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438_0 | Facebook is finalising plans to launch its own crypto-currency next year. It is planning to set up a digital payments system in about a dozen countries by the first quarter of 2020. The social media giant wants to start testing its crypto-currency, which has been referred to internally as GlobalCoin, by the end of this year. Facebook is expected to outline plans in more detail this summer, and has already spoken to Bank of England governor Mark Carney. Founder Mark Zuckerberg met Mr Carney last month to discuss the opportunities and risks involved in launching a crypto-currency. Facebook has also sought advice on operational and regulatory issues from officials at the US Treasury. The firm is also in talks with money transfer firms including Western Union as it looks for cheaper and faster ways for people without a bank account to send and receive money. Facebook wants to create a digital currency that provides affordable and secure ways of making payments, regardless of whether users have a bank account. The social networking site, which owns WhatsApp and Instagram, is hoping to disrupt existing networks by breaking down financial barriers, competing with banks and reducing consumer costs. Nicknamed Project Libra, Facebook's plans for a digital currency network were first reported last December. The project will see it join forces with banks and brokers that will enable people to change dollars and other international currencies into its digital coins. A small group of co-founders are expected to launch the Swiss-based association in the coming weeks. Facebook is also reportedly in talks with a number of online merchants to accept the currency as payment in return for lower transaction fees. Virtual currencies can be used to pay for things in the real world, such as a hotel room, food or even a house. Digital tokens are held in online wallets, and can be sent anonymously between users. Crypto-currencies run on blockchain technology. A blockchain is a ledger of blocks of information, such as transactions or agreements, that are stored across a network of computers. This information is stored chronologically, can be viewed by a community of users, and is not usually managed by a central authority such as a bank or a government. The concept was designed to ensure security and anonymity for users, by preventing tampering or hijacking of the network. Facebook has come under fire in recent years over its handling of users' personal data, and regulators are likely to examine the launch closely. Earlier this month, the US Senate and Banking committee wrote an open letter to Mr Zuckerberg questioning how the currency will work, what consumer protection will be offered and how data will be secured. Facebook has also discussed the process of identity checks and how to reduce money laundering risks with the US Treasury. It is believed that Facebook and its partners want to prevent wild swings in the coin's value by pegging it to a basket of established currencies, including the US dollar, euro and Japanese yen. It's not the first time Facebook has dabbled in digital currencies. A decade ago, it created Facebook Credits, a virtual currency that enabled people to purchase items in apps on the social networking site. However, Facebook ended the project after less than two years after it failed to gain traction. The company will also have to navigate a myriad of regulations in the countries it wants to launch in. India, a rumoured target for Facebook, has recently clamped down on digital currencies. However, the biggest test is likely to be whether people will trust the social networking giant enough to start changing their cash for the digital coin. Facebook is in the initial phase of engaging with governments, central banks and regulators, and insiders admit that launching any crypto currency network by the start of next year is ambitious. Facebook, Western Union and the Bank of England declined to comment. The biggest attraction of digital currencies to banks and big firms is the technology that underpins them. Blockchain technology can help to slash the time and cost of sending money across borders by bypassing banking networks. Lord King, the former Governor of the Bank of England, warned two decades ago that central banks could become "irrelevant" if people started to use digital currencies as pounds and pennies are used today. Blockchain expert David Gerard said that Facebook would gain access to valuable spending data by creating its own payment system. However, he questioned why the social media giant needed to mint its own crypto-currency to harvest that data. Instead, he said, Facebook could create a platform like PayPal, which allows users to transfer traditional currencies. Crypto-currencies are vulnerable to fluctuations in value, which Gerard said could create a barrier to the success of Facebook's so-called GlobalCoin. "Normal people don't want to deal with a currency that's going up and down all the time," he explained. But Garrick Hileman, a researcher at London School of Economics, said the GlobalCoin project could be one of the most significant events in the short history of crypto-currencies. Conservatively, he estimated that around 30 million people use crypto-currencies today. That compares to Facebook's 2.4 billion monthly users. | How will Facebook's crypto-currency work? | 867 | Facebook wants to create a digital currency that provides affordable and secure ways of making payments, regardless of whether users have a bank account. The social networking site, which owns WhatsApp and Instagram, is hoping to disrupt existing networks by breaking down financial barriers, competing with banks and reducing consumer costs. Nicknamed Project Libra, Facebook's plans for a digital currency network were first reported last December. The project will see it join forces with banks and brokers that will enable people to change dollars and other international currencies into its digital coins. A small group of co-founders are expected to launch the Swiss-based association in the coming weeks. Facebook is also reportedly in talks with a number of online merchants to accept the currency as payment in return for lower transaction fees. | 0.817023 | 0.81918 | 0.818101 |
