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British and Canadian backpackers die in Cambodian hostel - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Staff at the Cambodian hostel say the two women reported feeling unwell before being found dead.
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Beds, Herts & Bucks
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Natalie Seymour was described as a "lively and positive young lady with bags of energy"
A British tourist and her Canadian friend have been found dead at a backpackers' hostel in Cambodia.
Natalie Seymour, 22, from Bedfordshire, and 27-year-old Canadian Abbey Gail Amisola are understood to have been feeling unwell in the city of Kampot.
Staff at the Monkey Republic Hostel say the pair had been to a pharmacy but were found dead on Monday.
Miss Seymour's family, from Shefford, were told of her death on Tuesday and are receiving Foreign Office support.
Miss Seymour had been posting pictures of her travels in south east Asia
Dave Goode, vice principal at Samuel Whitbread Academy where Miss Seymour went to school, said: "I remember Natalie as a lively and positive young lady with bags of energy.
"She had a passion for sport and was a key part of the mixed hockey team.
"Natalie got on well with others and played an important role in working with pupils from our middle schools in a research project into attitudes to learning.
"This is terribly sad news and our thoughts and condolences go to all her family and friends."
Staff at the hostel are said to be "devastated by the tragic deaths"
A spokesman for the hostel said: "The staff at Monkey Republic are devastated by the tragic deaths of the two young women on Monday morning.
"They had been feeling unwell and had visited a pharmacy to get medication.
"The local police are investigating possible causes, and we're respecting the privacy of the women's families, who are in contact with the British and Canadian embassies."
Miss Seymour, who studied for a City and Guilds in beauty therapy at Bedford College, had held a number of jobs in recent years including for BT and as an account manager for Mayflex in St Neots.
More recently she worked as a freelance make-up artist.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41996042
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Greece: Deadly floods hit Mandra, Nea Peramos and Megara - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The victims include elderly people whose bodies were found inside their homes, reports say.
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Europe
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Flash floods caused by heavy overnight rain have killed at least 15 people and caused destruction in central Greece.
The industrial towns of Mandra, Nea Peramos and Megara, west of the capital Athens, were the most affected.
Many of the dead were elderly people whose bodies were found inside their homes, reports say. Fast-flowing torrents of red mud flooded roads.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras declared a period of national mourning in the wake of the tragedy.
"Everything is lost. The disaster is biblical," Mandra Mayor Yianna Krikouki told state broadcaster ERT.
At least 37 people have been taken to hospital, the broadcaster said, and some are still missing.
Bad weather has hit parts of Greece for about a week, but particularly heavy rain overnight caused the sudden flooding, for which locals said they were unprepared.
The force of the water moved vehicles, damaged walls and roofing, and left many homeless as their homes flooded to a life-threatening level.
By Wednesday afternoon, Greece's fire service said it had received over 600 calls for help and dispatched almost 200 firefighters in 55 vehicles to the towns, which have a combined population in the tens of thousands.
"The water came down the mountain, millions of tonnes," Stavros Fotiou, the deputy mayor of Nea Peramos, told ERT.
"Our roads are completely destroyed... 1,000 homes have been flooded, that's a third of the town," he added.
Some roads were inundated by more than 1m (3ft) of water
The region's deputy governor, Yiannis Vassileiou, told the broadcaster that emergency services had been prepared for poor weather, but then "the Niagara Falls came down and could not be stopped".
Prime Minister Tsipras said that declaring a period of national mourning was "the least we can do".
He also vowed to provide aid to the victims and ensure they were housed safely.
A state of emergency has been declared in some of the affected areas
The fire service said there were more than 300 calls for help
Emergency teams have been deployed to the region
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41998374
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Afghanistan's child opium problem - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Young children are becoming dependent on the drug, as the amount produced in Afghanistan hits a new high.
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Children as young as nine as becoming opium addicts in Afghanistan as the amount of the drug produced in the country hits record levels.
Findings suggest that the area of land used to cultivate opium poppies grew dramatically and fewer provinces are now seen as "poppy free".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42003158
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Sir Bradley Wiggins says his life was 'living hell' during Ukad investigation - BBC Sport
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2017-11-15
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Sir Bradley Wiggins says his life was "a living hell" during an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at British Cycling and Team Sky.
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Last updated on .From the section Cycling
Sir Bradley Wiggins said his life was "a living hell" during an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at British Cycling and Team Sky.
On Wednesday, UK Anti-Doping said there would be no charges over a "mystery" medical package delivered for Wiggins at the Criterium du Dauphine in 2011.
Wiggins, 37, said the investigation "felt nothing less than a witch hunt".
He added: "Being accused of any doping indiscretion is the worst possible thing for any professional sportsman."
Wiggins won five Olympic gold medals and the 2012 Tour de France before retiring from cycling in December 2016.
It was alleged that the package that was the focus of the investigation contained a banned substance - but the doctor involved, Dr Richard Freeman, said it was a legal decongestant, Fluimucil.
The 14-month investigation has been closed and a Ukad statement said it would only "revisit matters if new and material information were to come to light".
Ukad said it was unable to "definitively confirm the contents of the package" because of a "lack of contemporaneous evidence".
Its chief executive Nicole Sapstead said the investigation was hindered by the "lack of accurate medical records" held by British Cycling.
Wiggins, British Cycling and Team Sky have always denied any wrongdoing.
'It has felt nothing less than a malicious witch hunt'
Wiggins said in a statement: "I welcome Ukad's confirmation that no anti-doping charges are to be brought regarding the so-called 'jiffy-bag' allegations.
"It has always been the case that no such charges could be brought against me as no anti-doping violations took place. I am pleased this has finally been confirmed publicly.
"This period of time has been a living hell for me and my family, full of innuendo and speculation. At times it has felt nothing less than a malicious witch hunt."
Wiggins, who said he would assess potential legal options, was unhappy with Ukad's statement and questioned the body's decision to begin an investigation.
"To say I am disappointed by some of the comments made by Ukad this morning is an understatement," added Wiggins. "No evidence exists to prove a case against me and in all other circumstances this would be an unqualified finding of innocence.
"Where did the information come from to launch the investigation?
"Who was the source? What exactly did that person say and to whom?
"Why did Ukad deem it appropriate to treat it as a credible allegation?"
With no clarity over what was in the now-infamous jiffy bag delivered to Team Sky in 2011, this represents a wholly unsatisfactory end to a saga that has tainted some of the biggest reputations in British sport, and exposed Ukad's lack of power.
Its statement is deliberately nuanced, falling short of an exoneration of those involved, much to Sir Bradley Wiggins' dismay in a blistering statement, despite Britain's most decorated Olympian facing no charges.
But while the end of the investigation will come as a relief to many in the sport, the lack of medical records, the inaccuracies in Team Sky's initial explanations for the mystery delivery, the unavailability of key witness Dr Richard Freeman to Ukad investigators, the theft of his laptop, and the medical exemptions that Wiggins had before major races, all mean that suspicion will linger. The close relationship between Team Sky and the governing body (who still share headquarters in Manchester) is also again under scrutiny.
And at best, the attention to detail that was once the mantra of Team Sky and British Cycling has been exposed as hollow.
How did this issue arise?
In October 2016, the Daily Mail reported that Team Sky's Dr Richard Freeman had received a package from Simon Cope, then working as a coach for British Cycling's women's teams, on the final day of the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine. The package was alleged to be for Sir Bradley Wiggins, who won the race.
Ukad then began an investigation into the contents of the package.
What was in the package?
At a Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee hearing in December 2016, Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford - already facing questions after hackers had revealed Wiggins had received a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) to take banned anti-inflammatory drug triamcinolone for allergies and respiratory issues before key races - said that he had been told by Dr Freeman that the package contained Fluimucil.
Freeman, who was simultaneously employed by British Cycling and Team Sky between 2009 and 2015, missed the hearing through ill health but the DCMS committee was told that in 2014 he had a laptop containing medical records stolen while he was on holiday.
Freeman was off work from British Cycling with a stress-related illness before resigning last month.
Brailsford's testimony was widely questioned. Cope was alleged to have flown into Geneva Airport and driven for two hours to France to deliver the package, but 2008 Olympic champion Nicole Cooke pointed out that Fluimucil is available freely over the counter in France, and that there were eight pharmacies located within five kilometres of where the team received the package.
David Kenworthy, the previous chairman of Ukad, told the BBC in January the answers given by figures within British Cycling and Team Sky to the DCMS committee were "very disappointing".
In an interview with the BBC in January, Brailsford refused to confirm or deny whether he or anyone else at Team Sky had been able to provide paperwork to prove the package contained Fluimucil.
"I will give what I have got to Ukad," he said. "I said what I had to say in the DCMS and I am leaving it there."
Team Sky subsequently said that they were "confident" no wrongdoing would be found when the inquiry was concluded.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/41999310
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Trump team looks for alternative approaches to Paris pact - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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President Trump's climate adviser says that the US is looking to revive a Bush-era climate forum.
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Science & Environment
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Mr Banks says there is a need to involve economic and energy advisers in talks
President Trump's special adviser on climate says that the US is seeking ways of continuing to be part of international climate discussions.
George David Banks said the US was considering reviving the Major Economies Meeting (MEM).
The Bush-era forum allowed the US to remain in climate discussions even when outside the formal process.
The leaders of France and Germany will address the talks today amid concern over slow progress in cutting carbon.
The group first met in September 2007 and featured delegations from the US, China, the EU, the UK and other countries with high levels of carbon emissions.
At the time the US was outside the formal UN climate negotiating process, having signed but not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which limited the emissions of richer nations only.
When President Obama came into office, the MEM became the Major Emitters Forum, which helped shape the approach of larger economies in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.
The forum continued, in a much-reduced form until 2015.
Now, President Trump's key climate change adviser thinks it might be a way forward for discussions.
"We are looking into the possibility of having a major economies meeting, it is being discussed," he told reporters on the sidelines of this meeting in the former German capital.
"The only way you are going to have a rational discussion about climate mitigation and policy in general is if you bring in the economic and energy advisers, you are not going to have kind of conversation as long as it dominated by environment ministries."
Warriors dressed in traditional costume at the talks
Fiji, whose pavilion is shown here, is presiding over this year's climate talks
Mr Banks described the annual UN led talks here as an "echo chamber".
However, the idea of reviving the Bush-era approach to tackling climate change was given short shrift by some observers here.
"This notion of creating a new institution is just a dodge by the Trump clique because they are not on pace to reduce emissions," said Paul Bledsoe, from the American University in Washington and a former Clinton White House climate adviser.
"I think almost every country in the world has had enough of Donald Trump's obfuscations particularly on climate change, I don't think they are going to be fooled."
Senior ministers from dozens of countries are arriving in Bonn for the high level segment of this meeting.
They will hear from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres who will be attending his first Conference of the Parties.
Mr Guterres will tell the meeting that a broader coalition is needed if the temperature targets agreed in Paris are to be met.
His climate adviser told reporters that the UN was also looking to the future, and a new generation of political leaders, perhaps including a new occupant in the White House.
"By 2020 when those national decisions are being made, the group of leaders who will be making those decisions are almost entirely different to the leaders who agreed to the Paris agreement in 2015," Robert Orr said.
"The Secretary General is very conscious of that, we need to renew and rebuild the coalition of leaders day by day with all the new leaders."
Ministers from richer countries are likely get a cool reception at the high level segment of this meeting from developing countries. They are angry about the lack of carbon cutting action being taken by the developed world in the years before the Paris agreement comes into force in 2020.
"They are shirking their responsibilities," said Mohamed Adow from Christian Aid.
"They are postponing actions to post 2020 and that won't actually help deliver the kind of actions and ambitions that are needed."
Follow Matt on Twitter and on Facebook
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41991031
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Opposition calls for universal credit changes - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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MPs and peers debate universal credit, with Opposition MPs calling for a reduction to the initial wait for a first payment to one month.
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Parliaments
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As peers discuss the grievance procedure raised earlier in the Commons, Lib Dem Baroness Hamwee says when stories of abuse of power emerged she felt "guilty" because she asked herself "why wasn't I providing support?"
She says: "It took a week to remember many years ago I was subject to a minor act of inappropriate behaviour in the House.
"I realised I hadn't put it out of my consciousness because it was trivial, but because I was so shocked I buried it. That's what our minds do.
"We need to recognise the way people act when they've been subject to something so shocking is not what we might expect."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-parliaments-41971478
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Cleaner 'blocked' and fined £25 for being ill - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A cleaner was fined and stopped from working for a London customer by a "gig economy" business.
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Business
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When Polly Mackenzie heard her cleaner was ill and unable to work her normal day, she was hoping to reschedule through the Handy site that supplied her.
But that was not how the system worked. When her cleaner was unable to attend on her regular day, Handy offered to send a replacement.
But the app blocked the cleaner from working for her again.
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The story took a further turn the next day: the cleaner was reinstated - but was also docked £25.
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Ms Mackenzie herself, from south London, was sent what she described to the BBC as "a grovelling email - as if they'd killed my firstborn", then found her account had been credited with £5 to compensate for the inconvenience.
She said that meant Handy had "profited £20 from her illness, about twice as much as they'd make if she turned up".
New York-based Handy told the BBC the cleaner was automatically blocked by its system as she had appeared as a "no show".
Handy said at no point was the cleaner banned and that it was now "reviewing its policy regarding waiving fees for emergencies such as this".
It added that the fine was cancelled after the firm learned the reason for her not attending.
The cleaner has since been made available to Ms Mackenzie once more, but the incident has ignited a debate on social media about the use of app-based services and the gig economy.
In the gig economy, instead of a regular wage, workers get paid for each job, such as a food delivery or a car journey. One of the best-known examples is driving for Uber.
Proponents of the gig economy claim that people can benefit from flexible hours, with control over how much time they can work as they juggle other commitments. Those against say its simply another form of employment - without rights or in-work benefits.
It is not unheard of for gig economy workers to be charged for days they do not work.
Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that Parcelforce couriers who make deliveries for Marks & Spencer, John Lewis and Hamleys could be charged up to £250 a day if they were off sick and could not find someone to cover their shift.
The debate also came to the boil last week when a tribunal ruled that Uber should give drivers the same rights as workers, rather than treat them as self-employed.
Handy added: "While there was initial confusion, any fees have been waived and the [cleaner] can continue to work for customers on the platform as a valued member of the Handy community.
"After reviewing the incident in question we can confirm that the professional was never banned from the platform and has completed bookings since the incident in question."
• None What is the 'gig' economy?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41980922
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Republic of Ireland 1-5 Denmark (agg: 1-5) - BBC Sport
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2017-11-15
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The Republic of Ireland fail to reach the World Cup as Christian Eriksen's hat-trick gives Denmark victory in the play-off to reach Russia 2018.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
The Republic of Ireland failed to reach the World Cup as Christian Eriksen's hat-trick gave Denmark an emphatic victory in the play-off to reach Russia 2018.
After a goalless first leg, the hosts made the perfect start by scoring after just six minutes as defender Shane Duffy nodded in his second international goal when the visitors failed to clear a free-kick.
But the Danes netted twice in the space of three first-half minutes, courtesy of Cyrus Christie's own goal and Eriksen's stunning strike.
That left the Republic - who could have gone further ahead after taking the lead, but saw striker Daryl Murphy flick an effort into the side netting and winger James McClean drive wide following a slick team move - needing to score twice more to qualify.
But in the second half Tottenham midfielder Eriksen curled in from the edge of the box and then thumped in from inside the area to secure his treble and seal the tie.
Former Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner came on with six minutes to go and slotted a late penalty after he was brought down as Denmark, who failed to qualify for Brazil 2014, booked their trip to Russia next year.
Hat-trick scorer Eriksen said: "It's an incredible feeling. We've been fighting for so long to get to the World Cup. We are very much looking forward to it. It's not often I score any hat-trick so of course it is incredible.
"I know how nervous I was all day and night. We got the ball, we played better than the first game."
• None Relive Denmark's victory over the Republic of Ireland
• None Which teams have qualified for the World Cup?
• None What you need to know about the World Cup
Martin O'Neill's Ireland side had lost just one of their previous 11 competitive games at home and they were heading to a World Cup for the first time since 2002 when Brighton's Duffy nipped in ahead of Leicester goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel for the opener.
However, having decided to sit back on their advantage and play on the counter-attack, individual errors saw the game turn in Denmark's favour.
When the speedy Pione Sisto worked space on the left and played in Andreas Christensen, the Chelsea centre-back's effort came back off the post, but Christie was unable to react quickly enough to clear and only managed to send the ball into his own net.
With the Republic rattled, they conceded again just three minutes later. Burnley's Stephen Ward gave the ball away in his own half and the visitors constructed a swift attack that ended with Tottenham's Eriksen curling in via the crossbar.
The home side pushed forward in the second period, but Eriksen found space on the edge of the box to finish off a break for his second, before Ward's miss-control in his own area allowed the Spurs midfielder to slam home his side's fourth.
"The second one was the most technical one, better than the others," said the 25-year-old.
"Mentally I have grown up. I take the more clinical shot rather than passing. I am thinking more like a striker."
Eriksen now has 21 goals for his country, 11 of which came in this qualifying campaign.
With a minute remaining, there was still time for further disaster as McClean tripped Bendtner in the area and the striker stroked home the fifth Danish goal from the spot.
O'Neill and assistant Roy Keane agreed new contracts with the Football Association of Ireland back in October but questions are now likely to be asked as to whether they are the right men to take the country forward.
Veteran manager Age Hareide took over after Morten Olsen's failure to reach Euro 2016 and under his guidance the team end 2017 unbeaten, having claimed five victories and four draws.
They last suffered defeat over a year ago when they were beaten by Montenegro, but once they went ahead against the Republic they controlled the game, keeping possession and clinically taking their chances.
They could have had more than five, with former Wigan midfielder William Kvist forcing Darren Randolph into a stunning, full-stretch save low to his right, while the Middlesbrough goalkeeper also pushed away Sisto's drive.
"It was very good, especially when we came from behind," said Hareide. "We didn't get stressed. We tried to play and we got the goals.
"I am very pleased with the team and the performance. This is a difficult place to play football - scoring five goals against the Republic of Ireland does not happen.
"I was surprised. They played with a diamond and that gave us lots of space and I just say thank you very much.
"Eriksen is a fantastic player. An inspiration for those around him. He is a world class player. The lads stuck together and gave a fantastic performance in a difficult game."
Denmark, who have qualified for only the fifth time, will now wait to find out the result between Peru and New Zealand (Thursday, 02:15 GMT) to see whether they are in pot 2 or pot 3 for the tournament.
The first leg between the Peruvians and Kiwis ended goalless in New Zealand.
If the South Americans go out, Denmark will go into the higher pot as one of the second seeds alongside fellow European teams England, Spain and Switzerland.
• None Republic of Ireland have failed to qualify for the last four World Cup finals.
• None Ireland conceded five or more goals in a home game for the first time since October 2012 against Germany (6-1).
• None Christian Eriksen has been directly involved in 14 goals in the World Cup 2018 qualification process (11 goals, three assists), 10 more than any other Denmark player.
• None Eriksen has scored more goals in European 2018 World Cup qualifiers than any other midfielder.
• None Cyrus Christie is the first player to score an own goal for Republic of Ireland since Ciaran Clark against Sweden in June 2016.
• None Attempt missed. Shane Duffy (Republic of Ireland) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Robbie Brady with a cross following a corner.
• None Attempt blocked. James McClean (Republic of Ireland) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Daryl Murphy with a headed pass.
• None Goal! Republic of Ireland 1, Denmark 5. Nicklas Bendtner (Denmark) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the high centre of the goal.
• None Penalty conceded by James McClean (Republic of Ireland) after a foul in the penalty area.
• None Attempt saved. Andreas Cornelius (Denmark) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner.
• None Attempt missed. James McClean (Republic of Ireland) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Wes Hoolahan.
• None Wes Hoolahan (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
• None Attempt missed. Andreas Cornelius (Denmark) header from the centre of the box misses to the right. Assisted by Christian Eriksen with a cross following a corner.
• None Attempt missed. Shane Long (Republic of Ireland) right footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high. Assisted by Wes Hoolahan.
• None Attempt missed. Pione Sisto (Denmark) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Christian Eriksen. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41884909
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Sir Bradley Wiggins: No charges over 'mystery' package - BBC Sport
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2017-11-15
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There will be no charges over a 'mystery' medical package delivered to Sir Bradley Wiggins at the Criterium du Dauphine in 2011, says UK Anti-Doping.
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Last updated on .From the section Cycling
There will be no charges over a 'mystery' medical package delivered for Sir Bradley Wiggins at the Criterium du Dauphine in 2011, says UK Anti-Doping.
The ruling follows an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at British Cycling and Team Sky.
It was alleged the package contained a banned substance but the doctor involved, Dr Richard Freeman, said it was a legal decongestant - fluimucil.
Ukad said it had been "unable" to prove the package contained Fluimucil.
However, the organisation has shared information from its investigations with the General Medical Council (GMC).
Five-time Olympic champion Wiggins won the Criterium du Dauphine stage race in France that year and went on to become the first Briton to win the Tour de France in 2012.
The 14-month investigation has been closed and a Ukad statement said it would only "revisit matters if new and material information were to come to light".
A statement on the organisation's website added: "Put simply, due to the lack of contemporaneous evidence, Ukad has been unable to definitively confirm the contents of the package.
"The significant likelihood is that it is now impossible to do so."
Ukad chief executive Nicole Sapstead said the investigation was hindered by the "lack of accurate medical records" held by British Cycling.
"This is a serious concern," she said. "As part of their conditions to receive public funding, all sports governing bodies must comply with the UK National Anti-Doping Policy.
"In this case the matter was further complicated by the cross over between personnel at British Cycling and Team Sky."
How did it get to this point?
Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford was questioned by a Culture, Media and Sport Committee last December and said he had been told by then-team doctor Freeman that "it was Fluimucil for a nebuliser".
Freeman, who was simultaneously employed by British Cycling and Team Sky between 2009 and 2015, missed the hearing through ill health but the DCMS committee was told that in 2014 he had a laptop containing medical records stolen.
As part of the investigation, Ukad interviewed 37 individuals, including current and former British Cycling and Team Sky riders, medical professionals and other staff.
From that, Ukad have established that:
• None At some point during the race, a request was made by Dr Freeman for a package to be delivered to him.
• None Coach Shane Sutton arranged for British Cycling employee Simon Cope to pick up that package and to bring it over to France.
• None Cope said it was left for him on a desk at the British Cycling offices sealed in a Jiffy bag. There was a post-it note on the package that said "To Simon, for Dr Richard Freeman".
• None Cope travelled to Manchester to pick up that package, took a flight to Geneva, hired a car and took it to the end stage of the race on 12 June and passed the sealed Jiffy bag over to Dr Freeman.
When Ukad started its investigation into the 'mystery' package, Wiggins and Brailsford were already under scrutiny over the cyclist's use of a banned steroid before races was leaked by hackers Fancy Bears.
Wiggins had sought therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) to use banned anti-inflammatory drug triamcinoclone for allergies and respiratory issues before the 2011 Tour de France, his 2012 Tour win and the 2013 Giro d'Italia.
Wiggins, British Cycling and Team Sky have always denied any wrongdoing.
The chairman of the DCMS committee - MP Damian Collins - said after December's hearing that the "credibility of Team Sky and British Cycling is in tatters".
Brailsford has previously admitted he handled the situation "badly" but has consistently defended Team Sky's stance against performance-enhancing drugs, stating that the British-based team can be "trusted "100%".
Freeman was off work from British Cycling with a stress-related illness before resigning earlier this year.
With no clarity over what was in the now-infamous jiffy bag delivered to Team Sky in 2011, this represents a wholly unsatisfactory end to a saga that has tainted some of the biggest reputations in British sport, and exposed Ukad's lack of power.
But, while this case may not have resulted in any anti-doping charges, the lack of medical records, the inaccuracies in Team Sky's initial explanations for the mystery delivery, the unavailability of key witness Dr Richard Freeman to Ukad investigators, and the theft of his laptop, all means that suspicion will linger.
And at best, the attention to detail that was once the mantra of Team Sky and British Cycling has been exposed as hollow.
What they said
Team Sky: "We have always maintained that there was no wrongdoing and we have co-operated fully with UK Anti-Doping over the last year.
"Since our inception as a new pro cycling team in 2010 we have continually strengthened our systems and processes so they best support our strong commitment to anti-doping."
British Cycling chief executive Julie Harrington: "Ukad's findings represent an organisation and culture that, despite delivering on the world stage, did not meet the high standards that British Cycling today holds itself to.
"We accept that the relationship between British Cycling and Team Sky developed rapidly and as a result, at times, resulted in the blurring of the boundaries between the two. This led to some failings in the way that processes and people were managed.
"Today, based on our learning together, there are clear boundaries and distinctions between our two organisations: no one is simultaneously employed by British Cycling and Team Sky; and we each have our own practices in place for managing athlete records.
"We are intent on ensuring that the integrity of our record keeping is never called into question again."
GMC spokesperson: "Ukad have made us aware of these concerns and we are looking into these. However, we are not able to comment further on this matter."
DCMS select committee chair Damian Collins MP: "The evidence that the committee has received during its inquiry points to serious and worrying structural problems within sport, both in terms of anti-doping and governance.
"The committee will be publishing its report on doping in sport shortly. This will be followed by a second report focusing on sports governance in the New Year."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/41996027
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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case: Boris Johnson apologises over remarks - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Boris Johnson plans to visit Iran before the end of the year over the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
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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.
Boris Johnson has apologised for his remarks about a British-Iranian mother who is being held in prison in Iran.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she was on holiday when she was arrested in 2016 - a claim the foreign secretary appeared to contradict this month.
Apologising in the Commons, Mr Johnson said he would meet her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, on Wednesday and will visit Iran "before the end of the year".
He retracted "any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity".
The row over the imprisonment of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe - who has been held in Iran for more than 18 months - has intensified since Mr Johnson gave evidence before a Commons committee on 1 November.
During the hearing, the foreign secretary said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been teaching journalism in Iran - something her family and employer say is incorrect.
Campaigners say she could face an increased prison sentence in Iran as a result of the comments.
Responding to an urgent question in Parliament, Mr Johnson was asked to apologise for the remarks.
"Of course I apologise for the distress, for the suffering that has been caused by the impression I gave that I believed she was there in a professional capacity. She was there on holiday," he said.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband tells Today he doesn't think Boris Johnson should resign
Mr Ratcliffe has called for his wife to be granted diplomatic protection, which under international law is a way for a state to take diplomatic action on behalf of a national.
Earlier, Downing Street said it was "one of the options" it was considering in the case.
Asked by Labour about the prospect, Mr Johnson told MPs that he would be answering the question "in person" and would meet Mr Ratcliffe this week.
He said he was also planning to visit Iran before the end of the year and would discuss the possibility of Mr Ratcliffe accompanying him.
When a British citizen is jailed overseas, they normally get basic consular help from the local embassy.
This could include anything from contacting family to legal support to medical help. But if the UK were to assert its diplomatic protection over a British citizen, that would change things significantly.
This would be a signal that the UK is no longer treating the case as a consular matter but a formal, legal dispute between Britain and that country.
That's because diplomatic protection is a mechanism under international law that a state can use to help one of its nationals whose rights have been breached in another country.
The broad legal principle is that British diplomats would no longer be representing the interests of a citizen but the interests of their state.
Last week, Mr Johnson said he was sorry if his remarks about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had caused anxiety to her family.
However, Labour's shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry pushed him to "apologise properly" for his comments.
"If it is a matter of pride that the foreign secretary is refusing to admit that simply he has made a mistake, well then I feel bound to say to him that his pride matters not one ounce compared to Nazanin's freedom," she said in the Commons.
"After a week of obfuscation and bluster, will he finally take the opportunity today to state simply and unequivocally for the removal of any doubt - either here or in Tehran - that he simply got it wrong?"
Labour MP Yvette Cooper told Mr Johnson that "words matter", saying Mr Johnson cannot keep "shrugging off" comments that are "inaccurate" or "damaging". She called for him to resign.
In reply, Mr Johnson said: "It was my mistake. I should have been clearer."
He added: "I apologise for the distress and anguish that has been caused to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family."
Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme earlier, Mr Ratcliffe said he had written to the Foreign Office following remarks made by Mr Johnson's Cabinet counterpart Michael Gove.
Mr Gove had told the BBC on Sunday he did not know what Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been doing in Iran.
Mr Ratcliffe said Mr Johnson "did promise to consider" whether Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe would be eligible for diplomatic protection, which he said "gives a different push" to what the government can do.
"I'm reassured that it is the position of the government," Mr Ratcliffe adding.
A Downing Street spokesman said diplomatic protection was one available option, adding: "I think what we need to look at is what will work best and what can be most beneficial in this case."
The spokesman said Prime Minister Theresa May had been involved in Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's case "from the outset" and was treating it as "a priority".
She had raised it with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on at least two occasions, he added.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe - who has a three-year-old daughter, who is being cared for by family in Iran - was arrested and jailed in Iran in April 2016.
The full details of the allegations against her have never been made fully public.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41972704
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Greece: Deadly floods near Athens after heavy rain - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Torrential rain overnight created fast-flowing torrents of red mud in towns near the capital Athens.
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Flash flooding west of the Greek capital, Athens, has killed at least 14 people, officials say.
Torrential rain overnight created fast-flowing torrents of red mud, with a mayor calling it a "biblical" disaster.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41998379
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'Vulnerable children have to reach crisis to get help' - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Services to spot early signs of neglect and abuse are being closed as cuts bite, say charities.
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Family & Education
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Children's Centres are among the services to be cut
Children facing abuse and neglect in England increasingly get help from local councils only when their problems reach a crisis, say leading charities.
Services which intervene early to help families in difficulties are bearing the brunt of cuts, says their report.
Relying on crisis intervention incurs a "devastating cost" both socially and financially, they add.
The government says that providing help as early as possible is the best way to keep children safe.
But the analysis by the Children's Society, Action for Children and the National Children's Bureau finds that councils are slashing preventative services "under the pressure of £2.4bn of central government funding cuts".
Specifically, it says, central government funding for early intervention has fallen by £1.7bn since 2010.
Over the same period, the number of child protection investigations has more than doubled, with spending on crisis support up 7%, at £6.1bn, says the report.
Matthew Reed, chief executive of the Children's Society, called the cuts "nothing short of devastating".
"Services that could intervene early to stop problems escalating have been the hardest hit.
"All too often central government shrugs off responsibility for council spending decisions but the figures are stark and undeniable.
"Councils are being denied the funding they need to provide safe, effective children's services and spending on vital support is collapsing as a result.
"We are at a tipping point with more cuts yet to come. The government must step up and give councils the funds they need to protect our children."
Sir Tony Hawkhead, chief executive of Action for Children, said council children's services were reduced to "a crisis fire-fighting model".
While Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, asked: "Do we really want a system that can only help children and young people at immediate risk of harm, but can't step in to help families before problems deteriorate?"
The report urges central government to address the funding gap as a matter or urgency, working with local authorities to ensure additional funds go to early intervention services.
The Local Government Association which represents councils in England warned of a further £2bn in central government funding cuts over the next three years.
Richard Watts, chairman of the LGA's Children and Young People Board, said councils were "working hard" to minimise the impact of cuts, with savings including reductions to "other valuable services such as parks, libraries and street lighting".
"Last year saw the biggest annual increase in children in care since 2010 and councils simply cannot continue to provide the level of support that these children and young people need without urgent action to provide the funding necessary to do so," said Mr Watts.
He urged the government to use the forthcoming budget "to commit to fully funding children's services".
Anne Longfield, children's commissioner for England, said the government should earmark funding to enable councils "to help children earlier when problems first start, rather than waiting until children are in crisis".
A government spokeswoman said more than £200bn had been made available to councils for local services, including children's services, up to 2019-20.
"Councils have a duty to provide appropriate care for the children in their area, including responding to referrals. We are supporting them to deliver efficient services by investing £200m in the Children's Social Care Innovation Programme - this includes projects providing targeted support for children in need."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41988239
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'Leonardo da Vinci artwork' sells for record $450m - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Salvator Mundi, reputedly painted by the artist, is sold by Christie's in New York for $450m.
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Entertainment & Arts
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The painting has been cleaned and restored from the image on the left to the one on the right
A 500-year-old painting of Christ believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci has been sold in New York for a record $450m (£341m).
The painting is known as Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World).
It is the highest auction price for any work of art and brought cheers and applause at the packed Christie's auction room.
Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519 and there are fewer than 20 of his paintings in existence.
Salvator Mundi, believed to have been painted sometime after 1505, is the only work thought to be in private hands.
Bidding began at $100m and the final bid for the work was $400m, with fees bringing the full price up to $450.3m. The unidentified buyer was involved in a bidding contest, via telephone, that lasted nearly 20 minutes.
Excitement in the auction room rose as the bids by telephone came in
The painting shows Christ with one hand raised, the other holding a glass sphere.
In 1958 it was sold at auction in London for a mere £45.
By then the painting was generally reckoned to be the work of a follower of Leonardo and not the work of Leonardo himself.
