australia.
The incident at Red CentreNATS - a popular festival of drag racing and other motoring activities - sent lit fuel into the crowd in Alice Springs.
Eleven of the 12 people treated were taken to hospital on Sunday. One man, 47, suffered critical injuries.
He was flown to the Royal Adelaide Hospital with burns to about 20% of his body, the Royal Flying Doctor Service said.
Eight people, including the man's 19-year-old son, remained in a stable condition in hospital on Monday. Two patients had been released.
The incident took place during a burnout competition, a Red CentreNATS spokeswoman told the BBC.
Organisers shut down the event following the incident, which is being investigated by police.
"This is a distressing situation however all patients are receiving the care they need," Red CentreNATS said in a statement.
Last year, about 14,000 motoring enthusiasts attended the event billed as the "Ultimate Festival of Wheels".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-41144129
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More than half in UK are non-religious, suggests survey - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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The proportion is highest among those aged between 18 and 25, a survey suggests.
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UK
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The Sunday Assembly in London describes itself as a secular congregation that celebrates life
For the first time, more than half of people in the UK do not identify as religious, a survey suggests.
Last year 53% of people described themselves as having "no religion", in a survey of 2,942 adults by the National Centre for Social Research.
Among those aged between 18 and 25, the proportion was higher at 71%.
The Bishop of Liverpool said God and the Church "remains relevant" and that saying "no religion was not the same as considered atheism".
The figures, shown to BBC Radio 5 live, reveal a downward trend for religious belief in the UK.
When the national centre's British Social Attitudes survey began in 1983, 31% of respondents said they had no religion.
A random sample of adults were involved in the latest survey and they were asked whether they regarded themselves as belonging to a particular religion.
Almost two in three 25 to 34 year olds said they were non-religious, while 75% of people aged 75 and over said they were religious.
Tamsin is not religious but attends a secular congregation
Tamsin, a 26-year-old travel journalist, goes to the Sunday Assembly, a secular congregation that meets in London every fortnight.
Speaking to 5 live's Rosanna Pound-Woods, she said: "I'm not religious at all. I like the fact that this is a way for community to come together, without having to be about religion."
At times in her life where religion might be important traditionally, like deaths or weddings, she said: "I turn to my friends and just tend to celebrate or commiserate together."
Another member of the congregation, Mitsky, was raised as a Jain - an ancient Indian religion - but now considers himself more atheist.
"Most religions have good basic principles, but certain religions take them maybe in a different direction which I didn't really tend to agree with," the 38-year-old said.
"I was heavily involved in that community here in London and I do miss it, which is why I was looking for something else."
The latest figures show that for people who were born into a religious household, four in 10 are no longer religious.
The most dramatic decline is among those identifying as Anglican
The most dramatic reduction has been amongst those who identify as Anglican.
Some 15% of people in Britain considered themselves Anglican in 2016, half the proportion who said this in 2000, according to the survey.
Those identifying as Catholic has remained stable - at around one in 10 - over the past 30 years, while one in 20 people identify with non-Christian religions.
Roger Harding, from the National Centre for Social Research, said the figures should cause "all religious leaders to pause for thought".
"With falling numbers, some faith leaders might wonder whether they should be doing more to take their congregation's lead on adapting to how society is changing," he added.
The Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev Paul Bayes, said the figures bring a "continuing challenge to the churches" in "a sceptical and plural world".
But he said people's hearts and minds remained "open".
"Saying 'no religion' is not the same as a considered atheism. People see the point of faith when they see the difference faith makes," he said.
"We need to keep finding ways to show and tell those who say they have 'no religion' that faith - faith in the God who loves them still - can make that life-transforming difference for them and for the world."
But the charity, Humanists UK, said the figures raise fresh questions about the place of churches in the running of state schools and their other state-funded privileges.
The charity's chief executive, Andrew Copson, said: "More generally, how can the Church of England remain in any meaningful sense the national legally established church, when it caters for such a small portion of the population?"
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41150792
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Drug gangs create 'perfect storm' in Ipswich - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Drug-related gang violence in a Suffolk town involves children as young as 12, says a report.
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Suffolk
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Suffolk Police said children were acting as "runners" to deliver drugs
Drug-related gang violence in a Suffolk town has created a "perfect storm" involving children as young as 12, says a report.
The University of Suffolk's study found Ipswich had been targeted by London drug gangs.
"Violence, threats and coercion were used routinely by these groups to exert control over vulnerable children and young people," the report said.
Suffolk Police said children were acting as "runners" to deliver drugs.
The report, commissioned by the county council, also said children and young people reported missing in London had been found at Suffolk addresses known to be used for Class A drug dealing.
The study was conducted by the University of Suffolk
It said Jubilee Park, a deprived area of Ipswich, had been targeted by the gangs with addicts' homes being taken over as bases for drug dealers.
Intelligence from the police also suggested the gangs were storing weapons at dealing locations and arming runners with knives.
"This kind of violence was evident in other parts of Suffolk where the illicit drug market was saturated and competition between dealers was fierce," the report said.
One of the authors of the report, Paul Andell, said the rise in drug gang violence could be due to the drop in police numbers and cuts to public services.
"There's a perception that they (criminals) will not be dealt with as robustly (by local police)," he said. "All of these factors create a perfect storm."
Junior Smart, a former Ipswich gang member, who is now a youth worker with the St Giles Trust, said all the agencies involved with the prevention of crime and young people needed to communicate better.
"The agencies aren't talking to each other - in some respects the agencies are more territorial than the gangs are," he said.
Suffolk's Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Kearton said the police and crime commissioner had put a huge amount of money to help young people stay out of gangs, "six-figure numbers that allow these kids to actually have a better chance in life".
"We're investing in the young people for their future to find ways for them to live their lives rather than getting into the drugs world."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-41154165
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Belgian military pilot falls from helicopter during air show - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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Troops find a body in woodland a day after the military pilot's unexplained fall during an air show.
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Europe
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An Agusta helicopter (file pic): The aircraft is used by air forces and police worldwide
A body has been found in the search for a pilot who fell out of a military helicopter during an air show in eastern Belgium, Belgian media report.
Police discovered the body close to a valley at Amay near Liège.
Three troops had jumped with parachutes from the Agusta A-109 helicopter, but the pilot did not have a parachute.
Forensic experts have been sent to the site, a wooded area near the town of Huy. Investigators are believed to be examining suicide as a possible motive.
According to reports, the co-pilot helped the three parachutists jump, but then turned to see the pilot's seat empty and his door wide open.
He then grabbed the controls and landed the helicopter safely.
The search for the pilot, who fell several hundred metres in the incident on Sunday, was resumed on Monday after police and troops were forced to abandon their efforts at nightfall.
The reason for the pilot's fall remains a mystery.
The sliding door alongside the pilot seat had been opened and the radio connection between the pilot and other crew members had been cut, Belgium's Nieuwsblad reports.
Belgian troops are scouring the countryside around Amay, 28km (17 miles) from Liège
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41147046
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The murky world of Facebook raffles - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The number of raffle groups has grown rapidly over the last few years, but so have the number of scams.
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UK
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Maggie Hughes was a member of between 25 and 30 online raffle groups
The number of raffle groups on Facebook has grown rapidly over the last few years, but so have the number of people being scammed.
"It just makes me so angry. [The scammers] keep changing their names and Facebook just let them do it," says Maggie Hughes, who says at one stage she was a member of between 25 and 30 online raffle groups on the social media site.
Anyone can set up a raffle group on Facebook and then begin inviting contacts to join, although Facebook says it shuts down illegal raffle pages - those not licensed by the Gambling Commission - as soon as they are reported.
The page owners then choose a prize, and sell tickets - using PayPal or a bank transfer.
From then on, it works just like a normal raffle. A number is drawn at random and the winner earns a prize.
At least that is how it should work.
Maggie became suspicious of one woman online when she says she won some prizes.
"I played her tombola [raffle] and I have not received any prizes from her at all," she says.
Maggie is disabled and her husband has dementia. She says the £40 to £50 she estimates she has lost is a lot of money to her.
"It's very hard, it just upsets me. It makes me angry that this girl is getting away with it."
The woman Maggie says she dealt with, Lauren Brattle, appears to have a number of online aliases.
Her raffles were among the many mentioned on a Facebook page that raises awareness of possible scams.
Ms Brattle says the allegations against her are false and she has not done anything wrong.
Liz Hodgson says the scamming problem is "huge"
The page is moderated by Liz Hodgson, who deals with problem raffles run all over the country.
"[The problem] is huge," she says. "It's so big at the moment. Everybody's creating their own groups.
"There are daily posts in the 10s, of people having issues with admins on these raffle groups.
"They're not drawing them correctly, the [players] aren't receiving their prizes."
Tracie Morgans, a member of Liz's online page, said she knew of one woman who "walked away with £400 worth of people's money" without giving out prizes.
"She was boasting that she was taking her kids on holiday," she adds, having been scammed twice in the past herself.
"There are so many nasty, selfish, greedy, money-hungry idiots," says Karen Evans, also a member of Liz's page. "I didn't realise how rotten the world was."
Karen says she has also been cheated out of money on a raffle group.
"I played a page and I paid for the raffle and all of a sudden the page wasn't there any more. I tried to inbox the girl and she blocked me."
The Gambling Commission, which regulates all gambling activities in the UK, says complaints about social media raffles have been greatly on the rise in recent years.
The prizes on offer, it adds, have included a shotgun, a monkey and a pregnant spaniel.
In order to be legal, online raffles must be licensed by the Gambling Commission.
Facebook says it shuts down raffle pages as soon as they are reported and found to be illegal, and the Gambling Commission says almost all of the raffle groups reported to them are now no longer active.
For some users, the possibility of being scammed is not the only issue associated with the raffle pages.
It is also the fact they allow people to freely gamble online.
Liz says she "would absolutely say people are becoming addicted".
"Quite a lot of the posts on the scammers group are where people have placed their last £50 or £60 on one raffle.
"And they've got children and they're spending their children's money."
Some raffle groups say they are raising money for charity.
The BBC understands Ms Brattle - the woman Maggie says scammed her - had previously claimed her raffles made money for the Sick Person's Trust, but the charity says it has not received any money from her.
The police told us they are investigating a complaint.
"It's absolutely disgusting that this charity hasn't received a penny," explains Maggie.
But the wider question surrounding raffle groups is - with so many popping up daily - how to stop them.
Watch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41124992
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North Korea's nuclear bomb: Can we work out its power? - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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How do we work out the size and nature of North Korea's nuclear test? A physicist explains.
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Asia
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The nuclear test that North Korea conducted on Sunday is thought to be the biggest ever conducted by Pyongyang. But what does this really mean and how will we find out more about the bomb? Physicist Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress explains.
A nuclear explosion is an extremely large explosion, so large that it shakes the ground just as an earthquake does and is detected by seismic sensors thousands of kilometres away.
The magnitude of the shaking is a measure of the immense energy released by the event. A parameter known as the body-wave magnitude (Mb) is used.
The US hydrogen bomb explosion in 1952 was the first test of a thermonuclear device
This is not a linear scale. A magnitude-6 event, for example, releases 30 times more energy than one of magnitude 5.
In all, 34 stations that are part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation's (CTBTO) vast seismic monitoring network detected North Korea's explosion and it was so intense that it actually "saturated" the detectors. In other words for this monitoring network, which is sensitive to extremely small nuclear test explosions, this test was so high it essentially went off scale.
There have been widely differing calculations of the power of this blast, ranging from 50-150 kilotonnes. The force is measured in kilotonnes to indicate what would happen if one kilotonne of TNT was exploded.
The yields predicted so far vary because it depends on the precise formula used: which scaling relation of the yield as a function of body wave magnitude is used - and that depends on a variety of factors such as the depth and type of rock where the test was conducted, for example.
A recent scaling equation takes into account the depth at which an explosion took place. This was developed by Miao Zhang and Lianxing Wen from the University of Science and Technology of China and Stony Brook and is appropriate for North Korea.
It means that we can begin to start guessing how powerful the blast would have been at various depths and this is what it looks like in a graph.
Modelling of the test site has led analysts to guess that blasts take place at depths as deep as 600 to 900 metres (1968-2952ft). If that is true, the yield is likely to have been at least 370 kilotonnes, which is vastly more than most estimates.
What this graph shows is that small differences in depth can make vast differences in yield or power. Compare this with the destructive force of Hiroshima: that came in at 15 kilotonnes.
This new estimate is consistent with the yield of a "two-stage" thermonuclear device, which is the type of bomb that North Korea claims that they have developed.
But more work will need to be done to determine the depth at which this test was conducted to reach consensus on the yield - that is the power - of the bomb.
Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress is scientist in residence at the Middlebury Institute of International studies at Monterey.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41144326
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Python found lurking in bathroom toilet in Southend - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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When he lifted the toilet seat lid, the five-year-old came face to face with the 3ft (91cm) snake.
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Essex
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The toilet had been "blocked for several days", but the family had no idea why
A five-year-old boy was shocked to discover a python inside his toilet when he lifted up the lid.
He was "frantic" when he found it in the bathroom at home in Southend, Essex, his mother Laura Cowell said.
Specialists from pet shop Scales and Fangs came to the rescue, removing the harmless 3ft (91cm) baby royal python.
"It smelt of bleach and a bit toilet-y," Ethan Pinion from the store said. The snake "most likely came up the u-bend" and is expected to recover fully.
Royal pythons can grow to about 150cm (5ft) but this is "a baby", rescuers said
Mrs Cowell said the toilet had been "blocked for several days and the water wasn't draining well", but at the time, she did not know why.
Her son discovered the unwelcome visitor when he went to use the toilet on Wednesday.
"He was frantic, and shaking, and I could tell something was wrong, but that was not what I expected," she said.
"I had to use a broom handle to lift the lid, then out popped its head and its tongue came out as well."
The snake was taken away safely by a reptile specialist
After phoning several potential rescuers, Rob Yeldham, who owns the Leigh-on-Sea store, came to help.
"I've done many snake rescues in my 10 years, but I've never had one in a toilet before. It's definitely a first for us," he said.
Mr Yeldham said some neighbours of Mrs Cowell had recently moved and old vivariums were left outside with the rubbish.
"I think the snake probably escaped and went down their toilet, and ended up in this one, as all the sewers are connected," he said.
It was unlikely it had been there long as it was healthy and not underweight, although it is suffering from scale rot, "probably from the bleach".
The snake is being treated at the store and once "in perfect health" will be "rehomed with someone reputable so he won't end up in a toilet again".
The snake is being cared for by a local pet shop
Mrs Cowell said she was "petrified" and put weights on the toilet lid for several days after the experience.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-41122975
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Hounslow stabbing: Man dies in fight between two groups - BBC News
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2017-09-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The 29-year-old was stabbed after a fight between two groups on Hounslow, say police.
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London
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Officers said the groups had dispersed by the time they arrived at the scene on Rosebery Road, Hounslow
A man has been stabbed to death in a fight between two groups in west London, Scotland Yard had said.
The 29-year-old died just after 16:15 BST on Monday at the scene in Rosebery Road, Hounslow.
The Metropolitan Police said the groups had dispersed by the time officers arrived, but they found the victim suffering from a stab wound.
The air ambulance was called and the man was treated by paramedics, but was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Met has launched a murder investigation and said inquiries are continuing. No arrests have been made.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41156211
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Paul Leighton jailed for rapes thousands of miles away - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Judge Robert Adam told Leighton he had "effectively destroyed the lives" of the young people he targeted.
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Tyne & Wear
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Leighton created dozens of fake Facebook accounts to trap his victim
A paedophile has been jailed for 16 years after admitting rape, despite being thousands of miles away when the offences happened.
Paul Leighton, 32, from Seaham, County Durham, created up to 40 fake Facebook profiles to befriend teenagers in the UK, Canada, the US and Australia.
He tricked them into sending him naked selfies, then blackmailed them into abusing young relatives.
He had earlier admitted a total of 21 offences at Newcastle Crown Court.
The court heard one 14-year-old from Florida was tricked into believing he was talking to a girl, then blackmailed into repeatedly raping his one-year-old niece.
Leighton threatened the teenager he would post videos of the abuse online if he did not do more.
The boy has since been charged by US authorities.
Sentencing Leighton to 16 years with a six-year extended licence, Judge Robert Adams told him: "You have effectively destroyed the lives of these people."
He said Leighton was "clearly dangerous" and posed a risk to children in the UK and abroad.
Leighton blackmailed two British teenage girls and also sexually abused a nine-year-old girl living in the north-east of England, the court was told.
The FBI is investigating other victims who may have been targeted.
Leighton, from Malvern Crescent in Seaham, was arrested in November by police investigating reports he had exchanged indecent images.
When officers examined his phone they found evidence that as many as 100 children in North America had been abused.
Leighton admitted three counts of rape as well as other offences, including blackmail, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, making indecent photographs of a child and sexual assault.
Paul Reid, prosecuting, said of Leighton's conduct with the Florida teenager and his niece: "This was a campaign of rape.
"The defendant has pleaded guilty to the rape of this baby 4,000 miles away as he was using (the uncle) as an accessory."
Mr Reid said the case involved the "utterly appalling abuse of many children".
Andrew Rutter, mitigating, said the offences were committed while Leighton was being treated for anxiety and depression, and taking cannabis and alcohol. He said he pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.
He added: "He protests it was not for sexual gratification but because it gave him a feeling of power to exercise the utmost control over other individuals."
Det Sgt Peter Morgan of Northumbria Police, which led the investigation, said: "Leighton was calculated and sophisticated in his approach to this abuse and his lack of thought for his victims is spine-chilling."
Gary Buckley, of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said the offences made for "chilling reading" for any parent.
He added: "We were able to successfully prosecute Leighton for rape by proving that he was as guilty in instigating the overseas offending as he would have been committing the crime itself."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-41153941
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Royal baby: Duchess of Cambridge expecting third child - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Catherine is again suffering from severe morning sickness, and has cancelled an engagement.
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UK
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The couple took their two children, George and Charlotte, on an official visit to Poland in July
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child, Kensington Palace has announced.
The Queen and both families are said to be "delighted with the news".
As with her previous two pregnancies, the duchess, 35, is suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, or severe morning sickness.
She pulled out of an engagement at the Hornsey Road Children's Centre in London, which had been planned for Monday afternoon.
Catherine is being cared for at Kensington Palace, the statement said.
The duke and duchess have a son, George, who is four, and a daughter, Charlotte, aged two.
With the previous two pregnancies, the couple announced them before the 12-week mark - when most women have their first scan - because of the duchess being unwell with hyperemesis gravidarum.
Her first pregnancy was revealed when she was just a few weeks pregnant with Prince George after she was admitted to hospital in December 2012.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prince Harry gives a thumbs up to the royal baby news
The duchess's second pregnancy with Princess Charlotte was announced in September 2014, when she was treated at the palace for the condition.
Hyperemesis gravidarum affects about one in every 200 pregnancies and results in severe nausea and vomiting - with one of the main dangers being dehydration.
Once again Prince William and his wife - who are very focused on being in control - have been thwarted.
And once again, it's due to circumstances outside their control.
The couple have been forced to make the announcement at a time not of their choosing - and while the duchess is still in the early stages of her pregnancy - because she is suffering from very acute morning sickness.
They were poised to take on more royal duties. They are now preparing to welcome another addition to their family.
An addition that will attract considerable global interest. The child's grandmother is the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
This princess or prince is unlikely to be crowned monarch. As things stand, that future awaits their brother, Prince George.
So there is no constitutional significance to the birth next year.
But an ancient institution that already appears pretty secure has just been further buttressed.
The three Cambridge siblings will fashion the future of the British monarchy well into the 21st Century.
The BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the announcement comes at the start of a "significant week" for the family "because Prince George is due to start at big school."