6458_2 | President Donald Trump says he plans to end "birthright citizenship" in the US by executive order. Can he do that? In an interview with Axios, President Trump claimed that he was working on an end to birthright citizenship, the 150-year-old principle that says anyone born on US soil is an American citizen. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," Mr Trump said. "You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." Mr Trump claimed that such an order was currently in the works, and not long after, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted: "I plan to introduce legislation along the same lines as the proposed executive order from President @realDonaldTrump." The president's comments have ignited a furious debate about whether or not the president has the unilateral power to do such a thing, and whether the underlying premise - that birthright citizenship is exploited by undocumented immigrants - has any merit. The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US constitution establishes the principle of "birthright citizenship": "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." Immigration hardliners argue that the policy is a "great magnet for illegal immigration", and that it encourages undocumented pregnant women to cross the border in order to give birth, an act that has been pejoratively called "birth tourism" or having an "anchor baby". "The baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all those benefits. It's ridiculous," Mr Trump told Axios. "It has to end." A 2015 Pew Research Center study found that 60% of Americans opposed ending birthright citizenship, while 37% were in favour. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, after the close of the Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment had abolished slavery in 1865, while the Fourteenth settled the question of the citizenship of freed, American-born former slaves. Previous Supreme Court decisions, like Dred Scott v Sandford in 1857, had decided that African Americans could never be US citizens. The Fourteenth Amendment overrode that. In 1898, the US Supreme Court affirmed that birthright citizenship applies to the children of immigrants in the case of Wong Kim Ark v United States. Wong was a 24-year-old child of Chinese immigrants who was born in the US, but denied re-entry when he returned from a visit to China. Wong successfully argued that because he was born in the US, his parent's immigration status did not impact the application of the Fourteenth Amendment. "Wong Kim Ark vs United States affirmed that regardless of race or the immigration status of one's parents, all persons born in the United States were entitled to all of the rights that citizenship offered," writes Erika Lee, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. "The court has not re-examined this issue since then." Most legal scholars agree that President Trump cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order. "He's doing something that's going to upset a lot of people, but ultimately this will be decided by the courts," says Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional expert and University of Virginia Law School professor. "This is not something he can decide on his own." Mr Prakash says that while the president can order the employees of federal agencies to interpret citizenship more narrowly - agents with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for example - that will inevitably invite legal challenges from people whose citizenship is being denied. That could lead to a lengthy court battle that could ultimately wind up at the US Supreme Court. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan was blunt in rejecting the president's claim he could act unilaterally. "You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order," he told Kentucky radio station WVLK. However, Martha S Jones, author of Birthright Citizens, wrote on Twitter that the Supreme Court has not directly addressed whether or not the children of non-citizens or undocumented immigrants should automatically become citizens at birth. "Scotus [Supreme Court of the United States] could distinguish from Wong Kim Ark on the facts," Ms Jones writes. "Wong's parents were authorised or we might say legal immigrants. Their presence in the US was authorised." Mr Prakash agrees. "People who are on a tourist visa or here without permission... their children are automatically given birthright citizenship," he says. "That's the way it's been read in modern times even though there's been no definitive Supreme Court pronouncement on that." A constitutional amendment could do away with birthright citizenship, but that would require a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate and approval by three quarters of US states. Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington Donald Trump's decision to once again push for an end to birthright citizenship - which he now says can be done with a stroke of his presidential pen - should be seen in the context of next week's mid-term elections. As with the White House announcement of more than 5,000 troops dispatched to the US border, this appears to be another effort to focus American attention on the immigration issue. Mr Trump made a hard-line immigration stance a central part of his 2016 presidential campaign and views it as one of the reasons he prevailed. Now, in the electoral home stretch that could determine the success of the second half of his four-year presidential term, Mr Trump is reaching again for a familiar handhold. A poll conducted in 2017 shows a majority of the public supported birthright citizenship, including for undocumented migrants, but 30% were opposed. Even if those numbers haven't changed, convincing that third of the American public that the president is fighting for them - and could get what they want if Republicans hold the Congress - might be enough to tip the balance the president's way in key races next Tuesday. "This has nothing to do with elections," Mr Trump said in a recent interview. The timing of these efforts, however, is hard to ignore. In his remarks to Axios, Trump falsely claimed that the United States is the only country that has birthright citizenship. In fact, more than 30 countries - including Canada, Mexico, Malaysia and Lesotho - practise automatic "jus soli", or "right of the soil" without restriction. Other countries, like the UK and Australia, allow for a modified version where citizenship is automatically granted if one parent is a citizen or permanent resident. Nor is the United States the only country where the practice has come under fire. In August, delegates at the national convention for Canada's centre-right federal Conservatives voted to end birthright citizenship for children unless one parent is either Canadian or a permanent resident. Following the vote by the grassroots membership, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said the party would look into developing a more targeted policy addressing the issue of so-called "birth tourism". According to the Pew Research Center, there were 275,000 babies born to unauthorised immigrant parents in the US in 2014, and 4.7 million US-born children under the age of 18 living with at least one parent who is undocumented. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, births to unauthorised immigrant parents steadily rose before peaking in 2006, and have declined since then. Although Pew does not have exact numbers on the countries of origin of these parents, Mark Lopez, Director of Global Migration and Demography, says that three-quarters of unauthorised immigrants in the US are from countries in Latin America. "Hispanics will make up the majority of these children born to unauthorized immigrant parents," he says. However, he adds that since we do not know how Mr Trump might write his executive order, the children of visa-holders or other temporary residents may also be impacted. Reporting by Jessica Lussenhop | Can Trump end birthright citizenship by executive order? | 3,094 | Most legal scholars agree that President Trump cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order. "He's doing something that's going to upset a lot of people, but ultimately this will be decided by the courts," says Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional expert and University of Virginia Law School professor. "This is not something he can decide on his own." Mr Prakash says that while the president can order the employees of federal agencies to interpret citizenship more narrowly - agents with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for example - that will inevitably invite legal challenges from people whose citizenship is being denied. That could lead to a lengthy court battle that could ultimately wind up at the US Supreme Court. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan was blunt in rejecting the president's claim he could act unilaterally. "You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order," he told Kentucky radio station WVLK. However, Martha S Jones, author of Birthright Citizens, wrote on Twitter that the Supreme Court has not directly addressed whether or not the children of non-citizens or undocumented immigrants should automatically become citizens at birth. "Scotus [Supreme Court of the United States] could distinguish from Wong Kim Ark on the facts," Ms Jones writes. "Wong's parents were authorised or we might say legal immigrants. Their presence in the US was authorised." Mr Prakash agrees. "People who are on a tourist visa or here without permission... their children are automatically given birthright citizenship," he says. "That's the way it's been read in modern times even though there's been no definitive Supreme Court pronouncement on that." A constitutional amendment could do away with birthright citizenship, but that would require a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate and approval by three quarters of US states. | 0.816725 | 0.794364 | 0.805544 |
7116_3 | Seven months and nine days ago, 1.4 million people in Ireland voted to remove its anti-abortion laws. What (Taoiseach) Irish PM Leo Varadkar called a "quiet revolution", had culminated with a day when the Eighth Amendment was repealed. Irish Health Minister Simon Harris hailed the passing of the legislation as a "new era for Irish women". This new era began on Tuesday, when abortion services in Ireland were opened for the first time. But this new era is not without its challenges, as many Irish medical groups have warned. As of 1 January 2019, Irish abortion services are being provided by Ireland's health service through GPs, family planning services, maternity units and hospitals across the country. Since last year's referendum, the law in Ireland now allows for abortion in the following cases: - Up to 12 weeks of pregnancy - Where there is a risk to the life or of serious harm to the health of the pregnant person - Where there is a condition likely to lead to the death of the foetus before or shortly after birth Abortion care is being provided free of charge for people normally living