It apparently was part of King Charles I of England's collection in the 1600s and got lost, but was "rediscovered" in 2005.
$450m for Salvator Mundi is an astonishing price to have realised, given both its condition and authenticity have been questioned.
It shows that ultimately art comes down to belief.
And there were plenty of bidders last night who were suitably convinced by its Leonardo da Vinci attribution to drive the price up to such stratospheric heights.
As yet, the new owner is unknown.
Speculation will be rife. Which I will contribute to, by noting the newly opened Louvre Abu Dhabi will have a Leonardo shaped hole in its displays when the decade-long loan deal with the French museums comes to an end.
Wherever it ends up, you've got to hand it to Christie's for its masterclass in the art of selling art.
Art agents celebrated when the sale was completed
In a bold move, without a hint of irony, the painting was sold in its Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale alongside a Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.
Why not in the Old Masters Sale? Because that's not where the elephant bucks are.
The big money comes into the room nowadays when Pollocks and Twomblys are on the block, and promptly leaves when the Reynolds and Winterhalters arrive.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Salvator Mundi was discovered hidden under layers of paint
Dr Tim Hunter, who is an expert in Old Master and 19th Century art, told the BBC the painting is "the most important discovery in the 21st Century".
"It completely smashes the record for the last Old Masters painting to sell - Van Gogh's Sunflowers in 1988. Records get broken from time to time but not in this way.
"Da Vinci painted less than 20 oil paintings and many are unfinished so it's incredibly rare and we love that in art."
Before the auction it was owned by Russian billionaire collector Dmitry E Rybolovlev, who is reported to have bought it in a private sale in May 2013 for $127.5m (£98m).
The painting has had major cosmetic surgery - its walnut panel base has been described as "worm-tunnelled" and at some point it seems to have been split in half - and efforts to restore it resulted in abrasions.
BBC arts correspondent Vincent Dowd said that even now attribution to Leonardo is not universally accepted.
One critic has described the surface of the painting to be "inert, varnished, lurid, scrubbed over and repainted so many times that it looks simultaneously new and old".
"Any private collector who gets suckered into buying this picture and places it in their apartment or storage, it serves them right," Jerry Saltz wrote on Vulture.com.
But Christie's has insisted the painting is authentic and billed it as "the greatest artistic rediscovery of the 20th Century".
Georgina Adam, who is an Art Market specialist, told the BBC the price of the piece is "fuelled by the sheer amount of money that billionaires have."
"This is the last Leonardo painting you can buy. This isn't as a store of value, it's the ultimate trophy - only one person in the world can own this.
"If you think of the wealth of some billionaires, Bill Gates is worth 87 billion, and I'm not saying it's him, but near to half a billion would not be a colossal chunk out of his income for example."
The auction house has not revealed who purchased the picture, but Hunter speculates it could be a buyer from Asia or even be on the way to the new Louvre in Abu Dhabi.
Could the painting be headed for Abu Dhabi's new Louvre Museum?
"It's the sort of painting you can imagine as a star piece in a private collection and as billionaire collectors like to set up their own museums, it could be a good piece for them," Hunter said.
Adam also thinks the piece could have gone to an Asian market.
"We don't know who bought it, I went to the Louvre in Abu Dhabi and I did wonder whether the Gulf could be responsible.
"People are thinking the Far East, the picture was taken to Hong Kong before it was put up for sale to show to possible buyers there so that is possible. "
Paul Gauguin's 'When Will You marry?' broke price records in 2015
The 79 x 69 inch (2 x 1.75m) expressionist piece was painted in 1955. It was sold to hedge-fund founder Kenneth C Griffin, who spent about $500m in total in 2016 on a Pollock piece too.
2. Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) by Paul Gauguin - $300m (£230m)
His post-impressionist painting of Tahiti women was sold in February 2015 to a mystery buyer, rumoured to be a Qatari museum, and is thought to share the top spot with a piece by William de Kooning.
This sale to Qatar broke records in 2011. The piece was painted at the end of the 19th Century and was part of a five-part series. The others in the series are at some of the world's most prestigious art museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
This abstract expressionist piece was also sold in 2016 to Kenneth C Griffin from American businessman David Geffen.
Mr Griffin, 49, founded global investment firm Citadel and is considered one of the world's most active art buyers
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-42000696
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New borrowing rules will 'boost home building' - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Housing associations say being reclassified as private bodies will allow them to build more homes.
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UK Politics
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New powers to fund house-building have been announced, as ministers promised more measures in next week's Budget.
Housing associations will be reclassified as private bodies allowing their £70bn debt to be removed from the government's balance sheet.
They said the technical change would allow them to build more affordable homes.
But Labour said the government had no coherent plan to address the "housing crisis".
Latest figures show 217,350 "additional dwellings" in England last year, which includes new builds, conversions and changes of use. This was up by 27,700 up on 2015-16.
Labour said any increase was welcome but that house-building had still not returned to the level it reached before the global financial crisis.
Visiting a north London housing estate, Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to take "personal charge" of the government's strategy to address what is widely regarded as the chronic shortage of new affordable homes being built, particularly for rent.
There have been reports of tensions within the cabinet about whether the government should be borrowing tens of billions to directly fund more schemes.
In a speech in Bristol, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said the decision by the Office for National Statistics to remove housing association debt from the UK balance sheet would help create a more "stable investment environment" for the thousands of providers.
Housing associations were classified as public bodies in 2015 because of the way they were funded - a move that led to warnings it would hamper their ability to fund new house-building.
In 2015, the Office for National Statistics shocked the government by announcing that ministerial control of housing associations had become so intrusive they could no longer be seen as charities or private businesses.
Overnight, all their borrowing was added to the public debt.
Now, after the drafting of new regulations currently going through Parliament, the ONS has agreed the government has become hands-off enough again to take all that debt away.
The announcement of the change, before the new regulations have come into law, appears to be part of a move to encourage Philip Hammond to offer more help to the housing sector.
Whether such pressure will move the Treasury to loosen the purse strings remains to be seen.
The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, said it strongly supported the reclassification.
It said housing associations built nearly 50,000 new homes last year, including social and affordable rental properties.
The federation added: "This change will allow them to build on their strong track record and secure the long-term finance needed to build even more affordable homes."
Mr Javid said the rethink would help "lay the foundation" for thousands and thousands of new homes.
But he warned new thinking is required to stop "a rootless generation" of tenants drifting from one short-term tenancy to another.
"There are many, many faults in our housing market, dating back many many years. If you only fix one you will make some progress but not enough. This is a big problem and we have to think big."
He also said the government would be intervening in the case of 15 local authorities which have failed to produce a local plan for housing development in their area.
More than 1.2 million families in England are currently on the waiting for council accommodation while in 2015-6 only 6,800 social rented homes were completed.
The Local Government Association said councils should be given the same freedom to borrow to build.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42001261
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Yarl's Wood immigration centre: Questions over need to detain women - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Two thirds of women held at an immigration centre are later released, a report finds.
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Beds, Herts & Bucks
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The assessment was carried out by by HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) in June
Two-thirds of women held at an immigration removal centre are later released into the community, a watchdog report has revealed.
Inspectors said the finding raised concerns about whether the women should have been detained at Yarl's Wood, Bedfordshire, in the first place.
The assessment was carried out by by HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) in June.
The Home Office said: "Detention and removal are essential parts of effective immigration controls."
A report on the inspection in June found during the previous six months, excluding men, 542 (21%) detainees had been removed from the centre, 295 (12%) had been transferred to other places of detention and 1,721 (67%) had been released.
Inspectors said the high percentage of women released "raised questions about the justification for detention in the first place".
The 2017 inspection found there had been "significant improvements" at the centre, which is operated by Serco
Fewer detainees than at the previous inspection were being held for long periods, the watchdog noted.
None had been held for over a year, although 14 had been held for between six and 12 months.
The inspectorate also said the handling of cases by the Home Office was a "principal area of concern".
It found that delays and uncertainty in the outcome of immigration casework were still a cause of frustration and anxiety for detainees.
However, the report said there had been "significant improvements" at the centre, which is operated by Serco.
A Home Office spokeswoman said it took "the welfare of our detainees very seriously" and action was being taken to address the report's recommendations.
Serco, which is not responsible for determining policy on immigration detention or individual decisions regarding the length of detention, welcomed the recognition of progress made since the last inspection.
The facility near Bedford houses adult women and family groups, as well as a small number of men who arrived in Britain as "clandestine migrants" on freight lorries.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41989238
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Buddha tattoo woman Naomi Coleman wins compensation - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Sri Lanka's Supreme Court said Naomi Coleman's treatment was "scandalous and horrifying".
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Coventry & Warwickshire
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A woman who was deported from Sri Lanka for having a tattoo of the Buddha on her arm has won compensation.
Naomi Coleman, from Coventry, was detained for four days in April 2014.
Granting her compensation of 800,000 Sri Lankan rupees - about £4,000 - the country's Supreme Court said her treatment was "scandalous and horrifying" and ruled her rights had been violated.
Ms Coleman told the BBC Sinhala Service she was "overwhelmed" by the ruling.
Officers involved in her arrest were also ordered to pay her compensation.
Ms Coleman, a mental health nurse, took legal action against the Sri Lankan authorities after her return to the UK.
The court ruled there was "no legal basis" for her arrest and said she had been subject to "degrading treatment" by some officers and a prison guard.
In particular, one guard had "made several lewd, obscene and disparaging remarks of a sexually-explicit nature" towards Ms Coleman, while some police officers had forced her to give them money.
Her lawyer JC Weliamuna told the BBC her deportation had been "contrary to the law governing immigration and emigration".
Ms Coleman, who was arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, said previously the detention had left her "really frightened".
She told the BBC on Wednesday she was "shocked" and "emotional" on hearing the news.
"Finally the court has actually seen it that I didn't do anything wrong," Ms Coleman said.
Asked whether she would go back to Sri Lanka, she replied: "I'm not sure, I don't know. Probably not.
"I'm very happy. I just wouldn't want it to happen to anybody else."
After an order was made to have her deported, Ms Coleman spent a night in prison in Negombo and two nights in a detention centre while security checks were carried out.
She said she told police she practised Buddhism and had attended meditation retreats and workshops in Thailand, India, Cambodia and Nepal.
Sri Lankan authorities take strict action against perceived insults to Buddhism, which is the religion of most of the island's Sinhalese population.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-41995069
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Missing explorer describes meeting Papua New Guinea tribe - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Documentary footage shows missing explorer Benedict Allen describing an expedition to Papua New Guinea.
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British explorer Benedict Allen has gone missing on an expedition to Papua New Guinea, his family have said.
The 57-year-old was travelling on his own - without a satellite phone - to find the reclusive Yaifo people, whom he met 30 years ago.
He recently went on a daring expedition to the Oceanian country with BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, which was documented in Birds of Paradise on BBC Two.
He spoke about his experiences on the island as a man in his early 20s, and his initiation into one of the tribes.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41998842
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Search on for UK explorer Benedict Allen missing in Papua New Guinea - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Benedict Allen hasn't taken flights home from his lone expedition in Papua New Guinea, his family say.
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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. In a recent documentary Benedict Allen described his experiences of living in Papua New Guinea
A search has been mounted for British explorer Benedict Allen, whose family say has gone missing during an expedition to Papua New Guinea.
The 57-year-old was travelling on his own to try to find the reclusive Yaifo tribe, whom he first met 30 years ago.
His sister says she was expecting to hear from him by Monday - and he hasn't taken planned flights home.
A helicopter pilot, who dropped Mr Allen off several weeks ago, is trying to find him, the BBC has learned.
Our security correspondent Frank Gardner, who recently travelled through Papua New Guinea with Mr Allen for a BBC documentary, said he understood the pilot was tracking Benedict's route from his starting point in a remote place called Bisorio.
They have spoken to local police chiefs, and were looking to locate him by helicopter and get him out, our correspondent said.
He added that the former UK high commissioner to Papua New Guinea, David Gordon-Macleod, said "huge areas of the country have no mobile coverage", meaning that even if Mr Allen had reached a village, he is likely to still be out of contact with the outside world.
Mr Allen's older sister, Katie Pestille, said it was "out of character" for him to miss his scheduled flight out of Papua New Guinea to Hong Kong.
"For everybody else, it's very exciting - all the expeditions and all the things he does, but for his sister and his wife, it's more of a worry," she explained.
First solo adventure: To the Amazon at 22, during which he was shot at by two hitmen
Tough time: An initiation into manhood in Papua New Guinea. He was kept in a "crocodile nest" with 20 others, and repeatedly cut with bamboo blades to leave scars that looked like crocodile scales
Low moment: Eating his own dog to survive
Travel habit: Always keeps loo paper in a back pocket. "You know how it is," he tells the Lonely Planet.
Philosophy: "For me personally, exploration isn't about conquering nature, planting flags or leaving your mark. It's about the opposite: opening yourself up and allowing the place to leave its mark on you."
Career: Six TV series for the BBC, author, motivational speaker
Mr Allen, from London, has previously crossed the Amazon Basin on foot and in a dug out canoe, and participated in a six-week male initiation ceremony in which crocodile marks were carved onto his body.
He has filmed a number of his adventures for BBC documentaries and written books on exploration.
The Foreign Office said its staff were assisting family members and were in contact with local authorities.
Travelling in Papua New Guinea is hugely unpredictable and normal schedules don't apply, so there is a good chance that Benedict Allen has been detained by natural causes.
Landslides, torrential downpours and sometimes an eruption of fighting between local tribes can all throw itineraries off-course.
Foreign travellers though, are rarely targeted outside the main towns.
Knowing Benedict, it is also quite possible that he has accepted an invitation to stay on longer for a tribal ceremony - it can also be considered an insult to refuse.
The Yaifo tribe who Benedict visited in the 1980s initially greeted him with suspicion and hostility but then accepted him.
He told me last month, just before he set off, that he had no idea how they would receive him, or even if he would be able to find them in such a remote part of the country.
In a blog posted in September, Mr Allen described his plan to assemble a group at an abandoned mission station in Bisorio before heading into the remote jungle.
His aim, he said, was to create a brief record of the lives of the Yaifo and track down some of those he met on his last visit.
"Last time, the Yaifo 'greeted' me with a terrifying show of strength, an energetic dance featuring their bows and arrows," he said.
"On this occasion who knows if the Yaifo will do the same, or run off, or be wearing jeans and T shirts traded eons ago from the old mission station.
"But of course I may not even make it there - even aged 26, it was a very hard hike up through rather treacherous terrain."
He said his journey out of the jungle was unplanned. "Either I must paddle down river for a week or so - or enlist the help of the Yaifo, as I did last time," he said.
He added that he would be travelling without a satellite phone, GPS or companion, "because this is how I do my journeys of exploration".
In his last tweet from 11 October, Mr Allen wrote: "Marching off to Heathrow. I may be some time."
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Benedict ALLEN This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41994592
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Zimbabwe army takes on Mugabe - as it happened - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Reaction after Zimbabwe's military seizes power leaving the future of President Mugabe uncertain.
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Africa
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To get to President Robert Mugabe's rural home, you drive along the Robert Mugabe Highway.
It is probably one of the most well-maintained roads in Zimbabwe. It is like driving on a carpet.
Along the way you are greeted by a plaque erected in his honour.
Kutama Village is home to the 93-year-old. It is a small and tightly connected village where everyone knows each other.
You cannot really tell if they have been rattled by the current political crisis.
As we arrived, there was an air of uncertainty.
Mr Mugabe is respected here. To many, he is a father and a friend.
Speaking to me at his compound, a 65-year-old neighbour told me:
Quote Message: He's kind, he's a good man and he understands people's plight."
The man goes to St Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church with Mr Mugabe, a devout Christian, whenever he visits.
Quote Message: He never demands special treatment. He visits people to check on their welfare." He never demands special treatment. He visits people to check on their welfare."
Nevertheless, he supported the intervention by the army to remove Mr Mugabe from office, saying it is meant to correct a broken system:
Quote Message: If his term goes out then there's nothing wrong." If his term goes out then there's nothing wrong."
When I approached other villagers, I attracted immediate suspicion. They were not keen to talk.
But it seems to me that Mr Mugabe is seen as a hero in the village. It is easy to spot people wearing clothes emblazoned with his face.
Police officers are patrolling the area around Mr Mugabe's home.
You can't really peep inside the compound because of tight security.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-41994362
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YouTuber Zoella apologises for old offensive tweets - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The vlogger and influencer has now deleted the tweets from 2010.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Zoella published her first novel in 2014 and has her own cosmetics line
YouTuber and blogger Zoella has apologised for a number of old tweets about gay people and "chavs".
The posts, from 2009-12, which have now been deleted, have been called out for "fat shaming" and being homophobic.
"Fat chav", "skank" and "tramp" are some of the phrases she posted on her Twitter account, which now has 11 million followers.
Zoella apologised on Wednesday, adding she "would never say those things now".
The statement, posted on Twitter said: "I've seen a few of my old tweets from 7/8 years ago floating around (which I have now deleted) using words like 'chav', 'skank' and other words I wouldn't use now as part of my language.
"Obviously that is not who I am today and I'd like to think I'm a little older and wiser! I'm not perfect and I've never claimed to be, I'm only human!"
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The vlogger, whose real name is Zoe Sugg, claims several of the statements were taken out of context as they were commenting on TV shows like the X Factor and I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.
Two tweets, saying: "I find it funny when gay men spit... it's like they're trying to be a bit macho," and "How many straight men do you know, who whip out a compact mirror to do their hair before an abseil," have been criticised by Twitter users for being homophobic.
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Others, saying "Who do these parents insist on beefing up their obese children, just give them water and some veg and tell them that's all they're getting," and phrases "fat chav" and "close up of a fatty eating a big mac" have also been seen as fat-shaming.
Ashleigh Hamman tweeted: "Absolutely disgusting Zoella calling people fat. Especially when she claims to get upset when people would call her 'skinny' in the past. How hypocritical can you get."
Zoella, who lives in Brighton, has built up a strong social media following in recent years thanks to her lifestyle and beauty vlogs.
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Zoella has already come under fire this week for her 12 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar. The product has seen its price slashed from £50 to £25 by retailer Boots, after it was criticised for being bad value for money by customers.
Some fans said the re-emergence of Zoella's old tweets was a response to criticism of the Advent Calendar.
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But not everyone has criticised Zoella, who has her own beauty range and a series of novels, with followers saying she should not be judged for things she said a long time ago.
Her work on anxiety and mental health has been mentioned as an example of how Sugg has matured and developed a positive persona on social media.
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• None 8 things to know about YouTuber Joe Sugg
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41998691
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Keith Barron: Duty Free actor dies aged 83 - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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UK actor Keith Barron, who starred in Duty Free, has died aged 83 after a short illness
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Entertainment & Arts
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UK actor Keith Barron, who starred in sitcom Duty Free, has died aged 83 after a short illness.
Barron, who was from South Yorkshire, rose to fame in the 1960s as Detective Sergeant Swift in The Odd Man.
He also appeared in Coronation Street, Doctor Who, Benidorm and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).
Barron is best-remembered for his role in Yorkshire Television sitcom, Duty Free, where he played David Pearce.
A statement from his agent said Barron enjoyed "a long and varied career, of which he was immensely proud.
"He is survived by his wife Mary to whom he was married for 58 years and his son, Jamie, also an actor."
Set in Spain, Duty Free ran for three series from 1984 until 1986 with Barron starring as a lead character.
The show was about two couples - David and Amy Pearce and Robert and Linda Cochran, who meet on holiday in the same hotel in Marbella.
Much of the show's humour came from David and Linda's attempts to conceal their affair.
Barron learnt his craft at the former Sheffield Playhouse, where he also met his wife, stage designer Mary Pickard.
In a long career, he starred in Hollywood film The Land That Time Forgot and had a number of appearances in landmark British shows including Doctors, A Touch of Frost and Casualty.
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-41998040
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Google Docs offline for 'significant' number of users - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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One of Google's key cloud services went offline for many users on Wednesday.
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Technology
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Google Docs was inaccessible for a "significant subset” of users on Wednesday.
The company confirmed the issue on its status page but did not offer more information.
A spokeswoman for Google would not confirm to the BBC how many users encountered the problem, but said she did not believe any customers who paid for extra storage were affected.
Problems were reported by users trying to access the programs across the world.
Downdetector.com, which tracks outages around the world, suggested US users were having the most significant issues - though there were some reports in Europe, where the outage occurred at a time that was outside of typical hours for most business.
The down time lasted for between 30 minutes and an hour, during which many people used Twitter to complain.
At 2209 GMT the Twitter account for Google Docs said: "Docs is back up for most users, and we expect a full resolution for all users shortly.
"Sorry for this disruption and thanks again for your patience with us.”
It is the second time in recent weeks that Google Docs users have been left frustrated by glitches in the system.
In October some users were locked out of a files after they were wrongly tagged as being “inappropriate” content. The company apologised for the disruption.
Cloud computing - where files are stored and edited on the internet rather than locally on your computer - is a major part of the technology sector.
Those services remaining stable and reliable is crucial for businesses that rely on the software for day-to-day work.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the market leader by revenue, but it is not immune to down time - an incident at the start of this year saw more than 150,000 websites taken offline due to an Amazon fault.
Google's service status page said the problem had now been resolved.
"We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support," it added.
"Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42006495
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UK pay squeeze tightens but unemployment dips - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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People's pay continues to lag inflation in the UK, while unemployment remains at a 42-year low.
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Business
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Wages continue to lag behind the cost of living in the UK, while unemployment remains at a 42-year low.
Workers' earnings, excluding bonuses, rose 2.2% in the three months to September compared with a year ago, the Office for National Statistics said.
But they fell 0.5% in real terms when accounting for inflation, marking seven months of negative pay growth.
The number of jobless - people not in work but seeking a job - fell 59,000 to 1.42 million during the period.
With inflation at a five-and-a-half-year high of 3% in October, pay is failing to keep up with higher prices.
The unemployment rate remained steady at 4.3% - its lowest rate since 1975 - and down from 4.8% a year earlier.
Minister for Employment Damian Hinds said the unemployment figures showed the "strength of the economy".
"A near-record number of people are now in work," he said. "Everyone should be given the opportunity to find work and enjoy the stability of a regular pay packet."
At the same time, the number of people in work dropped to 32 million, down 14,000 from the last quarter, according to ONS data.
Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, shadow work and pensions secretary, said the figures were further evidence of "Tory economic failure".
She said: "Both employment and real wages are falling while the price of household essentials balloons, leaving millions of people worse off than they were in 2010."
Matt Hughes, a senior ONS statistician, said employment had declined after two years of "almost uninterrupted growth", but was still higher than last year.
The last time there was a bigger fall in employment was in April to June 2015, when the number of people in work dropped by 45,000, according to the ONS.
The simultaneous drop in the number of workers and unemployed people is due to the rise in people who are classed as "economically inactive" - those not working and not seeking or available to work.
This includes people studying, retirees, the long-term sick, or those looking after family, and rose by 117,000 to 8.8 million over the quarter.
Mr Hughes said: "There was a rise in the number of people who were neither working nor looking for a job - so-called economically inactive people."
Separate ONS data showed a bright spot for productivity, which increased by 0.9% in the latest three months - the strongest growth rate for six years.
But this follows a prolonged period of weak productivity since the financial crisis.
Any port in a storm, but it is sensible to put today's leap in productivity in context.
After six months of negative figures (-0.5% January to March, -0.1% April to June), today's +0.9% jump in productivity is undoubtedly better news.
But it would need at least two more quarters of similarly positive numbers to discern whether this is just normal quarter-by-quarter volatility or the first signs that the productivity slump might be starting to turn.
The ONS measures productivity by dividing the number of hours worked by what is called Gross Value Added, the value of goods and services produced by the UK economy.
It has leapt this quarter because working hours have fallen slightly and economic growth is higher.
Whether we are actually producing more per hour worked - the key to wealth creation and better wages - will only become clear over the next six months.
ONS head of productivity Philip Wales said: "The medium-term picture continues to be one of productivity growing - but at a much slower rate than seen before the financial crisis."
The CBI's head of employment, Matthew Percival, thought the rise in productivity was "encouraging".
He said: "Businesses will be looking for the chancellor to cement progress in next week's Budget and maintain flexibility in the labour market, which remains a mainstay of the UK economy."
How can unemployment and the number of people in work drop at the same time?
The unemployment rate is a measure of those people who want to work - and cannot - but the employment rate is a measure of everyone in work.
So you could have a large number of people retiring and only some of them being replaced by unemployed people who are recruited to do their jobs.
Employment will fall, and so will unemployment.
In today's figures, the fall in employment seems to be concentrated amongst the 18-24 year olds, suggesting that part of the reason is that they are returning to education, although the figures are supposed to take such seasonal factors into account.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41996505
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Nigel Farage is most successful politician - Ken Clarke - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Ken Clarke tells MPs that he pays tribute to Nigel Farage's "campaigning abilities" over Brexit.
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Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is the "most successful politician of my generation", Tory MP Ken Clarke has told the Commons.
Remain-supporting Mr Clarke told MPs that he paid tribute to Mr Farage's "campaigning abilities" as the Brexiteer had persuaded a "high proportion of the population" over Brexit.
In response, Mr Farage thanked Mr Clarke and offered to buy him a beer.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41992013
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Firearms dealer Paul Edmunds supplied weapons to gangs - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Paul Edmunds supplied ammunition used in a bid to shoot down a police helicopter in the 2011 riots.
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England
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
A firearms dealer has been found guilty of supplying illegal handguns and home-made ammunition linked to more than 100 crime scenes, including three murders.
Paul Edmunds, of Hardwicke, Gloucestershire, supplied ammunition used in an attempt to shoot down a police helicopter in the 2011 riots.
The 66-year-old was found guilty of conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition by a jury at Birmingham Crown Court.
He will be sentenced on 20 December.
The court was told Edmunds, of Bristol Road, was arrested at his home in 2015, where he had three armouries he used to make ammunition to fit antique weapons.
Paul Edmunds had denied conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition
Detectives discovered that a Colt pistol - imported on November 14 2013 - was used five weeks later in a Boxing Day fatal shooting at the Avalon nightclub in London.
Four of Edmunds' rounds of ammunition were recovered from the victim's body.
The jury were told Edmunds' ammunition was also recovered following the Birmingham murders of Derek Myers in 2015 and 18-year-old Kenichi Phillips in 2016.
Following his arrest, 100,000 live rounds were seized from the armoury inside Edmunds' garage, while seven wheelie bin-loads of gun and ammunition components were recovered from a bedroom and attic.
Following Edmunds' arrest, 100,000 live rounds were seized from the armoury inside his garage
One of the seized guns which was examined by forensics officers
In all, 17 criminally-linked weapons recovered by police are known to have been imported by Edmunds, while around 1,000 rounds of ammunition connected to him have been recovered from crime scenes in nine different police force areas.
In police interviews, Edmunds said he was "not responsible for the actions of somebody that buys some things", adding his "duty of care" only extended to not selling to people who "didn't look right".
He told officers: "Like me selling a knife and you take that knife and kill somebody and then the system blames me for selling you the knife.
"It's your problem, got nothing to do with me."
Dr Mohinder Surdhar admitted conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition between 2009 and 2015
The two-month long re-trial heard Edmunds and middleman Dr Mohinder Surdhar - likened by police to the lead characters in the TV series Breaking Bad - acted together to supply antique revolvers and custom-made ammunition to criminal gangs.
Surdhar, 56, from Grove Lane in Handsworth, Birmingham, admitted conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition between 2009 and 2015 before Edmunds' trial.
Jurors also convicted Edmunds of possessing a prohibited air pistol and perverting the course of justice by filing down a bullet-making tool to destroy potential evidence.
His barrister acknowledged that the gun-dealer faces a sentence of at least 25 years when he is sentenced.
Det Con Phil Rodgers, from West Midlands Police, said: "They were like the Breaking Bad of the gun world - on the face of it, both decent men, but using their skills and expertise to provide deadly firearms."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41984857
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2023 Rugby World Cup: France beat South Africa and Ireland to host competition - BBC Sport
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2017-11-15
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France will host the 2023 Rugby World Cup after beating rival bids from South Africa and Ireland.
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Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union
France will host the 2023 Rugby World Cup after beating rival bids from South Africa and Ireland.
South Africa had been expected to win the vote after an independent review recommended they stage the tournament.
However, at a World Rugby Council meeting in London on Wednesday, France was chosen to hold the 10th event.
France - the main host of the competition in 2007 - won in the second round of voting, with 24 votes compared to 15 for South Africa.
• None Irish 'very disappointed' not to get Scotland & Wales RWC votes
Ireland, which staged matches in 1991 and 1999, was eliminated after getting eight of the 39 votes in the first round - France picked up 18 and South Africa 13.
South Africa hosted the World Cup in 1995, when the Springboks beat New Zealand 15-12 in the final.
England backed the Irish bid but Wales supported South Africa and Scotland went with France. The head of the Irish Rugby Union Philip Browne said he was "very disappointed" with that.
World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont described the selection process as the "most transparent and comprehensive" in the organisation's history.
"I am delighted for France. They have run a World Cup before and I think it will be an exciting World Cup," he said
"We feel for the first time that within World Rugby we have put the results of our evaluation out to the general public."
Last month, South Africa had ranked highest in the independent review after the three bids were judged on five categories...
From the above criteria, South Africa scored 78.97%, France was second with 75.88% and Ireland was third with 72.25% - but members of the World Rugby Council voted to select France.
Bernard Laporte, president of the French Rugby Federation (FFR), had criticised the original report, saying it contained a "certain amount of incompetence" and was "laughable".
"We are not rated as well over doping because they tell us we are too strict," Laporte told AFP in an interview last week.
"On security, we have the same number of points even though there are 52 murders a day in South Africa - it's crazy."
After the decision to award France the 2023 World Cup, Laporte said: "This World Cup is for all of French rugby. The economic impact will be for them. With the reforms that we have committed, we needed this World Cup."
France President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: "We will again host the Rugby World Cup in 2023. Wonderful news for rugby, for sport and for France."
'We cannot hide our desolation' - South Africa reaction
South Africa said they were "bitterly disappointed" at the decision, but would not appeal against the verdict.
"We would like to apologise to the people and government of South Africa for raising their hopes," added Mark Alexander, president of South Africa Rugby.
"We did everything in our power to bring the tournament to South Africa and we expected to have that right confirmed.
"We produced a compelling bid document that earned the unanimous recommendation of the Rugby World Cup Ltd board. That recommendation was questioned last week by rivals, but endorsed a second time by World Rugby last week.
"However, the view of the experts and World Rugby's leadership was overturned by World Rugby Council members, who may have had other factors to take into account.
"We cannot hide our desolation but, for the sake of rugby we wish the 2023 tournament hosts every success."
Jurie Roux, chief executive of South Africa Rugby, said: "World Rugby ran an exhaustive, transparent process for 15 months to identify the best host nation, only for the process to go entirely opaque for the past two weeks.
"The view of the experts and World Rugby's leadership was overturned by World Rugby Council members."
Chester Williams, who helped South Africa win the World Cup when they hosted the event in 1995, told BBC World Service the decision was "disappointing and sad".
He added: "It is a much needed event that we wanted here in South Africa and this could have been another opportunity for us as South Africa to reunite as a nation.
"It would have been an amazing opportunity to host the Rugby World Cup and the French have won it and we have to deal with it accordingly.
"We were about 90% certain that we would be hosting the World Cup. The whole of South Africa is going to be disappointed.
"We thought the biggest opposition would be the Irish."
Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Ireland could bid again to host the tournament in the future.
"I am of course deeply disappointed by this result but I wish France the very best in their preparations for Rugby World Cup 2023. World Rugby had a choice of three excellent contenders," he said.
"As someone who has been involved in the bid from the beginning, I had hoped Ireland would be selected. But we were beaten by another excellent candidate and I know that France will host a superb tournament in 2023.
"I have no regrets about bidding for the tournament and I want to thank everyone who was involved in it.
"We should never forget that the technical report found that Ireland would be excellent hosts for Rugby World Cup 2023, and there may be other occasions for Ireland to show the world what we are capable of."
Japan will host the next World Cup in 2019.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/41995220
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Labour suspends deputy leader Alex Rowley during conduct probe - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Interim Scottish Labour leader Alex Rowley is suspended from the party at Holyrood amid claims about his conduct.
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Scotland politics
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Alex Rowley has been absent from Holyrood in recent weeks because of a chest infection
Scottish Labour has suspended MSP Alex Rowley from the party at Holyrood amid claims about his conduct.
The Fife MSP stepped aside from his roles as interim and deputy leader after allegations he had sent abusive text messages to a former partner.
In a statement, Mr Rowley rejected the allegations and said he would work to clear his name.
The party subsequently announced it would be removing the whip from him for the duration of the investigation.
Mr Rowley referred himself to the party's investigation unit and announced he would step aside from the leadership after claims were published in The Scottish Sun.
He had been absent from the Scottish Parliament for the past two weeks, with party bosses citing a chest infection. Fellow MSP Jackie Baillie, who had been filling in for him at first minister's questions, has now been appointed interim leader.