"Presumably his mother would be keen to take him to that, [but] whether she is going to be well enough to do that remains to be seen," he told BBC News.
"It had also been expected that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be taking a foreign trip this autumn," he added.
"Whether they will be able to do that or whether the duchess will be well enough to do that also remains to be seen."
The expected child will become the fifth in line to the throne behind Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
A change - which stops royal sons taking precedence over their female siblings in the line of succession - came into force in March 2015.
The child will be the Queen's sixth great-grandchild.
To become King or Queen as the third-born royal child is rare - and has yet to happen within the current House of Windsor.
But the third child of George III and Queen Charlotte, William IV, took on the task and ruled from 1830 to 1837.
The Hanoverian king acceded to the throne aged 64 when his older brother, George IV, died without an heir.
He became next in line when he was 62 and his other older brother, Frederick, Duke of York, died.
Arriving in Manchester for a royal visit, Prince Harry - who will drop to sixth in line to the throne when the child is born - said the news was "fantastic" and he was "very, very happy".
Clarence House has tweeted on behalf of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall to say they are "delighted".
Prime Minister Theresa May has tweeted her congratulations to the couple, calling it "fantastic news".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41148027
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Manchester attack: One family's story of surviving the bomb - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Two sisters and their family describe their recovery after being caught up in the bombing.
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Manchester
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Eve Senior and her mother Natalie later returned to visit the Arena
The morning after the Manchester Arena bomb an image of one girl filled the front pages of almost every newspaper.
Her name is Eve Senior. She's 14 but looks older in the photo - she had dressed up and done her make-up to go to the Ariana Grande concert.
She was a few metres from Salman Abedi when he detonated his suicide bomb, killing 22 people.
In the picture, half her jeans had been cut off by paramedics and she needed help to walk because of 14 shrapnel wounds she had suffered. Once at hospital medics operated to remove the lumps of metal from her legs.
For many people the photograph conveyed the awful reality of the attack. An attack targeting a concert packed with children.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Eve Senior, 14, speaks on the effect of the Manchester Arena attack on her
But another image that has stayed with me is of Eve's younger sister.
On the night of the bomb I watched as 11-year-old Emilia was scooped up by her father and carried away from the arena. She is too tall for her dad to carry very far. But he tried.
Once through the police cordon she was hugged and kissed by her grandparents. I heard her quietly say to them that she was one of the lucky ones.
That night, Emilia told me they had been leaving the concert when the bomb went off.
"We walked out and then suddenly something really hot flew over us," she said. "We all dropped to the floor."
Her mother and sister were still inside waiting to go to hospital. Emilia wiped her face and said: "My sister's really bad."
She was remarkably calm and articulate. But looking back at footage of that interview now, you can see the fear.
Four weeks later, I met Emilia again at her home near Bradford, West Yorkshire. She told me that as she left Manchester Arena on the night of the bomb she was convinced her big sister was dying.
This was also the first time I met Eve. She was still struggling to walk because of the shrapnel wounds and nerve damage. As a teenage girl and talented dancer, the way her legs looked and worked was important to her.
She had been told she still had months of physiotherapy ahead of her and doctors had mentioned the possibility of plastic surgery.
"Some of my friends don't understand how long it's going to take," she said. "I don't think I understand."
Her parents Andrew and Natalie told me Eve had good days and bad days. The bad days were really tough.
Emilia's hearing in one ear was damaged by the blast, but she escaped any other physical injuries. Her parents' main concern was about the psychological impact.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Emilia Senior was at Manchester Arena on the night of the attack
As she talked to me about the way her mind played and replayed what she saw that night, it became clear why.
"I see all of it. I see the flashing lights of the explosion," she said.
"I see the people being thrown in the air who were probably dead. And then you play it. And then you pause it. It's like my mind took a photo. That's what it feels like when you think about it."
Her father was sitting quietly next to her, taking in what she was saying.
Her mother, who was also injured in the explosion, said: "For an 11-year-old child to have seen the things she saw, it's going to be a long process."
By early July, when I next met the family, Emilia had turned 12 and Eve was walking without crutches.
I went with them to their local hospital where Eve and her mother had a physiotherapy session.
They had made huge progress, but for Eve it wasn't fast enough.
Emilia Senior (centre) and Eve, pictured with their mother, Natalie
"It feels like I'm not improving at all," she said. "I know I am. But it feels like that, because I just want to be able to do all the stuff I did before."
For her mother, each physiotherapy session had been a reminder of how far they had come.
"We've turned a real corner," she said. "Eve's getting a lot more mobile which has been a big thing for us."
They had been for days out together and one of their outings was to Manchester.
Like other survivors, the family had been offered the chance to visit the arena before its scheduled reopening. They had doubts in the days before the visit. The girls' parents hoped it would help them move forward, but feared the girls would find it totally overwhelming.
In the end it did help. It helped them fill in the gaps and get a better sense of what happened. They calculated that Eve was 5m from Abedi when he detonated the bomb.
Police urged people to stay calm and move away from the area on the night of the attack
"I was really scared to go," Eve told me. "I was crying before I even went in. But as soon as I got in there, you felt more calm."
Her mother said that for weeks after the attack she'd pictured the Arena foyer as a cold and frightening place. But going back changed that.
"It was as if you were going back somewhere where you found a bit of peace," she said.
Eve's face lit up when she talked about the staff at Manchester Children's Hospital.
"Before Manchester I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grow up," she said.
"But staying in hospital and seeing what the nurses do and how good they are - when I'm older I want to be a nurse."
Emilia has also found ways to cope. As her mother and sister worked out at their physio session, she chatted to me while colouring-in.
It is easy to forget how young she is. Her colouring book reminded me. She told me her trauma counsellor had suggested colouring as way to block out the images that had been filling her mind.
Remarkably, she said she did not hate the man who carried out the attack.
"You have to forgive and forget in life, or else you're not going to get anywhere."
This family is one of hundreds deeply and permanently affected by the Manchester attack. But despite all they have been through, they still regard themselves as the lucky ones.
Alongside hospital appointments and counselling sessions, they have found the time to hold fundraising events for the Manchester Emergency Fund and Victim Support.
Mr Senior told me he constantly thinks about the fathers whose children did not survive.
"It changes your perspective on things," he said. "We're always going to have Manchester as a part of our family now."
Inside Out North West is at 19:30 BST on BBC One in the North West and later on BBC iPlayer for 30 days.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-41088956
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How much leverage does China have over North Korea? - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Beijing enjoys a close relationship to Pyongyang, formalised in a 1961 bilateral treaty.
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Asia
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The People's Republic of China, a country averse to binding, treaty-based commitments, has always enjoyed a particular relationship with its small, north-eastern neighbour.
North Korea is the only country with which China has a legally binding mutual aid and co-operation treaty, signed in July 1961. There are only seven articles in the document.
The second is the most important: "The contracting parties undertake jointly to adopt all measures to prevent aggression against either of the contracting parties by any state.
"In the event of one of the contracting parties being subjected to the armed attack by any state or several states jointly and thus being involved in a state of war, the other contracting party shall immediately render military and other assistance by all means at its disposal."
In essence, therefore, if there is a simple answer to the question of what China would need to do if North Korea is unilaterally attacked by another power - say the US or South Korea - this sentence supplies the answer.
It would, according to this treaty, be obliged to become involved - and on the North Koreans' side. This, more than anything else, shows the ways in which history continues to frame the relationship between the two.
We have a very powerful precedent here. Even before the treaty in 1950, China committed a million troops to the Korean War once United Nations forces were involved. In defence of the North as a client state and buffer zone, it is more than likely to commit its much more formidable military assets.
This agreement still stands, despite the immense changes to China since the period in which it was signed.
A million Chinese troops were involved on North Korea's side in the Korean War
After the death of Mao in 1976, the country shifted from its adherence to a utopian version of socialism, and undertook widespread reforms. These resulted in the hybrid, complex system the country has today. Its economy and geopolitical prominence have burgeoned.
For North Korea, things have been different. Tepid attempts at controlled reform over the past three decades have had little success.
In the early 2000s, the Chinese hosted its former leader, the late Kim Jong-Il, and showed him special economic zones in Shanghai and examples of how to create a manufacturing, export-orientated economy servicing the capitalist West but maintaining its Marxist-Leninist system.
The attempt at persuasion evidently fell on deaf ears. North Korea's unique Juche ideology - a pure form of nationalism - meant that it resisted any attempts to copy models from elsewhere.
To this day, the market, if it exists in North Korea in any shape or form, is highly circumscribed and geared towards supporting the country's military aims and regime survival.
China's great points of leverage these days are trade, aid and energy. As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, North Korea's most important patron vanished almost overnight. Since that point, the reliance on China has increased to the extent that is now almost a monopoly.
Some 80% of the country's oil comes from its neighbour. Coal exports into China were immensely important - until sanctions stopped them in July last year after provocative behaviour. China has stuck to this agreement, with precipitous collapses in the North Korean economy in the ensuing year.
Late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il with former Chinese President Hu Jintao (R) in Beijing in January 2006
Almost all of North Korea's exports are either to China, or through China to elsewhere. Some 90% of its aid comes from China. China is the only country it has air links with, and a rail line into.
It was, until the mid-2000s, the only country, too, whose banks had relations with North Korean counterparts, through accounts in Macau in particular. Monies here were frozen in a previous spate of sanctions.
Even so, one of the new targets of UN-backed measures is Chinese banks, which continue, mostly indirectly, to deal with embargoed North Korean companies or intermediaries.
The main point of Chinese leverage over North Korea is widely believed to be its oil. Stopping this would lead to an immediate, dramatic economic impact.
A few years ago, for a matter of days, the oil pipes into North Korea were closed, around the time of a previous nuclear test. China has, therefore, been willing to flex its muscles here.
But wholesale stopping of the supply, rather than temporary glitches, is a different matter. Many believe this would trigger regime crisis, or even collapse. After all, the North Koreans are already living in a subsistence economy. Taking away this final lifeline could be fatal.
There are powerful counter-arguments, however, that say things would not be so straightforward. North Korea devotes 25% of its GDP (gross domestic product) to military activity. The oil stocks there would last a few months. And that would give it time to embark on the devastating assault southwards that everyone fears, into the highly populated regions of South Korea.
It would be a suicidal mission, but as the world knows from plenty of other examples, handling those with suicide on their minds is the greatest challenge.
Nor would North Korea be compliant in other areas as it collapsed. Refugees would swarm across the border into China. A vacuum would appear. China would be faced with its worst nightmare - a space which the US and its allies might try to occupy.
For all its seeming points of leverage and influence, therefore, the most remarkable thing about China and North Korea is the ways in which, at a time when the rest of the world is agonising over how to deal with a renascent, confident, powerful-looking China, this narrative is so brutally undermined by the ways in which its small, impoverished neighbour almost daily exposes its impotence.
This analysis piece was commissioned by the BBC from an expert working for an outside organisation.
Kerry Brown is professor of Chinese studies and director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41152824
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Mexican beach photo wins smartphone contest - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Image of beach-seller beats more than 9,000 entries in Saatchi Gallery smartphone competition.
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Entertainment & Arts
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An image of a boy selling candyfloss on Tijuana beach in Mexico has won the Saatchi Gallery's smartphone photography competition.
Paola Ismene's photo was selected from more than 9,000 entries in the #selfexpression competition.
The competition was launched off the back of the London gallery's From Selfie to Self-Expression exhibition, which closes on Wednesday.
Ismene's prize is a solo exhibition at the Saatchi, off London's King's Road.
Flying Blue Corsica, taken by Helene Vallas Vincent, also made the shortlist
Ismene said she was "truly grateful for being selected... because it's a great platform to expose the work of emerging photographers".
"Mobile photography has allowed me to capture countless images in my everyday life," the Mexico City resident continued.
From Selfie to Self-Expression features traditional self-portraits from the likes of Van Gogh and Rembrandt alongside more modern examples.
These include a selfie taken by Kim Kardashian and another of former US President Barack Obama with former Prime Minister David Cameron.
Denis Cherim's shortlisted shot was taken from a London bus
The shortlisted finalists in the competition came from across the globe and included entries from Australia, Spain, the US and the UK.
Nigel Hurst, Saatchi Gallery CEO, said: "We hope that this new #SelfExpression competition encourages everyone with a smartphone to realise its potential as an artistic tool, and inspire them to document their daily lives with even more creative vigour."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41151085
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Blackpool couple shot children as punishment for not doing chores - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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The pair attacked their five offspring for "fairly trivial behaviour", a court hears.
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Lancashire
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BB guns are designed to fire ball bearings or pellets
A couple shot their children with a BB gun as a "bizarre and frankly barbaric chastisement" for not doing chores properly, a court has heard.
The Blackpool pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, used the weapon on their five children for four months, Preston Crown Court heard.
The "fairly trivial behaviour" punished included not changing a nappy, dropping items and failing to wash the dishes.
Both parents pleaded guilty to five counts of child cruelty.
The 50-year-old father was jailed for two years, while the mother, aged 33, was given a suspended sentence and ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work.
The court heard the man bought the BB gun - a type of air gun designed for shooting pellets - in February 2016 and began using it to shoot birds and punish the children, aged between seven and 15, on a daily basis.
One of the girls, aged 13, was shot for having a boyfriend, as her father said she was too young.
The court was told that the father did most of the shooting and kept the gun down the side of the sofa, but his wife would take over if he was not at home.
The cruelty came to light in June 2016, when the 13-year-old told a teacher of her injuries, which included bruises and an open wound on her leg.
On arrest, the couple denied the allegations, with the father claiming he had only used a foam dart gun on the children. Both parents later admitted child cruelty.
Defending, Rosalyn Emslie-Smith said the father had "always accepted he has failed in terms of his parenting", while Ciaran Rankin, defending his wife, said the "misguided" shootings "began as a bit of fun and developed from there".
Sentencing the pair, Judge Robert Altham said they had developed a "regime of discipline" and created a "climate of fear" in their home.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-41160213
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North Korea: China's 'nightmare neighbour' does it again - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Chinese people felt the ground tremble, but the government is more like to be shaking with anger.
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Asia
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Chinese President Xi is, again, dealing with the crisis while in the middle of hosting an international summit
In the small Chinese city of Yanji, the ground was moving.
This Korean-speaking region sits on the border with North Korea and soon local bloggers were posting images on social media of things shaking.
What they could not have known was that this earthquake was man-made.
Not far away, the government in Pyongyang was soon declaring the successful test of a hydrogen bomb - its most powerful to date.
The timing was a clear slap in the face for Beijing.
Just hours after the underground nuclear test, President Xi Jinping was due to make a speech as the head of state for the nation hosting the Brics summit, which would welcome delegates from Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa to Xiamen.
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It is conceivable that North Korea did not necessarily choose the opening day of this major diplomatic gathering for its test but it certainly did not see the need to call it off for fear of offending China.
And, what is more, these weapons test "coincidences" are now starting to mount up when it comes to Xi Jinping.
In March, just before the Chinese leader was set to meet United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Beijing, North Korea announced the successful test of a new type of rocket engine.
Then in May President Xi was preparing to open the One Belt One Road forum. The leaders of dozens of nations had come to the Chinese capital to discuss economic development and transport infrastructure around the Chinese leader's signature foreign policy initiative. Then, whoooooosh! Off goes another North Korean missile test to steal the limelight before the summit could even get going.
That this could have happened again with the Brics summit is incredible.
Xi Jinping - who is also the chair of the Central Military Commission in China - cannot be happy with this emerging pattern.
People look across to North Korea from Tumen
The North Koreans, in turn, would be furious with the behaviour of their old Cold War allies. China has not only backed sanctions against them in the United Nations Security Council but, as the isolated regime's principal trading partner, it has also been the principal implementer of these sanctions, turning back coal shipments and the like.
Yet most observers know that, if it really wanted to, Beijing could bring crippling economic pain to North Korea. Heading into winter, it could freeze oil and gas supplies.
Then there are the banks.
North Korea is thought to conduct an enormous amount of laundered business via Chinese financial institutions. Various front businesses have been set up to facilitate money and products to flow in and out of the country with the assistance of these bodies. The Chinese government cannot be unaware of this and they could pull the plug on it tomorrow if they wanted to.
But they don't for one reason.
The Chinese government does not like the regional instability that their neighbour's nuclear weapons testing programme brings, but Beijing fears something even more.
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They worry that total regime collapse in Pyongyang, leading to a unified Korean Peninsula dominated by the South, could lead to US troops on the border within marching distance of Yanji and they will put up with an awful lot from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as long as this does not happen.
The Environment Ministry here has announced that it has now started "emergency radiation testing" along the frontier. The government's displeasure would be significant if Chinese territory has been contaminated.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry's official response to this latest North Korean nuclear weapons test condemned it strongly but, with increasingly loud calls coming for this country to do more to pressure Kim Jong-un to give up intercontinental ballistic missile ambitions, there would be serious frustration within the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party as to what they can realistically do next.
The North Korean leader has made his nuclear ambitions a hallmark of his administration to the extent that it is hard to see what type of offering or threat could alter this situation.
That is, unless the US and China have come up with a secret agreement which would see American troops leave Korea in the event of unification… if that was in place it could change everything.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41141099
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Travel disruption as Hurricane Irma forces flight cancellations - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Hurricane Irma forces airline flight cancellations, with customers told to check before travelling.
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Business
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Caribbean travel plans have been thrown into chaos as flights are disrupted by Hurricane Irma sweeping across the region towards the US coast.
Irma, coming days after the US was hit by Hurricane Harvey, has been upgraded to a category five, the highest.
Puerto Rico, a major flight transfer hub for the region, has declared a state of emergency.
British Airways cancelled a flight from the UK on Tuesday and, with Virgin Atlantic, changed return schedules.
On Tuesday, British Airways cancelled its flight to Antigua, which was then due to continue to Tobago.
BA sent an empty aircraft to Antigua to bring travellers home early. The full flight of 326 passengers left the island early evening on Tuesday, UK time.
Antigua's airport will be closed on Wednesday.
"The safety of our customers and crew is always our priority," BA said in statement. "We have offered all customers due to travel to the region in the coming days a range of re-booking options and are keeping our flights to the entire region under review."
Virgin has brought forward its flight from Antigua to the UK by five hours. A spokesman said the airline was monitoring the strength and direction of Irma before changing more schedules. "We may need to make some changes or cancellations," he said, and urged customers to check with the airline before travelling.
Flights between many of the islands, which include the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, and the British Virgin Islands, have been cancelled.
On Tuesday, American Airlines cancelled its schedules to the islands of St Kitts and St Maarten,
For Wednesday, Puerto Rico's San Juan airport has cancelled 85 flights, about 40% of services. The island's governor Ricardo Rossello described the hurricane as "something without precedent".
The US Virgin Islands' seaports were closed to everything except essential traffic.
The threat of Irma to cruise ship tourism hit shares in big operators including Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Royal Caribbean Cruises. Their shares fell between 3%-4%.
One hotelier on Antigua told the Reuters news agency that his property's window were being boarded up and that coconuts were being stripped from trees.
"I wasn't that nervous yesterday, but today I'm nervous," said Gary Randall, head of the Blue Waters Resort. He expected the beach to be swept away and the hotel to be flooded.
Shares in insurance companies with an exposure to Florida slid as investors weighed up the likely financial impact of Irma. Heritage Insurance and Universal Insurance both fell more than 15%.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Tuesday that Irma was "potentially catastrophic". It said the hurricane was currently on track to hit the northern Leeward Islands early on Wednesday, and possibly the Florida Keys by the weekend. Florida has also declared an emergency.
The Center said Irma's winds may reach 180 miles (280 kilometers) per hour. "These rainfall amounts may cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the NHC warned.
The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office has urged travellers, tour operators and hotel owners to "follow the advice of the local authorities".