After former leader Kezia Dugdale said she would have suspended Mr Rowley had she still been in charge, both leadership candidates - Anas Sarwar and Richard Leonard - said he should be suspended.
Party business manager James Kelly subsequently announced that the MSP would have the whip withdrawn in the Scottish Parliament throughout the probe.
In a statement Mr Rowley said: "I totally refute these allegations and will take all steps necessary to clear my name.
"These allegations must be properly and thoroughly investigated in line with our party's procedures - and I will refer myself to the party so such an investigation can take place.
"While that investigation is carried out, I will step aside as deputy leader, as well as interim leader, of the Scottish Labour party."
Leadership candidates Richard Leonard and Anas Sarwar - in background - both called for Mr Rowley to be suspended
Mr Rowley, who previously served as election agent for former prime minister Gordon Brown, has been standing in as the Scottish Labour leader since Ms Dugdale stood down in August.
In a statement, Ms Dugdale said that had she remained in charge, she would have suspended Mr Rowley from the party while the "serious and deeply concerning" allegations were investigated.
This was subsequently echoed by both candidates to replace her as leader. Mr Leonard said suspension would be "appropriate", while Mr Sarwar said there were "clear procedures" which meant he should be suspended "while a robust, fair and thorough investigation is carried out".
The party then announced he would be suspended from the Labour whip in the Scottish Parliament.
Mr Kelly said: "It is important that the investigation into these allegations is fair and transparent, and the matter will be thoroughly investigated using the Labour Party's internal complaints procedure.
"However, in light of the serious nature of the allegations, Labour at Holyrood has taken the decision to remove the whip from Alex Rowley for the period of this investigation."
The winner of the party's leadership contest is due to be announced this weekend.
Mr Rowley's position as interim leader had previously been questioned when he was caught on tape backing Mr Leonard as the "best candidate".
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-41995175
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Senate committee questions Trump nuclear authority - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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One senator says they are concerned the "volatile" US president could launch a nuclear strike.
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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. Would the US military disobey a nuclear order from President Trump?
For the first time in over 40 years, Congress has examined a US president's authority to launch a nuclear attack.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing was titled Authority to Order the Use of Nuclear Weapons.
Some senators expressed concern that the president might irresponsibly order a nuclear strike; others said he must have the authority to act without meddling from lawyers.
The last time Congress debated this issue was in March 1976.
In August, Mr Trump vowed to unleash "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on North Korea if it continued to expand its atomic weapons programme.
Last month, the Senate committee's Republican chairman, Senator Bob Corker, accused the president of setting the US "on a path to World War 3".
Senator Ben Cardin set the tone at Tuesday morning's public hearing on Capitol Hill.
"This is not a hypothetical discussion," the Maryland Democrat said.
Some senators present said they were troubled about the president's latitude to launch a nuclear strike.
Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said: "We are concerned that the president is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic, that he might order a nuclear-weapons strike that is wildly out of step with US national-security interests."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Lashing out: What Bob Corker really thinks of President Trump
One of the experts, C Robert Kehler, who was commander of the US Strategic Command from 2011-13, said that in his former role he would have followed the president's order to carry out the strike - if it were legal.
He said if he were uncertain about its legality, he would have consulted with his own advisers.
Under certain circumstances, he explained: "I would have said, 'I'm not ready to proceed.'"
One senator, Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, asked: "Then what happens?"
People in the room laughed. But it was a nervous laugh.
The Minot Air Force Base houses part of the US arsenal of Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles
Another expert, Duke University's Peter Feaver, a political science professor, explained that a presidential order "requires personnel at all levels" to sign off on it.
It would be vetted by lawyers, as well as by the secretary of defence and individuals serving in the military.
"The president cannot by himself push a button and cause missiles to fly," said Prof Feaver.
Another expert, Brian McKeon, a former under-secretary of defence for policy, said military officials would stop the president if they felt he was acting in a rash manner.
"Four-star generals are not shrinking violets," said Mr McKeon.
"I don't think we should be trusting the generals to be a check on the president," he said.
One of the key questions at the hearing was whether the senators - and Americans in general - had confidence in the president to make such a decision within minutes, or even seconds.
At that moment, the defence secretary, military officials and lawyers would have little time to review the president's decision.
Some of the senators said the president needed to have the freedom to act fast and forcefully under those circumstances.
Senator Marco Rubio explained that the US president "has to have the capacity to respond if we are under attack" - and not be circumvented by "a bunch of bunker lawyers".
Senator James Risch, an Idaho Republican, reinforced Mr Rubio's message, explaining that officials in Pyongyang should not misinterpret their discussion.
"He will do what is necessary to defend this country," said Mr Risch.
At the end of the hearing, the lawmakers and experts agreed that the nuclear arsenal should be modernised - just in case.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41977120
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Face ID iPhone X 'hack' demoed live with mask by Bkav - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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A Vietnamese cyber-security firm shows the BBC how a mask can be used to unlock Apple's new phone.
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A Vietnamese cyber-security firm has shown the BBC how a mask can be used to unlock Apple's new iPhone X.
The demo took place about a week after Bkav first claimed to have undermined the handset's security.
But other experts have cast doubt on what the "hack" amounts to.
Apple has not commented beyond referring the public to documents it had already published about its security system.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41992610
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Price of Football 2017: Young adult fans are 'put off' by cost of football - BBC Sport
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2017-11-15
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The Price of Football study finds the majority of ticket prices have frozen or fallen for a third year - but a poll suggests the cost is still putting off young adult fans.
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The BBC Price of Football study has found the majority of ticket prices have been frozen or have fallen for a third year - yet a poll of young adult football fans suggests the cost is still putting them off.
This year BBC Sport asked more than 200 clubs across the United Kingdom for information on ticket prices and found almost two thirds of price categories have been reduced or remained the same across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In a separate poll, we asked 1,000 18- to 24-year-old fans living in Britain how they engage with football, and four in five (82%) said the cost of tickets was an obstacle to them going to more matches.
The annual study found 135 clubs out of 190 in England, Scotland and Wales offer reduced prices for teenagers and young adults - separate from any student concessions - but 55% of the fans we polled said they had stopped going completely or go to fewer games because it was too expensive.
Young adult fans can save, on average, £146.94 on season tickets in the English Premier League and Football League, while in the top four divisions in Scotland the average saving on a season ticket is £143.66.
• None How much could you pay? Enter your team in the calculator
• None Analysis: What does it mean for clubs and fans?
• None Take the Price of Football quiz
According to figures from the Premier League, young adult fans bought 4% of all season tickets this year. A report in 2015 suggested the average age of an adult supporter in the Premier League was 41.
Rob Wilson, football finance expert at Sheffield Hallam University, says top clubs need to do more to attract young adults.
"These fans are the next generation of season ticket holders but they have been brought up in a sanitised and expensive environment," he told BBC Sport.
"With this in mind, they are reluctant to pay so much to watch their teams play and these findings should act as a warning to the Premier League elite - they ignore this group of fans at their peril."
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger admitted he was worried by the findings.
"I think nothing is better than to share the experience of a stadium," he said. "There are many ingredients in the modern game that stopped people going. The lifestyle is different, they play less, they play more computers.
"The security of gathering people is a problem. Can you afford to go when you are young? There are many ingredients we have to take care of in the game."
In a statement, the Premier League said: "Clubs engage with their fans in many ways and hugely appreciate their loyal and passionate support.
The online poll, conducted by ComRes, also showed young fans are more likely to engage with football by playing games on a console or PC (61%) than in a football team (37%).
More young football fans bet on the sport (44%) than play in a team (37%), but more fans play in a team than have a fantasy football team (33%).
Only one in four fans (26%) said they go to watch football live more than once a month.
• None Are young people being priced out of football? Watch our live debate
• None Two thirds (65%) of young football fans said the cost of travel was an obstacle to attending more matches.
• None Three quarters (74%) of young fans said they get their football news from social media - 24% from print newspapers.
• None Three in five fans aged 18-24 go to a sport app or mobile site (59%) for football news while at least half access it via a TV results service (53%).
• None 70% of supporters agreed football clubs did value their fans, but more than half of the teenagers and young adults (56%) said professional football was not run with them in mind.
• None Similar numbers of football fans asked said they go to a football match at least once a week (11%), two to three times a month (15%) or five to 10 times a season (14%).
• None One in six (16%) male football fans aged 18-24 said they go to a match at least once a week, compared to 7% of women in this group.
Of the top four leagues in England, 92% of clubs offer special prices for young adults, separate from any student concessions. The age ranges vary from 16-24 years old, with most targeting the 18-21 bracket.
The biggest discounts come in the Premier League, where an Arsenal member aged 16-19 can purchase a season ticket for £384 compared to the cheapest adult season ticket at £891 - a saving of £507.
Chelsea offer the biggest discount on single matchday tickets for their under 20s, who can pay £15.50 instead of £47 - a saving of £31.50.
But despite these discounts, 81% of the young adult football fans living in England who were polled say they feel the cost of tickets is stopping them from going to more matches.
In Scotland, 27 of the 42 clubs offer young adult discounts.
In the poll, 79% of fans say cost is an obstacle to them attending football matches.
A third of the clubs in the Welsh Premier League offer special discounts for young adults.
Of the young adults asked in Wales, 90% say the cost of tickets puts them off going to watch football.
• None The Price of Football: Results in full
• None How we produced the Price of Football 2017
E-sports are becoming big business and this is the next key challenge for clubs. How do you convert e-sport players into terrace-goers? Can you link the e-game to the actual one? How can mobile technologies support this at half-time, for example? Moreover, the way young fans consume information is changing - clubs need to engage fans much more effectively when it comes to social media.
We've seen big reductions in subscriptions to the pay TV platforms so it's unsurprising young people think twice about live football. There are also lots of options for young people to spend their leisure pound (the cinema, gym, university, cars etc) so football clubs need to work much harder to engage them. There is no magic bullet but they need to do more and communicate that more effectively. The long-term impact of young fans feeling priced out is yet to be truly felt.
What we are seeing, especially with young people, is that incomes are being squeezed in real terms and this will lead to a decrease in demand, particularly as there are alternative leisure opportunities. The number of fans attending football will also respond to rise and fall in prices because of the price elasticity of demand for tickets.
Support for a team is often a matter of loyalty and hence lower prices may not attract many new fans. If young people find their finances are stretched, they may make a rational choice to follow a team by other means such as screened matches.
Young people tend to be in work but with the very slow growth in wages in the past 10 years, their income is lagging behind living costs. Real wages are not rising and young people are also saddled with student debt. Rent and utility bills have to be paid and they are rising faster than other prices.
Then, when you have to pay for food on top, it means things like sport and paying to watch football are not a priority.
There are a number of different, interacting factors that play a part in young people's decision making. These factors are relevant to decisions made about leisure (and in particular football). These include factors such as: 1) temperament and personality and 2) past history - including childhood memories, parents' interests & values, and past teachers or peer influence.
However, there are some interesting trends around leisure also. Young people are drinking less. Young people are more thoughtful about what they want to do with their time and money. Superficially it looks like they have increased choice about what they may do, but in reality they also have less money and less time.
As a young person gets older, it often becomes more important to make decisions that will not alienate them from a social group of friends when compared to decisions that their parents may not like or may be unhealthy.
I am not surprised young people are engaging with football online through videos/fantasy football and probably through social media & apps too - as this is a trend we are seeing across the board with leisure.
I feel sad and disappointed that young people are playing less football as there are so many physical and mental health benefits to this. It is sad that the big drive to increase football in schools is not having a long-term effect once children leave school.
Do you go to games?
Do you attend football matches regularly? If so, what keeps you coming back? Or if you don't, what stops you from going? Get in touch using this link.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41901398
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Labour's John McDonnell demands 'emergency Budget' - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Shadow chancellor John McDonnell demands 'an emergency Budget for public services '.
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Business
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Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has demanded "an emergency Budget for our public services", which he says are in crisis.
He is promising to spend about £17bn a year extra on the NHS, social care, schools and local government.
The extra spending would be paid for by tax rises for companies and "the rich", while tackling tax avoidance.
The government said Labour's plans would lead to more debt, higher taxes and fewer jobs.
Chancellor Philip Hammond is due to give his Budget speech next Wednesday afternoon.
In a speech at Church House in Westminster, Mr McDonnell called for an end to austerity by the government and set out five main proposals:
He said the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, was out of touch with the lives of ordinary people and there was growing anger after seven years of austerity.
"They were told austerity was the solution to the economic crisis," he said.
"So it's understandable that after seven years of the austerity solution, they are angry when they queue for hours at A&E, see their school laying off teaching assistants, their Surestart centre closing and the local neighbourhood police withdrawn from their streets.
"Especially, while at the same time, they learn about the Paradise Papers and the tax avoidance of the super-rich."
Mr McDonnell said the Conservatives were giving away about £76bn in cuts to corporation tax, capital gains tax and "the rich" during the life of this Parliament.
He said Labour had already calculated £6.5bn could be raised from clamping down on tax avoidance, but he believed that could be significantly higher after the leaking of the Paradise Papers.
A global investigation looked at 13.4 million previously secret documents that revealed offshore investments made by companies, politicians and wealthy individuals.
John McDonnell wants to create a clear red line between him and the present incumbent of Number 11, Philip Hammond.
A week ahead of the Budget, the shadow chancellor has said that more should be spent on health, education and housing and that the public sector pay cap of 1% should be lifted.
The controversial introduction of the new benefits system - the universal credit - should also be delayed after evidence that some recipients were being left without payments for several weeks.
To pay for the new policies, Mr McDonnell will say he is willing to borrow more to invest in infrastructure, arguing it is a good time to do so as interest rates are at historic lows.
It is a position rejected by the Conservatives, with Mr Hammond saying that more borrowing now simply means more debts to be repaid in the future.
It is expected that he will focus any new spending on health and housing in the Budget, next Wednesday.
Mr McDonnell said more action was needed to tackle what he called the "housing crisis".
The government is to wipe about £70bn worth of debt from housing associations' balance sheets, allowing them to raise money more cheaply.
But Mr McDonnell described it as "accountancy tricks" and called for more funding.
"The scale of the crisis demands action on an equal scale. We need at least 100,000 new social homes a-year funded and built by this government, to even begin to address the problem."
He said Mr Hammond could do far more.
"He wants to pretend he cannot invest on the scale needed, yet he has already borrowed more in his first year as chancellor than any of his predecessors in their first year at the Treasury."
Responding to Mr McDonnell's proposals, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss said: "The shadow chancellor has today admitted Labour would borrow billions more and hike up taxes to record levels.
"The costs would rack up and up - putting economic growth at risk and hitting ordinary working people in the pocket.
"Only the Conservatives can build a country that is fit for the future."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41999993
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Zimbabwe media slow to cover military takeover - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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For most of the morning state TV just re-broadcast a statement saying the military had taken over.
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Africa
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Zimbabwe's The Herald newspaper ran a special edition later on Wednesday
Zimbabwean media have been slow to keep their audiences up to date on developments after the military took control earlier today.
State TV and radios were re-broadcasting the statement by Major-General Sibusiso Moyo announcing that the military had taken over but offered little by way of updates to the situation.
For most of the morning the TV played patriotic songs from the independence period of the 1980s before resuming normal programming.
The lunchtime news featured the army takeover as the main story.
The print edition of the government-owned daily The Herald appeared on the streets on Wednesday morning with Tuesday's stories which downplayed the importance of the warning by the head of the armed forces Constantino Chiwenga that the military would take over if necessary.
The paper's online edition took a few hours to update, and has been carrying coverage of the unfolding events, under the headline Live and developing: No Military Takeover in Zim.
Apart from carrying the military statement the paper said: "The situation in Harare's central business district is calm with people going about their business."
Social media users have been trying to make up for the lack of news by posting their own observations and pictures of street scenes in the capital Harare, including some of troops and police being made to sit in a line outside parliament and people going about their daily lives.
Many have dismissed suggestions by the military that their actions don't amount to a coup.
Maj Gen Sibusiso Moyo read out a statement on national TV early on Wednesday
Using the Twitter hashtag #ZimbabweCoup, many users welcomed the developments. The hashtag had been used more than 13,000 times in the 24 hours up until noon on Wednesday, many of the users appearing to be in the country.
One widely shared and liked tweet with a sarcastic overtone read: "The coup going on in Zimbabwe is the smoothest I've ever seen.. It started like we just wanna talk then went to it's cute you think you [sic] still president."
"When you see the army commanders take over the state broadcaster airwaves then that's the confirmation it's a COUP. End of an era," another tweet read. (bit.ly/2hyoy64)
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However, another user provided a different interpretation: "It's a Zanu PF internal putsch backed by the army - very different from a military takeover - the statement issued is so very unique - you can feel the restraint." (bit.ly/2mt6oEl)
Mufti Ismail Menk of Zimbabwe tweeted: "#Zimbabwe is calm and life goes on for most ordinary citizens. Streets are safe and most children are in school."
Some users made fun of the fact that this morning's print editions were way out of date.
"News editors in Zim slept through the revolution. You need night shifts comrades," said @drDendere.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42001242
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Deliveroo claims victory in self-employment case - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Deliveroo riders are self-employed finds labour law body the Central Arbitration Committee.
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Business
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Deliveroo riders have been ruled self-employed by labour law body the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC).
The test case was brought against the delivery company by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) .
The IWGB said the ruling showed a majority of Deliveroo riders wanted workers' rights and union recognition.
But the CAC found they were self-employed because of their freedom to "substitute" - allowing other riders to take their place on a job.
The case follows a number of claims brought by workers in the "gig" economy demanding rights such as holiday pay, the minimum wage and pensions contributions.
Drivers at Uber won a victory a week ago when the company lost an appeal at the Employment Appeal Tribunal against an earlier decision to grant them workers' rights.
IWGB brought the case after it had asked Deliveroo to recognise it as a union representing drivers in Camden and Kentish Town and to start collective bargaining over workers' rights.
Deliveroo refused and the case was taken to the CAC.
The company said its turquoise-and-grey clad "Roomen" and "Roowomen" wanted to keep flexibility of being self-employed.
But the IWGB said the ruling showed that Deliveroo riders were not satisfied with their current terms and conditions and wanted worker rights, including holiday pay and the minimum wage.
IWGB General Secretary Dr Jason Moyer-Lee said: "It seems that after a series of defeats, finally a so-called gig economy company has found a way to game the system."
"On the basis of a new contract introduced by Deliveroo's army of lawyers just weeks before the tribunal hearing, the CAC decided that because a rider can have a mate do a delivery for them, Deliveroo's low paid workers are not entitled to basic protections."
Crowley Woodford, employment partner at law firm Ashurst said: "This will be a significant blow to the unions who are trying to expand their membership within the gig economy by challenging the basis on which such employers engage and use their labour."
A decision by the CAC can be challenged in the High Court on a point of law.
Dan Warne, Managing Director for Deliveroo in the UK and Ireland said: "This is a victory for all riders who have continuously told us that flexibility is what they value most about working with Deliveroo.
"As we have consistently argued, our riders value the flexibility that self-employment provides. Riders enjoy being their own boss - having the freedom to choose when and where they work, and riding with other delivery companies at the same time."
Deliveroo said it was pushing to have employment law to be changed so it could offer its self-employed riders injury pay and sick pay.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41983343
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Brexit no-deal could stop Aston Martin production - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Aston Martin says it might have to stop production if the UK fails to get a deal with the EU after Brexit
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Business
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Aston Martin has said it may have to halt production if the UK fails to strike a Brexit deal with the EU.
All new cars in the UK must have Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) approval, which is valid in the EU.
Without a UK-EU deal, that validity would cease for new cars from March 2019.
Mark Wilson, Aston Martin's finance chief, said it would have the "semi-catastrophic effect of having to stop production".
"We're a British company. We produce our cars exclusively in Britain and will continue to do so," he said.
"Recertifying to a new type of approval, be that federal US, Chinese or even retrospectively applying to use the EU approval, would mean us stopping our production."
However, Mr Wilson added: "We suppose there will be a transitional arrangement. During that transition we would have to look to see how Aston Martin could recertify under a non-VCA approval structure."
Honda imports two million components every day from Europe
Mr Wilson was giving evidence to the Business Select Committee along with Mike Hawes, Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders chief executive, and Patrick Keating, Honda Motor Europe's government affairs manager.
All three called for clarity on a transition deal with the EU.
Mr Keating told the MPs that Honda would take 18 months to get its systems ready for new customs procedures for exporting to Europe.
He said Honda imported two million components every day from Europe on 350 trucks and had just one hour of stock on its shelves.
Every 15 minutes of delay at customs would cost the company £850,000 a year, although Mr Keating admitted the figure was not "scientific".
"We're thinking about increasing the amount of warehousing and the amount of stock we would have to hold if friction entered the border," he said. "March 2018 is where we would want clarity around transition."
Mr Hawes added that the UK motor industry's integration into European supply chains could make it harder to benefit from any free trade agreement with non-EU countries after Brexit.
Free trade agreements require that about 60% of goods must originate from within the countries making the agreement.
Mr Hawes said: "The average car made in the UK has 44% of its components from UK suppliers. How much of that 44% actually comes from the UK, bearing in mind those suppliers are buying in supply chains from all over the world? The figure is more like 25%, which is a long way from the 60% threshold you would need to qualify for a free trade agreement."
The problem could be overcome through a "cumulation" agreement with the EU, he said. That would allow EU content to count as being of UK origin and vice versa - but would need to be part of the Brexit trade deal.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41983342
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'Climate change is bad...it affects everything' - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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People in Vunidogoloa had to move 2km (1.24m) inland, and say climate change is to blame.
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Fiji is relocating low-lying coastal villages due to the impact of rising sea levels.
The country is hosting the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, which will attempt to agree the fine print on the 2015 Paris climate accord.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-41992630
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Zimbabwe latest: Key players in power struggle - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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The key figures in the struggle for power in Zimbabwe.
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Africa
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The Mugabes have clashed with recently sacked Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa (second from right) and armed forces chief Gen Constantino Chiwenga
Zimbabwean generals say they have seized control to take power away from "criminals" around President Robert Mugabe.
The crisis came a week after Mr Mugabe sacked his deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in favour of his wife, Grace.
Army chief Gen Constantino Chiwenga warned on Monday that the military would step in and take action if such "purges" in the ruling Zanu-PF party did not stop.
Who are the key players in this crisis?
A revolutionary hero who spent years in jail for the "liberation" struggle, he came to power in elections after independence was declared in 1980.
This is why, even today, many African leaders remain reluctant to criticise him - unlike a large number of his compatriots who experience his rule first-hand.
Most of the world has moved on from the anti-colonial struggles but Mr Mugabe's outlook and tactics for retaining political control remain the same. He is best-known for his land reform programme in the 1990s that involved the seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to black peasants.
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After decades of authoritarian rule, his country is in political and economic turmoil, and allegations of government corruption are rife. He is viewed globally with derision.
The proud 93-year-old is reluctant to relinquish power but as his physical powers have visibly deteriorated, the battle over his succession has come to the fore.
The independence-era old guard represented by sacked Vice-President Mnangagwa is rivalling the younger "Generation-40" faction fronted by Mrs Mugabe.
Robert Mugabe's second wife, who is more than 40 years his junior, has risen from presidential typist to the most powerful woman in Zimbabwe.
They met and had their first two of three children while Mr Mugabe's first wife, Sally, was terminally ill with cancer, though they only married after her death.
Her alleged appetite for extravagant shopping earned her the moniker Gucci Grace.
While her supporters point to her charitable and philanthropic work and refer to her as "Dr Amai", meaning "mother", her critics accuse her of pursuing a ruthless campaign for wealth and power.
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As a notable political figure close to the president, Grace has been subject to the same targeted EU and US sanctions as her husband, which include a travel ban and asset freeze.
She accompanies the president on trips abroad, often visiting the Far East where they own property. Her many domestic business interests also include a dairy farm estate outside Harare, which she claimed as part of the national land reforms implemented starting in 2001.
Mrs Mugabe has a sharp tongue and last week she described her rival, Vice President Mnangagwa, as a "snake" which "must be hit on the head". The next day President Mugabe sacked him.
Until Mrs Mugabe's rise, he had been viewed for several years as President Mugabe's anointed successor.
Following military training in Egypt and China, he helped direct the "liberation" struggles prior to independence in 1980, spending time in jail where he was allegedly tortured. He has been in government ever since.
Thousands of civilians died in a brutal post-independence conflict in which he played a key role as National Security minister, though he denies having blood on his hands.
He is known in Zimbabwe as ngwena (English: crocodile) (and his supporters as "Lacoste") because of his political cunning, biding his time in the 1990s to reclaim a position of power after falling foul of Mr Mugabe and being cast into political oblivion. But his fearsome reputation means he is little loved in the rank-and-file of the Zanu-PF party.
As a former defence and national security minister, he was a key link between the ruling party and Zimbabwe's military and intelligence agencies. He is also chair of the Joint Operations Command, in charge of state security.
At 61, he is a close ally of Mr Mnangagwa and has led the army since 1994.
Gen Chiwenga was also a product of the country's independence struggles, training with the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army in Mozambique and later rising through its ranks.
In 2002, he and 18 other close associates of President Mugabe were sanctioned by the European Union, United States and New Zealand, including a travel ban and freeze on his foreign assets, which has been repeatedly extended. In 2003, he was promoted to commander general of the Zimbabwe combined armed forces.
He shocked Zimbabweans on Monday when he issued an open warning against those responsible for "purging" the ruling party of those who shared his roots in the country's struggles against colonialism, saying the military could step in.
A former mine worker and union chief, the 65-year-old became the symbol of resistance to Mr Mugabe's government during the mid-2000s.
The charismatic public speaker founded the Movement for Democratic Change in 2000 and stood for president in 2008, gaining the most votes but, according to official results, not enough to win outright. He withdrew from the second round after a campaign of violence by Mr Mugabe's security forces.
He was later sworn in as prime minister and in 2013 challenged Mr Mugabe for the presidency again but lost heavily.
Mr Tsvangirai has been brutally assaulted, charged with treason and labelled a traitor and has reportedly survived three assassination attempts, including one in 1997 in which he was nearly forced out of the window of his 10th-storey office.
He has been receiving treatment for cancer in South Africa but returned to Zimbabwe after the army took control and has called for Mr Mugabe to resign.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41995078
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Who are the dual nationals jailed in Iran? - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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An unknown number are in prison, with some serving long sentences and others sentenced to death.
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Middle East
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The plight of British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained for almost six years in Iran on spying charges, focused attention on Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency being held in the Islamic Republic's prisons.
Iran does not recognise dual nationality, and there are no exact figures on the number of such detainees given the sensitive nature of the information. Some of the most prominent are:
Morad Tahbaz and fellow conservationists were using cameras to track endangered species when they were arrested
The 67-year-old businessman and wildlife conservationist, who also holds American and British citizenship, was arrested during a crackdown on environmental activists in January 2018. His Canadian-Iranian colleague, Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in custody a few weeks later in unexplained circumstances.
The authorities accused Tahbaz and seven other conservationists of collecting classified information about Iran's strategic areas under the pretext of carrying out environmental and scientific projects.
The conservationists - members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation - had been using cameras to track endangered species including the Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard, according to Amnesty International.
UN human rights experts said it was "hard to fathom how working to preserve the Iranian flora and fauna can possibly be linked to conducting espionage against Iranian interests", while a government committee concluded that there was no evidence to suggest they were spies.
But in October 2018, Tahbaz and three of his fellow conservationists were charged with "corruption on earth", which carries the death penalty. The charge was later changed to "co-operating with the hostile state of the US". Three others were charged with espionage, and a fourth was accused of acting against national security.
All eight denied the charges and Amnesty International said there was evidence that they had been subjected to torture in order to extract forced "confessions".
In November 2019, they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to 10 years and ordered to return allegedly "illicit income".
Human Rights Watch denounced what it said was an unfair trial, during which the defendants were apparently unable to see the full dossier of evidence against them.
The Court of Appeals reportedly upheld Tahbaz's convictions in February 2020.
UN human rights experts warned in January 2021 that Tahbaz's health had continuously deteriorated during his imprisonment and that he had been denied access to proper treatment.
In March 2022, then-UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Tahbaz had been released from Evin prison on furlough.
The announcement came on the same day that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow British national Anoosheh Ashoori were released by Iran and allowed to return to the UK.
However, Tahbaz was returned to Evin just two days later. The UK Foreign Office said the Iranians had told them it was so that he could be fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
He was not allowed to resume his furlough and subsequently went on hunger strike for nine days to protest against his continued detention.
His daughter Roxanne said in April 2022 that he had "made it very clear that he feels abandoned" by the UK government.
The Foreign Office said Iran "committed to releasing Morad from prison on an indefinite furlough", but had "failed to honour that commitment".
In August 2023, Tahbaz was taken out of Evin and moved to house arrest along with three other Americans - including Siamak Namazi and Emad Shargi - after the US and Iran agreed a prisoner exchange.
In return for allowing them and a fifth American already under home confinement to leave, the US will reportedly release five Iranians jailed there and allow Iran to access $6bn (£4.7bn) of assets frozen in South Korea.
Siamak Namazi was arrested in 2015 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges
Siamak Namazi, 51, worked as head of strategic planning at Dubai-based Crescent Petroleum.
He was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in October 2015, while his father Baquer, 86, was arrested in February 2016 after Iranian officials granted him permission to visit his son in prison.
That October, they were both sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Revolutionary Court for "co-operating with a foreign enemy state". An appeals court upheld their sentence in August 2017.
Their lawyer said they denied the charges against them. He also complained that they had been held in solitary confinement and denied access to legal representation, and had suffered health problems. Siamak is also alleged to have been tortured.
Baquer was released to house arrest on medical grounds in 2018, but his health continued to deteriorate. His sentence was commuted to time served in early 2020, but he was only allowed to leave Iran for medical treatment in October 2022.
In January 2023, Siamak went on a week-long hunger strike to protest against the failure of the US to free him and other dual nationals despite President Joe Biden's promise to make bringing them home a top priority.
Seven months later, Siamak was again released to house arrest in anticipation of a prisoner exchange agreed by the US and Iran.
His brother, Babak, said in response: "While this is a positive change, we will not rest until Siamak and others are back home; we continue to count the days until this can happen."
The Iranian-American businessman and his wife moved to Iran from the US in 2017.
Shargi, who is 58, was initially detained by the Revolutionary Guards in April 2018, when he was working in sales for Sarava, an Iranian venture capital fund. He was released on bail that December, when officials told him that a court had cleared him of spying charges that he had denied. However, authorities refused to return his passport.
In November 2020, Shargi was summoned by a Revolutionary Court and told that he had been convicted of espionage in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison, his family said. He was not imprisoned immediately and was released on bail ahead of an appeal.
In January 2021, Iran's judiciary spokesman said an unnamed "defendant" facing spying charges had been arrested as he attempted to leave the country while on bail. It came a week after a state-backed news agency reported that Shargi had been detained while trying to cross Iran's western border illegally.
His daughters wrote in the Washington Post in April 2021 that he was "trapped in terrible conditions" in prison and that he had only been allowed a couple of short, monitored phone calls.
In August 2023, Shargi was released to house arrest in anticipation of a prisoner exchange between the US and Iran.
His sister, Neda, said in a statement: "My family has faith in the work that President Biden and government officials have undertaken to bring our families home and hope to receive that news soon."
Ahmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death in October 2017
The 51-year-old specialist in emergency medicine was arrested in April 2016 while on a business trip from Sweden.
Amnesty International said Djalali was held at Evin prison by intelligence ministry officials for seven months, three of them in solitary confinement, before he was given access to a lawyer.
He alleged that he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment during that period, including threats to kill or otherwise harm his children, who live in Sweden, and his mother, who lives in Iran.
In October 2017, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted Djalali of "spreading corruption on Earth" and sentenced him to death. His lawyers said the court relied primarily on evidence obtained under duress and alleged that he was prosecuted solely because of his refusal to use his academic ties in European institutions to spy for Iran.
Two months later, Iranian state television also aired what it said was footage of Djalali confessing that he had spied on Iran's nuclear programme for Israel. It suggested he was responsible for identifying two Iranian nuclear scientists who were killed in bomb attacks in 2010.
In February 2018, Sweden confirmed that it had given Djalali citizenship and demanded that his death sentence not be carried out. He had previously been a permanent resident.
In November 2021, Djalali's wife, Vida Mehran-Nia, said he had been informed by prison authorities that he faced imminent execution. He spent five months in solitary confinement, awaiting execution, until April 2021, when he reportedly was moved to a multi-occupancy cell.
Just over a year later, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Djalali's death sentence was "final" and was "on the agenda" of authorities.
He also insisted that the case was not linked to the war crimes trial in Sweden of former Iranian judiciary official Hamid Nouri, who was sentenced to life in prison over what prosecutors said was his leading role in the mass executions of Iranian opposition supporters in 1988.
Djalali's wife and human rights groups have said Djalali is a "hostage" who Iran is threatening to execute in an attempt to negotiate a swap for Mr Nouri.
Nahid Taghavi was an advocate for women's rights in Iran
The 68-year-old retired architect, who is a German-Iranian dual national, was arrested at her apartment in Tehran in October 2020 and accused of "endangering security".
She was placed in solitary confinement at Evin prison and not given access to lawyers, German diplomats or members of her family, according to her daughter Mariam Claren.
Taghavi was repeatedly subjected to coercive questioning without the presence of lawyers, according to Amnesty International. Interrogators reportedly asked her about meeting people to discuss women's and labour rights, and possessing literature about those issues.
In August 2021, she was convicted by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran of "forming a group composed of more than two people with the purpose of disrupting national security" and "spreading propaganda against the system". She was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison.
Taghavi had denied the charges, the first of which was apparently related to a social media account about women's rights, and Amnesty said the trial was "grossly unfair".
Ms Claren wrote on Twitter that her mother "did not commit any crime. Unless freedom of speech, freedom of thought are illegal".
She has said her mother has been denied adequate healthcare by prison and prosecution authorities, despite doctors saying in September 2021 that she needed surgery on her spinal column.
In July 2022, Taghavi was granted urgent medical leave from prison for treatment for back and neck problems. She was sent back to Evin four months later.
A fellow inmate in the prison warned in June 2023 that Taghavi's life was "in danger" following a further 220 days in solitary confinement.
"The pain is so severe that it can be clearly seen on her face. She can barely get out of her bed," a message posted on human rights activist Narges Mohammadi's Instagram account said.
The 64-year-old researcher at Sciences-Po university in Paris is a specialist in social anthropology and the political anthropology of post-revolutionary Iran, and has written a number of books.
At the time of her arrest in Tehran in June 2019, she was examining the movement of Shia clerics between Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, and had spent time in the holy city of Qom.
Adelkhah was accused of espionage and other security-related offences.
She protested her innocence and after going on hunger strike, she was admitted to hospital for treatment for severe kidney damage.
Prosecutors dropped the espionage charge before her trial began at the Revolutionary Court in April 2020. The following month, the court sentenced Adelkhah to five years in prison for conspiring against national security and an additional year for propaganda against the establishment.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned the sentence and demanded her release.
In October 2020, due to what Sciences-Po called her "health circumstances", Adelkhah was released on bail and allowed to return to her home in Tehran.
However, Iran's judiciary announced in January 2022 that it had returned Adelkhah to prison, accusing her of "knowingly violating the limits of house arrest dozens of times". French President Emmanuel Macron called the decision "entirely arbitrary".
In February 2023, Adelkhah Adelkhah was released from Evin prison after three and a half years in detention.
However, Iranian authorities refused to return her identity papers, making it impossible for her to leave the country or resume her work as a researcher.
Jamshid Sharmahd with his wife (L) and daughter, Gazelle
Sharmahd, 68, who lived in the US, arrived in the United Arab Emirates in July 2020 and was awaiting a connecting flight to India when he disappeared. It is believed that he was kidnapped by Iranian agents in Dubai and then forcibly taken to Iran via Oman.
The following month, Iran's intelligence ministry announced that it had arrested Sharmahd following a "complex operation", without providing any details. It also published a video in which he appeared blindfolded and confessed to various crimes.
In February 2023, Iran's judiciary said Sharmahd had been sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran after being found guilty of "spreading corruption on Earth through planning and leading terror operations".
It alleged that he was the leader of a terrorist group known as Tondar and that he had "planned 23 terror attacks", of which "five were successful", including the 2008 bombing of a mosque in Shiraz in that killed 14 people.
Tondar - which means "thunder" in Persian - is another name of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran (KAI), a little-known US-based opposition group that seeks to restore the monarchy overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
According to Amnesty International, Sharmahd created a website to publish statements from the KAI, including claims of explosions inside Iran.
He also read out statements in radio and video broadcasts.
However, he denied his involvement in the attacks, saying he was only a spokesman, and rejected all accusations during his trial.
Amnesty said Sharmahd told his family that he had been tortured and subjected to other ill-treatment in detention, including by being held in prolonged solitary confinement.
He also told them that he had been denied adequate healthcare, with access to medications required for his Parkinson's disease delayed routinely.
In July, Sharmahd's daughter Gazelle told the BBC that he could be executed at any time.
"They're killing him softly in solitary confinement in this death cell. But even if he survives that, they're killing him by hanging him from a crane in public," she said.
The accountant was an adviser to the governor of Iran's central bank and was a member of the Iranian negotiating team for the country's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, in charge of financial issues.
He was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in August 2016 just before he was due to board a flight to Canada, and was accused of "selling the country's economic details to foreigners".
In May 2017, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted Dorri Esfahani of espionage charges, including "collaborating with the British secret service", and sentenced him to five years in prison.
That October an appeals court upheld Dorri Esfahani's sentence, despite then-Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi insisting that he was innocent.
Dorri Esfahani was due to complete his sentence in 2022, but there were no reports of his release.
Dalili is a retired Iranian merchant navy captain who is a US permanent resident.
He has been detained in Iran since April 2016, when he visited Tehran to attend his father's funeral. He was later convicted of "collaborating with a hostile state" and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In August 2023, his son, Darian, said he was not part of the prisoner exchange deal between the US and Iran.
"He feels betrayed. He is demoralized. He believes that the US would bring back anyone that they want to bring back," Darian told Reuters news agency.
A US state department spokesman declined to tell reporters why Dalili was not included, but did reveal he had not yet been declared "wrongfully detained" - a designation that would mean the department dedicated more resources to their case and assigned it to a presidential envoy.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41974185
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Daryll Rowe guilty of infecting men with HIV - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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After sex with some of the men, Daryll Rowe texted mocking messages, including "I have HIV LOL. Oops!"
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Sussex
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Darryll Rowe told one of his victims 'I got you. Burn, you have it'
A man has been convicted of trying to infect 10 men with HIV in a "campaign" to infect as many as possible.
Daryll Rowe infected five men he had unprotected sex with and sabotaged the condoms of another five in Brighton and Northumberland.
After sex with some of the men he texted mocking messages, including "I have HIV LOL. Oops!" and "I'm riddled".
During the trial hairdresser Rowe, 27, claimed to believe months of drinking his own urine cured him of the virus.
He was convicted at Lewes Crown Court of five counts of causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) and five of attempted GBH.
Daryll Rowe met his partners on dating app Grindr, jurors at Lewes Crown Court were told
During the six-week trial the prosecution described Rowe's actions as a "campaign" to infect as many men as possible over a four-month period starting in October 2015 across the Brighton area.
He had relations with eight men he met on dating app Grindr, before moving to Northumberland and having unprotected sex with another two men later in 2016.
Speaking after the verdict, Nigel Pilkington, deputy chief crown prosecutor in the South East, said he believed there "may well be more men out there" who had fallen victim to Rowe, of no fixed address.
Throughout the case Rowe was described as a "control freak" who would shift between being charming and "jealous".
Mr Pilkington said he was a "cruel and callous man" whose crimes were "akin to stabbing or shooting somebody".
Mr Pilkington added: "The absolute deliberate infection of other men by a man, is not something I've ever come across in 25 years as a prosecutor and I don't expect to ever come across a case like it again.
"This is a man who, after the event, having known what was he was doing, sent mocking and abusive texts to some of his victims. It must have been traumatic."
Deborah Gold, chief executive of the National Aids Trust (NAT), said Rowe's behaviour was "utterly exceptional and vanishingly rare".
She added that the majority of HIV transmissions are by people who are unaware they have the virus.
Speaking after the hearing, one of Rowe's victims, whose biological parents both had HIV and later died, said the news of his condition drove him to a suicide attempt.
"I was always so careful," he said.
"My dad was a junkie and she was a very young mother. I was always trying to run away from that lifestyle, That's why I always insisted on condoms."
He added it was a "reminder of my past".
"I feel it's come full-circle, and has made this my new life, which is very unfair," he added.
"[Rowe] called me over and over. He admitted to ripping the condom.
"He said, 'I got you. Burn, you have it' and he was laughing at me. There was menace in his voice, it was an insane conversation. It was horrific to hear. I was in a dark place.
"It's a violation. I could only describe it as feeling like you've been raped, not the physical side of it, but the mental side."
Rowe will be sentenced on 29 January.
Det Insp Andy Wolstenholme of Sussex Police said: "Daryll Rowe was consistent in lying to his victims about having HIV, he was persistent and aggressive in wanting unprotected sex in order to infect people, and when he didn't get what he wanted, he deliberately damaged condoms to achieve his aim.
At the end of the trial it emerged two dock officers were sacked after falling asleep while evidence was being given.
Loud snoring disturbed the hearing on 5 October and they were both removed from the proceedings.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-41928938
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California shooting: Schoolteachers ‘saved’ children from gunman - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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After four were shot dead in California, police praise school staff for saving "countless" lives.
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US & Canada
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Police say a number of students had to be medically evacuated from the school
A gunman who killed four people on Tuesday in rural California fired into an elementary school but was stopped from entering by teachers, police say.
Staff at Rancho Tehama Reserve School went into lockdown, securing school doors after hearing nearby gunshots.
Authorities praised the teachers' actions as "monumental" in saving "countless" lives.
Police confirmed one child was shot at the school after the gunman fired into it. Others were hurt by broken glass.
Police later confronted the gunman in a stolen vehicle, shooting and killing him. He was named locally as 43-year-old Kevin Neal.
It is believed the shooting spree began after a domestic row with the gunman's neighbours in Rancho Tehama, a rural community about 120 miles (195km) from Sacramento, on Tuesday morning.
Police said they believed he went on a "bizarre and murderous rampage" after the dispute escalated and he killed a neighbour.
Officials confirmed the gunman had "prior contacts with law enforcement".
The Tehama district attorney told the Sacramento Bee he was being prosecuted on charges relating to a stabbing and assault in January in an incident involving two of his neighbours.
He had also reportedly been the subject of a domestic violence call on the eve of the gun spree.
A semi-automatic rifle and two handguns were recovered from one of the crime scenes, police said. At least 10 people were injured in the shootings at multiple locations.
Police said he chose most of the victims at random, and reportedly shot into the school but became frustrated after the teachers locked the doors and left after six minutes.
It is believed the school was alerted after a mother was shot at in her car while driving her children to school. She was reportedly seriously wounded but not killed.
The child who was shot has undergone surgery after being struck in the leg and chest, reports say. Other children at the school were reportedly injured by broken glass, and some were evacuated from the school and transported to hospital by helicopter.
Police examine a vehicle that was involved in the string of shootings in Rancho Tehama
"This individual shooter was bent on engaging and killing people at random. I have to say this incident, as tragic and as bad as it is, could have been so much worse," Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said.
Brian Flint said his neighbour "has been shooting a lot of bullets lately, hundreds of rounds, large magazines".
"We made it aware [to police] that this guy is crazy and he's been threatening us," he told the newspaper.
The rampage is believed to have began at about 08:00 locally
The Associated Press spoke to a woman who identified herself as Neal's mother, who said he had told her: "I'm on a cliff and there's nowhere to go."
She said Neal was in a long-running dispute with neighbours who he believed were cooking methamphetamine.
She added that Neal, who was raised in North Carolina, had been working as a cannabis farmer and had recently married his longtime girlfriend.
His sister, Sheridan Orr, told the Associated Press that she believed her brother was addicted to drugs, and had struggled with mental illness and a violent temper.
"We're stunned and we're appalled that this is a person who has no business with firearms whatsoever," Ms Orr said.
She added that she hopes this attack will "make people realise there must be some gates on people like this from getting guns".
"This is the same story we're hearing more and more."
Police have refused to officially confirm the gunman's identity until all his next-of-kin are notified.
US President Donald Trump was criticised online after he tweeted condolences to the wrong mass shooting.
"May God be with the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas," a post on his account said on Tuesday night, though that shooting happened on 5 November.
The tweet was deleted by Wednesday morning.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41991397
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2017 has been a 'record year' for sightings of the Loch Ness monster - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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There have been eight "official sightings" in the Scottish loch, the most recorded since 1996.
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Newsbeat
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The Loch Ness monster has had a busy 2017, with more "official" sightings than any other year this century.
Admittedly, the number of official sightings logged is eight, but that's a lot for a mythical beast.
The eighth sighting is a photo of a strange "fin" in the water, taken by Dr Jo Knight from Lancaster University, after a recent visit to the loch.
She had taken her nine-year-old son to visit Loch Ness because of his interest in the monster.
"My son is interested in all sorts of 'possible' creatures like yetis and Tasmanian tigers," Jo tells Newsbeat.
"Scotland is slightly easier to get to than the places he wanted to go to look for yetis."
But she doesn't think they spotted a pre-historic animal.
"There aren't enough fish available for a large creature to be eating," she says.
"However, there is a possibility there might be some kind of eel or sturgeon which is causing the sightings, that's maybe grown bigger than they usually do.
"I think there's some kind of creature but possibly not a monster."
This famous 1924 "photo" of the Loch Ness monster was revealed as a hoax by one of the people who staged it
A woman on her honeymoon in October spotted a creature moving in the water, while a group of friends holidaying in August spotted "something huge" in the water which apparently "arched out of the water".
There were three sightings in June, one in May and one in April which were all deemed "official" sightings.
The myth of the Loch Ness Monster has captured the imagination for decades
These sightings, and many more, are recorded by Gary Campbell who assesses and logs sightings of the Loch Ness monster.
"This is the most we have had this century," he told The Express newspaper this week.
He says that his team was "50/50" on the photo taken by Dr Knight, but they decided to give her snap "the benefit of the doubt".
"In recent years the most sightings in a year we have had is 17 - and that was in 1996.
"Before that the 1960s and 1930s were the times that had most sightings - sometimes more than 20 in a year."
A 9m model of the Loch Ness Monster built in 1969 for a Sherlock Holmes movie was found almost 50 years after it sank in the loch last year.
Loch Ness expert Adrian Shine said the shape, measurements and location pointed to the object being the prop.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/articles/41997932
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UK government funds Matthew Herbert's Brexit Big Band - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Musician Matthew Herbert hopes to tour Europe to heal "huge divisions" caused by Brexit - helped by a UK government grant.
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UK Politics
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Matthew Herbert destroyed some instruments on BBC Radio 3's Between the Ears
A musician who wants to tour Europe to heal the "huge divisions" caused by Brexit has been given a grant by the UK Department for International Trade.
Matthew Herbert said he wanted to correct the impression created by Leave campaigners that the UK was "retreating into an absurd little enclave".
He said he wanted to get the message out: "We are still listening, we want to be friends, we want to collaborate."
Herbert has also set Article 50 to music and plans Brexit-themed concerts.
The experimental musician, who also gets funding from the British Council, is one of 12 artists sharing £181,944 grant money from the department headed by Liam Fox, who was one of the key campaigners for a Leave vote in the UK's 2016 EU referendum.
So far the department - which aims to promote international trade and is seeking to agree free trade agreements after Brexit - has handed out £2.4m to support British acts in their bid to "become the next Adele or Ed Sheeran".
As well as Matthew Herbert, the twice Mercury prize-nominated Ghostpoet and Public Service Broadcasting have also been named as the latest recipients of the grants under the Music Export Growth Scheme, although the department would not say how much each has received.
Herbert, who was last year commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to deconstruct Beethoven - see the tweet below for how he did it - is known for his use of sampled sounds. On one previous album he chronicled the life cycle of a pig through the noises it made.
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In a recent performance at The Barbican, in London, the percussion for one song was provided by ripping up copies of the Daily Mail, according to the Politico website.
He told the website: "I want to create something that's the opposite of Brexit - about collaboration, about creativity, about love rather than hate."
He launched his Brexit Big Band project earlier this year with a website that allows anyone to upload three seconds of Brexit-themed noise to form part of a "sonic petition".
He has also set Article 50, the treaty clause taking Britain out of the EU, to music and plans a series of Brexit-themed concerts and workshops culminating in the release of an album at the same moment Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.
Writing on the Brexit Big Band website, Herbert said: "The message from parts of the Brexit campaign were that as a nation we are better off alone.
"I refute that idea entirely and wanted to create a project that embodies the idea of collaboration from start to finish."
Ghostpoet is among the 12 artists to be awarded grant money
Grants under the Music Export Growth Scheme are decided by a panel of music industry executives.
Each artist receives least £5,000, according to the criteria set out by the BPI, which administers the scheme.
Applications are judged on their individual merits, "not political views", the department says, and must "show traction in the UK and their target market as well as having a robust plan for making a success of the international activity".
Trade and export minister Baroness Fairhead, a former chair of the BBC Trust, said: "The UK is a world leader in music exports and recognised for its exceptional home-grown talent around the globe.
"Through the music exports scheme, we help to nurture the talent of the future to explore new global markets."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41996872
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Brexit: Ministers see off early EU Withdrawal Bill challenges - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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MPs back ministers on the first day of EU Withdrawal Bill scrutiny, as some Tories signal future rebellions.
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UK Politics
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Ministers have seen off challenges to their authority on the first of eight days of scrutiny of a key Brexit bill.
MPs backed plans to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act, which will end the supremacy of EU law in the UK, by 318 votes to 68.
Calls for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to have a veto over the process were rejected by 318 votes to 52.
But several Tories criticised plans to specify an exact date for Brexit and hinted they will rebel at a later date.
The Daily Telegraph reported that up to 15 Conservative MPs could join forces with Labour on the issue when it is voted on next month, threatening defeat for the government.
The MPs, including a number of former cabinet ministers, are angry at a government plan to enshrine in law the Brexit date and time - 23:00 GMT on 29 March 2019 - as announced by Theresa May last Friday.
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The newspaper described the group of Tories as "Brexit mutineers", but one of those named - ex-business minister Anna Soubry - told MPs the front page was a "blatant piece of bullying that goes to the very heart of democracy".
She said she regarded her inclusion as a badge of honour and insisted "none of those people named want to delay or thwart Brexit" but rather sought "a good Brexit that works for everybody in our country".
Responding to the Telegraph story, Brexit minister Steve Baker said he regretted "media attempts to divide the Conservative Party".
He tweeted: "My parliamentary colleagues have sincere suggestions to improve the bill which we are working through and I respect them for that.
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Although the issue was not formally debated on Tuesday, it dominated the early skirmishes in the Commons as MPs began considering the EU Withdrawal Bill in depth for the first time.
Former Conservative Attorney General Dominic Grieve said he could not support the "mad" proposal which he said would "fetter" the government's hands if the negotiations dragged on longer than expected and would prevent any extension to the talks to get a deal in both sides' interests.
And former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke signalled he would be opposing the government when the matter came to a vote, telling MPs that - as a pro-European - "he was the rebel now" and Eurosceptics in his party now represented the "orthodoxy" within his party.
Under current EU laws, the UK will leave two years to the day after it triggered Article 50, which was on March 29 2017, unless the UK and all 27 other EU members agree to an extension.
Labour said the amendment was therefore a "desperate gimmick" that was "about party management not the national interest", arguing it increased the chance of the UK crashing out of the bloc without an agreement.
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Ministers said being "crystal clear" about the precise moment of the UK's departure would maximise certainty for businesses and citizens and prevent the risk of "legal chaos".
The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is a crucial piece of legislation paving the way for the UK's withdrawal by essentially copying all EU law into UK law.
After a marathon eight-hour session, the government also won three votes on clauses and amendments relating to how British courts will interpret retained EU law after the UK leaves and the role of the European Court of Justice during a transition period expected to last about two years.
Ministers did make one concession by agreeing to make a statement to the Commons about how compatible any new Brexit legislation is with existing equalities laws, before they introduce that legislation.
Debate will resume on Wednesday, with MPs expected to consider Labour's calls for guarantees on workers' rights and the environment.
MPs have tabled more than 470 amendments - running to 186 pages - for changes they want to see before the bill is passed into law by both the Commons and the Lords.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What's going on with the EU Withdrawal Bill?
Brexit Secretary David Davis, who did not speak in Tuesday's debate, earlier told City executives that he hoped to get agreement on a time-limited Brexit implementation phase "very early next year".
He told an audience at the Swiss investment bank UBS that he envisaged a new partnership with the EU that protects the mobility of workers and professionals across the continent.
The BBC's business editor Simon Jack said his assurances may come too late for some companies which have already begun to trigger their contingency plans.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41989084
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Guns kill 1,300 US children every year, study finds - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Boys and African-American children were most often the victims, researchers found.
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US & Canada
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Anti-gun violence demonstrators outside the the National Rifle Association in Washington DC
About 1,300 US children under the age of 17 die from gun-related injuries per year, a government study has found.
Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also found that guns seriously wounded about 5,800 children each year.
Boys accounted for 82% of all child firearm deaths while black children were 10 times more likely to be killed by a gun, according to the study.
More than half of these deaths were homicides while 38% were ruled suicide.
The study, published in Pediatrics on Monday, also found 6% of firearm-related deaths were fatalities from accidental gun injuries.
"Firearm injuries are a leading cause of death among US children aged one to 17 years and contribute substantially each year to premature death, illness and disability of children," said CDC's Katherine Fowler, who led the study.
"About 19 children a day die or are medically treated in an emergency department for a gunshot wound in the US," she told Reuters.
CDC researchers examined national data in what they describe as "the most comprehensive examination of current firearm-related deaths and injuries among children in the United States to date".
The study found a 60% increase in gun suicides from 2007-15, according an analysis of national injury records.
Suicide was most likely to occur when children were dealing with stressful circumstances or relationship problems with a boyfriend, girlfriend or family member, the study revealed.
White children and Native American children were four to five times more likely to die by firearm suicide.
Accidental gun deaths appeared to happen most frequently among children playing with firearms.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mr Obama told the BBC that gun control was his biggest frustration
The study comes as a four-year-old Pennsylvania boy shot himself in the face and died on Sunday.
Police in Monroe County have not charged anyone in the boy's death.
Lexie Antonini, the boy's 21-year-old mother and volunteer firefighter, said she didn't "know how to feel".
"I never thought I would see the day i would get the news my only son has passed away...my poor baby," she wrote in a Facebook post.
"I don't know how to feel. I don't know what to do. I lost my everything,"
The CDC analysis also looked at deaths on a state level and found District of Columbia and Louisiana to have the highest rates of child firearm deaths.
Delaware, Hawaii, Maine and New Hampshire had 20 or fewer child gun-related deaths, according to the study.
Researchers also pointed out that children were rarely injured or killed by guns in other developed countries.
In fact, more than 90% of all children ages 14 and up who were killed by guns in high-income countries resided in the US.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40336048
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Indulgent grandparents 'bad for children's health' - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Regular "treating" and over-feeding is a common issue, according to a review of parents' opinions.
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Health
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Indulgent grandparents may be having an adverse impact on their grandchildren's health, say researchers.
The University of Glasgow study, published in PLOS One journal, suggests grandparents are often inclined to treat and overfeed children.
The study also found some were smoking in front of their grandchildren and not giving them sufficient exercise.
But Maureen Lipman, a grandmother of two, said: "The grandparents' job is always definitely to indulge."
The researchers looked at 56 studies with data from 18 countries, including the UK, US, China and Japan.
The report focused on the potential influence of grandparents who were significant - but not primary - caregivers in a child's early years.
The review considered three key areas of influence:
In terms of both diet and weight, the report concluded that grandparents' behaviour had an adverse effect.
Grandparents were characterised by parents as "indulgent" and "misinformed", and accused of using food as an emotional tool.
Many studies found they were inclined to feed grandchildren high-sugar or high-fat foods - often in the guise of a treat.
Parents felt unable to interfere because they were reliant on grandparents helping them out.
The study also found that grandchildren were perceived to be getting too little exercise while under the care of their grandparents.
Physical activity levels appeared to be related to whether grandparents were active themselves, or whether there was appropriate space where children could be active.
But actress Maureen Lipman said there was a big difference between grandparents who looked after their grandchildren everyday compared to those who see them at the weekends.
"If you're seeing them once a week you're going to overindulge but if you work with them every day, you're going to treat them as your own children," she said.
She keeps turkey dinosaurs in the freezer for her grandchildren Ava and Sacha and likes giving them ice cream with jelly.
"I try with the vegetables and fail," she said. "You can't train other people's children."
"The grandparents' job is kind of to be in cahoots with the grandchildren against the parents."
She said being a mother could be "quite challenging", but being a grandmother was "just pure pleasure".
Ms Lipman said: "It's a walking miracle that you've brought something into the world that's brought something into the world."
She's also conscious of an "unspoken rivalry".
"There are two sets of grandparents - and you don't want to be the one that isn't giving them the nice piece of cake."
In the study, smoking around the children, even when they had been asked not to, became an area of conflict between grandparents and parents.
Conversely, in certain cases, the birth of a grandchild became a catalyst to a grandparent giving up smoking - or changing their habits.
Lead researcher Dr Stephanie Chambers said: "From the studies we looked at, it appears that parents often find it difficult to discuss the issues of passive smoking and over-treating grandchildren.
"While the results of this review are clear that behaviour such as exposure to smoking and regularly treating children increases cancer risks as children grow into adulthood, it is also clear from the evidence that these risks are unintentional.
"Given that many parents now rely on grandparents for care, the mixed messages about health that children might be getting is perhaps an important discussion that needs to be had."
According to Grandparents Plus, grandparents are "the largest provider of informal childcare" in the UK and they need to be "better recognised and supported".
The charity's chief executive, Lucy Peake, said: "Grandparents want the best for their grandchildren, and the more they're informed and enabled to play a positive role in their grandchildren's lives the better things will be.
"We know that children benefit enormously from having close relationships with their grandparents right through childhood into adolescence.
"What this study shows is that the role they're playing in children's lives needs to be better recognised and supported.
"We'd like to see more focus on ensuring that information available to parents about children's health reaches grandparents too."
Prof Linda Bauld, from Cancer Research UK, which part-funded the study, said: "With both smoking and obesity being the two biggest preventable causes of cancer in the UK, it's important for the whole family to work together.
"If healthy habits begin early in life, it's much easier to continue them as an adult."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41981549
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How UK-Zimbabwe relations went sour - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The relationship between a former imperial power and its ex-colony is a complex one, says our diplomatic correspondent.
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UK
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Tony Blair pulled out of talks to fund Robert Mugabe's controversial land reforms in 1997
Britain's relationship with Zimbabwe has always been complex.
A former imperial power can feel torn between a responsibility towards its ex-colony and a reluctance to interfere in what is now an independent state. And a freshly minted nation can feel resentment towards its former ruler while also hoping to maintain longstanding trade and cultural links.
Thus it has been for London and Harare.
Take, for example, President Mugabe. For years, he has railed against Britain and its political leaders as they opposed his disastrous land reforms, his persecution of white farmers and his calamitous management of Zimbabwe's economy.
But Mr Mugabe is also an Anglophile who loves cricket, the Royal Family and Savile Row suits.
He developed a surprising friendship with Lord Soames, the last British governor of what was then Rhodesia, whose son, Nicholas, the Conservative MP, he saw only a few weeks ago.
And when Mr Mugabe's cabinet colleagues were celebrating the fall of Margaret Thatcher in 1990, he rebuked them, reportedly saying: "Who organised our independence? Let me tell you - if it hadn't been for Mrs Thatcher none of you would be here today. I'm sorry she's gone."
Zimbabwe began life as a colony of the British South African Company in the late 19th Century, run by the British empire-builder, Cecil Rhodes.
In the 1920s, Southern Rhodesia, as it was then known, was annexed by the United Kingdom but with an element of self-government. The white minority ruled for decades, but were increasingly challenged by nationalist campaigners.
Eventually, in 1965, the government led by Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence from Britain. UDI, as it was known, prompted international outrage and sanctions.
Years of guerrilla warfare in the bush led to pressure for a negotiated settlement in Rhodesia, and, in 1979, Britain hosted all-party talks at Lancaster House in London. And from this process emerged a peace agreement, a new constitution and a former guerrilla fighter and leader called Robert Mugabe - the first prime minister of a newly independent Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe has said he trusted Margaret Thatcher - in contrast to Tony Blair
Even then, Britain's relations with Mr Mugabe were ambiguous.
Politicians and diplomats at the time placed a huge amount of faith in him as exactly the kind of strong, pro-western leader that Zimbabwe would need to embed its new-found independence and democracy. But he nevertheless was still able to wind them up.
Lord Carrington, Britain's foreign secretary who chaired the Lancaster House talks, described him as "devious and clever, he was the archetypal cold fish". On a dull moment in the talks, Lord Carrington rejoiced with glee when he discovered that Mugabe reads backwards as "E ba gum".
Lord Hurd, another British foreign secretary, told The Africa Report that: "Mugabe was one of those people the British Empire created who specialised in knowing how to twist the British government's tail. He was well-trained in the art of annoying the British if he needed to. He knew our ways."
At first, Britain was hopeful about Zimbabwe's prospects. And normal relations were maintained.
The Princess of Wales visited Mr Mugabe in Harare in 1993. The England cricket team, led by Michael Atherton, played Zimbabwe in Harare in 1996.
But over the decades of Mr Mugabe's rule, as the country slipped into greater autocracy and economic decline, relations deteriorated.
In 1997, Tony Blair's government pulled out of talks to fund Mr Mugabe's controversial land reforms. The Zimbabwean president accused the British of meddling in his country's affairs by funding his political opponents.
Britain began to withdraw development aid and sanctions were imposed on the president and his inner circle.
Campaigners such as Peter Tatchell would protest regularly against Mr Mugabe's homophobia outside the hotel in St James' where the president stayed on his frequent visits to London.
Yet through all this, Mr Mugabe still hoped Britain might help revive his country's ailing economy. As he told a crowd a few years ago when he was celebrating his 90th birthday: "The British, we don't hate you, we only love our country better."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42003217
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Zimbabwe: Army chief accused of 'treasonable conduct' - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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General Chiwenga had said the army could intervene to halt a purge within the governing party.
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Africa
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Zimbabwe's ruling party has accused the country's army chief of "treasonable conduct" after he warned of a possible military intervention in politics.
General Constantino Chiwenga had challenged President Robert Mugabe after he sacked the vice-president.
Gen Chiwenga said the army was prepared to act to end purges within Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.
The party said the general's comments were "calculated to disturb national peace... [and] incite insurrection".
In a statement, the party said it would never succumb to military threats, and that it "reaffirms the primacy of politics over the gun".
The statement was signed by SK Moyo, the information secretary, on party letterheaded paper.
The US State Department urged all parties in Zimbabwe to resolve disputes "calmly and peacefully" and said it was "closely monitoring" the situation.
Mr Mnangagwa had previously been seen as an heir to the 93-year-old president, but First Lady Grace Mugabe is now the clear front-runner.
On Tuesday, BBC correspondents reported that a few armoured vehicles had been seen on a main public road outside the capital city, Harare, having left one of the country's main military barracks, Inkomo.
It is not clear where they were heading but they were not seen on the streets of the city itself. One of the vehicles had broken down on the side of the road.
It was not clear where the armoured vehicles near Harare were headed
The Zimbabwean ambassador to South Africa, Isaac Moyo, told Reuters that the government was "intact" and dismissed any talk of a possible coup as "just social media claims".
Gen Chiwenga's warning of possible military intervention came on Monday at a news conference at the army's headquarters.
He said the "purging" within Zanu-PF was "clearly targeting members of the party with a liberation background", referring to the country's struggle for independence.
"We must remind those behind the current treacherous shenanigans that when it comes to matters of protecting our revolution, the military will not hesitate to step in," he said.
Mr Mnangagwa is one such veteran of the 1970s war which led to independence.
Grace Mugabe is seen as a potential successor to her elderly husband
But the leader of Zanu-PF's youth wing, Kudzai Chipanga, said the general did not have the full support of the entire military.
"We will not sit and fold hands while threats are made against a legitimately-elected government," he warned.
The youth wing supports President Mugabe's wife, Grace, as his successor - something which the former vice president had opposed.
Mr Mnangagwa had told Mr Mugabe that Zanu-PF is "not personal property for you and your wife to do as you please" before he was forced into exile.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41991425
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Extreme weather 'could kill up to 152,000 a year' in Europe by 2100 - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Weather-related deaths could surge by 2100 if nothing is done to curb climate change, scientists say.
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Europe
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Heat waves will cause most weather-related deaths if measures are not taken, the study says
Extreme weather could kill up to 152,000 people yearly in Europe by 2100 if nothing is done to curb the effects of climate change, scientists say.
The number is 50 times more deaths than reported now, the study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal said.
Heat waves would cause 99% of all weather-related deaths, it added, with southern Europe being worst affected.
Experts said the findings were worrying but some warned the projections could be overestimated.
If nothing is done to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to improve policies to reduce the impact against extreme weather events, the study by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre says:
The research analysed the effects of the seven most dangerous types of weather-related events - heat waves, cold snaps, wildfires, droughts, river and coastal floods and windstorms - in the 28 EU countries as well as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
The team looked at disaster records from 1981 to 2010 to estimate population vulnerability, and combined this information with predictions of how climate change might progress and how populations might increase and migrate.
They assumed a rate of greenhouse gas emissions that would lead to average global warming of 3C (5.4F) by the end of the century from levels in 1990, a pessimistic forecast well above targets set by the Paris Agreement on tackling climate change.
Low levels of the Po River near Pavia in northern Italy
"Climate change is one of the biggest global threats to human health of the 21st century, and its peril to society will be increasingly connected to weather-driven hazards," said Giovanni Forzieri, one of the authors of the study.