Residents in two US states, Texas and Louisiana, are still recovering from the effects of Harvey, which struck as a category four storm, causing heavy rain and destroying thousands of homes.
• None How hard has Harvey hit the local economy?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41167016
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Questions raised about prominent FGM campaigner - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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A BBC investigation has revealed concerns about some aspects of the work of an FGM campaigner.
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UK
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A BBC Newsnight investigation has revealed a series of concerns about some aspects of the work of a celebrated FGM campaigner.
Comfort Momoh established one of the UK's first FGM clinics and has recently retired as a midwife from Guy's and St Thomas' Trust in London.
She has also received an MBE for her work in women's health.
But senior specialists have raised concerns about her credibility when it comes to examining children for FGM.
There are also suggestions Ms Momoh may be exaggerating her professional qualifications. She has repeatedly described herself as "Dr Momoh" - including on the website of Guys and St Thomas's hospital, but she is not a qualified medical doctor - instead, she has an honorary doctorate from Middlesex University.
A university spokesperson confirmed to Newsnight that this does not enable her to use the title "doctor".
Comfort Momoh has not responded to the BBC's request for comment.
When Newsnight approached the Nursing and Midwifery Council, who regulate midwives, for comment on their findings, they told the programme that a referral had been made about Comfort Momoh on 8 August which they are currently investigating.
The NMC said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on any specific details as the case is ongoing. It has not been confirmed whether the concerns within the referral are the same as those raised in Newsnight's reporting.
Female genital mutilation is a term given to all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitals or other injury to female genital organs where there are no medical reason.
It is usually carried out on girls under the age of 15, with most FGM done under the age of five, according to Unicef.
Newsnight understands that Comfort Momoh has examined children for FGM on at least five occasions, despite not having relevant qualifications.
Although Comfort Momoh is an expert in adult cases of FGM, serious questions have been raised about her competence to assess children - whose anatomy is different to that of adults.
In 2012, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health produced guidance with the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine, for the examination of child abuse victims, saying this should only be performed by a doctor with specialist training in children - which Ms Momoh is not understood to have.
Comfort Momoh was awarded an MBE for her work in 2008
In a court case involving a child who was alleged to have had FGM in Leeds in 2014 in which Comfort Momoh did give evidence, the judge involved said she merited "harsh criticism" and had "difficulty in providing answers even about the even the simplest factual question".
She originally said - after examination - that the right labia appeared to be missing in one of the girls and said the child had been subjected to "some form of FGM".
But in oral evidence in court, Comfort Momoh changed her findings.
Sir James Munby, the President of the Family Division, described her report as "a remarkably shoddy piece of work" and "worse than useless". He said she was "not a reliable witness".
Judge Munby concluded, there was not enough evidence to suggest the child had had FGM, after the examination was reviewed by an expert.
Comfort Momoh was one of two key expert witnesses in another high-profile case in 2015 - the first of its kind - in which a doctor was taken to court in the UK for allegedly carrying out FGM.
She was dropped as a witness just before the trial. It is unclear why. A jury acquitted the accused after less than half an hour of deliberations.
Doctor Dhanuson Dharmasena was found not guilty of performing FGM
Guy's and St Thomas's NHS Foundation - where Comfort Momoh has worked as a midwife for 20 years - said she had recently retired.
They said this had been planned for some time, and was "not linked to issues raised by Newsnight".
A government spokesperson said: "Female genital mutilation is a horrific act of abuse which this government is working to tackle."
They added: "We have also published comprehensive standards of what we expect in delivering FGM care in children under the age of 18.
"In this we make clear that those examining children are doctors, and that they need paediatric competencies and appropriate experience."
More on this story on BBC Newsnight on iPlayer
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41159096
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Charlie Stillitano: The US football 'player' you've never heard of - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Sports promoter Charlie Stillitano is possibly the football world's most influential American.
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Business
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US soccer promoter Charlie Stillitano has been called many things in the past 18 months or so - with "power broker" and "mogul" among the more flattering descriptions of the ebullient New Yorker.
On the downside, for his apparent suggestion that a European super league might be an idea worth talking about, he has been called "a poster boy for greed" and even "a corporate goblin".
Stillitano is the executive chairman of Relevant Sports, which organises the International Champions Cup, an annual summer tournament held mainly across the US - although other countries also host matches - featuring the world's top football clubs.
But it was for organising a meeting of executives from Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea - where they discussed the possibility of restructuring the Uefa Champions League - that he found himself in the firing line.
"It was not our [Relevant's] intention to be a stalking horse for the creation of a European Super League, that was never the intention," he tells me.
"I would never advocate a closed-shop Champions League or any closed European league. I know it sounds cliched but I was misquoted, or rather I was asked a question about whether closed leagues can ever work.
Stillitano has been a football fan since his childhood days in the 1960s
"And in some circumstances they can - look at NFL American football, one of the most successful leagues in the world. But I know that closed leagues are anathema in Europe."
The 57-year-old says discussions about the format of European football first emerged because clubs came to him and asked if the Champions Cup could become more than just a pre-season event, and be put on a more official footing.
Stillitano says he got sucked into a Champions League controversy inadvertently
"So things were coming about more as a reaction to teams approaching us," he says. "We caused a stir unintentionally. And clubs are still coming up to us.
"Anyway, the big European clubs ended up cutting new commercial and sporting deals, including the changes at Uefa with the Champions League," he adds, referring to the deal where bigger nations such as England are guaranteed more places.
Stillitano's partner in the International Champions Cup is US billionaire and Miami Dolphins American football team owner, Stephen Ross.
Indeed, he says it is Ross's lack of a traditional soccer background that has enabled him to put together some of the bigger Champions Cup matches.
"We brokered the biggest game, the Real Madrid v Barcelona Clasico, in Miami this summer," he says. "Steve Ross has the advantage of not being a massive soccer follower, so he just said 'let's get it' without even considering it might not be possible.
"From the beginning Mr Ross and his business partner Matt Higgins could see there was something out there, a huge untapped soccer market.
Five English clubs took part in the 2017 event
"The Champions Cup sits in a nice pre-season niche. It gives us the opportunity to own the month of pre-season, and build a viable business.
"We get to show the best players in the world, and they are able to perform in a relaxed atmosphere without the the pressure of a regular season game. It allows the teams to build for their seasons."
The tournament has just completed its fifth year, with Ross investing roughly $100m over the period since 2013.
"We are making money out of it, we have turned the financial corner, I think the investment has paid off," says Stillitano.
Stillitano says the Champions Cup is creating a new generation of US soccer fans
"I know it is not a Champions League or regular season games. But the fans love it and lots of cities and clubs would live to have Champions Cup games to host.
"We are helping to cultivate the new US soccer fan. The biggest crowd ever for a Manchester United v Real Madrid game was in America this summer. Clearly we have something that has caught the imagination of the US sporting public."
Grew up watching Italian and German football on cable TV
Director of Giants Stadium at the 1994 World Cup
In 1996 became general manager of MLS team New York/New Jersey MetroStars (later Red Bulls)
Set up Champions World series of games in the US featuring major European teams in the 2000s
Stillitano says the next step is to make the event more of an entertainment property.
"We saw it for the first time in Miami with the Clasico," he says. "We had legends games, concerts, activities for kids. That is something we want to expand, make it a fun day out, not just the match. The NFL Super Bowl is currently the only event that gets that mix right.
"The next part is also to attract more cities to take part - Singapore is a good example of a city that has come on board with us."
Games have also been held in England, Italy, Spain, Canada, Mexico and China; Mr Stillitano says there is interest in Argentina, Brazil, the Middle East, and South Africa.
"It is good for the economies of host cities," he says. "Three quarters of the people who came to the Miami Clasico were from out of state. And there were 70,000 at the game, and 40,000 at the training sessions."
Fifa took over the former Intercontinental Cup/Toyota Cup
So, does this growth signal that the Champions Cup is indeed ripe for becoming a part of the official football calendar?
"Different people own different football spaces... but things change," he says. "Look at how Fifa decided they wanted to take over the old Intercontinental Cup, and moved in on it.
"However, are we going to morph into something more official? I don't think so."
And on the subject of competitions morphing into something else, Stillitano has a final riposte for those who accused him of trying to set up a closed-shop European league.
"I think we are already in danger of creating a closed league, through financial fair play," he says, referring to Uefa rules which generally mean clubs can only spend what they make, and break even.
PSG are emerging as one of clutch of super-wealthy European teams
"It means there are five, six, clubs that are wealthy enough to dominate the Champions League over the next 20 years - the likes of Paris Saint Germain, Manchester City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich.
"A Celtic or Ajax will never win the cup again, while the likes of AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, and other historic big names are condemned to almost second tier status."
He laughs: "But I am the one who got all the trouble and criticism!"
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41092764
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Oxford and Cambridge top world university rankings - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Two UK universities top the Times Higher Education Rankings for the first time in 13-year history.
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Education & Family
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Oxford is the world's best university, according to the ranking
Two UK universities occupy the top spots in a global ranking for the first time.
The University of Oxford is top of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, with Cambridge University second, up from fourth place last year.
A key factor in the rankings is income and both universities saw this rise in the past year, partly in the form of European Union research grants.
But this income could fall with Brexit, warned rankings director Phil Baty.
Times Higher Education, which compiles the rankings, said that margins were extremely tight at the top, with all the top-ranked institutions excelling against measures in teaching, research, citations, international outlook and income.
But Oxford and Cambridge saw significant increases in their total institutional income - up 24% and 11% respectively while their nearest rivals, the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University saw falls in income.
The researchers also point out that about a quarter of Cambridge's research income, and a fifth of Oxford's, come in the form of EU grants - a factor which they say underlines the risk Brexit could pose to the global performance of the UK's leading universities.
The top of the global ranking of 1,000 universities in 77 countries is dominated by US institutions.
Other UK universities in the top 50 are Imperial College London in eighth place; University College London, 16th; London School of Economics and Political Science, 25th; University of Edinburgh, 27th; and King's College London, 36th.
Cambridge University rose from fourth to second place
The researchers say the findings show "a widening gulf between the UK's super elite institutions and other universities", with just over half of the UK's top 200 institutions, dropping down the ranking.
Mr Baty said: "The UK higher education system is facing intense political pressure, with questions over the value for money provided by £9,250 tuition fees in England, our continued attractiveness to international students, the flow of research funding and academic talent post-Brexit, and even levels of vice-chancellors' pay.
"But one thing this new data makes absolutely clear is that the UK has many of the very best universities in the world and it has one of the world's strongest higher education systems.
"The data shows UK universities are consistently producing ground-breaking new research which is driving innovation, they are attracting international students and academic talent and are providing a world-class teaching environment.
"They are a huge national asset, and one that the country can ill-afford to undermine at a time when its place in the global order is under intense scrutiny."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41160914
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Sir Bruce Forsyth's private funeral held - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Family and friends say farewell to the veteran entertainer, who died last month.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Sir Bruce died in August at the age of 89
Family and friends have said farewell to Sir Bruce Forsyth at a private funeral.
The star's manager confirmed to BBC News that the service took place on Monday.
A public memorial service will be held in due course for fans to pay their respects to the entertainer, with details released in the next few weeks.
There will also be a tribute on Strictly Come Dancing when it returns to BBC One on Saturday evening.
Sir Bruce, who co-hosted the dance show until 2014, died on 18 August at the age of 89.
His manager Ian Wilson released a statement on behalf of Sir Bruce's family, saying: "It was the express wish of Lady Forsyth and family that this be a private event and they would like to thank the media for respecting this request.
"There will be no further details or comment. A more public celebration of Sir Bruce's life will be announced in the coming weeks."
Strictly executive producer Louise Rainbow has promised that the show's tribute will include "a heartfelt performance from our Strictly professional dancers".
She added: "We all want to celebrate him and all that he loved about the show.
"Sir Bruce was, and will always be, a huge part of Strictly Come Dancing."
Sir Bruce's TV career stretched back to the 1950s and he became one of Britain's best-loved entertainers thanks to shows like Sunday Night at the London Palladium, The Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right and The Price Is Right.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41160807
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ECHR court reverses ruling on sacking over private messages - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Europe's human rights court reverses a ruling which allowed a firm to read an employee's messages.
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Technology
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The European Court of Human Rights is in Strasbourg
A Romanian man should not have been fired for sending private messages at work, Europe's top human rights court has ruled.
Bogdan Mihai Barbulescu was sacked for sending the messages via the Yahoo messaging system in 2007.
His employer had used surveillance software to monitor his computer activity.
A Romanian court ruled in 2016 that the firm was within its rights but this has now been overturned.
Some of the communications he had sent were "intimate in nature" and were sent to his brother and his fiancee, the court heard.
However, his right to privacy had not been "adequately protected", the apex body of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has now ruled.
The ECHR also said it was not clear whether Mr Barbulescu had been warned that his communications would be monitored, and that the original court had not established specifically why the monitoring had taken place.
As it is the highest court there can be no further appeal.
"...although it was questionable whether Mr Barbulescu could have had a reasonable expectation of privacy in view of his employer's restrictive regulations on internet use, of which he had been informed, an employer's instructions could not reduce private social life in the workplace to zero," said the court in its decision.
In a question and answer section on its website, the ECHR says the ruling does not mean that firms cannot now monitor employee communications at work, and that they can still dismiss employees for private use.
"However, the Court considers that States should ensure that, when an employer takes measures to monitor employees' communications, these measures are accompanied by adequate and sufficient safeguards against abuse," it said.
Catrina Smith, employment partner at the legal firm Norton Rose Fulbright said it would not have a huge impact on UK employment regulation.
"What it will do, for companies who thought they had a bit more leeway than they did, is confirm the fact that they don't," she said.
"It will hopefully remind employers that they need to think about these issues and be very clear with employees about what is and isn't permissible.
"Employees also need to be smarter about the way in which they use both personal and work devices."
Ms Smith added that in the UK both the Data Protection Act and the Interception of Communications Act set out clear guidelines for employers regarding what they can monitor.
"You have to make sure the employee understands that [monitoring] might happen and you have to have a good reason for doing so," she said.
"It's all about having a dialogue and having an agreement about what is and isn't personal."
There also needs to be clear guidelines about the use of personal devices for work purposes, she added.
"In the old days if you took papers home, they still belonged to the employer," she said.
"You need to have clear understanding of the amount of ownership an employer has over information held on a personal device."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41160853
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Alps murders: 'No progress' five years after al-Hilli shooting - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Zaid al-Hilli says he has no faith in the French investigators' search for his brother's killer.
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Surrey
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alps Murder: 'No progress' five years on
The brother of a British man shot dead while on a family holiday in the French Alps says he is frustrated with the lack of progress in the investigation.
The bodies of Saad al-Hilli, his wife Iqbal and her mother, Suhaila al-Allaf, were found on 5 September 2012. French cyclist Sylvain Mollier was also shot.
The couple's two young daughters survived the shooting near Lake Annecy.
The French lead prosecutor said it was the most complex case she had worked on.
Zeena al-Hilli, then four years old, was discovered hiding under her mother's body inside the family car, eight hours after the shooting.
Her seven-year-old sister Zainab was found with serious head injuries after being shot and beaten.
Zaid al-Hilli says he has no faith in those investigating the shooting of his brother and his family
The bodies of the couple from Claygate, Surrey, along with Ms al-Allaf and Mr Mollier, were found on a remote road in Chevaline near where they had been on holiday.
Mr al-Hilli's brother Zaid said: "There hasn't been any progress in the case. The initial investigation [by French investigators] has been a total failure.
"They made claims against the family which they couldn't prove."
In 2013, Surrey Police arrested Zaid al-Hilli, who lives in Chessington, as part of the French investigation.
He was later released, with British police saying there was not enough evidence to charge him.
Surrey Police said it was continuing to provide support to the French investigation as part of the joint investigation team (JIT) established following the deaths.
It said officers had worked closely with the French authorities to progress a number of lines of enquiry in the UK.
The force said: "This is a complex inquiry. However, Surrey Police remains committed to helping find answers to what happened."
He said the last time he had been in contact with the French authorities was "very briefly" in 2015.
The two daughters have been given new identities since the shootings.
"The girls are fine and doing well, and I'm in touch with them," Zaid al-Hilli said.
The French lead prosecutor, Veronique Dizot, said work was being carried out to identify the previous owners of the guns used in the attack, but she said there were no potential suspects in the case.
She said: "We have certain technical information about the weapons, but we have not yet identified the previous owner or owners of the weapons."
She told the BBC it was the most complex case she had worked on but there had been no progress in solving it.
The killer of Saad al-Hilli may never be found, his brother fears
"The only way forward is for a British judge to look into the investigation and give us some conclusions," Mr al-Hilli said.
"I don't think the French authorities were honest and we don't trust them and we don't have faith in them.
"Five years on I don't think we'll ever find out what happened."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-41150373
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Newspaper headlines: Prince William and Catherine's new baby - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Most newspapers lead on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's baby announcement.
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The Papers
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Prince William and Catherine already have two children, George, who is four, and Charlotte, aged two
Bets are on for what the third royal baby could be called, with many papers leading on the announcement that the Duchess of Cambridge is expecting.
The Guardian and the Telegraph are just two of the papers which say Alice and Arthur are the most popular possible names for Princess Charlotte and Prince George's new brother or sister.
Others are taking a punt on the date and location of the child's conception. "The Warsaw Act" is the Sun's headline, referring to the royal couple's recent trip to Poland. But the Star reckons it's a south London baby, quoting a palace source who said "they both have so much fun during Wimbledon".
There's widespread concern over the United States' warning that North Korea is "begging for war". Writing in the daily Telegraph, former Foreign Secretary William Hague says there are no sanctions that will deter Kim Jong-un from pursuing his nuclear weapons programme - and only China can halt his ambitions.
The Daily Express agrees, saying Beijing now has the chance to show its maturity as a world power. But in its analysis, the Times thinks the crisis has highlighted the weakness in North Korea and China's relationship. It says China has lost control over its neighbour.
And in the Daily Mirror, former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen asks whether force is the next step in standing up to the atomic threat.
Meanwhile, the Guardian leads on its investigation uncovering a secret scheme to launder more than £2bn from Azerbaijan through a network of UK companies.
According to the paper, some of the cash from the so-called "Azerbiajani Laundromat" was spent on lobbying to deflect criticism of the country's president, who is accused of human rights abuses and rigging elections.
A journalist in Baku jailed for investigating government corruption, Khadija Ismayilova, says it is a kleptocracy which perpetuates the poverty of ordinary citizens.
Rohingya refugees walk on the muddy road after travelling over the Bangladesh-Myanmar border
There's criticism of the de facto leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, in both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
In its leader column, the Telegraph says she must speak out against the persecution of the Muslim Rohingya minority if she is to live up to her worldwide reputation as a defender of the oppressed.
Mail commentator Peter Oborne goes further, accusing her government of complicity in genocide and mass rape. The journalist has travelled to Sittwe in Myanmar and spoken to Rohingyas who have been forced to live in a tiny ghetto with no access to proper healthcare.
Criminals are launching hundreds of successful cyber attacks on UK universities each year, the Times reports. The groups are targeting scientific, engineering and medical advances including research into missiles.
A cybersecurity expert tells the paper that many attacks go completely untraced, as most universities have "fundamentally backward-looking defences".
Finally, the paper also says Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been toying with the idea of veganism.
He announced he was "going through the process" of eliminating animal products from his diet but his love of Somerset brie has been holding him back.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-41155563
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Kirsty Gallacher admits drink-driving in Eton - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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The Sky Sports presenter was found to be at more than three times the legal limit, a court hears.
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Berkshire
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Kirsty Gallacher was more than three-times the drink-drive limit when she was pulled over in Eton, Berkshire
Television presenter Kirsty Gallacher has admitted drink-driving after being caught at more than three times the legal limit.
The Sky Sports presenter, 41, was arrested in Eton, Berkshire, the day after she had been drinking, Slough magistrates heard.