"Unless global warming is curbed as a matter of urgency and appropriate measures are taken, about 350 million Europeans could be exposed to harmful climate extremes on an annual basis by the end of the century."
Flooding near the Bavarian village of Deggendorf in southern Germany in 2013
Fire rages through an area of woodland in Artigues in south-eastern France
On Friday, the United States issued its first written notification to the UN of its intention to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
US President Donald Trump drew international condemnation in June when he first announced his decision, saying the deal would cost millions of American jobs.
The Paris Agreement saw nearly 200 countries agree to keep warming "well below" the level of 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times and "endeavour to limit" them even more, to 1.5C
Experts from South Korea's Seoul National University warned that the study's results "could be overestimated".
"People are known to adapt and become less vulnerable than previously to extreme weather conditions because of advances in medical technology, air conditioning, and thermal insulation in houses," they wrote in a comment piece published in the same journal.
Paul Wilkinson, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was not involved in the study, said the findings were "yet another reminder of the exposures to extreme weather and possible human impacts that might occur if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated.
"It adds further weight to the powerful argument for accelerating mitigation actions to protect population health."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40835663
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Zimbabwe's military seizes state TV broadcaster - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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The army took over the national broadcaster, but denied it was staging a coup.
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The army took over the national broadcaster, but denied it was staging a coup.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41993463
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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Husband fears for her health - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband says she has found lumps in her breasts and is close to breakdown.
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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. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband said "she was just a mum on holiday"
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman being held in Iran, has seen a specialist after finding lumps in her breasts, her husband has said.
Richard Ratcliffe also expressed concern that his wife appeared to be "on the verge of a nervous breakdown".
She was arrested during a visit to Iran in April 2016, accused of trying to overthrow the regime, which she denies.
Cabinet ministers Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have been accused of bungling the UK's handling of the case.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's family have issued a statement about her condition, saying she had been "complaining of sharp stabbing pains in her breasts" for more than a year.
They said she had been given a mammogram by the prison's gynaecologist, which gave an inconclusive result.
After insisting on seeing an outside specialist, the family said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was then taken to hospital for an ultrasound on Saturday.
They said although the doctor thought the lumps were likely to be benign, he did note her family having a history of breast cancer.
She was given anti-inflammatory medication and vitamin pills and was to be seen by the specialist again next week to see whether there was any improvement or whether she might need surgery, the family said.
The full details of the allegations against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe have never been made fully public.
She maintains the purpose of her trip to Iran was to visit family and for her daughter to meet her grandparents but speaking in Westminster on 1 November, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson appeared to contradict her account when he wrongly said she had been training journalists there.
Four days later, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was recalled to court in Iran and his remark cited as evidence against her, prompting fears her five-year sentence could be extended.
However, her family say there have been no developments on new charges against her since her court appearance. Her lawyer also says he has not been contacted by the Iranian judiciary.
In the statement her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, describes his earlier phone conversation with Mr Johnson and says the minister is trying to find time to meet him "in the next few days".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Michael Gove says Richard Ratcliffe was the person who would know what his wife was doing in Iran
It came after Environment Secretary Michael Gove told the BBC he did not know what Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been doing in Iran when she was arrested.
He later said he would "take her husband's assurance" that she was on holiday.
Amid calls for his resignation over the matter, the foreign secretary earlier this week clarified that the UK government had "no doubt" that a holiday was the sole purpose of her visit to Iran.
Mr Ratcliffe said his wife had been angered by Mr Johnson's initial remarks and Iranian media coverage of her case.
But he restated his belief that it was not in Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's interests for anyone to resign.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41963159
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The 'human flying without wings' - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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The man hoping to turn Flyboarding into a full-time job after finishing second in his first competition.
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Flyboarder James Prestwood is able to soar above the water with the aid of a jet ski and a lengthy hose.
He recently finished second in his first Flyboarding competition in Italy and now he's hoping to turn his hobby into a full-time job.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41989338
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Greggs sorry for swapping Jesus for sausage roll in nativity scene - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The bakery firm apologises for an image promoting an advent calendar which upset some Christians.
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Newsbeat
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Greggs the bakers has apologised for swapping Jesus for a sausage roll in a promotional image for its advent calendar.
It shows a nativity scene with three wise men gathered around a pastry instead of Christ.
Christian Twitter users said the advert was disrespectful to their religion.
"I'm glad Christians kicked off and Greggs apologised," wrote one Twitter user. "No other religion would stand for that nonsense."
Other people joined in calls for organisations to "respect all faiths equally".
Greggs has apologised for the image, saying it hadn't planned to upset anyone.
"We're really sorry to have caused any offence, this was never our intention," the firm said in a statement.
The image was issued to promote a £24 advent calendar which has vouchers to spend in its stores behind each door.
The Greggs advent calendar celebrates 24 days of pasties, pies and other baked goods
The UK Evangelical Alliance tell Newsbeat it is "not too outraged" about the Greggs nativity scene, but that it does raise issues of companies using the Bible story to sell products.
"Every year some company creates a Christmas controversy for commercial gain. It seems to get earlier each year," says Daniel Webster, spokesperson for the organisation.
He says Jesus is what should be the focus of Christmas celebrations, not advent calendars and marketing to sell sausage rolls.
"That's the scandal that should be talked about this Christmas, not processed outrage to sell processed food."
Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/articles/41997936
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Gay Times editor suspended over offensive tweets - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Josh Rivers' old tweets have surfaced, which have been called transphobic, sexist and anti-Semitic.
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Entertainment & Arts
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The newly appointed Gay Times editor Josh Rivers has been suspended over offensive tweets he posted in the past.
The tweets, some of which have now been deleted, have been described as racist, transphobic, homophobic and anti-Semitic.
Mr Rivers, who has since apologised, also made remarks about obese people and children with disabilities.
The magazine said the tweets "do not align with the values of Gay Times, or any of our employees".
It added: "Josh has been suspended with immediate effect while we investigate the facts. Appropriate action will be taken in due course."
Rivers was appointed editor in October. In a statement he said: "I have long taken steps to address the issues that prevented me from treating people with the respect and kindness I value so dearly now.
"It is because of my past and my own awakening that I've since pivoted everything in my life towards supporting and empowering our community."
He expressed sadness that "the damage I caused before has now resurfaced to cause more pain".
Benjamin Cohen, Chief Executive of LGBT news organisation PinkNews, told the BBC: "I am frankly appalled at the litany of offensive Twitter posts that Josh Rivers made over a number of years.
"It is beyond surprising that the level of inappropriate and hurtful comments were not uncovered by Gay Times during the recruitment process for the appointment of the key role of editor.
"As someone who for many years wrote a column for Gay Times, I'm saddened that what was a great institution has had its brand so recklessly damaged by someone who was in office for just a few weeks."
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-42000700
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Zimbabwe: Did Robert Mugabe finally go too far? - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Zimbabwe's military could force President Mugabe to resign - but they won't want to humiliate him.
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Africa
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President Mugabe's ties to the military date from the liberation struggle
Zimbabwe's military says its actions do not amount to a takeover. It still refers to Robert Mugabe as the commander-in-chief of the country's defence forces. But practically speaking, Mr Mugabe is not in charge if his forces can step in to usurp his authority.
This is not a coup d'état in name, but it appears to be in action.
The military takeover of the national broadcaster, the presence of troops on the streets and major access points, and even forced entry into the presidential palace are traits of a military takeover - at least as we have seen them in Africa.
One thing that is lacking is that the constitution has not been suspended.
The cementing of democracy across Africa has led to a general regional and continent-wide aversion to violent takeovers of government.
Even in the past, coup-stagers often promised a quick handover to civilian government through elections or a negotiated transition.
The military says it has not taken control of the country
So far in Zimbabwe, the military is not showing any intention of assuming a governing role.
However, it has someone it would prefer to do that. Emmerson Mnangagwa, the recently sacked vice-president, is held in high regard in Zimbabwean military circles.
He was involved in the struggle for independence, and in 1980 created the Zimbabwe National Army by fusing the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (Zipra) and Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla) with the remnants of the former Rhodesian security forces.
He was seen as the natural successor for the top office.
President Mugabe sacked Mr Mnangagwa last week at the prompting of the First Lady Grace Mugabe, who has political aspirations and has publicly opposed the former vice president, but does not have support within a military where the liberation legacy is held in high esteem.
The top military officials were part of the liberation struggle, like their comrade and president Mr Mugabe, so they have supported his government over the years because he has served their interests.
They did not act this way in 2014, when Mr Mugabe sacked his previous Vice President Joice Mujuru, a former independence fighter, in a similar power struggle.
This time though, there is a sense the president might have gone too far.
Gen Chiwenga said that the military would not allow the purging of leaders with a liberation background from the governing party
Earlier this week, the commander of Zimbabwe's Defence Forces, General Constantino Chiwenga, warned the Zanu-PF governing party to stop the purge against independence war veterans.
Following his dismissal and escape to South Africa, Mr Mnangagwa promised to return to regain control of the ruling party from the Mugabes.
This suggested his confidence in the support he had from the military.
So the next step would be to negotiate his return ahead of the party congress in December, where he could be affirmed as the president's successor.
At worst, the military will force Mr Mugabe to resign - but they will not want to humiliate him further because of the history they share.
They will also extend the courtesy to Grace Mugabe, in spite of her recent actions.
Prior suggestions that the armed forces were divided have not been revealed so far this week.
The rise of an opposing faction would probably be bloody, and not something Zimbabweans would like to see, regardless of how tough life has been in recent years.
The end of the Mugabe era would be a relief to many, but Mr Mnangagwa is not necessarily popular in all parts of the country.
Under his tenure as security minister in the early 1980s, government forces crushed a rebellion in the Midlands and Matebeleland province, and allegedly killed thousands of civilians.
There is still bitter resentment among people from the affected regions.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41995751
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UK cyber-defence chief accuses Russia of hack attacks - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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Russia is accused of having attacked Britain's media, telecommunications and energy sectors.
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Technology
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The National Cyber Security Centre said the UK's energy sector had been targeted
One of the UK's cyber-defence chiefs has accused Russia of having attacked Britain's media, telecommunications and energy sectors over the past year.
Ciaran Martin, chief executive of GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), added that Russia was "seeking to undermine the international system".
His comments were made at an event organised by the Times newspaper.
Ahead of the speech, the paper reported that one of the attacks had targeted the UK's power supply on election day.
The Russian Embassy in London said it was concerned the assertions were misleading.
The NCSC was established about a year ago. Last month, it revealed that it had already classed a total of 590 attacks - from a variety of perpetrators - as being "significant", and that more than 30 incidents had been judged serious enough to require a cross-government response.
Mr Martin's accusations follow Prime Minister Theresa May's own claim that Russia had "mounted a sustained campaign of cyber-espionage and disruption".
The NCSC chief referenced this in his own speech.
"The prime minister made the point on Monday night - international order as we know it is in danger of being eroded," he said.
"This is clearly a cause for concern and the NCSC is actively engaging with international partners, industry and civil society to tackle this threat."
However, Russia has suggested the accusations are "non-transparent and biased".
"We would be interested in finding out the details and seeing the original findings on which the statements are based," the country's London embassy said.
"It would be most unfortunate to see [Britain] informed by wrong intelligence."
The London-based National Cyber Security Centre was launched in October 2016
To coincide with its event, the Times also published details of a new study into how Russia used Twitter to influence 2016's Brexit referendum.
The research indicates that more than 156,000 Russia-based accounts - many of them automated bots - mentioned #Brexit in original posts or retweets in the days surrounding the vote.
Many were in favour of the UK leaving the European Union, but a minority were pro-Remain. The academics involved believed the posts were seen hundreds of millions of times.
One of the researchers told the BBC that social media was providing Russia with a relatively cheap way to spread its propaganda.
"Ukraine experienced [a similar] information war in 2014 - and if it worked in Ukraine it can also work in Western democracies," said Prof Sasha Talavera from Swansea University.
"One can use it to split society and marginalise groups. Social media nowadays is a powerful tool."
He added that some form of regulation of the large social media firms might now be required.
The Guardian reports details of a separate University of Edinburgh study that also presents evidence of Russia using Twitter to sway opinion in the lead-up to the Brexit vote.
The Kremlin has previously denied trying to meddle in the referendum.
But the chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Damian Collins, said he now wanted Twitter to share examples of tweets linked to a Russian "troll factory", known as the Internet Research Agency, about British politics.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41997262
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Diamond fetches $33.7m at Christie's auction in Geneva - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A necklace featuring a huge 163-carat flawless diamond goes under the hammer in Geneva.
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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. The 163 carat diamond was the largest of its kind to go under the hammer
A diamond necklace featuring a flawless 163-carat diamond - the largest of its kind to be auctioned - has fetched $33.7m (£25.6m) at a Christie's event in Geneva.
The colourless diamond was taken from a 404-carat stone found in Angola.
The finished piece is made from white gold, diamond and emeralds.
The necklace was designed by Swiss jewellery maker de Grisogono and took more than 1,700 hours to make, Christie's said.
It went under the hammer at Geneva's Four Seasons Hotel following a series of public viewings in Hong Kong, London, Dubai and New York.
The necklace, named The Art of de Grisogono, sold for $33.5m - $29.5m plus $4m premium - exceeding pre-sale predictions of $30m.
The buyer's identity has not been revealed.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41933880
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Yemen's internally displaced persons camp: A 24-hour walk to safety - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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The Yemen crisis has displaced 1,000 people to a camp where people say: 'We have nothing.'
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A look inside Yemen's internally displaced persons camp. Mansaya, a mother who travelled 24 hours to reach the camp describes the conditions, telling the BBC that: "We have nothing".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41989459
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Emmerson Mnangagwa: The 'crocodile' who snapped back - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The man who took over from Robert Mugabe as Zimbabwe's president wants to legitimise his rule.
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Africa
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Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, the man known as "the crocodile" because of his political cunning, achieved a long-held ambition to succeed Robert Mugabe as Zimbabwe's president in November last year.
He has now won a disputed presidential election to legitimise his rule, promising voters his efforts to woo foreign investors will bring back the economy from the brink of collapse.
Mr Mugabe resigned following a military takeover and mass demonstrations - all sparked by his sacking of Mr Mnangagwa as his vice-president.
"The crocodile", who lived up to his name and snapped back, may have unseated Zimbabwe's only ruler, but he is also associated with some of the worst atrocities committed under the ruling Zanu-PF party since independence in 1980.
One veteran of the liberation struggle, who worked with him for many years, once put it simply: "He's a very cruel man, very cruel."
But his children see him as a principled, if unemotional, man. His daughter, Farai Mlotshwa - a property developer and the eldest of his nine children by two wives - told BBC Radio 4 that he was a "softie".
As if to reinforce this softer image of the new leader, a cuddly crocodile soft toy was passed among the Zanu-PF supporters who welcomed him back to the country after Mr Mugabe's resignation.
Emmerson Mnangagwa is known as "Ngwena", the Shona word for crocodile
And what he lacks in charisma and oratory prowess, he makes up for in pragmatism, says close friend and Zanu-PF politician Josiah Hungwe.
"Mnangagwa is a practical person. He is a person who recognises that politics is politics but people must eat," he told the BBC, adding that reforming Zimbabwe's disastrous economy will be the focus of his leadership.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Emmerson Mnangagwa: Who is the man known as the ‘crocodile’?
The exact year of Mr Mnangagwa's birth is not known - but he is thought to be 75, which would make him nearly 20 years younger than his predecessor who left power aged 93.
Born in the central region of Zvishavane, he is a Karanga - the largest clan of Zimbabwe's majority Shona community.
Some Karangas felt it was their turn for power, following 37 years of domination by Mr Mugabe's Zezuru clan, though Mr Mnangagwa was accused of profiting while under Mr Mugabe.
According to a United Nations report in 2001, he was seen as "the architect of the commercial activities of Zanu-PF".
This largely related to the operations of the Zimbabwean army and businessmen in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Zimbabwean troops intervened in the DR Congo conflict on the side of the government and, like those of other countries, were accused of using the conflict to loot some of its rich natural resources such as diamonds, gold and other minerals.
More recently military officials - many behind his rise to power - have been accused of benefiting from the rich Marange diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe, with reports of killings and human rights abuses there.
Despite his money-raising role, Mr Mnangagwa, a lawyer who grew up in Zambia, was not always well-loved by the rank and file of his own party.
A Zanu-PF official posed an interesting question when asked about Mr Mnangagwa's prospects: "You think Mugabe is bad, but have you thought that whoever comes after him could be even worse?"
The opposition candidate who defeated Mr Mnangagwa in the 2000 parliamentary campaign in Kwekwe Central, Blessing Chebundo, might agree.
During a bitter campaign, Mr Chebundo escaped death by a whisker when the Zanu-PF youths who had abducted him and doused him with petrol were unable to light a match.
Those who fought in Zimbabwe's war of independence have long monopolised power
Mr Mnangagwa's fearsome reputation was made during the civil war which broke out in the 1980s between Mr Mugabe's Zanu party and the Zapu party of Joshua Nkomo.
As national security minister, he was in charge of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), which worked hand in glove with the army to suppress Zapu.
Thousands of civilians - mainly ethnic Ndebeles, seen as Zapu supporters - were killed in a campaign known as Gukurahundi, before the two parties merged to form Zanu-PF.
Among countless other atrocities carried out by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade of the army, villagers were forced at gunpoint to dance on the freshly dug graves of their relatives and chant pro-Mugabe slogans.
Mr Mnangagwa has denied any role in the massacres, but the wounds are still painful and many party officials, not to mention voters, in Matabeleland might find it hard to back Mr Mnangagwa.
He does enjoy the support of many of the war veterans who led the campaign of violence against the white farmers and the opposition from 2000.
They remember him as one of the men who, following his military training in China and Egypt, directed the fight for independence in the 1960s and 1970s.
He also attended the Beijing School of Ideology, run by the Chinese Communist Party.
Mr Mnangagwa's official profile says he was the victim of state violence after being arrested by the white-minority government in the former Rhodesia in 1965, when the "crocodile gang" he led helped blow up a train near Fort Victoria (now Masvingo).
"He was tortured, severely resulting in him losing his sense of hearing in one ear," the profile says.
"Part of the torture techniques involved being hanged with his feet on the ceiling and the head down. The severity of the torture made him unconscious for days."
As he said he was under 21 at the time, he was not executed but instead sentenced to 10 years in prison.
"He has scars from that period. He was young and brave," a close friend of Mr Mnangagwa once said, asking not to be named.
"Perhaps that explains why he is indifferent. Horrible things happened to him when he was young."
His ruthlessness, which it could be argued he learnt from his Rhodesian torturers, is said to have been seen again in 2008 when he reportedly masterminded Zanu-PF's response to Mr Mugabe losing the first round of the president election to long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai.
The military and state security organisations unleashed a campaign of violence against opposition supporters, leaving hundreds dead and forcing thousands from their homes.
Mr Tsvangirai then pulled out of the second round and Mr Mugabe was re-elected.
Mr Mnangagwa has not commented on allegations he was involved in planning the violence, but an insider in the party's security department later confirmed that he was the political link between the army, intelligence and Zanu-PF.
He was seen as Mr Mugabe's right-hand man - that is until the former first lady Grace Mugabe became politically ambitious and tried to edge him out.
Their rivalry took a bizarre turn when he fell ill in August 2017 at a political rally led by former President Mugabe and had to be airlifted to South Africa.
Grace Mugabe (right) bit off more than she could chew by taking on Mr Mnangagwa
His supporters suggested that a rival group within Zanu-PF had poisoned him and appeared to blame ice cream from Mrs Mugabe's dairy firm.
In his first words to cheering supporters after Mr Mugabe's resignation, he spoke about this plot and another plan to "eliminate" him.
He has also blamed a group linked to the former first lady for an explosion in June at a Zanu-PF rally in Bulawayo in which two people died.
But in a BBC interview, he said the country was safe, told foreign investors not to worry and sought to dispel his ruthless reputation: "I am as soft as wool. I am a very soft person in life."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mnangagwa: Criminal will be hounded down, but Zimbabwe is safe
His youngest son, a Harare DJ known as St Emmo, blames his reticence for his fearsome reputation.
"He was a good father, very very strict. He doesn't say much and I think that's what frightens people - like: 'What is he thinking?'"
Nick Mangwana, Zanu-PF representative in the UK, accepts that the Zimbabwe's new leader is "not the most eloquent".
"He's not pally-pally but more of a do-er, more of a technocrat."
But in his six months in power he has fully embraced Twitter and Facebook - after the Bulawayo blast he posted a message reiterating the strength his Christian faith gives him.
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Fixing the economy is what is paramount now. Zimbabweans are on average 15% poorer now than they were in the 1980s.
British journalist Martin Fletcher, who interviewed Mr Mnangagwa in 2016, does not see him a reborn democrat.
"He understands the need to rebuild the economy if only so that he can pay his security forces - and his survival depends on their loyalty," he said.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41995876
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Robert Mugabe: Is Zimbabwe's ex-president a hero or villain? - BBC News
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2017-11-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A profile of Zimbabwe's former President Robert Mugabe, accused of destroying a prosperous country for the sake of power, but still seen by some as a revolutionary hero.
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Africa
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Robert Mugabe, the man who became synonymous with Zimbabwe, has resigned as president after 37 years in power.
For some, he will always remain a hero who brought independence and an end to white-minority rule. Even those who forced him out blamed his wife and "criminals" around him.
But to his growing number of critics, this highly educated, wily politician became the caricature of an African dictator, who destroyed an entire country in order to keep his job.
In the end, it was the security forces, who had been instrumental in intimidating the opposition and keeping him in power, who made him go.
They were incensed when he sacked his long-time ally, Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, paving the way for his much younger wife Grace to succeed him, fearing it meant the end for them as the powers behind the throne.
He had survived numerous previous crises and predictions of his demise but with his powers failing at the age of 93, his former comrades-in-arms turned on him, favouring Mr Mnangagwa.
Before the 2008 elections, Mr Mugabe said: "If you lose an election and are rejected by the people, it is time to leave politics."
But after coming second to Morgan Tsvangirai, Mr Mugabe displayed more characteristic defiance, swearing that "only God" could remove him from office.
And just to be sure, violence was unleashed to preserve his grip on power.
In order to save the lives of his supporters, Mr Tsvangirai pulled out of the second round and although Mr Mugabe was forced to share power with his long-time rival for four years, he remained president.
He even won another election, in 2013, as Mr Tsvangirai had lost a lot of credibility during his years working with Mr Mugabe.
The key to understanding Mr Mugabe is the 1970s guerrilla war where he made his name.
President Mugabe (L) has given his support to his wife Grace (R) for the vice-presidency
Even after 37 years in power, Mr Mugabe still maintained the same worldview - the patriotic socialist forces of his Zanu-PF party were still fighting the twin evils of capitalism and colonialism.
Any critics were dismissed as "traitors and sell-outs" - a throwback to the guerrilla war, when such labels could be a death sentence.
Robert Mugabe (L), seen here in 1960, was greatly influenced by pan-Africanist ideals
He always blamed Zimbabwe's economic problems on a plot by Western countries, led by the UK, to oust him because of his seizure of white-owned farms.
His critics firmly blamed him, saying he had no understanding of how a modern economy worked.
He always concentrated on the question of how to share out the national cake, rather than how to make it grow.
Protesters in 2016 burn worthless currency in a show of defiance against the introduction of new bond notes
Mr Mugabe once famously said that a country could never go bankrupt - with the world's fastest-shrinking economy and annual inflation of 231 million per cent in July 2008, it seemed as though he was determined to test his theory to the limit.
Professor Tony Hawkins of the University of Zimbabwe once observed that with Zimbabwe's former leader: "Whenever economics gets in the way of politics, politics wins every time."
In 2000, faced with a strong opposition for the first time, he wrecked what was one of Africa's most diversified economies in a bid to retain political control.
He seized the white-owned farms which were the economy's backbone and scared off donors but in purely political terms, Mr Mugabe outsmarted his enemies - he remained in power for another 17 years.
And the tactics he and his supporters used were straight from the guerrilla war.
After he suffered the first electoral defeat of his career, in a 2000 referendum, Mr Mugabe unleashed his personal militia - the self-styled war veterans, backed by the security forces - who used violence and murder as an electoral strategy.
Mr Mugabe says he is fighting for the rights of black Zimbabweans
Eight years later, a similar pattern was followed after Mr Mugabe lost the first round of a presidential election to his long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai.
When needed, all the levers of state - the security forces, civil service, state-owned media - which are mostly controlled by Zanu-PF, were used in the service of the ruling party.
The man who fought for one-man, one-vote introduced a requirement that potential voters prove their residence with utility bills, which the young, unemployed opposition core electorate were unlikely to have.
In fact, the signs of his attitude to opposition were there from the early 1980s, when members of the North-Korea trained Fifth Brigade of the army were sent to Matabeleland, home to his then rival, Joshua Nkomo.
Thousands of civilians were killed before Mr Nkomo agreed to share power with Mr Mugabe - a precursor of what happened with Mr Tsvangirai.
One of the undoubted achievements of the former teacher's 33 years in power was the expansion of education. Zimbabwe still has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, at 89% of the population.
The now deceased political scientist Masipula Sithole once said that by expanding education, the president was "digging his own grave".
Mr Mugabe has not been afraid to use violence to stay in power
The young beneficiaries were able to analyse Zimbabwe's problems for themselves and most blamed government corruption and mismanagement for the lack of jobs and rising prices.
He often claimed to be fighting on behalf of the rural poor but much of the land he confiscated ended up in the hands of his cronies.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said that Zimbabwe's long-time president had become a cartoon figure of the archetypal African dictator.
During the 2002 presidential campaign, he started wearing brightly coloured shirts emblazoned with his face - a style copied from many of Africa's authoritarian rulers.
For the preceding 20 years, this conservative man was only seen in public with either a stiff suit and tie or safari suit.
He professes to be a staunch Catholic, and worshippers at Harare's Catholic Cathedral were occasionally swamped by security guards when he turned up for Sunday Mass.
However, Mr Mugabe's beliefs did not prevent him from having two children by Grace, then his secretary, while his popular Ghanaian first wife, Sally, was dying from cancer.
But it was his second wife Grace, 40 years his junior, who ultimately proved his downfall.
Although Mr Mugabe outlived many predictions of his demise, the increasing strain of recent years took its toll and his once-impeccable presentation has begun to look rather worn at times.
In 2011, a US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks suggested that he was suffering from prostate cancer.
Wife Grace said Mr Mugabe woke at 05:00 for his exercise
But he certainly led a healthy lifestyle.
Grace once said that he woke up at 05:00 for his daily exercises, including yoga. He did not drink alcohol or coffee and was largely vegetarian.
Mr Mugabe was 73 when she gave birth to their third child, Chatunga.
If nothing else, Mr Mugabe has always been an extremely proud man.
He often said he would only step down when his "revolution" was complete.
He was referring to the redistribution of white-owned land but he also wanted to hand-pick his successor, who would of course have had to come from the ranks of Zanu-PF.
Didymus Mutasa, once one of Mr Mugabe's closest associates but who has since fallen out with him, once told the BBC that in Zimbabwean culture, kings were only replaced when they die "and Mugabe is our king".
But even his closest allies were not ready for Zimbabwe to be turned into a monarchy, with power retained by a single family.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23431534
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Trump attacks Senator Al Franken after grope allegation - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Mr Trump takes aim at the Democratic senator but remains silent on allegations against Roy Moore.
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US & Canada
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President Donald Trump has criticised Senator Al Franken on Twitter after the Democrat apologised for a photo of him appearing to grope a woman.
Mr Trump called him "Al Frankenstien" - a misspelled reference to the undead monster - and mocked his previous advocacy for women's' rights.
Mr Franken apologised to his accuser, but disputed "forcibly" kissing her.
Mr Trump has yet to publicly comment on sexual misconduct allegations against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore.
Franken said the photo "was clearly intended to be funny but wasn't"
"The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words," Mr Trump wrote in a pair of tweets late on Thursday.
Los Angeles radio host Leeann Tweeden claims the now-Minnesota senator "aggressively" kissed her while they rehearsed a scene during a 2006 tour to entertain US troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
He also had a photo taken of him appearing to touch her breasts while she slept onboard a military plane, she said.
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"And to think that just last week he was lecturing anyone who would listen about sexual harassment and respect for women", Mr Trump said in a follow-up tweet.
Mr Trump has yet to comment on a string of sexual misconduct allegations against Republican US Senate candidate Roy Moore.
The former Alabama Supreme Court judge denies has repeatedly denied the allegations and has resisted calls from his own national party to quit the US Senate race.
Hours before the tweets, White House President Secretary Sarah Sanders said the president found the allegations against Mr Moore "very troubling" and that "the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be".
Mr Trump has himself denied numerous allegations of sexual misconduct against him. During the second presidential debate, he was asked if he had ever grabbed anyone's genitals or kissed them without consent.
"Women have respect for me. And I will tell you: No, I have not," he replied.
Later, when asked to explain the distinction between the allegations against Mr Trump and Mr Franken, Mrs Sanders said: "Senator Franken has admitted wrongdoing, and the president hasn't. That's a very big distinction."
In an article for KABC, a Los Angeles radio station where Ms Tweeden now works, she recalled feeling victimised by Mr Franken during her ninth tour of the Middle East.
"You knew exactly what you were doing," she wrote. "You forcibly kissed me without my consent, grabbed my breasts while I was sleeping and had someone take a photo of you doing it, knowing I would see it later, and be ashamed."
The former comedian issued an initial statement saying he did not recall the rehearsal, but sent his "sincerest apologies to Leeann".
"As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn't. I shouldn't have done it," he added.
A Pentagon photo of the 2006 Hope & Freedom Tour in Kuwait show the two performing a skit
Mr Franken later issued a second, longer statement following a backlash from critics who accused him of a non-apology and demanded his resignation.
"I respect women. I don't respect men who don't. The fact that my own actions have given people a good reason to doubt that makes me feel ashamed," he said.
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Of the photo, he added: "I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself... It's obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture."
In Mr Trump's tweets on Thursday night, he also mentioned the "Lesley Stahl tape", which refers to a New York magazine story about a Saturday Night Live writers discussion in which Mr Franken suggested a joke about raping the CBS 60 Minutes correspondent.
Mr Franken was quoted as saying: "And, 'I give the pills to Lesley Stahl. Then, when Lesley's passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her.' Or, 'That's why you never see Lesley until February.' Or, 'When she passes out, I put her in various positions and take pictures of her.'"
Al Franken has been married to his wife, Franni (R), for more than 40 years and they have two adult children
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called for the chamber's Ethics Committee to investigate Mr Franken, saying: "Sexual harassment is never acceptable."
The Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell echoed the call and Mr Franken said he would "gladly co-operate".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42018154
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Boots 'breaking' morning-after pill promise, say Labour MPs - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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MPs urge the pharmacy to complete its roll-out of cheaper contraception across all of its stores.
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UK
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The pharmacy says there a stock issue has delayed the roll-out
Boots has been accused of breaking its promise to offer a cheaper brand of morning-after pill in its stores.
The pharmacy was criticised in July after refusing to reduce the cost of emergency contraception - and later pledged to supply an inexpensive alternative in all of its branches.
But a letter from over 130 Labour MPs says they are "deeply concerned" only 69 of its 2,500 stores stock a version.
Boots says it is doing "all it can" to roll the service out nationally.
The morning after pill can be taken in the days after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy.
The company faced outrage in July after telling the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) - which had called on Boots to reduce the cost of emergency pill, Levonelle - that making it cheaper could incentivise inappropriate use.
At the time, the progestogen-based drug was priced at £28.25, while the non-branded equivalent was £26.75.
Following a backlash, Boots apologised and said it was committed to finding a cheaper alternative, and announced the roll-out of a generic pill costing £15.99.
It said it had been "working hard with the manufacturer to increase supply" in order to offer this alternative across every store in October.
But the MPs - led by shadow public health minister Sharon Hodgson - said it was "difficult to understand" why competitors had offered a cheaper alternative but Boots had not.
Ms Hodgson wrote: "We are deeply concerned that Boots are either unable or unwilling to deliver on your pledge.
"Over the Christmas period many women struggle to access contraceptive services and their usual family planning method.
"Clearly, pharmacy access to emergency contraception is of an even greater importance in December and January.
"Whilst Boots say they have started the process of rolling out this product in the stores, the progress they have made so far can only be described as a drop in the ocean with a long way to go before it is accessible in each of their 2,500 stores across the country."
She also urged the pharmacy to reduce the cost of the generic pill currently in stock.
But Boots says it is working with MPs to make emergency contraception free from pharmacies to all women in England to "end the current postcode lottery".
A Boots spokeswoman said: "It is currently available as a free NHS service in the majority of our stores, however we would like to see one nationally commissioned NHS service available for all women in England, as there is in Wales and Scotland.
She said the company remained committed to rolling out the service nationally and giving women access to emergency contraception.
"Unfortunately the manufacturer has experienced a batch failure due to quality issues which means that the stock we were expecting is not now available, and we are now waiting for a new batch to be produced.
"We thank our customers for their continued patience and reassure them that we are doing all we can to roll this service out to all our stores as soon as possible."
BPAS said it was "absolutely scandalous" that Boots had failed to deliver on its pledge, and there was "no excuse" for the slow progress.
"If Boots cannot 'source' a new version of emergency contraception to sell at a lower price, then they should do the right thing and cut the price of the version they currently have in stock.
"Regardless of 'supply chain delays', affordable emergency contraception is entirely within their gift to give right now.
"Every day they refuse to do so, more women are being ripped off, or risking an unplanned pregnancy because they cannot afford Boots's inflated price tag."
In England, emergency contraceptives Levonelle and EllaOne are free from most sexual health clinics, most GP surgeries and most NHS walk-in centres or urgent care centres.
But they are free only to women in certain age groups from pharmacies in some parts of the country.
In Scotland and Wales, the emergency contraceptive pill is available free of charge on the NHS from pharmacies, GPs and sexual health clinics.
In Northern Ireland, some pharmacies allow it to be bought on the NHS, and it is available free of charge from sexual health clinics and GPs.
• None Where can I get emergency contraception (morning after pill) - NHS Choices The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42011279
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Moment quake hit South Korea - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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The 5.4 magnitude tremor hit the port city of Pohang, and was followed by dozens of aftershocks.
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The 5.4 magnitude tremor hit the south-eastern port city of Pohang in the afternoon, and dozens of aftershocks have occurred since.
More than 1,000 buildings, homes and vehicles have been destroyed or damaged.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42018424
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Shot soldier Conor McPherson 'was mistaken by colleague for target' - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Private Conor McPherson died during a night-time "live fire" exercise at Otterburn, Northumberland.
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Glasgow & West Scotland
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A soldier killed in a training exercise was shot by a colleague who mistook him for a target, a report has found.
Private Conor McPherson was critically injured during a night-time "live fire" exercise at Otterburn, Northumberland.
The Defence Safety Authority's Service Inquiry report identified a number of Army failings in the run-up to the incident.
The Army has said it "deeply regrets" the death the young soldier, which was "a terrible, terrible tragedy".
Private McPherson, 24, from The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, was pronounced dead at the scene on 22 August last year.
The report stated that soldiers using live rounds had been stumbling about in the dark.
Lieutenant General Richard Felton, director general of the Defence Safety Authority, said he could not understand why the trainees were subjected to an 18-hour plus day.
It also emerged the opening day of Exercise Wessex Storm at the Heely Dod Range featured nine different shooting sequences.
But Lieutenant General Felton said the safety risk present that night "was neither recognised - nor the potential consequences understood - by the Fire Team, supervising staff or Battalion leadership".
While it was "highly likely" Private McPherson, from Paisley, Renfrewshire, was shot by one of his colleagues, another soldier did not fire a single round because he found it impossible to identify any targets in the gloom.
Lieutenant General Felton said: "The tragic death of Pte Conor McPherson serves as a reminder of the dangers inherent in Military training."
But he added:" Military training must continue to test and challenge, with progression through a unit's training cycle correctly adding complexity and greater levels of Safety Risk.
"To not do so would reduce the value of training and the preparedness of our soldiers to fight and win in future conflicts."
Private McPherson had already trained in France and Kenya by the time he joined the fatal exercise with colleagues from 3 Platoon A Company 3 Scots.
Their final mission that day was to negotiate a firing range, using live ammo as the infantrymen moved towards rigid targets, without any fixed illumination.
A reconstruction ordered by the inquiry found that the LUCIE Universal night vision goggles and ear plugs worn by Pte McPherson were not cleared for use in this type of exercise.
The probe into the incident has identified eight "contributory factors" that made the accident more likely to happen that night, including a lack of effective supervision of the soldier who fired the shot.
The investigating panel said it is highly likely a solder named only as "firer 2" - a private who had been in the military for five and a half years - misidentified Private McPherson as a target and fired the fatal round.
Colonel Jim Taylor of HQ Field Army, Training branch welcomed the inquiry's findings, saying: "It has done outstanding work to identify what went wrong.
"In particular, their reconstruction of the events that night has been invaluable in helping us identify what caused the accident and the factors which contributed to it. We are now carefully considering its recommendations.
"We care about our soldiers above all else and we do everything we can to reduce the risks to them as they conduct the essential training required to prepare them for combat operations."
A spokeswoman for Northumbria Police said:"The death is still being investigated and Northumbria Police is working with the Health and Safety Executive and the Coroner."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-42003573
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Apology after Japanese train departs 20 seconds early - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Management on the Tsukuba Express line "sincerely apologised for the inconvenience" caused.
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Asia
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Japan has one of the world's most reliable railways and is known for its Shinkansen bullet trains (pictured)
A rail company in Japan has apologised after one of its trains departed 20 seconds early.
Management on the Tsukuba Express line between Tokyo and the city of Tsukuba say they "sincerely apologise for the inconvenience" caused.
In a statement, the company said the train had been scheduled to leave at 9:44:40 local time but left at 9:44:20.
Many social media users reacted to the company's apology with surprise.
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The mistake happened because staff had not checked the timetable, the company statement said.
"The crew did not sufficiently check the departure time and performed the departure operation," it said.
It added that no customers had complained about the early departure from Minami Nagareyama Station, which is just north of Tokyo.
The Tsukuba Express line takes passengers from Akihabara in eastern Tokyo to Tsukuba in about 45 minutes.
It is rare for trains in Japan, which has one of the world's most reliable railways, to depart at a different time to the one scheduled.
The country's Tokaido line, which runs from Tokyo to the city of Kobe, is by far the world's busiest and carries nearly 150 million passengers a year.
Impressed railway users worldwide tweeted the story to their local train operators - particularly in Britain, where rail services are often delayed.
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This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 5 by 🚶🏻Curtis S. Chin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42009839
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School in Theresa May's constituency seeks £1 for pens - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The school in Theresa May's constituency says donations would help it through a "funding crisis".
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Berkshire
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Robert Piggott school would like voluntary donations amounting to £190 per family per year
A primary school in Prime Minister Theresa May's constituency has asked parents for a £1 daily donation to help pay for stationery and books.
Robert Piggott CofE School in Wargrave, Berkshire, said the plea comes after "national changes to school funding".
Labour said this showed "Tory cuts" were "hitting schools badly".
Education minister Nick Gibb said the school is set to gain around £10K a year in extra cash from 2018 under the new National Funding Formula.
The school, which according to the most recent figures has 311 pupils, is in the Maidenhead constituency represented by Mrs May since 1997.
The letter to parents read: "One of the elements of [the funding plan] was to ask parents and the community to consider making donations to help meet the predicted shortfall in funding.
"Therefore, like many other schools, we are now requesting voluntary contributions from parents."
"We would like to suggest that parents donate £1 per school day for each child to help the schools through this funding crisis. This equates to £190 per year."
The school said it would help pay for glue, pens, pencils, exercise books, paper, tape and reading books.
Parent Anita Smith said: "I have had the letter and to be honest with you I was fuming when I received it.
"Not at Robert Piggott because they are an exceptional school, but I'm so angry at the Government that the school has had to resort to this.
"I've got two children at the school so that's around £400 a year, but my salary hasn't gone up to cover that."
Theresa May has represented Maidenhead since 1997
News of the letter comes days after school heads delivered a letter to Downing Street warning schools are increasingly having to make requests for voluntary donations.
Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner told the Daily Mirror: "The Government can spin all they like but the reality is that Tory cuts are hitting schools badly, even in the PM's own constituency."
Education Secretary Justine Greening said an extra £1.3bn will be found for England's schools from existing budgets, though some teacher unions said this would not be enough to plug funding gaps.
Mr Gibb said: "Every school will see an increase in funding through the formula from 2018, with Robert Piggott CofE Infant and Junior Schools set to gain around £10,000 a year in total."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-42008669
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Climate change has shifted the timing of European floods - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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In different parts of Europe, rivers are flooding earlier or later because of rising temperatures, say scientists.
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Science & Environment
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A summertime flood in the Austrian Tyrol in 2005
Climate change has had a significant impact on the timing of river floods across Europe over the past 50 years, according to a new study.
In some regions, such as southern England, floods are now occurring 15 days earlier than they did half a century ago.
But the changes aren't uniform, with rivers around the North Sea seeing floods delayed by around eight days.
The study has been published in the journal Science.
Floods caused by rivers impact more people than any other natural hazard, and the estimated global damages run to over a $100bn a year.
Researchers have long predicted that a warming world would have direct impacts on these events but until now the evidence has been hard to establish.
Floods are affected by many different factors in addition to rainfall, such as the amount of moisture already in the soil and other questions such as changes in land-use that can speed up water run-off from hillsides.
This new study looks at this issue in some depth, by creating a Europe-wide database of observations from 4,262 hydrometric stations in 38 countries, dating back to 1960.
The analysis finds a clear but complex impact of climate change on river flooding.
The blue arrows indicate earlier flooding due to changes in the soil moisture levels. The yellow and green indicate earlier floods due to earlier snow melt
The most consistent changes are in north-eastern Europe around Scandinavia where earlier snow melt due to warmer temperatures is leading to earlier spring floods. Around 50% of monitoring stations are seeing floods eight days earlier than they did 50 years ago.
The biggest changes are seen along the western edge of Europe, from Portugal up to Southern England. Half the stations recorded floods at least 15 days earlier than previously. A quarter of the stations saw flooding more than 36 days earlier than in 1960.
In these regions, the issue isn't snow melt - it's more about saturated soils. Maximum rainfall tends to occur in the autumn and gets stored in the soils. Heavier and earlier rain means that the groundwater reaches capacity earlier.
"It's the interplay between extreme rainfall and the abundance of rainfall," lead author Prof Günter Blöschl, from the Technical University of Vienna, told BBC News.
"In southern England, it has been raining more, longer and more intensely than in the past. This has created a rising groundwater table and higher soil moisture than usual and combined with intense rainfall this produces earlier river floods."
However, around the North Sea, in the Netherlands, Denmark and Scotland, the trend is towards later floods.
The scientists believe this is due to changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the weather phenomenon that pushes storms across the ocean into Europe.
Across Europe, regions experienced different shifts in the timing of floods, both earlier and later
The NAO is driven by differences in atmospheric pressure between the North Pole and the Equator. Recent, rapid changes in temperatures in the Arctic are interfering with these pressure levels and changing the track of the oscillation and storms as well.
According to this study, the storms are arriving later and as a result some river flooding happens later too.
Prof Blöschl says that this study shows clear evidence of the impact of human-induced climate change in many regions - but there are still some areas of uncertainty.
"Where the human imprint is obvious is in the northeast of Europe. It is quite a direct link, with a warming climate and earlier snow melt," he said.
"However, the areas impacted by the NAO are more difficult to attribute to anthropogenic global warming. The jury is still out on that aspect."
The study foresees subtle but significant impacts that could arise from the change in flood timing. There could be effects on river ecosystems with salmon spawning later in the year. There could also be implications for hydropower stations, and for agriculture if fields stay wetter for longer.
The UK has experienced severe flooding on many rivers in recent years, including on the Thames
"The more serious concern is that if warming impacts the seasonality it may also impact the scale of flooding," said Prof Blöschl.
"You could think of timing changes as the harbinger of future changes of flood magnitude. That is the more serious concern. If that happens, flood risk management will have to adapt and that will be different in different parts of Europe."
Other experts believe that the changes in flood timing identified by this study have significant implications for how we understand the risk of river floods and how we deal with them.
"Nearly every major city and town in Europe is built on a river and we protect this urban infrastructure by using past floods as a gauge of the potential risk," said Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London.
"The study shows that this approach underestimates the risk, as climate change has made European floods occur earlier in the year, increasing their potential impact.
"This means all the infrastructure that we have built to protect our cities needs to be reviewed as much of it will be inadequate to protect us from future climate change-induced extreme flooding."
Follow Matt on Twitter and on Facebook.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40889934
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Gaia Pope case: Man held on suspicion of murder - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The man is believed to be known to the teenager, who has been missing from Swanage since 7 November.
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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. Det Supt Paul Kessell said the 49-year-old is believed to be known to Gaia
Police investigating the disappearance of teenager Gaia Pope have arrested a 49-year-old man on suspicion of murder.
Paul Elsey, confirmed as the suspect to the BBC by his father, is from the Swanage area of Dorset.
Mr Elsey, the third person to be held in the inquiry, is believed to be known to 19-year-old Gaia, who went missing from the town on Tuesday, 7 November.
A search is continuing in an area where items of women's clothing were found earlier, Dorset Police said.
Mr Elsey lives at the same property as his mother Rosemary Dinch, 71, who along with her 19-year-old grandson, Nathan Elsey, were arrested on suspicion of murdering Ms Pope on Monday.
The pair were released on Tuesday while inquiries continue.
Gaia Pope was last seen in Swanage on 7 November
Det Supt Paul Kessell said the clothing was found on land near the Dorset coast path and "a number of vehicles" had also been seized.
The officer said it was not clear who the clothes belonged to but they were "similar" to those which Gaia was wearing.
Forensic officers are working in the area where items of clothing were found
He added Gaia's family had been informed of the developments and were being supported.
She was last seen nine days ago by family friend Ms Dinch in Swanage.
Since Gaia's disappearance, extensive searches have been carried out in and around the resort, involving police, coastguard teams and local volunteers.
Asked why the latest suspect had been arrested on suspicion of murder, Mr Kessell said: "As you would expect, we have been conducting this inquiry for two weeks and it is our responsibility to investigate every avenue of inquiry that's open to us.
"In doing that, we continue to investigate whether Gaia has come to harm through an act of crime or whether she is missing and we will continue to do so."
He appealed directly to the public to come forward if they have any information or have had any contact with Gaia since she went missing.
Police cordoned off an area of land, north of the coast path after items of women's clothing were found
Gaia, who has severe epilepsy, is thought to have gone missing without her medication.
Earlier, her father Richard Sutherland told the BBC the support from the community in the search had been "heart warming".
"It's been beautiful, it keeps us going. To feel that strength of everyone helping us - every bit of help is gratefully received and she's worth every bit of it," he said.
On Wednesday police released CCTV images of Gaia at a petrol station shortly before she went missing.
CCTV shows Gaia at a petrol station on the afternoon she went missing
Officers have also been searching Swanage for any signs of missing Gaia
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42017190
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Fire hits high-rise flats in Dunmurry, near Belfast - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A man and a woman are stable in hospital after a fire broke out on the ninth floor of the building.
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Northern Ireland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
One person was rescued from a burning tower block and a number of residents were led to safety after a fire broke out at high-rise flats outside Belfast.
Firefighters were called to Coolmoyne House in Dunmurry at about 17:30 GMT as flames and smoke hit multiple floors.
On arrival, crews were faced with "a well-developed fire on the ninth floor" the NI Fire and Rescue Service said.
The flats were evacuated, and four people were treated by paramedics. The fire was extinguished by 18:10 GMT.
Pictures posted on social media showed flames and smoke at Coolmoyne House
Lagan Valley Hospital said that two people - a man and a woman - were stable after being admitted following the fire.
Geoff Somerville, group commander with the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, said firefighters rescued a man from the flat in which the fire started.
He said they believed the fire was "accidental" and that the man "was making toast at the time".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Geoff Somerville from NIFRS says it's believed the fire was accidental
"He had moved into his bedroom and then heard his smoke detectors operate in his flat and that alerted him to the fire," he said.
"I'm very relieved there's been no loss of life and that's only because of the courageous actions of our firefighters here today."
Tower block residents told a BBC reporter at the scene that they felt shocked but "lucky to be alive".
They added that all they could think about was the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London during the summer.
Susanne Berrill said she lived in the flat above where the fire had started
Susanne Berrill, another tower block resident, told the BBC that she had lost everything in the blaze.
"I've literally only started life again after a big trauma and this has happened," she said, speaking from a local community centre.
The fire started in a flat on the ninth floor of the tower block
Some residents expressed anger and said that they had not heard fire alarms on their floors.
One told the BBC: "The alarms went off on the floor where the fire was but why didn't it go off on all the floors with such a big fire?"
However, Group Commander Somerville said that the fire alarms had worked "as expected".
"The residents should not have concerns about that (the fire alarms)," he said.
"The alarm in the gentleman's flat operated and sounded and that is the correct configuration.
"There is a communal fire alarm system in the hallway that is to operate and automatically open vents to the common hallway and that also successfully operated.
Emergency vehicles were sent to the scene of the fire on Wednesday evening
"There would be no sounders in the common hallway nor should their be.
"It is important of course to emphasise to everybody that each flat would have a self-contained fire alarm system, this individual flat itself had three smoke detectors and they operated and worked.
"Their (other residents) alarms should not go off unless they detected smoke."
He added that the fire service would now assess whether residents can return to their homes but that "some flats and all flats may not be safe to enter tonight".
The blaze damaged flats on the ninth and tenth floors before it was brought under control, according to local community worker Julie Ann Jackson.
"They got everybody out," she told the BBC's Evening Extra programme.
Ms Jackson said safety drills had been carried out at the block, following the Grenfell fire in June.
Some of the flats on the upper floors have been damaged
A total of eleven fire appliances and four ambulances were sent to Coolmoyne House.
The tower block on the Seymour Hill housing estate is owned and operated by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.
"Staff have been on site following the fire in a flat this evening and are on hand to offer emergency accommodation to any resident who requires it," it said in a statement,
"The cause of the fire is now under investigation by the NIFRS and we will be co-operating with them fully.
"We would like to commend the Northern Ireland Fire And Rescue Service, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and the Police Service of Northern Ireland for their immediate response."
Dunmurry resident Sam Waide was driving past Coolmoyne House when he saw what he first believed was steam coming from the top of the building.
He pulled his car over and realised the tower block was on fire.
"It was sort of frightening," he told BBC News NI.
"After what happened in England, you think to yourself, is this another one?"
Mr Waide said emergency vehicles were at the scene "very, very quickly".
A cordon was put in place around the tower block
Robert Cullen was driving towards his sister's house in Seymour Hill when he saw "lots and lots of smoke".
"One side of the flats was all in flames, from about half way up," he told BBC News NI.
He said within minutes, fire appliances started to arrive "left, right and centre".
"As far as I'm aware, everybody got out," Mr Cullen added.
He said that after about 20 minutes, firefighters had doused all the flames and "there was just smoke".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-42001447
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Brexit: 'Don't put politics above prosperity', Davis urges EU - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Brexit Secretary David Davis says the UK wants "the freest possible trade" with the EU.
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UK Politics
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Mr Davis laughed off a question about the UK being prepared to pay 60bn euros for financial obligations
David Davis has warned against "putting politics above prosperity" in Britain's post-Brexit relationship with the EU.
In a speech in Berlin, the UK's Brexit Secretary outlined his hopes for a deal that "allows for the freest possible trade in goods and services".
He also said he thought it "incredibly unlikely" there would be no deal.
The EU says negotiations cannot move on to trade until questions about the UK "divorce bill", citizens' rights and Northern Ireland are resolved.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said Mr Davis's speech was delivered politely but implied "pretty significant frustrations on the UK side with the EU's attitude".
In a question and answer session following the speech, a German interviewer got a round of applause for suggesting the UK government looked to be "in chaos".
Mr Davis replied: "One of the issues in modern politics is that all governments have periods of turbulence.
"This is a period of turbulence, it will pass."
In his speech to an economic conference organised by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, he said trade between Germany and the UK was worth 176bn euros a year or "more than a thousand euros to every man, woman and child in each of our countries".
He said the "close economic ties" with the EU "should continue, if not strengthen" after Brexit, and he warned: "Putting politics above prosperity is never a smart choice".
The UK was seeking a "deep and comprehensive free trade agreement" of a scope the EU had never seen before as well as "continued close co-operation in highly regulated areas such as transport, energy and data", he said.
Britain would use an independent trade policy to lead a "race to the top on quality and standards" rather than engage in a "race to the bottom" that would mean lower standards, he told the audience.
He said the EU and UK needed to "think creatively" about their post-Brexit relationship but stressed the need for a "time limited transition period" to implement the new arrangements.
"And that would mean access to the UK and European markets would continue on current terms. Keeping both the rights of a European Union member and the obligations of one, such as the role of the European Court of Justice.
"That also means staying in all the EU regulators and agencies during that limited period. Which would be about two years."
He added that tariff-free trade should be maintained and there must be an "effective dispute mechanism" for any disputes that may arise, that should be neither the UK courts, nor the European Court of Justice.
"It must be appropriate for both sides so that it can give business the confidence it needs that this partnership will endure."
In a question and answer session following his speech, Mr Davis laughed off a question about whether the UK would be prepared to pay 60bn euros to settle its financial obligations.
He said the UK's aim was that "nobody will have to pay more ... nobody will receive less" but would not give a figure that the UK would be prepared to pay.
Asked if he thought the Brexit negotiations would end in "no deal", he said: "I think that's incredibly unlikely."
While the UK government has not put a figure on the amount it is prepared to pay to settle the UK's obligations but it has been estimated at 20bn euros (about £18bn).
The Sun newspaper reported on Thursday that the prime minister was preparing to offer an additional £20bn to the EU to clear the way for talks about a transitional and future trade deal. Downing Street described that as "yet more speculation".
EU sources told the BBC last week that the UK had only two weeks left to make progress on the so-called withdrawal issues, including the amount the UK will pay as it leaves and Mr Davis's EU counterpart Michel Barnier said "time is pressing" to get agreement on the bill.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42020008
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Greece: Deadly floods hit Mandra, Nea Peramos and Megara - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The victims include elderly people whose bodies were found inside their homes, reports say.
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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.
Flash floods caused by heavy overnight rain have killed at least 15 people and caused destruction in central Greece.
The industrial towns of Mandra, Nea Peramos and Megara, west of the capital Athens, were the most affected.
Many of the dead were elderly people whose bodies were found inside their homes, reports say. Fast-flowing torrents of red mud flooded roads.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras declared a period of national mourning in the wake of the tragedy.
"Everything is lost. The disaster is biblical," Mandra Mayor Yianna Krikouki told state broadcaster ERT.
At least 37 people have been taken to hospital, the broadcaster said, and some are still missing.
Bad weather has hit parts of Greece for about a week, but particularly heavy rain overnight caused the sudden flooding, for which locals said they were unprepared.
The force of the water moved vehicles, damaged walls and roofing, and left many homeless as their homes flooded to a life-threatening level.
By Wednesday afternoon, Greece's fire service said it had received over 600 calls for help and dispatched almost 200 firefighters in 55 vehicles to the towns, which have a combined population in the tens of thousands.
"The water came down the mountain, millions of tonnes," Stavros Fotiou, the deputy mayor of Nea Peramos, told ERT.
"Our roads are completely destroyed... 1,000 homes have been flooded, that's a third of the town," he added.
Some roads were inundated by more than 1m (3ft) of water
The region's deputy governor, Yiannis Vassileiou, told the broadcaster that emergency services had been prepared for poor weather, but then "the Niagara Falls came down and could not be stopped".
Prime Minister Tsipras said that declaring a period of national mourning was "the least we can do".
He also vowed to provide aid to the victims and ensure they were housed safely.
A state of emergency has been declared in some of the affected areas
The fire service said there were more than 300 calls for help
Emergency teams have been deployed to the region
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41998374
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Missing UK explorer Benedict Allen 'alive and well' - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Benedict Allen is seen near an airstrip in Papua New Guinea and has asked to be rescued.
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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. In a recent documentary Benedict Allen described his experiences of living in Papua New Guinea
Missing UK explorer Benedict Allen has been seen "alive and well" near an airstrip in Papua New Guinea.
The BBC's Frank Gardner said Mr Allen had asked to be rescued and efforts were under way to retrieve him, but he was "not out of danger yet".
A search was mounted for the 57-year-old after his family said he had not taken planned flights home.
Mr Allen was travelling on his own to try to find the reclusive Yaifo tribe, whom he first met 30 years ago.
His agent, Jo Sarsby, said the co-ordinating director for New Tribe Mission in Papua New Guinea, Keith Copley, had confirmed in writing at 17:00 local time that Mr Allen was "safe, well and healthy", and at a remote airstrip 20 miles north-west of Porgera, Enga Province.
"Confirmation on exact location coordinates are now being confirmed in order to arrange evacuation as soon as possible," she said.
She said it was understood the airstrip was not accessible by road, so it was hoped a helicopter would be sent on Friday.
Benedict Allen was under no illusions about the dangers and difficulties he would face when he chose to march off alone into the jungles of Papua New Guinea, in search of the isolated Yaifo tribe.
This is exactly the sort of challenge he thrives on.
But as well as having to contend with almost impossibly steep and forested terrain, it seems his plans have been disrupted by an outbreak of tribal infighting which often happens in remote areas.
Although foreigners are rarely the target of this violence outside the towns, there is always a risk of being associated with one tribe that is at war with another.
Those now trying to organise a rescue say he chose not to take a satellite phone, made no evacuation plan and left no coordinates of where he intended to end his journey.
They say his only way out is by helicopter or light aircraft.
Mr Allen's older sister, Katie Pestille, had said it was "out of character" for him to miss his scheduled flight out of Papua New Guinea to Hong Kong.
The explorer, from London, has previously crossed the Amazon Basin on foot and in a dug-out canoe, and participated in a six-week male initiation ceremony in which crocodile marks were carved onto his body.
He has filmed a number of his adventures for BBC documentaries and written books on exploration.
First solo adventure: To the Amazon at 22, during which he was shot at by two hitmen
Tough time: An initiation into manhood in Papua New Guinea. He was kept in a "crocodile nest" with 20 others, and repeatedly cut with bamboo blades to leave scars that looked like crocodile scales
Low moment: Eating his own dog to survive
Travel habit: Always keeps loo paper in a back pocket. "You know how it is," he tells the Lonely Planet.
Philosophy: "For me personally, exploration isn't about conquering nature, planting flags or leaving your mark. It's about the opposite: opening yourself up and allowing the place to leave its mark on you."
Career: Six TV series for the BBC, author, motivational speaker
In his last tweet from 11 October, Mr Allen wrote: "Marching off to Heathrow. I may be some time."
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Benedict ALLEN This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
• None Search under way for missing UK explorer
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42009854
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Afghanistan's child opium problem - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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Young children are becoming dependent on the drug, as the amount produced in Afghanistan hits a new high.
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Children as young as nine as becoming opium addicts in Afghanistan as the amount of the drug produced in the country hits record levels.
Findings suggest that the area of land used to cultivate opium poppies grew dramatically and fewer provinces are now seen as "poppy free".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42003158
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Yemen's industrial-scale prosthetic limb factory - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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Inside one of Yemen's only prosthetic limb factories.
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The Orthopaedic and Prosthetic Centre in Taiz offers hope for the seriously injured in Yemen’s war.
The BBC's Clive Myrie saw inside one of the few places in the country that can produce prosthetic limbs.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-42006159
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Sir Bradley Wiggins says his life was 'living hell' during Ukad investigation - BBC Sport
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2017-11-16
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Sir Bradley Wiggins says his life was "a living hell" during an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at British Cycling and Team Sky.
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Last updated on .From the section Cycling
Sir Bradley Wiggins said his life was "a living hell" during an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at British Cycling and Team Sky.
On Wednesday, UK Anti-Doping said there would be no charges over a "mystery" medical package delivered for Wiggins at the Criterium du Dauphine in 2011.
Wiggins, 37, said the investigation "felt nothing less than a witch hunt".
He added: "Being accused of any doping indiscretion is the worst possible thing for any professional sportsman."
Wiggins won five Olympic gold medals and the 2012 Tour de France before retiring from cycling in December 2016.
It was alleged that the package that was the focus of the investigation contained a banned substance - but the doctor involved, Dr Richard Freeman, said it was a legal decongestant, Fluimucil.
The 14-month investigation has been closed and a Ukad statement said it would only "revisit matters if new and material information were to come to light".
Ukad said it was unable to "definitively confirm the contents of the package" because of a "lack of contemporaneous evidence".
Its chief executive Nicole Sapstead said the investigation was hindered by the "lack of accurate medical records" held by British Cycling.
Wiggins, British Cycling and Team Sky have always denied any wrongdoing.
'It has felt nothing less than a malicious witch hunt'
Wiggins said in a statement: "I welcome Ukad's confirmation that no anti-doping charges are to be brought regarding the so-called 'jiffy-bag' allegations.
"It has always been the case that no such charges could be brought against me as no anti-doping violations took place. I am pleased this has finally been confirmed publicly.
"This period of time has been a living hell for me and my family, full of innuendo and speculation. At times it has felt nothing less than a malicious witch hunt."
Wiggins, who said he would assess potential legal options, was unhappy with Ukad's statement and questioned the body's decision to begin an investigation.
"To say I am disappointed by some of the comments made by Ukad this morning is an understatement," added Wiggins. "No evidence exists to prove a case against me and in all other circumstances this would be an unqualified finding of innocence.
"Where did the information come from to launch the investigation?
"Who was the source? What exactly did that person say and to whom?
"Why did Ukad deem it appropriate to treat it as a credible allegation?"
With no clarity over what was in the now-infamous jiffy bag delivered to Team Sky in 2011, this represents a wholly unsatisfactory end to a saga that has tainted some of the biggest reputations in British sport, and exposed Ukad's lack of power.
Its statement is deliberately nuanced, falling short of an exoneration of those involved, much to Sir Bradley Wiggins' dismay in a blistering statement, despite Britain's most decorated Olympian facing no charges.
But while the end of the investigation will come as a relief to many in the sport, the lack of medical records, the inaccuracies in Team Sky's initial explanations for the mystery delivery, the unavailability of key witness Dr Richard Freeman to Ukad investigators, the theft of his laptop, and the medical exemptions that Wiggins had before major races, all mean that suspicion will linger. The close relationship between Team Sky and the governing body (who still share headquarters in Manchester) is also again under scrutiny.
And at best, the attention to detail that was once the mantra of Team Sky and British Cycling has been exposed as hollow.
How did this issue arise?
In October 2016, the Daily Mail reported that Team Sky's Dr Richard Freeman had received a package from Simon Cope, then working as a coach for British Cycling's women's teams, on the final day of the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine. The package was alleged to be for Sir Bradley Wiggins, who won the race.
Ukad then began an investigation into the contents of the package.
What was in the package?
At a Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee hearing in December 2016, Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford - already facing questions after hackers had revealed Wiggins had received a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) to take banned anti-inflammatory drug triamcinolone for allergies and respiratory issues before key races - said that he had been told by Dr Freeman that the package contained Fluimucil.
Freeman, who was simultaneously employed by British Cycling and Team Sky between 2009 and 2015, missed the hearing through ill health but the DCMS committee was told that in 2014 he had a laptop containing medical records stolen while he was on holiday.
Freeman was off work from British Cycling with a stress-related illness before resigning last month.
Brailsford's testimony was widely questioned. Cope was alleged to have flown into Geneva Airport and driven for two hours to France to deliver the package, but 2008 Olympic champion Nicole Cooke pointed out that Fluimucil is available freely over the counter in France, and that there were eight pharmacies located within five kilometres of where the team received the package.
David Kenworthy, the previous chairman of Ukad, told the BBC in January the answers given by figures within British Cycling and Team Sky to the DCMS committee were "very disappointing".
In an interview with the BBC in January, Brailsford refused to confirm or deny whether he or anyone else at Team Sky had been able to provide paperwork to prove the package contained Fluimucil.
"I will give what I have got to Ukad," he said. "I said what I had to say in the DCMS and I am leaving it there."
Team Sky subsequently said that they were "confident" no wrongdoing would be found when the inquiry was concluded.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/41999310
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Australian minister blames hackers over Twitter porn 'like' - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Government minister Christopher Pyne says he was not responsible for activity on his Twitter page.
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Australia
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An Australian government minister has said hackers are responsible for a "like" on his Twitter account to a pornographic video.
The activity on Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne's profile at about 02:00 local time on Thursday (15:00 GMT Wednesday) was pointed out by other Twitter users.
Mr Pyne said hackers had possibly liked the gay pornography as "mischief" after Australia's same-sex marriage vote.
The "like" has since been removed.
On Wednesday, Australians learned they had overwhelmingly voted in favour of legalising same-sex marriage in a historic poll. Parliament is now debating changing the law.
Mr Pyne, a veteran MP, was appointed to his current ministerial position last year to deliver a major submarine fleet project.
He said he was asleep when the Twitter activity took place.
Some Twitter users responded to his explanation with scepticism, while others raised concerns over possible security implications.
One independent senator, Cory Bernardi, said it should prompt a "full investigation and report in case [it is a] foreign agent trying to influence elections".
Many users compared it to a similar incident in September where US senator Ted Cruz's Twitter account "liked" a pornographic video. Mr Cruz told reporters the incident was a "staffing issue" and "not malicious".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-42005961
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Sandbach house fire: Mother 'could not go on' without son - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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An inquest hears Kelly-Anne Carter killed herself two weeks after her son Lucas died in a house fire.
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England
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A woman whose eight-year-old son died in a house fire killed herself because she could not go on without him, an inquest has found.
Kelly-Anne Carter, 35, suffered serious burns in the fire at the family home in Sandbach, Cheshire, on 30 October 2016.