She was on her way to meet her children to visit Windsor Castle on 12 August.
She received a two-year driving ban and was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid community work.
Gallacher, who is divorced from former rugby union player Paul Sampson, was seen driving her BMW X4 erratically before police tracked her down using CCTV.
Her alcohol level was found to be 106 micrograms per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35 micrograms per 100ml of breath.
Kirsty Gallacher appeared at Slough Magistrates' Court wearing black and spoke only to confirm her name, address and plea
Jennifer Dempster, mitigating, said Gallacher very rarely drank, and had taken a taxi home before going to collect her car the following morning.
She said Gallacher's children had not been in the car at the time.
"This is of course the morning after drinking, and it is a topic which is a hot one at present," Ms Dempster said.
"This is in many senses unintentional drink-driving.
"What this defendant did was exactly right until 11:00 BST the next morning."
Probation officer Jasvir Kaur Bhatti said Gallacher was "very remorseful" and "very much regrets what happened".
District Judge Davinder Lachhar said the charge was "very serious" and described the level of alcohol in her system as "very high".
The defendant, of Virginia Water, Surrey, appeared wearing black and spoke only to confirm her name, address and plea.
Gallacher, a former Strictly Come Dancing contestant, was told her driving ban could be reduced by six months if she opted to take part in a driving safety course at a later date.
She was ordered to pay £85 in court charges and a separate surcharge of £85.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-41146248
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Families left devastated by false claims of FGM in girls - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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A BBC investigation raises serious questions about the handling of FGM in children in the UK.
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UK
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Some children in the UK have spent months on child protection plans - or in foster care - on the false suspicion they are victims of female genital mutilation, a BBC report has found.
The BBC understands that it can take months for children to be examined in cases where FGM is suspected.
Children can be separated from their parents while inquiries take place.
Experts say that in the majority of cases, when examined by a specialist, it turns out the child has not had FGM.
Female genital mutilation is a term given to all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitals or other injury to female genital organs where there are no medical reason.
It is usually carried out on girls under the age of 15, with most FGM done under the age of five, according to Unicef.
FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985 and further legislation in 2003 and 2005 made it an offence to arrange FGM outside the country for British citizens or permanent residents.
For nearly two years, it has been a legal requirement for all health professionals, social workers and teachers to report cases of FGM in under-18s in England and Wales to the police, and is an obligation for professionals to refer suspected cases to local safeguarding teams.
A study by experts at University College London Hospital in 2016 showed it took nearly two months for children to be referred for an examination by local authorities. There have been waits of more than a year. The hospital confirmed this was still a problem.
There are cases where children have been separated from their parents while investigations take place.
A charity that works with families to eliminate FGM in the UK says the way some cases were handled left children and their families traumatised.
Toks Okeniyi has worked with families who have been separated because of false FGM claims
"There's a knee-jerk reaction from professionals when they hear FGM. I don't know whether it's terrified or wanting to make sure something doesn't go wrong. So they really go in too hard," says Toks Okeniyi, head of programmes and operations for the organisation Forward.
Her organisation worked with one family where the child was placed in foster care for eight months before being examined and was found not to have undergone FGM.
"This family said they felt like goats herded into a paddock and nobody cared. It is just a hopeless situation," she said.
One woman, originally from East Africa, whom we are keeping anonymous to protect the identity of her children, told the BBC that police opened an investigation after she asked her midwife a question about FGM.
Her children were placed on a child protection plan because it was believed that she had undergone the procedure and her two daughters may have too.
She denied the accusations and fought for four months to get the medical examination that proved her innocence, but the ordeal had a huge impact.
"I needed an examination done on me and my children. I knew I hadn't undergone FGM, my children hadn't undergone any FGM," she says.
"I knew within myself that I hadn't done anything wrong - my children were fine and healthy and I hadn't hurt them in any way.
"The police officer said to me that if I hadn't had the examination taken for my children, to be sincere, I would have lost my children. Social services would have taken them away."
There are no definitive figures but the British government has warned thousands of women and children are at risk of FGM and has committed to helping to end the practice worldwide within a generation.
In 2015, the former Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz said: "Young girls are being mutilated every hour of every day. This is deplorable. This barbaric crime which is committed daily on such a huge scale across the UK cannot continue to go unpunished."
But some doctors have told the BBC that they do not believe that FGM is taking place on the scale politicians have suggested.
"We're just not seeing the number that we would have thought we would see, given the demographics that we cover now," says Dr Catherine White, clinical director at St Mary's Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Manchester, one of three specialist centres in the UK where children are examined for FGM.
"Perhaps newer generations, younger generations, aren't perpetuating it in the same way... now I know that some of it might be hidden and that it might be done and never come to light to professionals.
Dr Catherine White works at a specialist centre in the UK where children are examined for FGM
"But I think if certain types of FGM were being done at the rates that we were perhaps led to expect we would be seeing cases coming through with infection or bleeding, they would be ending up in front of healthcare professionals and then being referred to us. And that just hasn't happened - not here in Greater Manchester anyway."
Experts from across the country told the BBC that most confirmed cases were historic and had taken place abroad.
Since mandatory reporting came in, there have been more than 40 referrals in Manchester, of which 14 were confirmed as cases of FGM. All had been performed before the child came to the UK.
A similar picture was found in Birmingham, where all nine confirmed cases of FGM between April and August this year were in children who had had the procedure before moving to the country.
So far no-one has been successfully prosecuted in the UK.
A government spokesperson said: "Female genital mutilation is a horrific act of abuse which this government is working to tackle.
"We know that by its nature FGM is a hidden crime and the government is committed to improving our understanding of the scale and nature of it in the UK."
More on this story on The World at One on Radio 4 and BBC Newsnight at 22:30 on BBC Two
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41150621
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Is this the next financial scandal waiting to happen? - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Initial coin offerings - firms issuing their own digital currencies for investors to buy - are concerning regulators.
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Business
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Sean Boulanger says initial coin offerings give small investors a chance to invest in start-ups
A growing number of tech companies are raising funds through initial coin offerings - issuing their own digital currencies for investors to buy. But the practice is completely unregulated. Is another financial scandal just around the corner?
Sean Boulanger, a senior community manager at a Cape Town digital agency, doesn't consider himself a serious investor.
But he came across US tech company Civic, run by fellow South African entrepreneur Vinny Lingham. It was planning to raise money in a way Mr Boulanger had never heard of before.
Instead of issuing shares and floating all or part of the company on the stock market - known as an initial public offering or IPO - Civic decided to issue its own tokens, or digital currency, to help fund the identity verification platform it was developing.
Mr Boulanger was impressed with Civic's product and decided to invest.
"It has allowed me to jump in and invest in a start-up, which is very difficult in this country to do, especially with limited funds," says Mr Boulanger.
"The risk is high, but so is the reward."
Civic raised $33m (£26m) via this initial coin offering (ICO), as it's known.
Civic founder Vinny Lingham says an initial coin offering was the "right thing to do" for his firm
The cost of the new currency is set by the issuing company and investors hold the "coins" in digital wallets, hoping that their value will rise as the company flourishes.
Several other companies developing blockchain-based applications have raised money this way, including Bancor ($153m) and Tezos ($232m) with more than $1bn being raised in total so far this year.
Companies like ICOs because they are quick, easy, and free from regulatory red tape.
"Preparing an ICO takes only weeks and can be targeted directly at the interested investors and customers rather than going through venture capitalists," says Michael Marcovici, a director of Cayman Islands-based Digital Developers Fund.
The Fund is currently offering tokens for sale to raise money for its own investments in crypto-currencies.
But the lack of regulatory oversight is alarming many commentators.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission recently warned investors against fake ICOs and "pump and dump" scams, whereby fraudsters spread rumours and false information about potential ICOs in the hope of boosting a company's share price.
Once the share price rises, the fraudsters sell, or dump, the shares at a profit.
Mr Boulanger says he was wary of the negative publicity surrounding scam ICOs before he invested - token launches taking place even before a viable product has been developed, for example.
The 17th Century Tulip mania was the first investment bubble. Could ICOs be the latest?
"I found out that it's really still the Wild West out there," he says.
But so far, at least, he doesn't regret it.
He took the plunge with Civic because he trusted Mr Lingham - a proven entrepreneur and fellow South African who acknowledges that there are risks on both sides.
"This is uncharted territory, but we feel confident that it was the right thing to do for the company," says Mr Lingham, who aimed to make his firm's token sale as transparent as possible to avoid any future allegations of wrongdoing.
"There are unfortunately also many scams operating in this space," he warns.
The worry is that ICOs are creating a classic investment bubble - similar to the Tulip mania in the 17th Century - and attracting fraudsters and hackers to this new, unregulated market.
Nearly 10% (about $150m) of the money invested in ICOs this year using Ethereum - the blockchain-based platform - has been stolen, according to a recent report by Chainalysis, a firm specialising in monitoring crypto-currency transactions.
One of the risks of badly managed ICOs is hackers stealing the digital currency
"There are already stories of fraudsters capitalising on this somewhat irrational exuberance over ICOs," says Gray Sasser of US law firm Frost Brown Todd, a blockchain specialist.
He believes that regulation is inevitable. Indeed, the SEC recently suggested ICOs should be registered in the same way as conventional investments.
But advocates like Mr Marcovici believe investors should be left to carry out their own due diligence.
"There will be attempts [to regulate the sector] that is for sure, but as a manager of a fund I must say that regulations mainly add cost to the investor and reduce the options of investors drastically," he says.
"There will be money lost... but this will be an important step for self-regulation of the market."
Civic's Mr Lingham has no doubt that regulation will eventually come in.
"We're in the early days of a very new industry," he says. "I'm very happy to see that places like Zug in Switzerland and Singapore are creating regulatory frameworks for token sales to ensure that they can be controlled and benefit society."
But Mr Sasser fears that it may take a headline-grabbing fraud to force US regulators into action, given the current US administration's antipathy towards more regulation.
The risk for firms that have pre-sold tokens before launching any underlying software, he warns, is that new regulation could raise compliance costs to such an extent that this wipes out any money already raised.
"It is only a matter of time before a disgruntled investor makes a securities fraud claim against an issuer," he says.
"Right now, both investors and issuers are playing without a net."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40704306
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Southend toilet snake Reggie the royal python's owner found - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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The owner of a juvenile royal python found in a family's toilet comes forward to claim "Reggie".
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Essex
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Royal pythons can grow to about 150cm (5ft) but Reggie was "a juvenile", his rescuer said
A snake that shocked a family when they discovered it in their toilet might have been on the loose in the area for about two months, it has emerged.
Reggie the royal python appeared when a five-year-old boy opened the lid in his family bathroom in Southend.
Following media coverage of the snake's rescue his owner has now come forward.
Reggie escaped when Tim Yardley moved a few houses away and he had almost given up hope of ever finding him. On social media he apologised to his neighbours.
The harmless snake, measuring about 3ft (91cm) petrified Laura Cowell and her son when it appeared in the family's home on Wednesday.
Reggie had been blocking the family's toilet for several days, it transpired
Local reptile specialist Rob Yeldham, owner of Leigh-on-Sea pet shop Scales and Fangs came to the rescue, prising the python from the porcelain.
His owner recognised Reggie from the media coverage and contacted Mr Yeldham to show him photos of his missing pet.
"Snake markings are like fingerprints and unique, so comparing them to our snake I am 100% certain we've found Reggie's owner," Mr Yeldham said.
The snake managed to survive for about two months and is in good health
Reggie apparently made his bid for freedom the night his owners moved into their new home.
"During the move one of the air vents on the enclosure got dislodged and... Reggie was able to pull the air vent off his enclosure and escape his tank," Mr Yeldham said.
"We believe from there he made his way into the toilet system.
"He was out for about two months... before he finally made his way up into Laura [Cowell]'s toilet where her son unfortunately came face to face with him."
The snake is being cared for by reptile specialists
As royal pythons are harmless, "there's no-one really to report a missing one to" and putting it on social media can "create panic", Mr Yeldham said.
However, as they are "vulnerable to foxes and cats" Mr Yardley had given up hope of finding him.
On social media Mr Yardley said Reggie's escape was a "total accident".
He thanked the rescuers, and added: "I'm just glad he ended up in safe hands, my full apologies to the family and their little boy who found him under such circumstances".
Reggie is suffering from some scale rot because of the bleach in the toilet system, but once recovered will be returned to his owner "once we check he has a secure vivarium", Mr Yeldham added.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-41159173
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'Why I'm proud to be a paparazzi photographer' - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Photographer George Bamby has hidden in bushes and worn disguises to snap photos of the rich and famous.
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UK
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Paparazzi photographer George uses an array of disguises to photograph the rich and famous
George Bamby grabbed his first photograph of Coleen Rooney when she was 16-year-old Coleen McLoughlin, as the Liverpool schoolgirl was shopping.
"I got a tip-off. She was still in her school uniform, it was mental," says George, who takes pride in his 20 years as a paparazzi photographer.
In the wake of newspaper allegations after husband Wayne Rooney's arrest for suspected drink driving, Coleen, who is now 31, says she has "had enough" of "dangerous" paparazzi photographers - accusing them in a tweet of following her and her three children in the car.
"Following someone in a car isn't dangerous, it's what we do for a living," says George, although he insists he never takes pictures of celebrities with children.
Whatever their methods, these freelancers' unofficial and often unflattering photos feed the showbiz news cycle. So what is life like behind the lens?
"It's like being a private detective," says Devon-based George, 45, who travels across the UK so he can sell celebrity photos to tabloid newspapers and celebrity magazines.
"I've got disguises - wigs, hats glasses, false beards - everything from fishing gear to jogging gear, scuba diving gear."
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George aims for anything unusual or different.
He has recently photographed Dawn French while buying French crepes, David Cameron surfing in Cornwall and Poldark actor Aiden Turner vaping in-between filming on set.
"Get a picture of David Cameron on the beach and you can sell it all over the world," he says.
He claims newspapers are prepared to pay thousands of pounds for a single photo, but is reluctant to reveal how much he earns. "I make a good living," he says.
He admits bending the truth for a front page photo - on one occasion, he says, he asked a friend to give TV presenter Judy Finnigan a bottle of wine as a "gift", before snapping a picture of the celebrity.
"A magazine rang me and said, 'We think Judy's an alcoholic, get us some evidence," he says. "The headline was 'Judy out of control' - there wasn't any truth in it whatsoever."
His methods have been the subject of a Channel 4 documentary and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) recently cancelled his press card.
But George has little sympathy for celebrity couples like the Rooneys. "They're public property at the end of the day," he says.
"Everything they do is scrutinised by the press and quite rightly so - they get paid millions and millions of pounds."
George recalls how photographers raced to be the first to snap the teenage Coleen, after the press found out she was going out with football prodigy Wayne.
"We were going round Liverpool trying to find her," he says. "We just got information off people and got tips."
Wayne Rooney and Coleen, who have gained media attention since their teens
The Rooneys have kept George in business for years.
A decade ago, he camped in Manchester United's training grounds, going undetected for three days, to get a picture of Wayne Rooney and his team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo.
It came shortly after the 2006 World Cup, when Ronaldo had appeared to wink after Rooney was sent off during an England v Portugal game..
"One morning the lads came out training and one of the balls landed in the bushes. John O'Shea literally picked the ball up from outside the door of my tent but didn't see me.
"I had a little camping stove, but I didn't do any cooking until the players left," says George, adding: "I got the picture - £7,000."
He relies on celebrities' family, friends, agents and managers to give him tips - as well as his own luck.
George's first photo came purely by chance - when he spotted cricketer Freddie Flintoff leaving a shop in Manchester with a bag of nappies.
"He got in his car, then he blew his nose into a nappy, so I took a photo," he says. "I thought, that's really good, and rang up the Daily Star and they gave me £500.
"I was doing nothing at the time, just working in a hotel as a porter carrying people's bags."
George thinks of his job as more of a hobby.
"Every day is different. It's the thrill of the chase in the celebrity world - finding out things before everyone else."
The story-chasing paparazzi have been known to get into scuffles with famous people, from Prince Harry to Liam Gallagher.
Harry Potter actress Emma Watson claimed a photographer tried to take a photo up her skirt during her 18th birthday.
Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace has asked the press to not publish paparazzi pictures of the royal children.
George admits the methods employed by some photographers are controversial, but he says: "There's a difference between following someone and chasing them.
"The problem is you get loads of young kids who think 'that's a really good job', buy a camera for £15.99, jump in a car and do anything they can to get a photograph."
Actor Aidan Turner was spotted by George using a vaping device on the set of BBC One's Poldark
The job does not require qualifications - George left school by the age of 14 - but he says a thick skin and a network of contacts to supply tip-offs are essential.
George says he has been dragged into the back of a car by security guards "to terrify me", but that he never let bad experiences put him off.
"I have two rules," he says. "I don't take pictures of anybody mentally unwell, and I don't take pictures of celebrities with children with them."
There is no code of conduct to be a paparazzo, unless a photographer joins a body such as the NUJ, although newspapers are prohibited from publishing misleading photos or pictures of people in private places without their consent.
But George thinks photographers have become less invasive than when he first began taking photos in Manchester in the late 1990s.
"We'd hide in people's gardens, wheelie bins, sheds, you could do anything you wanted," he says.
George's next job is in Manchester, where he is driving for four hours to - once again - snap Wayne Rooney.
"I got a tip-off," he says.
• None Diana's embrace: The legacy she left her sons
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41147422
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Universities want rethink on costs for poorer students - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Universities UK wants ministers to look again at maintenance grants and interest rates in England.
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Education & Family
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More than a hundred universities are calling for a rethink on the costs for poorer students in England.
Universities UK says ministers should look again at grants for living costs and interest rates for some graduates.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable told the BBC the existing system was "politically difficult to sustain".
Ministers have defended current tuition fees of £9,250 a year as providing sustainable funding for universities and fairness for graduates.
Universities UK, which represents higher education bodies, says the government must show it is listening to students.
It says the main concern for young people is "money in their pocket" while they are studying.
Vice chancellors are meeting this week amid growing political concern that the system no longer feels fair to young people.
Prof Janet Beer, the new president of Universities UK, will call on ministers to look again at maintenance grants for students most in need of help with living costs.
In England, grants for living costs were scrapped last year and replaced with loans, leading to predictions that students from the poorest families would have the largest debts.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated this would add up to debts of £57,000 for students from low income families.
In an interview with the BBC, Prof Beer said: "We've done a poor job at explaining the good things in the system, but there are things that can be looked at again, the threshold for repayment, interest rates and maintenance grants."
The board of Universities UK met on Tuesday and agreed to press ministers to look again at some aspects of the overall cost of a university education.
The government has confirmed that from this autumn, a new higher interest rate of 6.1% will be levied on student tuition fee loans, calculated as RPI +3%.
Now universities are calling for a rethink from ministers on the interest charges for some graduates.
Universities UK has decided to call for different thresholds for interest rates for graduates that go on to become low or middle earners.
Sir Vince Cable says "we are already seeing the beginnings of a revolt"
Sir Vince oversaw the introduction of £9,000 tuition fees in government as business secretary.
He still defends the principle of graduates contributing through their higher earnings to the funding of universities.
But speaking exclusively to me this week he said: "The system is becoming politically difficult to sustain."
The significant vote by young people for Labour - whose policy is to replace tuition fees with direct government subsidy to universities - has shifted the political landscape.
Sir Vince said: "We are already seeing the beginnings of a revolt."
And he signalled that other ways of taxing graduate wealth might need to be considered to make the system fairer.
"Those of us involved in trying to create a fairer system in the past have got to be willing to reopen some of the basic questions about how the system operates. The interest fixing is bizarre, economically nonsensical."
He also wants to see more support for living costs for students and better help for those who go through further education.
Only the highest paid graduates are expected to pay off their tuition fee loans in full before the 30-year term expires.
The rest is written off by the government, but unlike funding universities from current spending, the final bill does not appear as part of government borrowing.
Jo Johnson, the minister for higher education, has argued that the fact many graduates do not repay their loans in full is not a sign of failure.
In a speech earlier in the summer, he said the sharing of costs between students and the state was "a conscious investment in the skills base of the country, not a symptom of a broken student finance system."
The government has to decide within weeks whether to confirm the inflation-linked increase in fees to about £9,500 expected by universities in England for 2018/19.
Universities now rely heavily on the income from tuition fees, as the almost tripling of fees to £9,000 in 2012 coincided with the withdrawal of direct government funding.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41166777
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Does your job pay less than it did five years ago? - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Is it better to be in your job now, compared to five years ago? BBC analysis reveals.
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Business
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Wage stagnation and an ever increasing cost of living have left many people feeling poorer over the last few years.
But for some workers skills shortages mean pay has shot up. So is your job on the rise or is it time to explore the market? Try out our calculator, then scroll down to find out the jobs market's winners and losers...
There is a version of this calculator with updated data here.
Please enable JavaScript to view the salary calculator. I am a… Enter text to look for your job The BBC will not record your salary information. Please enter an amount between 1 and 100000
Calculator produced by Daniel Dunford, Alison Benjamin, Ransome Mpini, Evisa Terziu, Luke Keast and Mark Bryson. Users of the Twitter mobile app or Google AMP may need to access the BBC News App or website directly to use it.
In many parts of the UK, people don't feel richer than they did five years ago.
By May 2017, average weekly pay in the UK was 0.5% lower than the same time a year earlier after inflation was taken into account.
But there have also been significant winners. Privatisation, unionisation, skills shortages and supply and demand can all play their part in determining how pay fluctuates.
Here are the jobs with the biggest average pay rises and falls over the past five years, based on official analysis of the pay data collected by HMRC.
Flying high: Pay for pilots has risen by 26%
Pilots enjoyed an average pay rise of 26% between 2011 and 2016 - taking their average annual salary up to a cool £86,855.
One young British Airways pilot says that while he didn't become a pilot for the money, there are certainly perks of the job. He requested that his name not be included.
"The pay was not a particular draw. Ever since I was a kid I never wanted to do anything else. It's not as good as it was - in the 80s and 90s the pay was crazy - they were on the starting salary that we are on now. But it's still a good lifestyle because they pay you pretty well for how much time we spend at work.
"I would encourage anybody to do it. It's a brilliant career - not as glamorous as it once was but it's still pretty good."
After the financial crisis, with some airlines close to going bust, pilots were allowed to work more hours. Typically, they are paid at a higher rate when working over their basic hours.
At the same time, demand is growing. A record number of passengers passed through UK airports in 2015, and about 600,000 new commercial airline pilots will be needed globally over the next two decades.
Energy workers have seen their average pay shoot up by 29% in five years, as a skills shortage has started to bite.
About 80% of power engineers are due to retire within the next 15 years and the energy and utilities sector predicts 221,000 vacancies arising in the next decade alone.
Nick Turton from the Energy Institute says the increase in pay is to bring in fresh blood to the sector. He suggests Brexit 'is likely to become a further aggravating factor', pushing up wages further.
"We know from our most recent engagement that a majority in the sector see the availability of skilled, qualified labour as an acute concern, in the event of any restriction on freedom of movement. Many also believe this is likely to drive wage levels higher still, unless the government and industry can act to stem the contraction of an already shallow talent pool."
Pubs and bars may find it harder to recruit after Brexit
It may not fit with Al Murray's grumpy persona, but recent years have been kind to pub landlords and managers in terms of pay.
Domonic Naylor managed a gastropub for several years and now recruits for a premium hospitality business.
He says there has been a "huge increase" in the average wage for most hospitality roles.
"As more independent pubs go under and are purchased by the industry giants they recognise that a competent manager is key to their continued success.
"Despite the fact that they are part of a larger corporation, the pub manager will drive the reputation that sees sales rise or fall. In order to attract and retain the best they are often essentially blackmailed into paying higher and higher wages."
Pay rose by an average of 29% between 2015 and October 2016, something Mr Naylor attributes to the lead up and immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote.
"The effect of Brexit is being felt across the industry already. A number of EU nationals felt, and still feel, that their futures were insecure so made the decision to head back to their home countries."
But the flipside is that in some jobs pay has been falling.
Probation officers have been hit by the pubic sector pay cap
Probation officers have seen their pay fall a whopping 20% in five years. Napo, the probation service union, says its members have been hit particularly hard by the 2010 public sector pay cap.
Katie Lomas, Napo's vice chair says changes to pay increments means it now takes 23 years for a new officer to reach the next pay bracket. The pay increments officers received three times a year were reduced to one - but remained at just under 1%.
"Because of the pay freeze most probation officers have given up hope of ever seeing the top of the pay scale.
"We are seeing people leave the sector because it does not pay like it used to. It was seen as a professional job and a probation officer could have a mortgage and provide for a family on a single income but that is not the case anymore and we see colleagues struggling with day to day living costs."
Advertising accounts managers and creative directors have seen their pay fall
Television shows like Mad Men play tribute to the once-glamorous world of the advertising agency. But wages for accounts managers and chief executives within the sector have fallen by 14%.
One factor could be the trend for firms to create advertising campaigns internally, rather than pay an agency.
In the US, the Association of National Advertisers found in-house agencies increased by 16% between 2008 and 2013, with cost-cutting the main reason.
Laura Jordan Bambach, chief creative officer and partner at independent agency Mr. President, says big agencies haven't been nimble enough to keep up with the evolution of the sector.
"Everyone is in every sector is feeling the pinch and clients are looking to do different types of work.
"You used to use one ad agency to do everything for you but the nature of advertising has changed and the bigger agencies who can't change as fast as the industry end up with quite inflexible structures and quite a lot of overheads."
Radiographers have also seen their average pay fall
Richard Evans, chief executive of the Society of Radiographers, says the sector's 8% pay decline has to be seen in the context of stagnating NHS pay.
"We are seeing a gradual fall off in more senior people as they retire, and a slowing of promotion for others. The effect of economies having to be made in the NHS means people are not bring promoted as fast as they should be so when people leave from higher grades they are not being replaced as quickly.
"This is quite serious because you want to create circumstances in which people have ambition and want to deepen their practice."
This increased pressure also has knock-on effects for related professions.
"There is a national shortage of radiologists and one of the ways the service is compensating is that radiographers are taking some of the load off them, but that won't happen if we don't have the people to do it."
All data used on this page is compiled and made available by the ONS's Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) - the most recent release was October 2016. The survey doesn't include self-employed workers or bonuses. We have chosen to use data for full-time workers only.
The BBC has examined figures from 2011 to 2016 inclusive. We excluded jobs entirely if there was no figure for 2016. Sections may be hidden for certain jobs due to missing data.
The only sheets we used are those referring to 'Gross annual pay' and 'Hourly pay - excluding overtime'. We used hourly pay to work out the gender pay gap and annual pay for all other figures. We selected the median figure rather than the mean, as per ONS advice.
We used the CPI measure of inflation to make 'real-terms' adjustments.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40756834
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Northern lights linked to North Sea whale strandings - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Scientists connect the solar storms behind the Aurora Borealis to the deaths of 29 whales in the North Sea.
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Science & Environment
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This sperm whale was one of a number stranded on this beach in the Netherlands
Large solar storms, responsible for the northern lights, may have played a role in the strandings of 29 sperm whales in the North Sea early in 2016.
A new study says these geomagnetic disruptions may have confused the whales' ability to navigate, diverting them into the shallow waters.
Trapped and lost, the whales died on European beaches, attempting to escape.
The research has been published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
Researchers have been puzzled by the losses as autopsies showed that the animals were mainly well fed, young and disease-free.
The 29 strandings generated a great deal of public interest and a large number of theories among scientists.
These ranged from poisoning, to climatic changes driving prey into the North Sea which the large cetaceans followed to their doom.
Sperm whales live in deep, warm-to-temperate waters all around the world. Many groups live around the Azores in the eastern Atlantic.
When they are between 10 and 15 years old, young males head north towards the polar region, attracted by the huge quantities of squid found in the colder waters.
Two sperm whales that washed up on a beach near Gibraltar Point in Skegness in January 2016
Their journey sometimes takes them up along the west coasts of the UK and Ireland and into the Norwegian sea. They normally return by the same route.
But in less than a month in early 2016, 29 sperm whales were found stranded on the coasts of Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and France.
Now a team of researchers say they think they understand what happened to them.
The argue that sperm whales navigate using the Earth's geomagnetic field.
Rather than being uniform, the field is stronger in some places and weaker in others, and scientists believe that species learn to read these anomalies and use them for navigation in the way that humans read contours on maps.
Dr Klaus Vanselow from the University of Kiel, Germany, and his colleagues say that large-scale solar storms may have distorted the magnetic field and caused the whales to lose their way.
Triggered by coronal mass ejections from the Sun, these storms contain large amounts of charged particles and radiation.
When they hit the Earth's upper atmosphere, they produce the spectacular displays of the polar lights over the Arctic, however the most powerful storms can also damage communications systems and satellites.
Scientists already have some evidence that solar storm activity can impact the navigating abilities of birds and bees.
This map shows the 'magnetic mountain' anomaly off the coast of Norway. The whales should have followed the white arrow but the authors argue that the solar storms made the mountains invisible and the whales instead followed the red arrow to the North Sea
Dr Vanselow and his colleagues studied the connection between whale strandings and two major solar storms that took place at the very end of December in 2015.
These produced huge displays of the Aurora Borealis that were seen in many parts of Scotland and elsewhere.
Looking specifically at the region around Shetland, the scientists found that these solar events would have caused short-term shifts in the magnetic field of up to 460km, in the area between the islands and Norway.
This could have caused sperm whales in the region to move in the wrong direction.
They also believe that sperm whales see a regular magnetic anomaly off the Norwegian coast as a "geomagnetic mountain chain", a kind of guardrail that prevents them from entering the North Sea.
The solar storms may have nullified this effect, rendering the mountain chain invisible and allowing the whales to swim through into the North Sea.
"Where the polar lights are seen, that's the region with the most geomagnetic disruptions on the Earth's surface," Dr Vanselow told BBC News.
"Sperm whales are very huge animals and swim in the free ocean so if they are disrupted by this affect, they can swim in the wrong direction for days and then correct it.
"But in the area between Scotland and Norway, if the whales swim in the wrong direction for one or two days, then it is too late for them to go back, they are trapped."
Dr Vanselow believes that his theory makes sense with the timeline of the discovery of the stranded whales up to six weeks after the storms.
He believes that because young males grow up around the Azores, an area that sees minimal impacts from solar storms, the creatures have little experience of the abrupt and powerful events that affect the poles.
Dr Vanselow's research is a theory that is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove.
However, other scientists say it is plausible.
This whale was beached at Hunstanton and was one of the last to die in the stranding event in early 2016
"It would be difficult to say that 'yes this was the cause', we would be cautious in saying that," said Abbo Van Neer from the University of Hannover who carried out the autopsies on the 16 whales that stranded in Germany.
"But it is a valid hypothesis and a potential reason for the stranding."
Nasa has also been investigating the question of whether solar storms can affect a whole range of cetaceans around the world.
A team of researchers is shortly to publish a research paper on the connection between strandings in Cape Cod and geomagnetic storms. They say the Venselow paper is "well founded".
"It is one potential mechanism for having animals confused, I think it's a credible theory," Dr Antti Pulkkinen, who is leading the Nasa project, told BBC News.
"But does their paper prove that is the case? I don't think so."
"Having looked at this problem from a data analysis point of view, it is not a single factor that contributes to this.
"Things need to line up from multiple different perspectives for these events to take place."
Follow Matt on Twitter and on Facebook.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41110082
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Brexit: A lakeside view of Barnier's tough talk - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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The European elite have been meeting on the shores of Lake Como, as the EU firms up its negotiating position.
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UK
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It's a pretty place for some very hard talking by the EU's man in charge of Brexit talks.
The stately hotel the Villa d'Este, on the shores of magnificent Lake Como replete with baroque chandeliers, statues of nymphs and marble columns is not a hard sell.
No wonder former prime ministers, current ministers, US senators and European commissioners are happy to mingle under the watchful eye of the dozens of varieties of Italian police, some complete with sabres and tall plumed hats, at this high powered forum of the Italian think tank Ambrosetti - The European House.
They are the European elite - and feel their project is in remission. Over the weekend there's been torrential rain and thunder but now Lake Como's waters are only slightly choppy - a timely European metaphor.
This time last year, the subject for discussion here was the possibility of the disintegration of the EU. Brexit and Trump were feared as harbingers of nationalists taking power across Europe. It didn't happen in the Netherlands. Then it didn't happen in France. Now they are sure it won't happen in Germany this autumn and fairly confident it won't happen next spring in Italy either.
The mood could be best summed us as 'phew!' Perhaps the tone was set by one prominent guest who, in a voice full of passion, spoke of the EU as the greatest experiment in history - a club which ensured peace and prosperity.
His voice rising, with an orator's power, he said he was born in the 1970s and had known only peace. But his father was a child of the 1930s - he remembered war, remembered American soldiers bringing the new tastes of freedom and chocolate to a ravaged continent. His grandfather too had known war, and his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grand father. That was why now he said Europe was a synonym for peace.
In this telling of the story the UK had only a bit part, hardly mentioned except as one of the issues still haunting the Continent: the refugee crisis, the legacy of economic crisis, terrorism and Brexit.
This view from the lakeside goes a long way to explain the position of the conference's star turn, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier.
His purpose at the conference was, seemingly, not to rile British politicians or throw some red meat to the British press, but instead to start building a solid foundation for the EU for life after Brexit, to put the past behind it, to make it a singular earthquake not the remaking of an entire landscape.
His opening statement was not the most newsworthy but central to his purpose. He said his first principle was that the future of Europe is more important than Brexit. Far more important.
Michel Barnier said he wanted to teach the British people and others what leaving the EU means
Indeed that appears to be the view of most EU leaders, that Britain - having made a rather strange decision - must go now and try not to slam the door.
Although the EU is often portrayed in the UK as a monolith run by faceless bureaucrats, actually policy is usually a fudge between the competing interests of left and right, West and East, small and large, North and South and so on.
The unity over Brexit is fairly remarkable and Mr Barnier will hold tight to his mandate to make sure it does not shatter. He's also well aware that while French and Dutch voters didn't go the whole hog, the hard right strengthened its position and those very critical of the EU consensus are in power in Poland and Hungary.
He said that any adverse impact on the UK is not a punishment in itself but a logical consequence of decisions made by the British voters and subsequently by the British government, and he intends to educate people about that.
This position has two parts. One, being out of the EU cannot be as good as being in the club. And secondly, the separate choice to leave the single market has even more consequences.
On free trade, Mr Barnier said the 60 or so such deals negotiated by the EU in the past were a result of a slow process of countries converging, coming together, with the EU.
Some in the UK argue that means a free trade deal for us should be easy - as we have been converged for decades. Mr Barnier said that is not the point - the UK has deliberately chosen now to diverge after 40 years together and the EU needs to know how wide the new gap will get.
Does it imply breaching rules of the single market about workers' rights? Environmental standards? Undercutting tax costs? Will a deal for Toyota mean a break with state aid rules? He wants guarantees that won't happen.
Mr Barnier said he wanted to teach the British people and others what leaving the single market means, hence his reference to being a teacher, a pedagogue.
It was notable that he singled out one person by name, the leader of the Eurosceptic, right-wing Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, who wants the Netherlands to follow the UK out of the EU. He said the "education" was for him and those of a similar mind.
Dutch Euro-sceptic Geert Wilders, had some choice words for Mr Barnier
I asked Mr Wilders what he made of this.
"Mr Barnier who is, of course, a person I respect, is talking a lot of nonsense," he said.
"I am a politician and I asked a British institution to make a survey about what would happen if the Dutch would leave the EU. They came up with a result which proved it would hurt, like it is hurting Britain in the short term, but in the long run after three or 4 years our GDP would grow by more than 10%. There are many chances so Mr Barnier will have to look in the mirror if he wants an education."
But Mr Barnier is probably the sort of man who only looks in the mirror with a certain sense of satisfaction.
Using the contents of their well coiffured grey heads, few in the EU leadership want a bad relationship with the UK. They want a firm foundation for a good and inevitably close alliance. But both their hearts and their heads tell them anything that encourages further fracture of a project that is still very fragile, anything that looks like suggesting leaving the EU is a primrose path rather than a road to possible perdition, is a non-starter.
Michel Barnier concluded by pointing out again that he was, like Theresa May, a walker, a mountaineer used to taking one step after another, watching out for problems but always with his eyes fixed on the peaks.
The EU is determined that it will not stumble just because one member of the team is giving up on getting to the summit, particularly when it thinks that member never really believed in the sunny uplands in the first place.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41141650
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Brexit: 'Significant differences' over exit bill says Davis - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Brexit Secretary says the two sides have "very different legal stances" over what the UK owes.
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UK Politics
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Mr Davis said any financial settlement must accord with the law and a "spirit" of future partnership
The differences between the UK and EU over the Brexit "divorce bill" remain significant, David Davis has said.
The Brexit Secretary told MPs the UK was rigorously vetting the EU's demands and the two sides had "very different legal stances" over what was owed.
While overall talks were proving "tough and at times confrontational", he said he hoped they could be widened to open dialogue on trade after October.
Labour said "fantasy was meeting brutal reality" in what was achievable.
The UK has said it is ready to "intensify" talks about the EU's exit - due to take effect in March 2019 - rather than stick to its one-week-a-month schedule.
EU officials have warned over the progress of negotiations and said the UK must "start negotiating seriously".
Updating MPs on the most recent round of talks as Parliament returned from the summer recess, Mr Davis said "concrete progress" had been made over the summer in areas such as protecting the rights of British expats in the EU to access healthcare and over the future of the Irish border.
Characterising the UK's approach to the negotiations as "much more flexible and pragmatic" than the EU's, he said he still hoped "if possible" that a summit of EU leaders in October would decide to extend the talks to discuss the UK's future relationship with the EU.
On the issue of money, while the UK and the EU would honour their "financial obligations to each other on exit", he said the EU was trying to use the tight timetable for concluding negotiations to pressure the UK into agreeing a deal.
"It is clear that the two sides have very different legal stances," he said.
"(EU chief negotiator) Michel Barnier and I agreed that we do not anticipate making incremental progress on the final shape of the financial deal in every round ... it is also clear there are significant differences to be bridged in this sector."
The UK would not be bounced into an agreement, he added. "Does Labour want to pay £100bn to get progress in the next month?", he told MPs. "I hope not. We will do this the proper way."
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said the final divorce bill could be around 60bn euros (£55bn) but Mr Davis has dismissed reports the UK secretly agreed a figure of up to £50bn.
But shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said the slow progress was "becoming a real cause for concern" and there would be serious consequences if talks on trade were pushed back.
Critics of Brexit say the UK's assumptions are unrealistic
"Too many promises have been made about Brexit that cannot be kept", he said. "The Secretary of State has just said nobody was pretending that it would be easy - Mr Speaker, they were pretending it would be easy."
Former Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke urged the government to remain in the single market and customs union during any Brexit transitional period, a position also supported by Labour.
But Mr Davis said that while there was consensus for the need for an implementation period to bed in the changes, the UK was seeking entirely separate but parallel arrangements on customs and trade.
Tory backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg warned the EU against demanding money "with menaces", saying it was ridiculous for the EU to seek a "dowry" from a country that was a net beneficiary to its budget.
The minister's update comes as MPs prepare to debate for the first time the government's EU withdrawal bill, which will transfer existing EU legislation into domestic UK law.