Lucas Carter died shortly after he was rescued from the blaze which was not treated as suspicious.
Miss Carter's friend told the court the mother had described herself as a "dead woman walking".
The inquest at Crewe Municipal Buildings on Thursday heard Miss Carter's partner found her hanged at his home on 12 November 2016.
Sarah Blakey, Miss Carter's friend who was with her the night before she died, told the court: "She didn't want to be here without Lucas, she couldn't forgive herself.
"He was her world. To her he was her greatest achievement and he was lovely, he was an absolute credit."
A verdict of suicide was recorded by coroner Claire Welch.
The fire in Sandbach was not treated as suspicious by police
Ms Welch said: "I can't imagine the distress and trauma that she must have been going through at this time, having gone through such a traumatic experience and lost her only child."
The coroner for Cheshire also paid tribute to the "dignity and calmness" showed by Miss Carter's sister Gemma Williams during the inquest.
"To have lost Lucas and then Kelly in such short succession is unimaginable from my point of view so my heartfelt condolences really do go out to you and all your family," she said.
The inquest heard medical notes recording Miss Carter's comments telling staff she would hang herself or overdose once she was home were not passed on when she was transferred to Macclesfield Hospital.
But Ms Welch said the mistake did not cause or contribute to her death.
She said she was satisfied that at the time of her discharge it was considered more appropriate to allow Miss Carter to be with her family and to plan Lucas's funeral.
An inquest into Lucas's death has not yet been held.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42010578
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Greece: Deadly floods near Athens after heavy rain - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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Torrential rain overnight created fast-flowing torrents of red mud in towns near the capital Athens.
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Flash flooding west of the Greek capital, Athens, has killed at least 14 people, officials say.
Torrential rain overnight created fast-flowing torrents of red mud, with a mayor calling it a "biblical" disaster.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41998379
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Passers-by 'afraid' to speak to homeless - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Researchers find that two thirds of people in Scotland never stop to speak to homeless people.
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Scotland
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About 5,000 people are forced to sleep rough on Scotland's streets each year
Two thirds of Scots never stop to speak to homeless people, according to a new study.
Charity Street Soccer Scotland, which commissioned the research, also said that 41% of those questioned were "fearful" of approaching the homeless.
The research shows younger people aged 16 to 24 were least likely to stop and talk.
It is estimated that each year about 5,000 people are forced to sleep rough on Scotland's streets.
Street Soccer Scotland said older age groups were less likely to be anxious about speaking to rough sleepers.
Founder and chief executive of the charity David Duke, who was homeless for three years, said: "Having experienced homelessness I know what it's like to spend your days alone, with no-one to speak to.
"I also know the difference that having someone to talk to can make when you've lost all hope.
"I'm really shocked at the number of people who say they don't stop to speak to people who are homeless, and especially by the number who say they're afraid to."
Last year, 9,187 homelessness applications were received from people aged 16 to 24.
Mr Duke, who also sits on the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group set up by the Scottish government, added: "Today in Scotland, great strides are being made to eradicate homelessness with progressive laws and a willing government.
"However, unfortunately some things have stayed exactly the same.
"The lack of dignity afforded to people experiencing homelessness, the prejudice and stigma that comes with what is the worst time of your life, is holding our society back. We need to do more to change that."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42003888
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'Breakthrough' breast cancer drugs get NHS approval - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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Two new treatments can slow cancer down and delay the need for chemotherapy, research shows.
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Health
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Two new "breakthrough" drugs to treat breast cancer have been given the green light for use on the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) approved palbociclib and ribociclib after negotiating prices for the treatments.
Research shows the drugs slow down advanced cancer for at least 10 months and can delay the need for chemotherapy.
Around 8,000 people in England will now have access to the medications.
There are about 45,000 new diagnoses of breast cancer in the country each year.
Palbociclib had earlier been rejected by NICE because of its high cost.
One cycle of palbociclib - or 21 capsules - costs £2,950 for a pack of 21. For 63 tablets of ribociclib, the price is the same.
The latest draft guidance from NICE said that women with oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer that is diagnosed after it has begun to spread will be eligible for palbociclib - also known as Ibrance.
If they have gone through the menopause, they will be eligible for ribociclib - also known as Kisqali.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Breast cancer drug palbociclib could give women more time to control disease, scientist tells Today
The two medications are the first of a new type of drug shown to slow down the progression of cancer by inhibiting two proteins - CDK 4 and 6.
They only need to be taken once a day, alongside an aromatase inhibitor - which blocks the production of the hormone oestrogen and can fuel some breast cancers.
Vikki Orvice, who was prescribed palbociclib for two years as part of a trial, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the NICE approval was "brilliant news".
"It's a life-changing drug for thousands of women and in years to come as well," the sports writer from St Albans, Hertfordshire, said.
"You get slight fatigue from it, but it was manageable and I was on the highest dose possible. No one looking at me would have known I was ill... you have a quality of life with so few side effects."
Craig Eagle, head of oncology at Pfizer UK, which manufactured palbociclib, told Today the tablet "helps control and slow the cancer for up to two years, bringing that extra time for patients in the prime of their life".
He said it was correct that the company had first offered the drug at a price that was rejected by NICE, but they had later come to a "confidential agreement around the price".
Nicholas Turner, professor of molecular oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, and consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden, said the new drugs were "one of the most important breakthroughs for women with advanced breast cancer in the last two decades".
Prof Turner, who led the clinical trials for the drugs, said: "Palbociclib and ribociclib have made a huge difference to women's lives - slowing down tumour growth for nearly a year, and delaying the need for chemotherapy with all its potentially debilitating side-effects.
"These drugs have allowed women to live a normal life for longer."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42006609
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Roy Moore's lawyer casts doubt on accuser's yearbook claim - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Mr Moore's lawyer questions an accuser's account as three more women come forward with more claims.
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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. Roy Moore: How Alabamans are defending the accused judge
A lawyer for embattled Senate candidate Roy Moore has raised questions about evidence provided by a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her as a teen.
Beverly Young Nelson showed Mr Moore's purported signature and message in her high school yearbook as proof of his alleged interest in her.
His lawyer cast doubt on the signature and called on Mrs Nelson to release the yearbook for handwriting examination.
A number of women have come forward to accuse Mr Moore of sexual misconduct.
Many of them accuse him of initiating sexual contact while they were teenage girls.
The 70-year-old former Alabama Supreme Court judge has flatly denied the claims.
He tweeted a defiant message - "Bring. It. On" - to Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, who is among those to have urged him to quit.
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Judge Roy Moore This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Mr Moore's lawyer, Phillip Jauregui, told reporters on Wednesday the allegations against his client were "incredibly painful" and suggested his fifth accuser had altered the judge's signature in her yearbook.
"Was it written by somebody else?" Mr Jauregui asked, before urging Mrs Nelson's lawyer, Gloria Allred, to release the yearbook to a "neutral custodian" to analyse the handwriting.
Nelson displayed her 1977 yearbook whilst making her accusation last week
He claimed the handwriting was different from the judge's signature.
The yearbook message reads: "To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say Merry Christmas. Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore, D.A. 12-22-77 Olde Hickory House."
Mrs Nelson said she was 16 years old and working as a waitress at the Olde Hickory House when Mr Moore, who was 30 at the time, allegedly wrote the message. She claims he tried to force himself on her about a week later.
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Her account followed a Washington Post report quoting four women by name, including one who alleged Mr Moore initiated sexual contact with her when she was 14 - beneath the legal age of consent in Alabama - while he was a prosecutor in his 30s.
The newspaper on Wednesday night published two more accounts from women who claimed Mr Moore harassed them when they were younger.
Gene Richardson, 58, alleges Mr Moore called her at her high school to ask her out. She rebuffed his offer, but said she felt pressured to go out with him after he allegedly asked again at the Gadsden Mall, where she worked. She claims the date ended with a "forceful" kiss.
Becky Gray, who was 22 at the time, also worked at the mall and said she complained to her manager about Mr Moore's behaviour. She alleges the manager told her it was "not the first time he had a complaint about him hanging at the mall".
Another accuser told Al.com she was groped by Mr Moore during a meeting at his law office in 1991, when she was 28 years old. Tina Johnson said she went to see him to sign over custody of her son, who was then 12, to her mother.
When the meeting ended, she said Mr Moore grabbed her buttocks.
"He didn't pinch it; he grabbed it," she said, noting she didn't tell her mother about the incident.
Mr Moore's campaign did not directly address the new allegations but suggested in a statement to the newspaper that the claims were politically motivated.
As the Republican establishment lines up to denounce Roy Moore, many in his home state are standing by him. At a gathering I attended in Montgomery, many GOP voters felt the allegations of misconduct were false, and questioned the timing of their emergence.
Was this is Democratic conspiracy, some asked. Why didn't any of this come out before, in the many decades Roy Moore has held public office? Some local Republican associations in the state have issued statements standing by their candidate for the Senate - which makes any national moves to remove him from this race tricky.
Many people I've met here say Alabamans don't like being told what to do by people from outside. Roy Moore represents the conservative, evangelical base of the party, which is sick of decrees from the so-called Washington elite.
Polls numbers might show the Democrats making ground here in what's usually safe GOP territory - but the fact Roy Moore still has a base of support is why he continues to tweet that he's not going to quit, and why he is still - very much - in this race.
The news conference came as another woman accused Mr Moore of sexual misconduct, alleging that he groped her in his office when she was 28 years old.
US President Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, strongly condemned Mr Moore to the Associated Press news agency on Wednesday.
"There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children," she said. "I've yet to see a valid explanation [from Moore] and I have no reason to doubt the victims' accounts."
President Trump has yet to publicly comment on the controversy while several prominent Republicans have called on him to "step aside" in the Senate race.
Mr Jauregui on Wednesday disputed Mrs Nelson's claim that she did not have contact with Mr Moore after the alleged 1977 incident.
He said the judge presided over Mrs Nelson's divorce in 1999 and suggested she lifted his signature from her court documents from the case.
Mr Moore had no recollection of signing "DA" after his name, but had an assistant with those initials at the time of Mrs Nelson's divorce who would have stamped it on court filings, Mr Jauregui said.
Mr Moore, an outspoken Christian conservative, had been a heavy favourite to win the 12 December election against Democrat Doug Jones.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42005449
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'Leonardo da Vinci artwork' sells for record $450m - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Salvator Mundi, reputedly painted by the artist, is sold by Christie's in New York for $450m.
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Entertainment & Arts
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The painting has been cleaned and restored from the image on the left to the one on the right
A 500-year-old painting of Christ believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci has been sold in New York for a record $450m (£341m).
The painting is known as Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World).
It is the highest auction price for any work of art and brought cheers and applause at the packed Christie's auction room.
Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519 and there are fewer than 20 of his paintings in existence.
Salvator Mundi, believed to have been painted sometime after 1505, is the only work thought to be in private hands.
Bidding began at $100m and the final bid for the work was $400m, with fees bringing the full price up to $450.3m. The unidentified buyer was involved in a bidding contest, via telephone, that lasted nearly 20 minutes.
Excitement in the auction room rose as the bids by telephone came in
The painting shows Christ with one hand raised, the other holding a glass sphere.
In 1958 it was sold at auction in London for a mere £45.
By then the painting was generally reckoned to be the work of a follower of Leonardo and not the work of Leonardo himself.
It apparently was part of King Charles I of England's collection in the 1600s and got lost, but was "rediscovered" in 2005.
$450m for Salvator Mundi is an astonishing price to have realised, given both its condition and authenticity have been questioned.
It shows that ultimately art comes down to belief.
And there were plenty of bidders last night who were suitably convinced by its Leonardo da Vinci attribution to drive the price up to such stratospheric heights.
As yet, the new owner is unknown.
Speculation will be rife. Which I will contribute to, by noting the newly opened Louvre Abu Dhabi will have a Leonardo shaped hole in its displays when the decade-long loan deal with the French museums comes to an end.
Wherever it ends up, you've got to hand it to Christie's for its masterclass in the art of selling art.
Art agents celebrated when the sale was completed
In a bold move, without a hint of irony, the painting was sold in its Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale alongside a Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.
Why not in the Old Masters Sale? Because that's not where the elephant bucks are.
The big money comes into the room nowadays when Pollocks and Twomblys are on the block, and promptly leaves when the Reynolds and Winterhalters arrive.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Salvator Mundi was discovered hidden under layers of paint
Dr Tim Hunter, who is an expert in Old Master and 19th Century art, told the BBC the painting is "the most important discovery in the 21st Century".
"It completely smashes the record for the last Old Masters painting to sell - Van Gogh's Sunflowers in 1988. Records get broken from time to time but not in this way.
"Da Vinci painted less than 20 oil paintings and many are unfinished so it's incredibly rare and we love that in art."
Before the auction it was owned by Russian billionaire collector Dmitry E Rybolovlev, who is reported to have bought it in a private sale in May 2013 for $127.5m (£98m).
The painting has had major cosmetic surgery - its walnut panel base has been described as "worm-tunnelled" and at some point it seems to have been split in half - and efforts to restore it resulted in abrasions.
BBC arts correspondent Vincent Dowd said that even now attribution to Leonardo is not universally accepted.
One critic has described the surface of the painting to be "inert, varnished, lurid, scrubbed over and repainted so many times that it looks simultaneously new and old".
"Any private collector who gets suckered into buying this picture and places it in their apartment or storage, it serves them right," Jerry Saltz wrote on Vulture.com.
But Christie's has insisted the painting is authentic and billed it as "the greatest artistic rediscovery of the 20th Century".
Georgina Adam, who is an Art Market specialist, told the BBC the price of the piece is "fuelled by the sheer amount of money that billionaires have."
"This is the last Leonardo painting you can buy. This isn't as a store of value, it's the ultimate trophy - only one person in the world can own this.
"If you think of the wealth of some billionaires, Bill Gates is worth 87 billion, and I'm not saying it's him, but near to half a billion would not be a colossal chunk out of his income for example."
The auction house has not revealed who purchased the picture, but Hunter speculates it could be a buyer from Asia or even be on the way to the new Louvre in Abu Dhabi.
Could the painting be headed for Abu Dhabi's new Louvre Museum?
"It's the sort of painting you can imagine as a star piece in a private collection and as billionaire collectors like to set up their own museums, it could be a good piece for them," Hunter said.
Adam also thinks the piece could have gone to an Asian market.
"We don't know who bought it, I went to the Louvre in Abu Dhabi and I did wonder whether the Gulf could be responsible.
"People are thinking the Far East, the picture was taken to Hong Kong before it was put up for sale to show to possible buyers there so that is possible. "
Paul Gauguin's 'When Will You marry?' broke price records in 2015
The 79 x 69 inch (2 x 1.75m) expressionist piece was painted in 1955. It was sold to hedge-fund founder Kenneth C Griffin, who spent about $500m in total in 2016 on a Pollock piece too.
2. Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) by Paul Gauguin - $300m (£230m)
His post-impressionist painting of Tahiti women was sold in February 2015 to a mystery buyer, rumoured to be a Qatari museum, and is thought to share the top spot with a piece by William de Kooning.
This sale to Qatar broke records in 2011. The piece was painted at the end of the 19th Century and was part of a five-part series. The others in the series are at some of the world's most prestigious art museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
This abstract expressionist piece was also sold in 2016 to Kenneth C Griffin from American businessman David Geffen.
Mr Griffin, 49, founded global investment firm Citadel and is considered one of the world's most active art buyers
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-42000696
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Universal Credit: Architect of welfare shake-up urges changes - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Stephen Brien, who conceived the idea of the single benefit, calls for changes to how it is paid.
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UK Politics
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Dr Brien wrote the report which formed the basis of one of the government's flagship policies
The man who invented Universal Credit has added his voice to growing calls for the benefit to be paid quicker.
Stephen Brien, whose report in 2009 became the blueprint for the benefit, told the BBC claimants should receive their first payment after four weeks.
Currently people typically have to wait six weeks and one in five wait longer.
Theresa May defended the system in the Commons on Wednesday though there is a widespread expectation that changes will be made in next week's Budget.
MPs are due to hold a debate on Universal Credit, which merges six benefits for working-age people into one new payment, later on Thursday.
Last month the Commons voted overwhelmingly to pause its roll-out but the government did not take part in the ballot and effectively ignored the decision.
Universal Credit started life in the Centre for Social Justice think tank, under the leadership of Dr Brien.
In 2009, he wrote a 370 page report called Dynamic Benefits, which became the basis for the new benefit. He then went on to work in the Department for Work and Pension between 2011 and 2013, creating the benefit.
While he told the BBC the principle of the idea remains, he believed there were now significant operational problems.
"I would get rid of the seven days (waiting period)," he said, referring to the initial week after someone makes a claim where they aren't paid any benefit even if they're eligible for Universal Credit.
And he also thinks the department doesn't need a week to actually process payments.
The system is predicated on making people better off in work
But critics warn it is forcing more and more people to turn to food banks
"We should be looking at something much closer to a four-week process.
"When we are looking at a group of people who have lost their job, to expect them to take six weeks on their own back without getting any cash is a challenging one.
"I think we have to recognise that the benefits system needs to focus on the needs of the most vulnerable as much as it focuses on getting people back to work."
Universal credit is the largest change to the welfare system in decades. It combines six working-age benefits, such as tax credits and housing benefit, into one monthly payment.
The roll-out of the benefit is currently being accelerated to 50 job centres a month. A number of groups, including Citizens Advice, the Labour Party and the Children's Commissioner for England, have called for the extension to be paused arguing that it is creating debts and rent arrears.
The government has so far resisted such demands, arguing the benefit is working and getting single people into a job quicker than previous benefits.
Stephen Brien, who currently works for the Legatum Institute, also argues changes made by the government in the 2015 Budget have moved Universal Credit away from its over-riding aim - to make work pay for everyone.
"Certain groups have a greater incentive than they had in the past; others do not, and that's the area we need to fix. It was designed to make work pay. It still makes work pay but not as well as it could and should do."
The 2015 changes to the current system of tax credits means it is currently more attractive for some people to move into work than it will be under Universal Credit.
Forthcoming Budgets should address the problem, Dr Brien says.
"There is more value in increasing the work allowances payments for benefit claimants than in increasing the tax threshold for earners. The most vulnerable groups will benefit most from increases in work allowances than raising the threshold of tax."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42001257
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New borrowing rules will 'boost home building' - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Housing associations say being reclassified as private bodies will allow them to build more homes.
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UK Politics
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New powers to fund house-building have been announced, as ministers promised more measures in next week's Budget.
Housing associations will be reclassified as private bodies allowing their £70bn debt to be removed from the government's balance sheet.
They said the technical change would allow them to build more affordable homes.
But Labour said the government had no coherent plan to address the "housing crisis".
Latest figures show 217,350 "additional dwellings" in England last year, which includes new builds, conversions and changes of use. This was up by 27,700 up on 2015-16.
Labour said any increase was welcome but that house-building had still not returned to the level it reached before the global financial crisis.
Visiting a north London housing estate, Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to take "personal charge" of the government's strategy to address what is widely regarded as the chronic shortage of new affordable homes being built, particularly for rent.
There have been reports of tensions within the cabinet about whether the government should be borrowing tens of billions to directly fund more schemes.
In a speech in Bristol, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said the decision by the Office for National Statistics to remove housing association debt from the UK balance sheet would help create a more "stable investment environment" for the thousands of providers.
Housing associations were classified as public bodies in 2015 because of the way they were funded - a move that led to warnings it would hamper their ability to fund new house-building.
In 2015, the Office for National Statistics shocked the government by announcing that ministerial control of housing associations had become so intrusive they could no longer be seen as charities or private businesses.
Overnight, all their borrowing was added to the public debt.
Now, after the drafting of new regulations currently going through Parliament, the ONS has agreed the government has become hands-off enough again to take all that debt away.
The announcement of the change, before the new regulations have come into law, appears to be part of a move to encourage Philip Hammond to offer more help to the housing sector.
Whether such pressure will move the Treasury to loosen the purse strings remains to be seen.
The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, said it strongly supported the reclassification.
It said housing associations built nearly 50,000 new homes last year, including social and affordable rental properties.
The federation added: "This change will allow them to build on their strong track record and secure the long-term finance needed to build even more affordable homes."
Mr Javid said the rethink would help "lay the foundation" for thousands and thousands of new homes.
But he warned new thinking is required to stop "a rootless generation" of tenants drifting from one short-term tenancy to another.
"There are many, many faults in our housing market, dating back many many years. If you only fix one you will make some progress but not enough. This is a big problem and we have to think big."
He also said the government would be intervening in the case of 15 local authorities which have failed to produce a local plan for housing development in their area.
More than 1.2 million families in England are currently on the waiting for council accommodation while in 2015-6 only 6,800 social rented homes were completed.
The Local Government Association said councils should be given the same freedom to borrow to build.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42001261
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Wild boar meat 'may have poisoned' New Zealand family - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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Health officials say the wild boar, which the NZ family had hunted themselves, is one possible cause.
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Asia
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Health authorities said there was no evidence of any broad contamination of game meat
A New Zealand family are seriously ill in hospital, with a wild boar they hunted and ate being investigated by doctors as one possible cause.
Friends of the family wrote in a Facebook post that Shibu Kochummen, his wife Subi Babu and mother Alekutty Daniel collapsed after eating the meat.
Health officials said there is no evidence of any "broader contaminated game" or any risk to public health.
Two children who did not eat the meat are unaffected.
But the three adults in the family had cooked and eaten the boar, before being found on the floor of their home in Waikato by emergency services last Friday, friends of the family said.
Joji Varghese told the BBC that doctors are waiting on a toxicology report and that "the nature of the contaminant is unknown".
In a Facebook post appealing for help, Mr Varghese and other friends of the family wrote of the severity of their condition, adding that officials had sent samples of all food items found in the family's home for testing.
The family moved to New Zealand from India five years ago and Mr Kochummen, a hunting enthusiast, had earlier shot the wild boar which they eventually ate.
"We are still investigating potential sources for the illness in this case," said Richard Vipond, a medical officer at the Waikato Health Board, in a press release.
He added that those who hunt or handle game meat should follow the guidelines set out by the Ministry of Primary Industries to reduce any risk of contamination.
Mr Kochummen and Ms Daniel are reportedly stable in a ward, but Ms Babu remains in critical condition, according to Dr Vipond.
The Indian High Commission told the New Zealand Herald that embassy staff are working with family and friends.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42007008
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Grenfell Tower final death toll stands at 71 - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Metropolitan Police says it believes all those who died in the blaze have now been identified.
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UK
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Seventy one victims of the Grenfell Tower fire have been formally identified and police believe that all those who died have now been recovered.
The number of victims includes baby Logan Gomes, who was stillborn in hospital on 14 June, the day the 24-storey blaze broke out.
The final two victims to be formally identified have been named as Victoria King and daughter Alexandra Atala.
The Met said it was providing "every support we can" to the bereaved.
Metropolitan Police Commander Stuart Cundy said: "I have been clear from the start that a priority for us was recovering all those who died, and identifying and returning them to their families.
"Specialist teams working inside Grenfell Tower and the mortuary have pushed the boundaries of what was scientifically possible to identify people.
"After the fire was finally put out, I entered Grenfell Tower and was genuinely concerned that due to the intensity and duration of the fire, that we may not find, recover and then identify all those who died.
Victoria King, pictured, died in the flat alongside her daughter Alexandra Atala
"I know that each and every member of the team has done absolutely all they can to make this possible."
In June, the Met had a list of 400 missing people - some of whom were reported a number of times under different names or spellings, with one person in particular recorded 46 separate times.
The work to investigate and locate all those reported as missing was only concluded in the last few weeks, the Met said.
The family of Ms King, 71, and Ms Atala, 40, said they were "devastated" to learn of the pair's fate, adding that the mother and daughter were "devoted to each other".
The original missing persons list was also made higher by fraudulent cases, police said, with some individuals attempting to benefit financially from the tragedy.
There are a number of ongoing fraud investigations, and earlier this month one man pleaded guilty to fraud after claiming that his wife and son had both died in the fire.
The Met is also investigating alleged thefts from seven flats at Grenfell Tower, although no perpetrators have yet been identified, according to BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw.
Commander Cundy told BBC News: "There was only one way in and out of the tower and [CCTV] footage shows 223 people came out and survived."
He said not all 223 people were residents, some were visitors, and some residents were not in the tower at the time.
While the final stage of the search operation is not expected to conclude until early December, the Met said in a statement: "Based on all the work carried out so far and the expert advice, it is highly unlikely there is anyone who remains inside Grenfell Tower".
Specially trained officers from the Met, City of London Police and British Transport Police have been involved in the search and recovery operation, thoroughly searching every single flat on every single floor.
Officers have examined 15.5 tonnes of debris on each floor, helped by forensic anthropologists, archaeologists and forensic dentists or odontologists.
• None Grenfell Tower fire: Who were the victims?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42008279
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Zimbabwe yearns for change of any kind - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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In the depths of an economic abyss, the political crisis now offers hope to many Zimbabweans.
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Africa
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A man sells watermelon in the capital a day after the military moved against Mr Mugabe
Driving around Zimbabwe, one can hardly tell the country is in the middle of the biggest political crisis since independence.
In one town, a man in his 20s invites me to his shop and tries to convince me to buy a silver necklace. "It costs $20 [£15]," he says. "But for you I can make that $15."
He offers the discount rather half-heartedly.
"You see, people don't want to spend money on thing like these; the economy is really doing badly."
The once-promising African country has sunk into an economic abyss.
The government was forced to abolish the country's currency in 2009 because of hyperinflation, and introduced more stable foreign currencies such as the US dollar.
Annual inflation reached 231 million per cent in central bank figures reported in July 2008 - officials gave up reporting monthly statistics when it peaked at just under 80 billion per cent in mid-November 2008.
On Wednesday this week, the government published the latest inflation rate showing a 2.24% year-on-year rise for the month of October. Some economists, however, say the new figures are a gross underestimate.
It is no surprise then that many Zimbabweans almost instantly warmed to the military's move to take control of the country, and confine President Robert Mugabe to his official residence.
"The military has done a good thing," says one bookseller. "They will ensure we get a transitional government."
He is firmly convinced that Mr Mugabe's 37-year rule is coming to an end.
There has been a sudden change of tone in the country, and the sense is that many Zimbabweans have been yearning for change.
Any change, it seems, would do.
At the market, traders hope this means their fortunes will change.
Many of them passively watch shoppers walk past their shops, resigned to the idea that most people are struggling to make ends meet.
So when a middle-aged tourist buys souvenirs, the rest of the traders suddenly swarm around her as they invite her to view their merchandise. She thanks them, but politely declines the invitation and walks away.
Traders working in a troubled economy hope that change will improve their fortunes
The traders believe their economic situation will improve once Mr Mugabe's rule ends.
But there is still political uncertainty surrounding the succession.
The once-vibrant opposition has begun to speak out, and the former Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, is now back in the country. He has demanded that President Mugabe steps down.
What started as a split within the ruling Zanu-PF party could well develop into a broader crisis with politicians from across the divide angling to take over from Mr Mugabe.
But the president still commands a lot of respect as an independence icon.
The same respect does not seem to be extended to his wife, Grace, who was thought to be his preferred successor.
Her openly extravagant lifestyle has been widely criticised.
What is clear is that the events of this week have dented - if not ended - any chances she had of succeeding her husband.
In the midst of political uncertainty, Zimbabweans remain hopeful. Change is coming, in whatever form.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42016705
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Virgin West Coast rail workers to strike - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The RMT union says union members at the rail firm voted 9-1 to take strike action over pay.
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Business
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RMT members working on Virgin West Coast have voted 9-1 to take action, including strike action, over pay.
The union said nearly 1,800 workers including train managers and on-board catering workers on the West Coast route from Glasgow to Euston took part.
The RMT said it wanted a "suitable and equal" pay offer to the £500 one given to drivers.
A Virgin Trains spokesman said they hoped to be able to run most services throughout any industrial action.
The firm said: "We are disappointed by the result of the RMT's ballot, but can reassure customers that we will be able to run the majority of services during any industrial action.
"We have offered a 3.2% annual pay increase at a time when the average increase across public and private sector employees is around 2%. We remain open to continuing talks with the RMT."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42014208
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Zimbabwe army takes on Mugabe - as it happened - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Reaction after Zimbabwe's military seizes power leaving the future of President Mugabe uncertain.
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Africa
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To get to President Robert Mugabe's rural home, you drive along the Robert Mugabe Highway.
It is probably one of the most well-maintained roads in Zimbabwe. It is like driving on a carpet.
Along the way you are greeted by a plaque erected in his honour.
Kutama Village is home to the 93-year-old. It is a small and tightly connected village where everyone knows each other.
You cannot really tell if they have been rattled by the current political crisis.
As we arrived, there was an air of uncertainty.
Mr Mugabe is respected here. To many, he is a father and a friend.
Speaking to me at his compound, a 65-year-old neighbour told me:
Quote Message: He's kind, he's a good man and he understands people's plight."
The man goes to St Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church with Mr Mugabe, a devout Christian, whenever he visits.
Quote Message: He never demands special treatment. He visits people to check on their welfare." He never demands special treatment. He visits people to check on their welfare."
Nevertheless, he supported the intervention by the army to remove Mr Mugabe from office, saying it is meant to correct a broken system:
Quote Message: If his term goes out then there's nothing wrong." If his term goes out then there's nothing wrong."
When I approached other villagers, I attracted immediate suspicion. They were not keen to talk.
But it seems to me that Mr Mugabe is seen as a hero in the village. It is easy to spot people wearing clothes emblazoned with his face.
Police officers are patrolling the area around Mr Mugabe's home.
You can't really peep inside the compound because of tight security.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-41994362
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Google Docs offline for 'significant' number of users - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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One of Google's key cloud services went offline for many users on Wednesday.
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Technology
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Google Docs was inaccessible for a "significant subset” of users on Wednesday.
The company confirmed the issue on its status page but did not offer more information.
A spokeswoman for Google would not confirm to the BBC how many users encountered the problem, but said she did not believe any customers who paid for extra storage were affected.
Problems were reported by users trying to access the programs across the world.
Downdetector.com, which tracks outages around the world, suggested US users were having the most significant issues - though there were some reports in Europe, where the outage occurred at a time that was outside of typical hours for most business.
The down time lasted for between 30 minutes and an hour, during which many people used Twitter to complain.
At 2209 GMT the Twitter account for Google Docs said: "Docs is back up for most users, and we expect a full resolution for all users shortly.
"Sorry for this disruption and thanks again for your patience with us.”
It is the second time in recent weeks that Google Docs users have been left frustrated by glitches in the system.
In October some users were locked out of a files after they were wrongly tagged as being “inappropriate” content. The company apologised for the disruption.
Cloud computing - where files are stored and edited on the internet rather than locally on your computer - is a major part of the technology sector.
Those services remaining stable and reliable is crucial for businesses that rely on the software for day-to-day work.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the market leader by revenue, but it is not immune to down time - an incident at the start of this year saw more than 150,000 websites taken offline due to an Amazon fault.
Google's service status page said the problem had now been resolved.
"We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support," it added.
"Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42006495
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Far-right accounts lose Twitter verified tick - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The social network says it will remove the verified badge from accounts that break its rules.
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Technology
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Richard Spencer and Tommy Robinson have lost their blue badges
Twitter has stripped several far-right accounts of their "verified" badge, after changing its policy.
Among them are Jason Kessler who helped organise a far-right march in Charlottesville, and white supremacist Richard Spencer.
English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson also had his badge removed.
Twitter said the badge was being interpreted as an "endorsement or an indicator of importance" and said it would change the scheme.
The blue badge was first introduced to indicate the authenticity of prominent profiles on the social network.
Originally the site had chosen who to verify, and usually reserved the status for celebrities, public officials and journalists.
In July 2016, it opened the scheme up to the wider public and let anybody apply for a verified badge.
Last week, the social network was criticised for giving Mr Kessler a verified badge, and on 9 November halted its verified profile scheme.
It said it had not intended the blue badge to be an endorsement of views shared.
"We gave verified accounts visual prominence on the service which deepened this perception," it said. "We should have addressed this earlier but did not prioritise the work as we should have."
Twitter said it was designing a new "authentication and verification programme", but in the meantime would "remove verification from accounts whose behaviour does not fall within the new guidelines".
The new guidelines say verified status can be lost if a person breaks Twitter's rules or "promotes hate" on the basis of "race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease".
It said behaviour both on and off Twitter would be taken into account.
Some of those who had their verified badges removed said the new policy was being applied inconsistently and highlighted accounts of disgraced celebrities that had not lost the icon.
Mr Kessler suggested Twitter had changed its rules to "censor" his views, while Mr Robinson said Twitter now classed the truth as "hate speech".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42010139
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Brexit: Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein suggests second vote - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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Lloyd Blankfein tweets that many want a "confirming vote" on a "monumental and irreversible" decision.
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Business
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The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, has suggested holding another referendum on Brexit.
Mr Blankfein tweeted: "Here in UK, lots of hand-wringing from CEOs over #Brexit... So much at stake, why not make sure consensus still there?"
The firm, which is known to have taken office space in Frankfurt, employs about 6,000 people in London.