Labour has already announced it will vote against the bill at second reading - the first stage of its passage through the Commons - on Monday because they think it will allow ministers to "grab powers from Parliament to slash rights at work and reduce protection for consumers and the environment".
It has also been suggested that some pro-EU Conservative MPs could back Labour attempts to make changes to the bill.
Mr Davis said anyone actively opposing the bill would have to answer to their constituents, insisting that the legislation was a "practical bill designed to protect the interests of British business and British citizens - that is what it is there for, nothing else".
Over the summer break, Labour changed its position to back the single market and customs union for a four-year transition period.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his MPs "will not allow this government to destroy parliamentary democracy by giving themselves unlimited powers".
But, speaking in the Commons, Labour MP Kate Hoey said that while it was reasonable for details of the withdrawal bill to be scrutinised in committee, anyone voting against the principle of the legislation would be "betraying the will" of the people.
The Scottish National Party, the third largest party in the Commons with 35 MPs, urged Labour to work with it to oppose the EU Withdrawal Bill.
The SNP's Stephen Gethins said: "This debate is about more than just one party or one part of the UK. It is up to parties and MPs from across these islands and the political spectrum to come together and work for a better deal and hold the Government to account."
Brexit is scheduled to take place in March 2019, but Number 10 said it would rather have a rolling series of meetings than the current one-week-a-month talks.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41155578
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Woman trapped in window trying to retrieve poo after Tinder date - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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She tried to dispose of the unflushable waste out of a window and got stuck trying to get it back.
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Bristol
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ever had a date that ended like this?
A woman who threw her poo out of her date's toilet window because it "would not flush" had to be rescued after she got stuck trying to retrieve it.
The amateur gymnast was on a first date with Bristol student Liam Smith when she "panicked" and threw the faeces out of the window.
It did not land in the garden, but became wedged between two non-opening windows.
After climbing in head first after it, she became wedged.
Mr Smith had to call the fire service for help.
The story appeared on a crowdfunding page, set up by the University of Bristol student.
If this story yanks your chain, you might also like these:
Mr Smith, who is raising funds to fix his broken window, wrote that he was on a Tinder date with the woman and they went back to the shared house he lives in.
"We'd had a really nice evening," he said. "We'd had a meal at a well-known chicken restaurant, had a few beers and then gone back to mine for a bottle of wine and a film."
After the fire service had "composed themselves," Mr Smith said they set to work freeing his date from the window
He said the woman went to the toilet and when she came back she had a "panicked look in her eye" and told him what she had done.
He said the toilet window opened into a narrow gap separated by another double glazed window.
"It was into this twilight zone that my date had thrown her poo," he said.
He went to find a hammer to smash the window, but she decided to "climb in head first" after the "offending package" and became jammed.
"I was starting to grow concerned, so I called the fire brigade and once they had composed themselves, they set to work removing her from the window."
The "offending package" was trapped between two "non-opening" double glazed windows
Although the woman was rescued unharmed, Mr Smith said his bathroom window was destroyed.
"I'm not complaining, they did what they had to do," he said.
"Problem is, I've been quoted north of £300 to replace the window and as a postgraduate student, that is a significant chunk of my monthly budget."
Mr Smith originally set a crowdfunding target of £200, but has already raised more than £1,200.
He said he and his date had decided to split the extra cash between two charities, one supporting firefighters and another that builds and maintains flushing toilets in developing countries.
Unsurprisingly, the woman does not want to be named but Mr Smith said he had seen her since and "who knows what the future holds".
"We had a lovely night on the second date but it's too early to say if she's the one. But we got on very very well and she's a lovely girl," he said.
"And we've already got the most difficult stuff out of the way first."
Avon Fire and Rescue service confirmed it had received a call and freed a woman trapped between external and double glazing.
It also confirmed that a "window was broken in the process".
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-41167296
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Rebecca Brock death: Drug bag 'exploded' in woman's stomach - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Margarita Brock said her daughter Rebecca may have been forced to swallow the bag of drugs.
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Nottingham
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Rebecca Brock (right) was found unresponsive in her room by hotel staff
A teenager died in an Ibiza hotel room after a bag of ecstasy "exploded" in her stomach, an inquest heard.
Rebecca Brock, 18, from Nottinghamshire was found unresponsive in her room by hotel staff in September 2015, the city's coroners' court was told.
Spanish police began an investigation after the amount of the drug in her system was double the fatal dose level.
Rebecca's mother Margarita said her daughter may have been forced to swallow the bag of drugs.
Rebecca's body was discovered at the Hotel Marco Polo on 28 September after she had travelled to the island for a friend's birthday.
Her mother told the inquest that a medical examiner in Spain said a bag had "exploded" in her body.
Mrs Brock said her daughter was unable to swallow tablets.
She added Rebecca - who had been studying law in the Netherlands - had openly talked about experimenting with cocaine, but said she did not think she would have taken so much ecstasy in one go.
"The major crime squad were investigating rather than the police because of how she was found," she said.
"She wouldn't take any pills easily - I can't imagine that getting in her body at all. I can't see any other way than someone making that happen."
Mrs Brock added: "Spanish authorities say five bags were found which were wrapped with elastic bands."
Coroner Mairin Casey said Rebecca flew to Ibiza from the Netherlands on 22 September and was captured on CCTV checking into her hotel.
"She didn't have contact with anyone after September 23," she said. "On the morning of September 28 she was tragically found deceased in the hotel room.
"Spanish authorities gave the cause of death as an adverse reaction to drugs and a ruptured body pack. The date of death has been recorded as September 26.
"Becky died of MDMA intoxication commonly known as ecstasy. There was no evidence of a form of assault.
"I find it impossible to say how a pack or packs were ingested. How these bags were in her stomach, we will never know."
After the inquest, Mrs Brock said outside the court: "There are some answers but there are also some clear gaps."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-41160983
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Germany election: Merkel holds ground in TV debate - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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The German chancellor fends off her rival Martin Schulz in a televised election face-off.
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Europe
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Media polls after the broadcast put Angela Merkel ahead in the run up to the 24 September vote
This was supposed to be the highlight of a lacklustre election campaign. For months German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives have enjoyed a significant lead over their nearest rival - and current coalition partner.
The TV stations prepared their viewers for an impassioned, furious debate. But those hoping for rhetorical bloody noses were disappointed. As were the viewers hoping that Martin Schulz, who is unlikely to take Mrs Merkel's crown, might at least taste victory on national TV.
Angela Merkel has been in the job for 12 years, and it showed.
The chancellor is not known for her skilful oratory and she doesn't relish this kind of public debate. Nevertheless, Mrs Merkel appeared relaxed, credible and experienced, effortlessly parrying her opponent's attacks.
It was her best debate performance, according to the German news site Spiegel online. Which doesn't say much, given that she lost the first three.
But then Martin Schulz was always going to struggle to land a blow. It is tricky, for example, to attack Mrs Merkel's refugee policy when you are on record as having said that the faith in Europe that each migrant brought with them is worth more than gold.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Germany's election: What you need to know
During the election campaign, Mr Schulz has focused on social justice; a subject to which he returned on Sunday night.
He spoke about unemployment, poverty. Mrs Merkel batted both away. Five million people were unemployed when she began her first term - the figure is now at two and a half million.
As for poverty, Mr Schulz's own party was responsible for the Harz IV welfare reforms that shape German social policy today.
Under Mr Schulz's leadership, the social democrats are promising tax cuts. But Mrs Merkel's conservatives, who have a habit of stealing the best bits of a rival campaign, are offering similar breaks.
Which left foreign policy. Mr Schulz was on bullish form. Donald Trump, he said, had brought the world to the brink of disaster several times with his tweets. It was time the world sought a solution to the North Korea crisis without President Trump, he said.
And, as for Turkey, were he the German chancellor he would call off EU accession talks. Mr Schulz challenged Mrs Merkel to do just that.
Mrs Merkel - who has never wanted Turkey to become an EU member - said she had ruled out that course of action for now. Nevertheless, she said, she would speak with other EU leaders to see whether they could develop a common position on ending the talks.
Dramatic language, but Mrs Merkel could draw on years of crisis management. Her rather more measured language and approach appears to have appealed to viewers. Polls suggest they found her more believable and convincing.
Before the TV duel, Mr Schulz said that he was confident his performance would sway undecided voters and create momentum. It is unlikely to be in the direction he intended.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41143988
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Fisherman dies and another missing at sea off Treyarnon, Cornwall - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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The search has now been called off for the 21-year-old man's colleague.
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Cornwall
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A 21-year-old fisherman has died and another is still missing after being swept off rocks into the sea in north Cornwall.
The alarm was raised at 14:35 BST on Monday when two people were reported in the water west of Treyarnon Bay.
Lifeguards recovered one man and he was airlifted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Treliske, but died on arrival.
The search for the other man has now been called off.
It had resumed at first light on Tuesday.
The two men were spotted in trouble by one of a group of three fishermen, thought to be a family of holidaymakers.
The pair were swept into water west of Treyarnon Bay, Cornwall
The Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) said a "massive search and rescue operation" was launched on Monday.
Shortly before 12:00 BST the MCA said the search for the second man had been called off.
Rescue Centre manager James Instance described the incident as an "unimaginable tragedy".
He said: "It is an unfortunately bleak and stark reminder of quite how powerful the sea is and how things can happen incredibly quickly."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-41158074
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Bell Pottinger expelled from trade body for South African campaign - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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The penalty follows a controversial media campaign in South Africa that "incited racial hatred".
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Business
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James Henderson has resigned as chief executive of Bell Pottinger
Bell Pottinger has been expelled from the UK public relations trade body for its work on a controversial contract in South Africa.
It is the first time that the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) has ejected a PR firm as prominent as Bell Pottinger.
PRCA director-general Francis Ingham said it was "highly questionable" whether the firm would survive.
Bell Pottinger said it "accepts that there are lessons need to be learned".
The PR firm's work on a campaign for Oakbay Capital, a South African company owned by the wealthy Gupta family, had "incited racial hatred" and was "absolutely unthinkable", Mr Ingham said.
He expected more clients to abandon Bell Pottinger following the sanction.
South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance complained to the PRCA, accusing Bell Pottinger of a "hateful and divisive campaign to divide South Africa along the lines of race".
The campaign emphasised the power of white-owned businesses and used the #WhiteMonopolyCapital hashtag.
South African President Jacob Zuma has faced corruption allegations and suspicion over his ties with the Guptas. Mr Zuma and the Guptas have consistently denied all allegations.
South African President Jacob Zuma is attending a BRICS summit in China this week
Chief executive James Henderson resigned ahead of the five-year expulsion from the PRCA. His departure was "necessary, but not sufficient", Mr Ingham said.
"Bell Pottinger has brought the PR and communications industry into disrepute with its actions, and it has received the harshest possible sanctions," he added.
The firm was found to have breached two clauses of the PRCA's professional charter and two clauses of its public affairs and lobbying code of conduct.
The law firm Herbert Smith Freehills was commissioned by Bell Pottinger to conduct an internal review following the Oakbay controversy.
Its review, released on Monday, criticised the PR firm's senior management: "Bell Pottinger senior management should have known that the campaign was at risk of causing offence, including on grounds of race.
"In such circumstances, BP ought to have exercised extreme care and should have closely scrutinised the creation of content for the campaign. This does not appear to have happened."
Herbert Smith also found that certain material created by Bell Pottinger for the economic emancipation campaign "was negative or targeted towards wealthy white South African individuals or corporates and/or was potentially racially divisive and/or potentially offensive and was created in breach of relevant ethical principles".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bell Pottinger's founder, Lord Bell, tells Newsnight the PR firm is unlikely to survive
In a statement Bell Pottinger said it "acknowledges the PRCA ruling, accepts that there are lessons to be learned but disputes the basis on which the ruling was made".
It added: "The overwhelming majority of our partners and employees played no part in the Oakbay Capital account and have not been accused of breaching the PRCA code. Many of them will now consider applying for individual membership.
"With the Herbert Smith Freehills findings made publicly available and the PRCA ruling published, the business can refocus on delivering outstanding work for our clients and looking after our people."
Bell Pottinger has already lost clients over the affair, including luxury goods company Richemont and investment firm Investec. The further reputational damage could see other clients sever their ties.
On Tuesday, Labour peer Peter Hain was due to table questions in the House of Lords asking if Bell Pottinger's actions contravened any UK trade policies.
The PR firm, founded by Lord Tim Bell, was closely associated with Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party in the 1980s.
Speaking on Newsnight on Monday, Lord Bell, who resigned from Bell Pottinger last year, said the PRCA report marked a "disappointing" day for the company.
He stood down, he told Newsnight, because it had been wrong to take on the Oakbay account. Lord Bell denied accusations he played a role in securing the business.
Bell Pottinger has gone on to accept contracts from many controversial clients, including former South African president FW de Klerk, when he opposed Nelson Mandela; Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian president Bashir al-Assad; arms manufacturer BAE Systems; and the South African athlete Oscar Pistorius after he was charged with murder.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41151361
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Neo-Nazi arrests: National Action suspects are in the Army - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Four servicemen are suspected of being members of the banned far-right group National Action.
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UK
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The British far-right group was banned last year
Four serving members of the Army have been arrested under anti-terror laws on suspicion of being members of banned neo-Nazi group National Action.
A fifth person - a civilian - has also been arrested on the same charge. One of the soldiers was detained by the Royal Military Police in Cyprus.
The arrests were planned and intelligence-led, and there had been no threat to public safety, police said.
The Army said it had supported the operation.
Four of the men are being held at a West Midlands police station.
Police said they were a 22-year-old from Birmingham, a 32-year-old from Powys, a 24-year-old from Ipswich and a 24-year-old from Northampton.
Police are continuing to search several properties.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed the man detained in Cyprus had been held at the island's British Dhekelia base before being transferred to RAF Akrotiri, from where he will be flown to the UK.
An Army spokesman said: "We can confirm that a number of serving members of the Army have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for being associated with a proscribed far-right group.
"This is now the subject of a civilian police investigation and it would be inappropriate to comment further."
Three of the servicemen are believed to be from the Royal Anglian Regiment.
The men are being held on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000; namely on suspicion of being members of a proscribed organisation.
National Action became the first British neo-Nazi group to be banned last December after Home Secretary Amber Rudd said it was promoting violence and acts of terrorism.
Members and supporters applauded the murder of Jo Cox MP by a white supremacist - and the group had carried out a series of small, but confrontational, demonstrations in towns and cities throughout England.
One of its most notorious events saw masked members - many of them very young men - gathering outside York Minster to make Hitler salutes.
Since it was banned, detectives have been carrying out more and more investigations into the group which, to all intents and purposes, has organised itself in a similar way to the banned al Muhajiroun network - the extremist Islamist youth movement.
Both have used social media to target young people, attracting them with a simplistic us-and-them message designed to make them angry.
Being a member of - or inviting support for - a proscribed organisation is a criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
There are 71 such groups listed by the Home Office on its register.
They include a range of international and national groups, of which National Action was the first far-right group to be banned.
William Baldet, a co-ordinator for the government's counter-terrorism strategy known as Prevent, said about a third of the cases dealt with through the scheme were related to far right and extreme right-wing groups.
"It's a white supremacist organisation that sees the extinction of white people as a very real and likely possibility."
The group tweeted about the killing of Jo Cox MP
National Action describes itself as a "National Socialist youth organisation" and says its movement is aimed at the "broken right-wing".
The official register says it was established in 2013 and has branches across the UK which "conduct provocative street demonstrations and stunts aimed at intimidating local communities".
Its online material contains extremely violent imagery and language and it condones and glorifies those who have used extreme violence for political or ideological ends, the Home Office says.
That included tweets in 2016 about the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was stabbed and shot by Thomas Mair. One such tweet said there were "only 649 MPs to go".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41161233
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Duchess wins damages over topless photos - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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A French magazine is ordered to pay 100,000 euros to the royals, who will donate the money to charity.
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UK
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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been awarded 100,000 euros (£92,000) in damages after a French magazine printed topless pictures of Catherine.
A French court ruled the images used by Closer - taken as the couple holidayed in Provence five years ago - had been an invasion of their privacy.
The royals will donate the funds to charity, the BBC understands.
The judge fined Closer magazine's editor and owner 45,000 euros - the maximum amount allowed.
The damages - 50,000 euros to each royal - fall short of the 1.6 million euros (£1.5m) sought by lawyers for Prince William and Catherine.
Long-lens images of Catherine sunbathing on a terrace were published on the front and inside pages of the Closer publication - which is separate to the UK's Closer magazine - in 2012.
Presiding judge Florence Lasserre-Jeannin also instructed regional newspaper La Provence, which printed images of the duchess in her swimwear, to pay 3,000 euros in damages during the hearing at the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Nanterre.
A statement from Kensington Palace said: "This incident was a serious breach of privacy, and their Royal Highnesses felt it essential to pursue all legal remedies.
"They wished to make the point strongly that this kind of unjustified intrusion should not happen."
The judgement follows the trial of six people, including photographers and the former editor of Closer, which began in May.
All six defendants were convicted of charges relating to the taking and publication of the images.
The couple had been staying at this chateau in Provence owned by Viscount David Linley, the nephew of the Queen
A statement from Prince William was read at the trial in May.
The duke said: "The clandestine way in which these photographs were taken was particularly shocking to us as it breached our privacy."
The invasion of privacy was "all the more painful" given the experience of his mother, Princess Diana, with the paparazzi, he added.
The guilty verdict was certainly not a surprise. It's almost a game these magazine play. They get the fines but they think it's worth it - they get the extra sales from the photographs they publish.
What was interesting about this case was that the royal couple and their lawyers here were pushing for a much, much larger amount in damages. They were, in effect, saying the royal couple is different.
There was an attempt to turn this into a different kind of affair, one in which there would be almost punitive damages awarded against Closer magazine, damages that would really inhibit and deter it from doing a similar sort of thing in the future.
In the end, though the damages are substantial, they are not really out of line with similar cases in the past.
They aren't precedent-setting kind of damages which would really act as a deterrent to Closer magazine and others like it in the future.
Ernesto Mauri, 70, chief executive of publishing group Mondadori, which produces Closer, and Laurence Pieau, 51, editor of the magazine in France, were fined 45,000 euros each for their role in the invasion of privacy.
Agency photographers Cyril Moreau and Dominique Jacovides, who had denied taking the topless photographs, were told to each pay 10,000 euros.
Marc Auburtin, 57, who was La Provence's publishing director at the time, and the paper's photographer, Valerie Suau, 53, were each given suspended fines.
The duke and duchess launched their legal proceedings in 2012 and a court in Paris banned Closer from printing any further images.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41163712
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'I lost my wife and unborn daughter to sepsis' - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Craig Stobo's pregnant wife Fiona died from sepsis and he almost lost his own life due to the condition.
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Scotland
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Craig says he and Fiona had a wonderful life ahead of them
Five years ago Craig Stobo suddenly lost his wife and unborn daughter to a condition he knew nothing about - and he almost died himself.
His wife Fiona was a GP in Bo'ness and it was her concern at Craig's symptoms that led him to seek medical help.
Fiona, who was 35 weeks pregnant with their second child, phoned him as she was on the way for an antenatal scan.
Craig was meant to have attended the scan but he told her he was feeling unwell with a severe headache and nausea.
His doctor wife was concerned that it did not sound like a cold or flu and said he needed to get checked out quickly.
When he did, Craig was diagnosed with sepsis and immediately treated with intravenous antibiotics.
Craig's wife Fiona Agnew was a GP and he says she saved his life
However the next day, while he was still in hospital in Edinburgh he learned that 38-year-old Fiona had also been taken ill with the same condition.
Both Craig and Fiona developed septic shock but, possibly because she was pregnant, doctors could not save her.
Craig, who is now 47, says: "We lost our daughter, she was stillborn.