Banks are particularly worried the UK will fail to strike an EU trade deal.
The banks fear that after Britain leaves the EU their businesses will lose "passporting rights", which allows them to sell financial services across borders.
Mr Blankfein's tweet went on to say: "Better sense of the tough and risky road ahead. Reluctant to say, but many wish for a confirming vote on a decision so monumental and irreversible.
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Lloyd Blankfein This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Mr Blankfein's twitter account was barely used until recently.
Despite him signing up to the microblogging service in 2011 he only sent his first tweet in June - and since then has shared his thoughts in that way just 26 times.
Nevertheless, he has attracted 69,000 followers.
His previously most noticeable tweet - sent last month - was also Brexit-related: "Just left Frankfurt. Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I'll be spending a lot more time there. #Brexit".
That was seen as a hint that Frankfurt would become a key European base for the Wall Street giant post-Brexit.
Last month, the Wall Street bank said it had agreed to lease office space at a new building in Frankfurt giving it space for up to 1,000 staff.
That would be five times the current staff of 200 and see the Wall Street giant bolstering activities including trading, investment banking and asset management.
The bank is also thought to be looking at expanding its operation in Paris.
A spokesman for Goldman Sachs said the bank had nothing further to add to Mr Blankfein's comments.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42014209
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Gaia Pope: Clothes found in search for missing teenager - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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Dorset Police said it was not clear who the clothes belong to but Gaia's family had been informed.
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Dorset
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Police have cordoned off an area of land north of the coast path
Detectives investigating the disappearance of teenager Gaia Pope say women's clothing has been found near a coastal path in Dorset.
It is not clear who the clothes belong to, but Dorset Police said Gaia's family have been informed.
Gaia, 19, was last seen nine days ago by family friend Rosemary Dinch, in Swanage, Dorset.
An area near Durlston Country Park has been cordoned off after a member of the public found the clothes.
Senior investigating officer Neil Devoto, said: "Following the discovery of these items of clothing, a full and thorough search will now take place in the field and surrounding area.
"We have seized the clothing and investigations will now be carried out to identify who they belong to."
Ms Dinch, 71, and her 19-year-old grandson, Nathan Elsey, were arrested on suspicion of murdering Ms Pope on Monday.
The pair were released on Tuesday while inquiries continue.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Missing Gaia Pope search: "She's worth every bit of it"
Gaia's father Richard Sutherland said earlier that the search for his missing daughter had been the "toughest thing" to go through.
He praised the local community for helping in the search for Gaia, last seen in Morrison Road at 16:00 GMT on 7 November.
Mr Sutherland told the BBC he and her family "know she'll be found".
Earlier this week, police issued CCTV images of Gaia, who has severe epilepsy, while she was running on Morrison Road and at a petrol station in the town.
Mr Sutherland told the BBC the search by volunteers and police through the streets of the seaside town had been "heart warming".
Gaia Pope was last seen in Swanage on 7 November
"It's been beautiful, it keeps us going. To feel that strength of everyone helping us - every bit of help is gratefully received and she's worth every bit of it," he said.
"We have every hope - every minute that goes by we still have hope.
"I can't describe it - you can imagine, it's just about the toughest thing we can go through."
CCTV shows Gaia at a petrol station on the afternoon she went missing
The CCTV images of Gaia show her in the petrol station at St Michael's Garage, on Valley Road, Swanage where she went in to buy an ice cream at about 14:55 on the day she disappeared.
Police said she was being driven between Langton Matravers and Swanage by a family member when they stopped off for fuel.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police believe Gaia Pope is captured in this CCTV running past a house
Mr Devoto said: "We believe Gaia was wearing the same grey and white woven leggings and white trainers, but was last seen in a red checked shirt with white buttons.
"When she disappeared she was not wearing the black jacket pictured, which was recovered at an address in Manor Gardens."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Family friend Rosemary Dinch was the last person to see Gaia Pope before she went missing
The force said on Tuesday it believed the teenager was still in the Swanage area and it remained "hopeful" it would find her alive.
Gaia's family previously said it was thought she did not have her epilepsy medication on her.
She is described as 5ft 7ins tall, of medium build and with long, mousey blonde hair.
Police put up a missing person notice for Ms Pope in Swanage
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-42014538
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Rolf Harris indecent assault conviction overturned - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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But former entertainer Rolf Harris's other 11 indecent assault convictions still stand.
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UK
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Former entertainer Rolf Harris has had one of 12 indecent assault convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal.
Three judges in London ruled the conviction was "unsafe". But they dismissed applications by Harris, 87, to challenge the other 11 convictions.
There will be no retrial on the one conviction quashed.
The Australian-born TV presenter was jailed in 2014 for 12 indecent assaults, relating to four girls between 1968 and 1986.
He was jailed for five years and nine months and has since been released from that sentence.
The overturned conviction related to an allegation that Harris indecently assaulted an eight-year-old girl in 1969 at an event in Portsmouth.
Though Harris was not in court for the ruling, he said in a statement: "I have said all along that I did not attend and had never attended the location in Portsmouth as this complainant alleged at my first trial.
"I was not believed and she was... I have served a nine-month prison sentence based on her word."
He thanked his legal team, led by Stephen Vullo QC, for "finally" proving his innocence of the alleged crime, which he said was backed up by a "fantasist" claiming to be the sole witness.
The man claimed to have been on leave from the military when he saw Harris in Portsmouth, but Mr Vullo's team proved he had never served in the armed forces - he was a lorry driver who had never left the UK.
Harris claims this information was in the hands of the police "from day one" but was not given to his first legal team "by mistake".
He added: "I hope the press supply the facts to the public to let them decide if I am a monster or the subject of a frenzied witch hunt which focused more on grabbing headlines than finding the truth."
Announcing their decision on Thursday, Lord Justice Treacy, Mrs Justice McGowan and the Recorder of Preston, Judge Mark Brown, refused to give Harris permission to appeal against the rest of the convictions.
They ruled that "stepping back and looking at the totality of the evidence" on those remaining counts, "we find nothing that causes us to doubt the safety of those convictions".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42012064
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Price of Football 2017: Young adult fans are 'put off' by cost of football - BBC Sport
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2017-11-16
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The Price of Football study finds the majority of ticket prices have frozen or fallen for a third year - but a poll suggests the cost is still putting off young adult fans.
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The BBC Price of Football study has found the majority of ticket prices have been frozen or have fallen for a third year - yet a poll of young adult football fans suggests the cost is still putting them off.
This year BBC Sport asked more than 200 clubs across the United Kingdom for information on ticket prices and found almost two thirds of price categories have been reduced or remained the same across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In a separate poll, we asked 1,000 18- to 24-year-old fans living in Britain how they engage with football, and four in five (82%) said the cost of tickets was an obstacle to them going to more matches.
The annual study found 135 clubs out of 190 in England, Scotland and Wales offer reduced prices for teenagers and young adults - separate from any student concessions - but 55% of the fans we polled said they had stopped going completely or go to fewer games because it was too expensive.
Young adult fans can save, on average, £146.94 on season tickets in the English Premier League and Football League, while in the top four divisions in Scotland the average saving on a season ticket is £143.66.
• None How much could you pay? Enter your team in the calculator
• None Analysis: What does it mean for clubs and fans?
• None Take the Price of Football quiz
According to figures from the Premier League, young adult fans bought 4% of all season tickets this year. A report in 2015 suggested the average age of an adult supporter in the Premier League was 41.
Rob Wilson, football finance expert at Sheffield Hallam University, says top clubs need to do more to attract young adults.
"These fans are the next generation of season ticket holders but they have been brought up in a sanitised and expensive environment," he told BBC Sport.
"With this in mind, they are reluctant to pay so much to watch their teams play and these findings should act as a warning to the Premier League elite - they ignore this group of fans at their peril."
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger admitted he was worried by the findings.
"I think nothing is better than to share the experience of a stadium," he said. "There are many ingredients in the modern game that stopped people going. The lifestyle is different, they play less, they play more computers.
"The security of gathering people is a problem. Can you afford to go when you are young? There are many ingredients we have to take care of in the game."
In a statement, the Premier League said: "Clubs engage with their fans in many ways and hugely appreciate their loyal and passionate support.
The online poll, conducted by ComRes, also showed young fans are more likely to engage with football by playing games on a console or PC (61%) than in a football team (37%).
More young football fans bet on the sport (44%) than play in a team (37%), but more fans play in a team than have a fantasy football team (33%).
Only one in four fans (26%) said they go to watch football live more than once a month.
• None Are young people being priced out of football? Watch our live debate
• None Two thirds (65%) of young football fans said the cost of travel was an obstacle to attending more matches.
• None Three quarters (74%) of young fans said they get their football news from social media - 24% from print newspapers.
• None Three in five fans aged 18-24 go to a sport app or mobile site (59%) for football news while at least half access it via a TV results service (53%).
• None 70% of supporters agreed football clubs did value their fans, but more than half of the teenagers and young adults (56%) said professional football was not run with them in mind.
• None Similar numbers of football fans asked said they go to a football match at least once a week (11%), two to three times a month (15%) or five to 10 times a season (14%).
• None One in six (16%) male football fans aged 18-24 said they go to a match at least once a week, compared to 7% of women in this group.
Of the top four leagues in England, 92% of clubs offer special prices for young adults, separate from any student concessions. The age ranges vary from 16-24 years old, with most targeting the 18-21 bracket.
The biggest discounts come in the Premier League, where an Arsenal member aged 16-19 can purchase a season ticket for £384 compared to the cheapest adult season ticket at £891 - a saving of £507.
Chelsea offer the biggest discount on single matchday tickets for their under 20s, who can pay £15.50 instead of £47 - a saving of £31.50.
But despite these discounts, 81% of the young adult football fans living in England who were polled say they feel the cost of tickets is stopping them from going to more matches.
In Scotland, 27 of the 42 clubs offer young adult discounts.
In the poll, 79% of fans say cost is an obstacle to them attending football matches.
A third of the clubs in the Welsh Premier League offer special discounts for young adults.
Of the young adults asked in Wales, 90% say the cost of tickets puts them off going to watch football.
• None The Price of Football: Results in full
• None How we produced the Price of Football 2017
E-sports are becoming big business and this is the next key challenge for clubs. How do you convert e-sport players into terrace-goers? Can you link the e-game to the actual one? How can mobile technologies support this at half-time, for example? Moreover, the way young fans consume information is changing - clubs need to engage fans much more effectively when it comes to social media.
We've seen big reductions in subscriptions to the pay TV platforms so it's unsurprising young people think twice about live football. There are also lots of options for young people to spend their leisure pound (the cinema, gym, university, cars etc) so football clubs need to work much harder to engage them. There is no magic bullet but they need to do more and communicate that more effectively. The long-term impact of young fans feeling priced out is yet to be truly felt.
What we are seeing, especially with young people, is that incomes are being squeezed in real terms and this will lead to a decrease in demand, particularly as there are alternative leisure opportunities. The number of fans attending football will also respond to rise and fall in prices because of the price elasticity of demand for tickets.
Support for a team is often a matter of loyalty and hence lower prices may not attract many new fans. If young people find their finances are stretched, they may make a rational choice to follow a team by other means such as screened matches.
Young people tend to be in work but with the very slow growth in wages in the past 10 years, their income is lagging behind living costs. Real wages are not rising and young people are also saddled with student debt. Rent and utility bills have to be paid and they are rising faster than other prices.
Then, when you have to pay for food on top, it means things like sport and paying to watch football are not a priority.
There are a number of different, interacting factors that play a part in young people's decision making. These factors are relevant to decisions made about leisure (and in particular football). These include factors such as: 1) temperament and personality and 2) past history - including childhood memories, parents' interests & values, and past teachers or peer influence.
However, there are some interesting trends around leisure also. Young people are drinking less. Young people are more thoughtful about what they want to do with their time and money. Superficially it looks like they have increased choice about what they may do, but in reality they also have less money and less time.
As a young person gets older, it often becomes more important to make decisions that will not alienate them from a social group of friends when compared to decisions that their parents may not like or may be unhealthy.
I am not surprised young people are engaging with football online through videos/fantasy football and probably through social media & apps too - as this is a trend we are seeing across the board with leisure.
I feel sad and disappointed that young people are playing less football as there are so many physical and mental health benefits to this. It is sad that the big drive to increase football in schools is not having a long-term effect once children leave school.
Do you go to games?
Do you attend football matches regularly? If so, what keeps you coming back? Or if you don't, what stops you from going? Get in touch using this link.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41901398
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HMP The Mount: No charges over two-day prison riot - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Police say there is insufficient evidence to prosecute anyone after prisoners took over a jail wing.
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Beds, Herts & Bucks
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No prisoners will be prosecuted over a two-day riot in which armed inmates took over a wing and smashed windows, it has emerged.
Riot-trained officers were sent to HMP The Mount, Hertfordshire, after trouble broke out on 31 July and 1 August.
Hertfordshire Police said it had exhausted all lines of inquiry and no charges would be brought.
Prisoners "must not feel they can do anything" without legal recourse, the Prison Officers' Association said.
Police said reports were received on 31 July that prisoners had "threatened prison officers and caused damage to the prison" over a 10-hour period.
At the time, it was reported by BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw that one wing and half of another were "lost".
Riot-trained staff with shields entered HMP The Mount during a 10-hour disturbance on Monday, 31 July
The following day it was reported to police that a prisoner had been assaulted by two inmates, while well-placed sources told the BBC armed prisoners had taken over the Nash wing of the prison.
A "nucleus of about 30 prisoners" was said to have been involved in the violence.
A Hertfordshire Police spokeswoman said the force would investigate any further information if it came to light.
Obtaining evidence from a prison environment is not as straightforward as it seems.
In the absence of CCTV footage or body-worn cameras - which have yet to be rolled out to all jails - investigators have to rely on witnesses.
And when those witnesses are prisoners that becomes problematic.
Some may fear reprisals if they speak to police, others might give false evidence to implicate others.
It will be immensely disappointing to the prison authorities and staff that police were unable to bring anyone to justice for the trouble at The Mount, let alone have enough evidence to send a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The message that troublemakers can get away with it is not one the Prison Service wants prisoners to hear.
The Prison Officers Association said it was "disappointed" criminal proceedings were not being pursued.
"The incident resulted in significant damage to the prison and costs to the tax payer," a spokesman said.
"Prisons have CCTV in all accommodation areas and so we are surprised evidence is not available to assist the police."
HMP The Mount was designed as a category C training prison built on the site of a former RAF station on the outskirts of Bovingdon village, Hertfordshire
The Mount Prison opened in 1987 as a young offenders institution and now houses more than 1,000 prisoners.
It was designed as a category C training prison built on the site of a former RAF station on the outskirts of Bovingdon village, Hertfordshire.
The prison is described as a "hybrid training and resettlement prison" for inmates in the final six months of their sentences.
A report in 2016 by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) found "all the ingredients" were in place for The Mount to suffer disorder such as has been experienced in other prisons:
The CPS said it had not received a referral from police in relation to this matter.
The Ministry of Justice said it would not comment as it was a matter for the police.
The BBC also asked the Ministry of Justice in October for the cost of repairs to the prison but was told a final amount was not yet available.
This followed a previous Freedom of Information request for a report into the disturbance, which was refused.
A "tornado team" entered HMP The Mount to tackle to disturbances
On the second day of trouble at The Mount, about 30 inmates at Erlestoke prison in Wiltshire also became violent and four people were reported to have been taken to hospital.
In October, prison staff were attacked with pool balls at the high-security HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire.
Police have previously brought charges against those in other prisons involved in disturbances. In September, six inmates were convicted for their part in a 15-hour riot at HMP Birmingham in December 2016.
• None Second day of trouble at prison
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41983069
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Labour's John McDonnell demands 'emergency Budget' - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Shadow chancellor John McDonnell demands 'an emergency Budget for public services '.
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Business
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Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has demanded "an emergency Budget for our public services", which he says are in crisis.
He is promising to spend about £17bn a year extra on the NHS, social care, schools and local government.
The extra spending would be paid for by tax rises for companies and "the rich", while tackling tax avoidance.
The government said Labour's plans would lead to more debt, higher taxes and fewer jobs.
Chancellor Philip Hammond is due to give his Budget speech next Wednesday afternoon.
In a speech at Church House in Westminster, Mr McDonnell called for an end to austerity by the government and set out five main proposals:
He said the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, was out of touch with the lives of ordinary people and there was growing anger after seven years of austerity.
"They were told austerity was the solution to the economic crisis," he said.
"So it's understandable that after seven years of the austerity solution, they are angry when they queue for hours at A&E, see their school laying off teaching assistants, their Surestart centre closing and the local neighbourhood police withdrawn from their streets.
"Especially, while at the same time, they learn about the Paradise Papers and the tax avoidance of the super-rich."
Mr McDonnell said the Conservatives were giving away about £76bn in cuts to corporation tax, capital gains tax and "the rich" during the life of this Parliament.
He said Labour had already calculated £6.5bn could be raised from clamping down on tax avoidance, but he believed that could be significantly higher after the leaking of the Paradise Papers.
A global investigation looked at 13.4 million previously secret documents that revealed offshore investments made by companies, politicians and wealthy individuals.
John McDonnell wants to create a clear red line between him and the present incumbent of Number 11, Philip Hammond.
A week ahead of the Budget, the shadow chancellor has said that more should be spent on health, education and housing and that the public sector pay cap of 1% should be lifted.
The controversial introduction of the new benefits system - the universal credit - should also be delayed after evidence that some recipients were being left without payments for several weeks.
To pay for the new policies, Mr McDonnell will say he is willing to borrow more to invest in infrastructure, arguing it is a good time to do so as interest rates are at historic lows.
It is a position rejected by the Conservatives, with Mr Hammond saying that more borrowing now simply means more debts to be repaid in the future.
It is expected that he will focus any new spending on health and housing in the Budget, next Wednesday.
Mr McDonnell said more action was needed to tackle what he called the "housing crisis".
The government is to wipe about £70bn worth of debt from housing associations' balance sheets, allowing them to raise money more cheaply.
But Mr McDonnell described it as "accountancy tricks" and called for more funding.
"The scale of the crisis demands action on an equal scale. We need at least 100,000 new social homes a-year funded and built by this government, to even begin to address the problem."
He said Mr Hammond could do far more.
"He wants to pretend he cannot invest on the scale needed, yet he has already borrowed more in his first year as chancellor than any of his predecessors in their first year at the Treasury."
Responding to Mr McDonnell's proposals, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss said: "The shadow chancellor has today admitted Labour would borrow billions more and hike up taxes to record levels.
"The costs would rack up and up - putting economic growth at risk and hitting ordinary working people in the pocket.
"Only the Conservatives can build a country that is fit for the future."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41999993
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Zimbabwe media slow to cover military takeover - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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For most of the morning state TV just re-broadcast a statement saying the military had taken over.
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Africa
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Zimbabwe's The Herald newspaper ran a special edition later on Wednesday
Zimbabwean media have been slow to keep their audiences up to date on developments after the military took control earlier today.
State TV and radios were re-broadcasting the statement by Major-General Sibusiso Moyo announcing that the military had taken over but offered little by way of updates to the situation.
For most of the morning the TV played patriotic songs from the independence period of the 1980s before resuming normal programming.
The lunchtime news featured the army takeover as the main story.
The print edition of the government-owned daily The Herald appeared on the streets on Wednesday morning with Tuesday's stories which downplayed the importance of the warning by the head of the armed forces Constantino Chiwenga that the military would take over if necessary.
The paper's online edition took a few hours to update, and has been carrying coverage of the unfolding events, under the headline Live and developing: No Military Takeover in Zim.
Apart from carrying the military statement the paper said: "The situation in Harare's central business district is calm with people going about their business."
Social media users have been trying to make up for the lack of news by posting their own observations and pictures of street scenes in the capital Harare, including some of troops and police being made to sit in a line outside parliament and people going about their daily lives.
Many have dismissed suggestions by the military that their actions don't amount to a coup.
Maj Gen Sibusiso Moyo read out a statement on national TV early on Wednesday
Using the Twitter hashtag #ZimbabweCoup, many users welcomed the developments. The hashtag had been used more than 13,000 times in the 24 hours up until noon on Wednesday, many of the users appearing to be in the country.
One widely shared and liked tweet with a sarcastic overtone read: "The coup going on in Zimbabwe is the smoothest I've ever seen.. It started like we just wanna talk then went to it's cute you think you [sic] still president."
"When you see the army commanders take over the state broadcaster airwaves then that's the confirmation it's a COUP. End of an era," another tweet read. (bit.ly/2hyoy64)
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However, another user provided a different interpretation: "It's a Zanu PF internal putsch backed by the army - very different from a military takeover - the statement issued is so very unique - you can feel the restraint." (bit.ly/2mt6oEl)
Mufti Ismail Menk of Zimbabwe tweeted: "#Zimbabwe is calm and life goes on for most ordinary citizens. Streets are safe and most children are in school."
Some users made fun of the fact that this morning's print editions were way out of date.
"News editors in Zim slept through the revolution. You need night shifts comrades," said @drDendere.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42001242
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Who to believe on Zimbabwe social media remains unclear - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Various social media accounts claim to represent the ruling party of Zimbabwe. It is far from clear which do.
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BBC Trending
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On social media there are several accounts claiming to be the mouthpiece of Zimbabwe's governing Zanu-PF party, but it's unclear which, if any, are official, and what links they have with those currently in charge.
News networks across the world have been reporting on the seizure of power by military generals in Zimbabwe.
Many media outlets, including the BBC, reported posts by the unverified Twitter account @zanu_pf which claims to be "the only official handle" for the Zanu-PF party.
But it's far from clear who is in control of the account and what their connection to the party is.
The account was described as a fake by PRI in 2012, and has previously adopted a tone at odds with what might be expected from official accounts.
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Its Twitter history is full of rants and proclamations about pornography, eggs Benedict and imperialism.
Several journalists in Africa, or specialising on African issues, quickly derided the reporting on the Zanu PF account.
Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Africa reporter at the Wall Street Journal referred to it as a "parody account," but said she, too, had earlier mistakenly retweeted its content.
Alastair Jamieson, from NBC News' London office, tweeted he was trying to establish whether the account was not to be trusted, but could not find the evidence.
The confusion about who's running the account isn't limited to outside observers. At times Zanu-PF officials have publicly wondered who is running the account.
In 2013 another account, reported to be that of a spokesman for the Zanu-PF party, tried to "urgently" establish contact with the person running the @zanu_pf handle.
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It is not known what contact was made between the account @zanu_pf and the Zanu-PF party.
In a surreal turn of events, the unverified account was accused of being a fake in 2016 by a parody account mocking Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
In the post the fake Mr Mugabe claimed the "official party account" was @ZANUPF_Official.
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The @ZANUPF_Official account is another which has seen a popularity boost after recent events in the country.
It had slightly over a thousand followers in 2013, a few thousand on Wednesday morning, and over 10,000 by Thursday morning. Again, it's unclear what connection the account has, if any, with the party leadership.
It has tweeted infrequently - just 535 times since 2013. Unusually for a party account claiming to be official, it did not post at all during 2014 or the first half of 2017.
The account became active again in August with a post stating that it, and not the other account - @zanu_pf - was the real deal.
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, social media users replied expressing their confusion and questioning the legitimacy of both @zanu_pf and @ZANUPF_Official.
"Look at these jokers," posted one Harare resident. "Both from the same tree."
"Get verified so we know which one is real," suggested a business analyst from East Zimbabwe.
And "now we don't know which one is the fake one," joked a third user from South Africa.
The lack of clarity over who is running these political accounts extends to another Twitter account, one claiming to be the youth wing of the party.
Posting between 6 and 14 November, the account @YLZANUPF1 was highly critical of former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa and General Constantino Chiwenga, and supportive of Grace Mugabe's bid for the vice-presidency.
However, since the military seized power on Wednesday morning the tone of their posts had radically changed. It sent out tweets praising the "gallant Zimbabwean Army" which was "professionally and peacefully carrying out the National Democractic Project". Some have been left questioning if control of this account has changed hands.
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But why has there been such confusion over Twitter accounts? Some see it as a symptom of a wider problem in the representation of African users on social media.
Chipo Dendere took aim at Twitter for "not verifying African accounts", arguing a lack of verification causes confusion.
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Replying to Sally Hayden, one of the first journalists to raise the alarm over the citing of the @zanu_pf account on Wednesday morning, fellow journalist Caelainn Hogan asked: "If there was more credence and respect given to nameless 'journalists in Africa', or better yet Zimbabwean journalists and researchers, maybe this wouldn't be such an issue?"
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The online confusion reflected the foggy situation on Wednesday morning, with Zimbabwe's media not covering the takeover until the lunchtime news and organisations involved avoiding the term "coup".
Other media outlets have run footage from September, believing it to be showing armoured vehicles approaching Harare on Tuesday.
Several newspapers and websites claimed Emmerson Mnangagwe had returned to Harare from exile, using a still from a video filmed in August of the former vice-president arriving at Manyame Air Force Base to support this claim.
This image was tweeted by Fadzayi Mahere, advocate of the High Court and Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, of people being detained by the army
Multiple accounts, some switching their messages, many accused of parody, international journalists uncertain which can be dismissed, local journalists hesitant, and a lack of verification on African Twitter: Who to believe on Zimbabwean social media remains unclear.
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-42001262
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Zimbabwe crisis: Who is Grace Mugabe? - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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Zimbabwe's first lady, or "Gucci Grace" to some, was tipped to be the country's next president.
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Robert Mugabe's wife, or "Gucci Grace" to her critics, was tipped to be Zimbabwe's next president.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42004530
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Gay Times editor Rivers 'appalled' by his own comments - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Josh Rivers says he is "appalled" at some of his old tweets, which have been labelled transphobic, sexist and anti-Semitic.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Josh Rivers, sacked from his new role as editor at the Gay Times over offensive tweets published in the past, has said he is "appalled" by his posts.
The tweets, some of which have now been deleted, have been described as racist, transphobic, homophobic and anti-Semitic.
Mr Rivers, who has already apologised, also made remarks about obese people and children with disabilities.
He told Radio 4's PM programme: "I was appalled... I said, 'Who wrote that?'"
"I was stunned, I was confused. I spent most of my 20s in a daze, in a blur. I was not sober as much as I probably could have been.
The 31-year-old added: "I was lost, I was angry. I was upset, I was lonely. And I think those tweets are a reflection of someone lashing out at the world around him.
"They were cries for help."
Mr Rivers said: "My past is mine to reckon with... I have to look in the mirror (every day), I have to get myself to a place where I'm fit to serve the community."
He said he had "no recollection" of writing the tweets, saying he had drunk heavily in his 20s.
Mr Rivers added that he had been seeing a therapist since 2014 "to unpick the loneliness and sense of abandonment... I've taken who I was and I've turned it into who I want to be".
The Gay Times magazine wrote on Twitter that it had removed all articles written by Mr Rivers from its website.
Gay Times said: "Gay Times do not tolerate such views and will continue to strive to promote inclusivity.
"We sincerely apologise for the offence that has been caused, particularly to those members of our wider community to whom such inappropriate and unacceptable commentary was the focus."
The publication added it is relaunching on 30 November with "what is quite possibly the most significant overhaul in its 33-year history".
It will feature submissions and significant contributions from "the far reaches of our wonderful and diverse LGBTQ community".
Gay Times has been praised by its readers for making the decision to end Rivers' position at the magazine and have been responding to their statement on Twitter.
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Craig Evry wrote, "Well done on taking swift, decisive action. A well thought-out and sincere statement."
Alan Palmer added, "Strong, positive reaction. Too often, organisations try to ride out the storm and do nothing so as not to risk themselves. Well done."
Holly Amory also tweeted, saying, "Thank you! It bodes well that you're taking this so seriously."
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Rivers was appointed editor in October. In a statement released before his removal from the post, he said: "I have long taken steps to address the issues that prevented me from treating people with the respect and kindness I value so dearly now.
"It is because of my past and my own awakening that I've since pivoted everything in my life towards supporting and empowering our community."
He expressed sadness that "the damage I caused before has now resurfaced to cause more pain".
Benjamin Cohen, chief executive of LGBT news organisation PinkNews, told the BBC: "I am frankly appalled at the litany of offensive Twitter posts that Josh Rivers made over a number of years.
"It is beyond surprising that the level of inappropriate and hurtful comments were not uncovered by Gay Times during the recruitment process for the appointment of the key role of editor.
"As someone who for many years wrote a column for Gay Times, I'm saddened that what was a great institution has had its brand so recklessly damaged by someone who was in office for just a few weeks."
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-42012079
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Zimbabwe latest: Key players in power struggle - BBC News
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2017-11-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The key figures in the struggle for power in Zimbabwe.
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Africa
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The Mugabes have clashed with recently sacked Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa (second from right) and armed forces chief Gen Constantino Chiwenga
Zimbabwean generals say they have seized control to take power away from "criminals" around President Robert Mugabe.
The crisis came a week after Mr Mugabe sacked his deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in favour of his wife, Grace.
Army chief Gen Constantino Chiwenga warned on Monday that the military would step in and take action if such "purges" in the ruling Zanu-PF party did not stop.
Who are the key players in this crisis?
A revolutionary hero who spent years in jail for the "liberation" struggle, he came to power in elections after independence was declared in 1980.
This is why, even today, many African leaders remain reluctant to criticise him - unlike a large number of his compatriots who experience his rule first-hand.
Most of the world has moved on from the anti-colonial struggles but Mr Mugabe's outlook and tactics for retaining political control remain the same. He is best-known for his land reform programme in the 1990s that involved the seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to black peasants.
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After decades of authoritarian rule, his country is in political and economic turmoil, and allegations of government corruption are rife. He is viewed globally with derision.
The proud 93-year-old is reluctant to relinquish power but as his physical powers have visibly deteriorated, the battle over his succession has come to the fore.
The independence-era old guard represented by sacked Vice-President Mnangagwa is rivalling the younger "Generation-40" faction fronted by Mrs Mugabe.
Robert Mugabe's second wife, who is more than 40 years his junior, has risen from presidential typist to the most powerful woman in Zimbabwe.
They met and had their first two of three children while Mr Mugabe's first wife, Sally, was terminally ill with cancer, though they only married after her death.
Her alleged appetite for extravagant shopping earned her the moniker Gucci Grace.
While her supporters point to her charitable and philanthropic work and refer to her as "Dr Amai", meaning "mother", her critics accuse her of pursuing a ruthless campaign for wealth and power.
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As a notable political figure close to the president, Grace has been subject to the same targeted EU and US sanctions as her husband, which include a travel ban and asset freeze.
She accompanies the president on trips abroad, often visiting the Far East where they own property. Her many domestic business interests also include a dairy farm estate outside Harare, which she claimed as part of the national land reforms implemented starting in 2001.
Mrs Mugabe has a sharp tongue and last week she described her rival, Vice President Mnangagwa, as a "snake" which "must be hit on the head". The next day President Mugabe sacked him.
Until Mrs Mugabe's rise, he had been viewed for several years as President Mugabe's anointed successor.
Following military training in Egypt and China, he helped direct the "liberation" struggles prior to independence in 1980, spending time in jail where he was allegedly tortured. He has been in government ever since.
Thousands of civilians died in a brutal post-independence conflict in which he played a key role as National Security minister, though he denies having blood on his hands.
He is known in Zimbabwe as ngwena (English: crocodile) (and his supporters as "Lacoste") because of his political cunning, biding his time in the 1990s to reclaim a position of power after falling foul of Mr Mugabe and being cast into political oblivion. But his fearsome reputation means he is little loved in the rank-and-file of the Zanu-PF party.
As a former defence and national security minister, he was a key link between the ruling party and Zimbabwe's military and intelligence agencies. He is also chair of the Joint Operations Command, in charge of state security.
At 61, he is a close ally of Mr Mnangagwa and has led the army since 1994.
Gen Chiwenga was also a product of the country's independence struggles, training with the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army in Mozambique and later rising through its ranks.
In 2002, he and 18 other close associates of President Mugabe were sanctioned by the European Union, United States and New Zealand, including a travel ban and freeze on his foreign assets, which has been repeatedly extended. In 2003, he was promoted to commander general of the Zimbabwe combined armed forces.
He shocked Zimbabweans on Monday when he issued an open warning against those responsible for "purging" the ruling party of those who shared his roots in the country's struggles against colonialism, saying the military could step in.
A former mine worker and union chief, the 65-year-old became the symbol of resistance to Mr Mugabe's government during the mid-2000s.
The charismatic public speaker founded the Movement for Democratic Change in 2000 and stood for president in 2008, gaining the most votes but, according to official results, not enough to win outright. He withdrew from the second round after a campaign of violence by Mr Mugabe's security forces.
He was later sworn in as prime minister and in 2013 challenged Mr Mugabe for the presidency again but lost heavily.
Mr Tsvangirai has been brutally assaulted, charged with treason and labelled a traitor and has reportedly survived three assassination attempts, including one in 1997 in which he was nearly forced out of the window of his 10th-storey office.
He has been receiving treatment for cancer in South Africa but returned to Zimbabwe after the army took control and has called for Mr Mugabe to resign.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41995078
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