"She was literally the first part of Fiona's system to shut down.
"The medics then battled for a further 24 hours to try to save Fiona but without success."
The cause of the illness was never established.
Craig says he was "bewildered" by what had happened.
Fiona was just 38 when she died
"Fiona was perfectly fit and healthy, as was I, and it happened so quickly that it was profoundly shocking and devastating," he says.
It is estimated Sepsis kills about 44,000 people every year in the UK - more than breast, bowel and prostate cancer combined.
It is caused when the body's immune system overreacts to infection.
In Scotland, the government quotes the figure of 3,500 deaths although statisticians admit it is an estimate and they do not know the full picture.
Experts agree that the key to lower mortality rates is early diagnosis and treatment within an hour if possible.
For each hour that passes the chances of survival lower considerably.
Craig is now the chairman and trustee of the Fiona Elizabeth Agnew Trust (FEAT), the Scottish sepsis charity he set up in his wife's memory.
Unlike his wife, Craig's background was in tax law so he says that he had only vaguely heard of blood poisoning and septicaemia before that day in 2012.
"I started asking a lot of questions of the medics to try to understand it," he says
"I heard about the figures for the number of people who were affected and I was horrified.
"I had never heard of this and I did not think that I was completely ignored.
"I thought 'how many other people have not heard of it?'.
"'How can people not have heard about something that affects so many people and is so devastating and so indiscriminate?'"
Craig Stobo with his wife Fiona and son Robert at Christmas 2010
The charity he set up has been campaigning to raise public awareness of the disease.
He says: "I am extremely fortunate to be here because I was diagnosed and treated very quickly.
"I owe my life to Fiona. She was a good doctor and a good mum.
"She was only 38. We had a lovely life together, we were very lucky and we had it all ahead of us.
"It all changed over the course of 62 hours and life literally had to be started again."
Craig's son Robert was just two when his mother died.
He says he has been honest with him at all times about what happened to his mother and sister.
"Frequently it was not easy, particularly in the very early stages," Craig says.
"It has been hard and there have been many long, dark nights of the soul but so far so good.
"He is a happy and active wee chap.
"We still talk about his mum. He knows he had a sister and we are completely open about that and I think it is the best way to be."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41097469
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Brexit: Leaked document suggests UK plan to curb EU migration - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Leaked document suggests post-Brexit migration will be based on "economic and social needs".
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UK Politics
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An estimated 250,000 nationals of other EU countries came to the UK last year
Proposals aimed at cutting the numbers of low-skilled migrants from Europe following Brexit have been disclosed in a leaked Home Office paper.
The document, obtained by The Guardian, suggests free movement will end upon exit in March 2019 and the UK will adopt a "more selective approach" based on the UK's economic and social needs.
Access to labour in industries without shortages may be curbed, it suggests.
The BBC understands the document has not been signed off by ministers.
A spokesman for the government said it did not comment on "leaked draft" documents.
They said ministers would be setting out their "initial proposals" for a new immigration system "which takes back control of the UK's borders" later in the autumn.
Downing Street has long maintained that the current right of EU citizens to live and work in the UK will come to an end on the day that the UK leaves the 28-member bloc.
It is also likely that there will be an implementation period to minimise disruption to businesses and to the public services, many of which are heavily reliant on European labour.
However, details of the likely shape of the UK's post-Brexit immigration policy remain hazy with a proposed immigration bill, one of eight pieces of Brexit-related legislation, yet to be published.
The Home Office document obtained by the Guardian, entitled the Border, Immigration and Citizenship System After the UK Leaves the EU, is marked extremely sensitive and dated August 2017.
Among the ideas set out, the 82-page document suggests low-skilled migrants would be offered residency for a maximum of two years while those in "high-skilled occupations" would be granted permits to work for a longer period of three to five years.
Employers would be encouraged to focus recruitment on "resident labour" and EU nationals could be required to seek permission before taking up a job. While there would be no new border checks on entering the country, all EU citizens will be required to show a passport.
"The government will take a view on the economic and social needs of the country as regards EU migration, rather than leaving this decision entirely to those wishing to come here and employers," it states.
It also floats the idea of ending the right to settle in Britain for most European migrants and placing new restrictions on their rights to bring in family members.
The new measures, it indicates, would only come fully into force at the end of a transition period, which could last up to three years. It is understood that the document is a draft, unfinished version of an upcoming White Paper circulated among senior officials and that there have been at least five earlier versions.
A leading campaigner for tougher migration controls said the document's thinking was "excellent news".
"Uncontrolled migration from the EU simply cannot be allowed to continue," said Lord Green, chairman of Migration Watch. "These proposals rightly focus on low-skilled migration and by doing so could reduce net migration from the EU by 100,000 a year over time.
"This would be an important step to achieving the government's immigration target."
UKIP also welcomed the proposals, saying they should be implemented "without fudging" and prioritise the needs of communities up and down the country as well as those of workers and businesses.
However, Labour MP Yvette Cooper said the document appeared to fly in the face of Home Secretary Amber Rudd's commitment earlier this summer to consult on a post-Brexit immigration system.
"The process for developing its policy seems to be completely confused. What assessment has been done of the impact or the interrelationship between immigration proposals and any trade or single market deal?"
The TUC said the "back of the envelope plans" would "create an underground economy, encouraging bad bosses to exploit migrants and undercut decent employers offering good jobs".
The government has said it is sticking by its target of cutting levels of net migration from about 250,000 last year to less than 100,000 despite calls from the opposition and some Conservative MPs for it to be dropped.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41168091
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Hurricane Irma: Residents prepare for 'potentially catastrophic' storm - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Those in the path of the "potentially catastrophic" storm secure homes and stockpile supplies.
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Latin America & Caribbean
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alison Strand told the BBC about the "dangerous conditions" in Anguilla
Hurricane Irma, the most powerful Atlantic storm in a decade, has hit the Caribbean, with officials warning of its "potentially catastrophic" effects.
The category five hurricane, the highest possible level, has sustained wind speeds reaching 300km/h (185mph).
It first hit Antigua and Barbuda, before moving on to Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin.
It is then expected to move on towards Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
In the US, Florida's Key West area has ordered a mandatory evacuation.
The French government, which runs Saint Barthélemy, more commonly known as St Barts, and Saint Martin, has said it is worried about thousands of people who have refused to seek shelter.
Major flooding has been caused in their low-lying areas, said the French weather office.
The eye of the storm first hit Barbuda, which has a population of around 2,000 people, at about 02:00 local time (06:00 GMT).
Winds gusted at 250km/h, before the recording equipment broke and no further readings were received.
"Early indications seem to show that Antigua has not been too badly hit, but we cannot say the same for Barbuda as we don't yet know," reported Antigua's ABS radio.
The Antigua Observer said it had received initial reports of roofs being blown off on both islands.
There have also been concerns for St Kitts and Nevis. President Timothy Harris said on Twitter: "All of our national security agencies have been fully mobilised and are on the highest alert."
Thousands of people have been evacuated from at-risk areas across the Caribbean. Residents have flocked to shops for food, water, and emergency supplies.
Airports have closed on several islands, which are popular holiday destinations, and authorities have urged people to go to public shelters.
In Florida, people have rushed to buy supplies
The US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said Irma was moving at a speed of 24km/h (15mph), saying that the storm was "potentially catastrophic".
There are hurricane warnings for:
The islands' populations range from about 2,000 each on Barbuda, Saba and Culebra, to 3.5 million in Puerto Rico.
Haiti, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the south-eastern Bahamas are on hurricane watch.
"No rest for the weary!" tweeted US President Trump, in reference to emergency operations being undertaken again in the country, less than two weeks after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas.
Mr Trump has declared a state of emergency for Florida, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, mobilising federal disaster relief efforts for those areas.
In Florida's Key West, visitors will be required to leave on Wednesday morning, with residents due to follow in the evening.
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"We're emphatically telling people you must evacuate. You cannot afford to stay on an island with a category five hurricane coming at you," said Martin Senterfitt, the emergency operations centre director in Monroe County in Florida.
In Puerto Rico, a 75-year-old man died during preparations for the storm.
Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello said the situation on the island was "something without precedent", as 460 emergency shelters were prepared, according to Reuters news agency.
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He ordered police and National Guard troops to help evacuate flood-prone areas in the territory's north and east.
The Bahamas is also launching the "largest evacuation in its history", according to Prime Minister Hubert Minnis. Plans have been made to fly residents from the south-east islands to the safer capital, Nassau, on Wednesday.
In San Juan, Puerto Rico, people have been preparing their homes and businesses
Alison Strand, originally from Staffordshire in the UK, is on the island of Anguilla. She said her family had spent several hours fortifying her home on the coast.
"Our house is 5m (15ft) above sea level and we're expecting 8m swells, so we're just crossing our fingers," she said. "We are expecting to lose our wooden roof."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC Weather's Ben Rich has the latest on dangerous Hurricane Irma
Carolyne Coleby, in Montserrat, said: "Irma is about to hit us full force."
"I am a goat farmer and have to consider my livestock. Last night I moved 20 goats to a backhouse at a hostel I manage which is on slightly higher ground," she said.
"I am hoping the galvanised roof of the backhouse doesn't fly off. I can't go to the shelter because I can't leave my animals.
Sir Richard Branson shared pictures of his preparation on his private Necker Island
Parts of Texas and Louisiana are dealing with the damage done by Hurricane Harvey in late August. But it is not yet clear what impact Hurricane Irma might have on the US mainland.
The mainland has not been hit by two category four hurricanes in one season since the storms were first recorded in 1851.
Texan officials told the Associated Press that 60 people are dead, or are feared dead, from Hurricane Harvey. Not all of these are confirmed.
A string of US stars, including Beyoncé, George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey, have reportedly signed up to take part in a fundraising telethon for victims. Hurricane Harvey Relief will air on 12 September.
Meanwhile, a third tropical storm, Jose, has formed further out in the Atlantic behind Irma, and is expected to become a hurricane by later on Wednesday, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
Are you in the region? Are you a holidaymaker unable to get a flight home or a resident who has been preparing for Hurricane Irma? If it is safe for you to do so, share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-41168117
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Kim Wall case: Sub hatch cover caused death - suspect - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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An inventor charged with killing a journalist on board his submarine says she died in an accident.
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Europe
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kim Wall's death: What we know so far
Swedish journalist Kim Wall died by accident after being hit by a hatch cover on board a submarine, the Danish owner of the vessel has told a court.
Peter Madsen said he had been holding the heavy hatch - but then lost his foothold and the hatch shut.
Mr Madsen, 46, then said he had tried to bury Ms Wall, who was 30, at sea and intended to commit suicide.
He has been charged with killing Ms Wall, whose headless torso was found on 23 August in waters off Denmark.
She was last seen alive on 10 August as she departed with Mr Madsen on his home-made submarine to interview the inventor.
Prosecutors have accused Mr Madsen of murdering Ms Wall and mutilating her body. He denies this.
Testifying in Copenhagen's court on Tuesday, Mr Madsen said Ms Wall was bleeding intensely after being hit by the 70kg (154lb) hatch.
"There was a pool of blood where she had landed."
"In the shock I was in, it was the right thing to do," he said, answering why he threw the journalist overboard.
Danish police believe Mr Madsen deliberately sank the 40-tonne submarine hours after the search for Ms Wall began on 11 August.
Her partner had reported that she had not returned from the trip.
Mr Madsen was rescued from waters between Denmark and Sweden.
Local authorities are continuing their search for the rest of Ms Wall's remains, hoping that this will provide clues about the cause of her death.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41165806
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Forest Gate shooting: Boys, 14 and 17, seriously injured - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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A 17-year-old also suffers "life-changing" injuries after the shooting in east London on Monday.
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London
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Police said there were "serious concerns" of retaliation and put extra officers on the streets
A 14-year-old boy is in a critical condition in hospital and a 17-year-old has suffered "life-changing" injuries in a double shooting in east London.
Police were called on Monday afternoon to Moore Walk, Forest Gate, and found the two teenagers with gunshot wounds.
The Metropolitan Police said there were "serious concerns" of retaliation and put extra officers on the streets.
Inquiries are continuing. No arrests have been made. The Met said the boys were taken to an east London hospital.
Ch Supt Ade Adelekan said: "Sadly today two young men have been shot on our streets, one of whom remains critically ill in hospital.
"We are only too well aware that this incident comes after a number of shootings and firearms discharges that are blighting our communities and seriously injuring our young men.
"Tonight [Monday] there will be extra officers on duty throughout our borough, and due to my serious concerns that others may retaliate in response to today's incident, I will be authorising my officers to use stop and search throughout the borough under Section 60."
Met Police figures published in April revealed a 42% spike in gun offences in the capital in the last year - up to 2,544 compared with 1,793 between April 2015 and 2016.
Ch Supt Adelekan added: "Violence has no place on our streets, and we have already made four arrests in connection with recent firearms offences.
"I want the community of Newham to help us tackle this - if you have any information about people carrying or supplying firearms please let us know and we will take action."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41156217
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Hurricane Irma: Caribbean braces for 'extremely dangerous' storm - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Warnings have been issued for a string of islands as Irma becomes a highest category five hurricane.
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Latin America & Caribbean
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Hurricane Irma has been upgraded to a category five - the highest category - making it "extremely dangerous" as it crosses the Caribbean.
Irma now has sustained winds of 290km/h (180mph), making it the most powerful the Atlantic has seen in over a decade.
It is projected to bring storm surges, life-threatening winds and torrential rainfall to the Leeward Islands.
Florida, where it is due to arrive as a category four hurricane on Sunday, has declared a state of emergency.
Residents in Texas and Louisiana are still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Harvey, which struck as a category four storm in late August, causing heavy rain and destroying thousands of homes.
However the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has warned that it is too early to forecast Irma's exact path or effects on the continental US.
The US mainland has not been hit by two category four hurricanes in one hurricane season, since the storms were first recorded in 1851.
Irma, which has been moving at a speed of 22km/h (14mph), is set to reach the Leeward Islands, east of Puerto Rico, within the next 24 hours, the centre added.
It issued a hurricane warning for the following islands:
Guadeloupe and the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti, are on hurricane watch.
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Rainfall of up to 30cm (12in) may occur in some northern areas and water levels may rise by up to 3.8m (12ft) above normal levels, the NHC said.
Puerto Rico has declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard.
Governor Ricardo Rossello described the hurricane as "something without precedent" and announced the closure of schools on Tuesday.
The island has a population of 3.4 million people, and emergency shelters able to house up to 62,000 people have been opened.
Long queues of people formed in shops, with residents stocking up on water, food, batteries, generators and other supplies.
Residents of Puerto Rico have been stocking water and other supplies
On St Martin, a woman in a supermarket told AFP news agency: "I [am] getting some stuff for the hurricane, because the hurricane is coming direct on us. They say that it's coming on us so then I start to pick up truly the things what I need."
A manager at the supermarket said people had been stocking up on "lots of canned food, cooked dishes, canned fish, paper towels, cleaning products, cakes, lots of cakes, and water, of course."
In Florida, Governor Rick Scott said he had been assured by US President Donald Trump that "the full resources of the federal government" would be made available as the state prepared for the storm.
Florida Keys officials have ordered a pre-emptive mandatory evacuation of visitors to the islands will start Wednesday, ahead of the projected storm.
A third tropical storm, Jose, has formed further out in the Atlantic behind Irma, and is expected to become a hurricane later on in the week.
Are you in the region? Are you a holidaymaker unable to get a flight home or a resident who has been preparing for Hurricane Irma? If it is safe for you to do so, share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-41156051
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Grenfell Tower support fraud: Woman charged - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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Joyce Msokeri is charged with claiming for support being provided to survivors of the disaster.
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London
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A woman who falsely claimed her husband died in the Grenfell Tower fire, claiming £10,000 in funds allocated for survivors, has appeared in court.
Joyce Msokeri, 46, of Ambleside Gardens, Sutton, south London, is charged with seven counts of fraud.
It is alleged she also falsely claimed to have a child in intensive care following the blaze.
Westminster Magistrates' Court heard Ms Msokeri made substantial claims on the basis she was a survivor of the fire.
The charges allege she made false representations to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for money and accommodation at the Hilton hotel and to charities in order to obtain clothing and food.
She is also alleged to have made false representations to HMRC and a GP surgery in Kensington and Chelsea.
Sending the case to crown court, District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe said: "It is a substantial amount of money.
"It is in circumstances where it is akin to a fraud on a vulnerable person who has been injured.
"It is similar to that in that of course there is a finite pot and the more that is taken out illegally, the less there is for those that deserve it."
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea said it could not talk about individual cases, especially those under investigation, but whenever it suspected fraud it involved the police.
"If fraud on any level has been committed this would be appalling as it could directly, and negatively, impact [on] the council's efforts to give crucial help and support to the victims and survivors of the fire," a spokesman said.
Ms Msokeri, who was arrested on 26 July, is due to next appear in custody at Southwark Crown Court on 3 October.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41161123
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The numbers that matter - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The statistics that hold the key to the next few months in British politics, both for Brexit and Theresa May's leadership.
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UK Politics
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There are 66 pages in the European Withdrawal Bill, the passage of which will be arguably this fragile government's hardest job, in a fractious political universe with a weakened prime minister. The bill comes back to the Commons this Thursday, with the first votes next week.
Opposition MPs could field a forest of hostile amendments, proposed changes to the complicated legislation, some frankly to make political points, some to try to make reasonable changes to the legislation.
One minister, conceding the government will have to budge in some areas, says some of their opponents may as well "be tabling amendments for sunshine" and the task for government will be to work out "what is grandstanding" and where their critics have a valid point.
The task would be difficult in any political climate, but harder, when the prime minister can't be confident of cheery enthusiasm from her backbenches.
There are 50 Tory MPs who have given their names to those gathering a list, who I'm told are "on a spectrum", ranging from a small number who would demand an immediate departure, to those who want the PM to make clear she won't go into the next election or to set out a departure timetable.
I'm told there are cabinet ministers, including those who fancy their chances as taking over one day, who have taken part in discussions around these plans.
Theresa May's allies, in contrast, believe that having made it through the summer, each day she stays in office makes her stronger, and potentially, if all goes according to plan, could see her achieve her claim of being in it for the long term, remarks made to reporters in Japan last week that stirred the leadership rumblings once more.
One of the rows she'll have to contend with in the coming weeks is a Brexit bill that could end up edging towards £50bn, an amount it was reported Theresa May had already agreed, an amount that would make some Brexiteers sick to their stomachs. That story was flatly denied by the brexit secretary over the weekend, but sources close to the talks have previously acknowledged the territory of the costs could be well north of £30bn, even if there is no final agreement yet.
Politically, ministers believe it would be more palatable, and more realistic for the bill to be presented as a series of prices for particular costs that are individually politically acceptable, for example £1bn to stay a member of a particular scientific research organisation, or the Erasmus programme for students.
A row over money is likely, but it's not in the interest of the UK to settle it any time soon, as one cabinet minister says "money is our leverage".
It's 47 days since the House of Commons finished its business for the summer, and MPs scattered to their constituency offices, summer fetes, back gardens or sun loungers. It has, one government source says, "been a proper recess", where most politics has been on pause.
After a 12-month period of tumult, that's been reflected by the poll ratings of the two main parties, the average Conservative and Labour poll ratings have seen Labour on average on 42%, and the Tories on 41%.
Labour consistently only just ahead, a margin that neither side would trust, that contributes to an edginess in the air as politics gets back down to work.
While many MPs and ministers have been glad of a break before getting stuck into the 28 clauses and schedules of the Withdrawal Bill that will return this week, some parts of government have been busy.
The Department for Exiting the EU and the EU Commission have been carrying on their Brexit talks throughout the normally quiet summer pause, and after months of criticism that they have been slack, the government has produced a flurry of seven position and future partnership papers, on their hopes and aspirations for the Brexit negotiations, with more expected in the coming days.
They have been pored over, and greeted with inevitable disappointment in Brussels, but the government has been keen to show, at last, their critics would say, a sense of momentum in the talks. This hasn't suddenly revealed chapter and verse on the world outside the EU, but they do represent a significant administrative step along this bumpy road.
On that road, the government needs to keep happy the 10 DUP MPs who agreed to lend them their backing in a loose form of government deal to give them support on Brexit and their Budgets.
Theresa May needs them on side, because having carelessly mislaid her majority at the election, it only takes six rebels, yes, you read that right, six Tory MPs, willing to vote against the government on any one issue to humble them in defeat.
A number that leads one of her critics to say simply, ''she is only there now because she serves at the pleasure of the '22'" - the 1922, that's the group that represents Tory MPs.
Another one of her Tory detractors says that means two big mistakes, and she is out, "a first one would destabilise her, a second would kill her off". But there are plenty of MPs on the Tory benches who just want to get their heads down at the start of this new term.
One cabinet minister says "she's safe for now, the public expects us to behave".
Some junior ministers who fancy their own chances for later, it's said, want to get through the autumn, through the initial stages of the Brexit legislation, to at least the middle of next year before rattling any cages that might lead to a leadership fight.
Finally, helping the government settle down, and Theresa May stay in place, is the reality that there is zero desire at the moment on the Tory benches for another general election.
They are human beings after all, like the rest of us, who want to keep their jobs, who just don't want to take the risk. The fear of another election and a possible Labour victory is helping to keep the lid on Tory infighting.
But the weeks ahead are likely to be fractious and testing. However capable Theresa May's rebooted Number 10 team is, however profound her new-found determination, hindering a smooth re-entry for the prime minister to this new term is the fact this government has zero experience of how to go about its biggest task, taking us out of the European Union.
For good or ill, this is a complicated task full of risk and uncertainty as well as opportunity, and it's never been done before. The prime minister has a lot to do to prove even to her own party that she strong enough to get it done.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41151963
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Hounslow stabbing: Man dies in fight between two groups - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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The 29-year-old was stabbed after a fight between two groups on Hounslow, say police.
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London
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Officers said the groups had dispersed by the time they arrived at the scene on Rosebery Road, Hounslow
A man has been stabbed to death in a fight between two groups in west London, Scotland Yard had said.
The 29-year-old died just after 16:15 BST on Monday at the scene in Rosebery Road, Hounslow.
The Metropolitan Police said the groups had dispersed by the time officers arrived, but they found the victim suffering from a stab wound.
The air ambulance was called and the man was treated by paramedics, but was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Met has launched a murder investigation and said inquiries are continuing. No arrests have been made.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41156211
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The murky world of Facebook raffles - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The number of raffle groups has grown rapidly over the last few years, but so have the number of scams.
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UK
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Maggie Hughes was a member of between 25 and 30 online raffle groups
The number of raffle groups on Facebook has grown rapidly over the last few years, but so have the number of people being scammed.
"It just makes me so angry. [The scammers] keep changing their names and Facebook just let them do it," says Maggie Hughes, who says at one stage she was a member of between 25 and 30 online raffle groups on the social media site.
Anyone can set up a raffle group on Facebook and then begin inviting contacts to join, although Facebook says it shuts down illegal raffle pages - those not licensed by the Gambling Commission - as soon as they are reported.
The page owners then choose a prize, and sell tickets - using PayPal or a bank transfer.
From then on, it works just like a normal raffle. A number is drawn at random and the winner earns a prize.
At least that is how it should work.
Maggie became suspicious of one woman online when she says she won some prizes.
"I played her tombola [raffle] and I have not received any prizes from her at all," she says.
Maggie is disabled and her husband has dementia. She says the £40 to £50 she estimates she has lost is a lot of money to her.
"It's very hard, it just upsets me. It makes me angry that this girl is getting away with it."
The woman Maggie says she dealt with, Lauren Brattle, appears to have a number of online aliases.
Her raffles were among the many mentioned on a Facebook page that raises awareness of possible scams.
Ms Brattle says the allegations against her are false and she has not done anything wrong.
Liz Hodgson says the scamming problem is "huge"
The page is moderated by Liz Hodgson, who deals with problem raffles run all over the country.
"[The problem] is huge," she says. "It's so big at the moment. Everybody's creating their own groups.
"There are daily posts in the 10s, of people having issues with admins on these raffle groups.
"They're not drawing them correctly, the [players] aren't receiving their prizes."
Tracie Morgans, a member of Liz's online page, said she knew of one woman who "walked away with £400 worth of people's money" without giving out prizes.
"She was boasting that she was taking her kids on holiday," she adds, having been scammed twice in the past herself.
"There are so many nasty, selfish, greedy, money-hungry idiots," says Karen Evans, also a member of Liz's page. "I didn't realise how rotten the world was."
Karen says she has also been cheated out of money on a raffle group.
"I played a page and I paid for the raffle and all of a sudden the page wasn't there any more. I tried to inbox the girl and she blocked me."
The Gambling Commission, which regulates all gambling activities in the UK, says complaints about social media raffles have been greatly on the rise in recent years.
The prizes on offer, it adds, have included a shotgun, a monkey and a pregnant spaniel.
In order to be legal, online raffles must be licensed by the Gambling Commission.
Facebook says it shuts down raffle pages as soon as they are reported and found to be illegal, and the Gambling Commission says almost all of the raffle groups reported to them are now no longer active.
For some users, the possibility of being scammed is not the only issue associated with the raffle pages.
It is also the fact they allow people to freely gamble online.
Liz says she "would absolutely say people are becoming addicted".
"Quite a lot of the posts on the scammers group are where people have placed their last £50 or £60 on one raffle.
"And they've got children and they're spending their children's money."
Some raffle groups say they are raising money for charity.
The BBC understands Ms Brattle - the woman Maggie says scammed her - had previously claimed her raffles made money for the Sick Person's Trust, but the charity says it has not received any money from her.
The police told us they are investigating a complaint.
"It's absolutely disgusting that this charity hasn't received a penny," explains Maggie.
But the wider question surrounding raffle groups is - with so many popping up daily - how to stop them.
Watch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41124992
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North Korea's nuclear bomb: Can we work out its power? - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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How do we work out the size and nature of North Korea's nuclear test? A physicist explains.
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Asia
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The nuclear test that North Korea conducted on Sunday is thought to be the biggest ever conducted by Pyongyang. But what does this really mean and how will we find out more about the bomb? Physicist Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress explains.
A nuclear explosion is an extremely large explosion, so large that it shakes the ground just as an earthquake does and is detected by seismic sensors thousands of kilometres away.
The magnitude of the shaking is a measure of the immense energy released by the event. A parameter known as the body-wave magnitude (Mb) is used.
The US hydrogen bomb explosion in 1952 was the first test of a thermonuclear device
This is not a linear scale. A magnitude-6 event, for example, releases 30 times more energy than one of magnitude 5.
In all, 34 stations that are part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation's (CTBTO) vast seismic monitoring network detected North Korea's explosion and it was so intense that it actually "saturated" the detectors. In other words for this monitoring network, which is sensitive to extremely small nuclear test explosions, this test was so high it essentially went off scale.
There have been widely differing calculations of the power of this blast, ranging from 50-150 kilotonnes. The force is measured in kilotonnes to indicate what would happen if one kilotonne of TNT was exploded.
The yields predicted so far vary because it depends on the precise formula used: which scaling relation of the yield as a function of body wave magnitude is used - and that depends on a variety of factors such as the depth and type of rock where the test was conducted, for example.
A recent scaling equation takes into account the depth at which an explosion took place. This was developed by Miao Zhang and Lianxing Wen from the University of Science and Technology of China and Stony Brook and is appropriate for North Korea.
It means that we can begin to start guessing how powerful the blast would have been at various depths and this is what it looks like in a graph.
Modelling of the test site has led analysts to guess that blasts take place at depths as deep as 600 to 900 metres (1968-2952ft). If that is true, the yield is likely to have been at least 370 kilotonnes, which is vastly more than most estimates.
What this graph shows is that small differences in depth can make vast differences in yield or power. Compare this with the destructive force of Hiroshima: that came in at 15 kilotonnes.
This new estimate is consistent with the yield of a "two-stage" thermonuclear device, which is the type of bomb that North Korea claims that they have developed.
But more work will need to be done to determine the depth at which this test was conducted to reach consensus on the yield - that is the power - of the bomb.
Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress is scientist in residence at the Middlebury Institute of International studies at Monterey.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41144326
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Fourteen people rescued from 174ft Skyline Tower in Weymouth - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Thirteen visitors and a member of staff are winched to safety by helicopter.
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Dorset
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Helicopters were used to lift people off the Jurassic Skyline Tower
Fourteen people have been winched to safety after becoming trapped up a 53m-high (174ft) viewing tower in Dorset.
Thirteen visitors, including an 11-week-old baby, and a member of staff were rescued from Weymouth's Jurassic Skyline tower by coastguard helicopter.
The rescue operation began after fire crews were called at about 16:15 BST and ascended the tower.
The helicopter arrived at around 19:30, when other rescue options were ruled out due to bad weather.
It refuelled in Bournemouth at 21:00, before returning to winch those who remained in the tower to safety.
The rescue was completed at about 22:10 and the helicopter was flown back to its base at Lee-on-the-Solent.
Dorset Fire and Rescue said: "Arrangements have been made to provide them with a safe place to rest and recover once returned to the ground."
The firefighters in the tower were getting themselves out of the building.
The operator of the tower, which gives 360-degree views of the coastline, Jurassic Skyline, said on Facebook the problem was down to "technical difficulties".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-41166593
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Pornographic images shown on visitor sign in Telford - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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An investigation is looking into how the images came to be displayed on the sign in Shropshire.
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Shropshire
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This photograph captured by a member of the public has been pixellated
A council has been left red-faced after pornographic images appeared on an electronic information sign.
The screen, in Telford, Shropshire, which usually shows visitors local information, was photographed on Monday showing an adult website.
Telford and Wrekin Council said it immediately alerted police and had stopped internet access to its signs.
The picture was initially shared with local news website Telford Live and has since been widely shared.
It is not clear if someone hacked into the council website to display the images.
The Southwater development is made up of bars and restaurants and a cinema
The sign is at the town's multi-million pound Southwater development that includes a mix of bars, restaurants and entertainment complexes, along with Southwater One, home to a new state-of the-art library, and council offices.
In a statement the council said: "We are carrying out a full investigation into this complaint and have referred it to West Mercia Police and the cyber-crime desk.
"Immediately the issue was raised with us on Monday afternoon, we disabled internet connectivity to all totems in Southwater, which were displaying correct content at the time."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-41161433
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Royal baby: Duchess well after 'anxious' start to pregnancy - BBC News
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2017-09-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Duke of Cambridge thanks well-wishers in his first appearance since the royal baby announcement.
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UK
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The duke thanked well-wishers at a conference in Oxford
The Duchess of Cambridge has had an "anxious" start to her pregnancy but is well, the Duke of Cambridge has said.
In his first appearance since Monday's announcement, Prince William said "there was not much sleep going on" but the pregnancy was "very good news".
Catherine, 35, is suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, or severe morning sickness, and had to pull out of an engagement on Monday.
The duke thanked well-wishers at a conference in Oxford on Tuesday.
During a visit to the National Mental Health and Policing Conference, he said: "We need Catherine to get over this first bit and then we can start celebrating.
"It's always a bit anxious to start with, but she's well."
He added: "There's not much sleep going on at the moment."
The duke and duchess have a son, George, who is four, and a daughter, Charlotte, aged two.
With the previous two pregnancies, the couple announced them before the 12-week mark - when most women have their first scan - because of the duchess being unwell with hyperemesis gravidarum.
The condition affects about one in every 200 pregnancies and results in severe nausea and vomiting - with one of the main dangers being dehydration.
The duke and duchess have a son, George, who is four, and a daughter, Charlotte, aged two
Later, the duke and Prince Harry visited a new centre which is offering advice and counselling to families affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.
They are to meet members of the community and volunteers in North Kensington at the Support4Grenfell community hub, close to where the tower block stands.
The brothers were due to be joined by the Duchess of Cambridge, but she was forced to pull out from the engagement because of her severe morning sickness.
The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry visited a new centre which is offering advice to families affected by the Grenfell Tower fire
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41159771
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Great British Bake Off debut one of Channel 4's most-watched shows - BBC News
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2017-09-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The show's debut on Channel 4 provided one of the biggest audiences in the station's history.
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Entertainment & Arts
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The new series of The Great British Bake Off has been popular with viewers
The first episode of this year's Great British Bake Off provided one of the biggest audiences in Channel 4's 35-year history, new figures show.
Full ratings, which includes those who watched the show up to seven days later, ended up at 9.5 million viewers.
No programme has achieved ratings as high since Big Fat Gypsy Weddings had 9.7 million viewers in February 2011.
Channel 4's creative officer Jay Hunt said: "Bake Off has well and truly landed."
She added: "I'm thrilled viewers have warmed to Paul, Prue, Noel and Sandi and are enjoying the exceptional standard of baking."
This year's contestants hoping to win Bake Off
Bake Off's viewing figures mean it received a place in Channel 4's top 10 biggest audiences of all time.
The largest audience in Channel 4's history was for the final episode of the mini-series A Woman of Substance, which was watched by 13.9 million viewers in January 1985.
Among the 9.5 million who watched this year's opener were 2.7 million 16 to 34-year-olds, making Bake Off the biggest programme for young viewers on any channel so far in 2017.
The full ratings for last year's launch on BBC One were 13.6 million.
Some of the personnel may have changed but the recipe is pretty much unchanged
In poaching Bake Off from the BBC, Channel 4 had to ensure they retained excellent plots and characters.
The former they could largely leave to Love Productions, the independent company which achieved such success with the format on the BBC.
The latter was a trickier mission. But the near universal acclaim - among critics at least - for the combination of Noel Fielding, Sandi Toksvig and Prue Leith with Paul Hollywood suggests that they've scored on this front as well.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41180486
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Argos removes catalogues from stores to 'test demand' - BBC News
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2017-09-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The glossy brochures have been removed from a number of stores as part of a trial "testing demand".
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Highlands & Islands
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Customers at some Argos stores are unable to take home a catalogue
Traditional glossy catalogues have been removed from a number of Argos stores as increasing numbers of consumers choose to shop online.
The retail giant said the move is part of a small scale trial "testing demand" for the take-home glossy catalogues.
It is understood that the two stores in Inverness - at the city's retail park and in the Eastgate Centre - are part of the experiment.
But it has sparked an outcry among some shoppers on social media.
Sheena Hendry said it was "astonishing" that there were no catalogues to pick up from an Argos in the Highland capital.
In a message to the business on Facebook, she said she was disappointed that there appeared to be plans to phase them out.
She said: "Do you even realise how many hours of peace and quiet that catalogue gives to parents of young children who sit flicking through the toy section?"
Speaking to BBC Scotland news, she said: "I love the Argos catalogue. It's great for browsing and getting inspiration, and the kids love it especially at Christmas.
"I wouldn't even mind paying a couple of quid for one."
Parents say their children love browsing through the pages of toys
She said a member of staff told her it was a trial and that she should contact the company with feedback if she wanted them to return to the store.
A spokeswoman for Argos said: "As increasing numbers of customers choose to shop with us online, for a limited period we are testing demand for the take-home catalogues in a small number of stores.
"Catalogues continue to be available in the vast majority of our stores for customers who want them."
Argos was acquired by Sainsbury's as part of its £1.4bn takeover of the Home Retail Group earlier this year.
Last week Sainsbury's chief executive, Mike Coupe, launched Argos click-and-collect points at 100 Sainsbury's Local stores in time for Christmas.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-41171901
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Free IVF no longer offered in county where it all began - BBC News
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2017-09-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The decision will save £700,000 per year, local health chiefs claim.
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Cambridgeshire
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IVF will no longer be available free on the NHS in Cambridgeshire
Free fertility treatment on the NHS is to be scrapped in the county where the procedure was pioneered 40 years ago.
The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area has become the third place in the UK to withdraw free IVF treatment.
Government guidelines recommend that women under 40 should be offered three free cycles if they have been trying to conceive for three years.
The local clinical commissioning group (CCG) said the decision would save the county £700,000 a year.
It comes after a 20-week public consultation - and will stop with immediate effect. The decision will be reviewed next in April 2019.
Clinical commissioning groups in Croydon and parts of Essex were the first to withdraw routine free IVF treatment on the NHS.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG chair Dr Gary Howsam, said it was "one of the hardest decisions we've had to take".
"I think there's a recognition that the NHS funding situation is desperate in our region," he said.
"The CCG has finite resources to fund a whole range of health services and treatments.
"We need to save £46.5m this financial year, and so we have had to review all areas of our spending and to make some difficult decisions."
He described suspending routine specialist fertility services as "financially necessary".
IVF was pioneered by biologist Robert Edwards, who with gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe, fertilised the first human egg in a Cambridge laboratory in 1978.
Since then, nearly four million children have been born using the technology.
Cambridge University Hospitals Trust, which provides the local NHS IVF service, said it was still committed to helping as many patients as possible start families.
Consultant embryologist Stephen Harbottle described the decision as "devastating".
"NHS care should be available equitably to everyone. Even within the eastern region, care is still available but the people of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will not have access to it.
"People see IVF treatment as non-essential care but the effect of withdrawing it can be devastating for their mental health, their relationships, and financially."
IVF pioneers Robert Edwards (L) and Patrick Steptoe (R) pose with the world's first IVF baby, Louise Brown
He said patients could now expect to pay a minimum of £4,000-£5,000 per treatment cycle.
More than 2,300 people have signed an online petition calling for the CCG to reverse its decision.
The CCG added that only a handful of exceptions would apply, such as for patients undergoing cancer treatment that could make them infertile.
Couples who had already been referred for specialist fertility services would still receive one cycle of IVF.
Infertility affects one in six people and is categorised as a disease by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-41173359
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Director Colin Trevorrow exits Star Wars: Episode IX - BBC News
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2017-09-06
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There's speculation about who could take over from Colin Trevorrow at the helm of Episode IX.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Colin Trevorrow got the Star Wars job after directing 2015's Jurassic World
Director Colin Trevorrow has dropped out of Star Wars: Episode IX because he and Lucasfilm have differing "visions".
Episode IX is expected to star Daisy Ridley and John Boyega and is due out in May 2019. Lucasfilm will now seek a replacement for Trevorrow, who is best known for directing Jurassic World.
His departure comes less than three months after a Han Solo spin-off film also lost its directors.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were replaced by Ron Howard.
On Tuesday, a statement on the Star Wars website said: "Lucasfilm and Colin Trevorrow have mutually chosen to part ways on Star Wars: Episode IX.
The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson (right) is said to be top of the shortlist
"Colin has been a wonderful collaborator throughout the development process, but we have all come to the conclusion that our visions for the project differ. We wish Colin the best and will be sharing more information about the film soon."
British writer Jack Thorne - who wrote the script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - is reported to be working on the screenplay for Episode IX.
Lucasfilm has a reputation for ruthlessness when it comes to hiring and firing directors. In 2015, Fantastic Four's Josh Trank was dropped from directing a standalone Star Wars story.
Deadline reports that Rian Johnson, who is directing The Last Jedi (AKA Episode VIII, which is out this December), is top of the shortlist.
There are suggestions that JJ Abrams - who directed The Force Awakens (AKA Episode VII, out in 2015) - could step in. But The Wrap's reporter Umberto Gonzalez says that rumour has been "shot down".
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One thing's for sure - it won't be Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, who joked on Twitter that he would "be fired within a week".
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Others called for Lucasfilm to cast its net a bit wider.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41172165
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