in Ireland. There are no official details on how many abortions have taken place since the introduction of the new services on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE) said that its new unplanned pregnancy support service My Options had received "a steady stream of calls" since opening at 09:00 local time on 1 January. Not yet. Ireland has 19 maternity units, but only nine are currently providing abortion services. These are: - National Maternity Hospital in Dublin - Midland Regional Hospital in Westmeath - Rotunda Hospital in Dublin - Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Meath - University Hospital, Galway - Mayo University Hospital - University Maternity Hospital in Limerick - Cork University Maternity Hospital - University Hospital Waterford It is expected that other hospitals will begin to provide abortion care in the near future. The HSE will provide information to women and to healthcare professionals about where and how services are available as they start providing the service. Some medical groups in Ireland have voiced concerns over the January deadline. Dr Maitiu O'Tuathail, president of the National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP), told BBC News NI about 3 to 5% of GPs had signed up to deliver abortion services. "There remains a lot of uncertainty for GPs around the provision of abortion services in Ireland," he said. "GPs are being asked to operate without updated Medical Council guidelines, which is problematic. "The access to ultrasonography is patchy across the country and will remain so for the foreseeable future. "Finally, the services and medical back-up that maternity hospitals will be able to provide on a site-by-site basis remains unclear. "It would have been preferable, if these uncertainties had been resolved prior to, and not during the roll out of abortion services. "We should strive for the best and safest service possible, anything less simply isn't good enough." A spokesperson for the HSE said it had agreed an approach with GPs whereby details of GPs taking part in providing abortion care will not be published. Details are provided directly to people who need them, through the executive's new My Options helpline. "We are satisfied that there is already a good geographic spread of GPs taking part, enough to meet the needs of people who may need to access the service," said the spokesperson. "Currently 179 GPs have signed the contract and each day more GPs are signing up." The Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is to hold an emergency general meeting on the implementation of the new abortion services, particularly on the safety and readiness of these services. A date for this meeting is yet to be set. In October, the masters of the three Dublin maternity hospitals wrote to Mr Harris expressing concerns about the suggested commencement date, which has now passed. The masters of the Rotunda Hospital, Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital and the National Maternity Hospital said the date was "unrealistic" for the full range of abortion services. Both the Rotunda and National Maternity Hospital are now listed as abortion service providers. | Can you access abortion services in all of Ireland's maternity units? | 1,453 | Not yet. Ireland has 19 maternity units, but only nine are currently providing abortion services. These are: - National Maternity Hospital in Dublin - Midland Regional Hospital in Westmeath - Rotunda Hospital in Dublin - Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Meath - University Hospital, Galway - Mayo University Hospital - University Maternity Hospital in Limerick - Cork University Maternity Hospital - University Hospital Waterford It is expected that other hospitals will begin to provide abortion care in the near future. The HSE will provide information to women and to healthcare professionals about where and how services are available as they start providing the service. | 0.784241 | 0.82297 | 0.803605 |
5115_0 | The drug-resistant fungus, Candida auris, was only discovered 10 years ago, but is now one of the world's most feared hospital microbes. There have been outbreaks across the world, and new research shows higher temperatures may have led to an increase in infections. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called for better understanding of who is most vulnerable to reduce risk. Here is everything you need to know about this new superbug. Candida auris (C. auris) is a yeast, a type of fungus, which can cause infections in humans. It is related to the very common Candida albicans, which causes thrush. It was first discovered in the ear canal of a Japanese patient in Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital in 2009. Most of the time, Candida yeasts live on our skin without causing problems, but they can cause infections if we are unwell or they get into the wrong place, like the bloodstream or lungs. C. auris most frequently causes bloodstream infections, but can also infect the respiratory system, the central nervous system and internal organs, as well as the skin. These infections are usually quite serious. Around the world, up to 60% of patients who get a C. auris infection have died. The fungus is often resistant to the usual drugs, which makes infections difficult to treat. Also, C. auris is often mistaken for a different infection, leading to the wrong treatment being given. This means that the patient might be ill for longer or get worse. "A number of UK hospitals have already experienced outbreaks requiring support from Public Health England," said Dr Elaine Cloutman-Green, infection control practitioner and UCL clinical lecturer. She added: "C. auris survives in hospital environments and so cleaning is key to control. Detection can be serious for both individual patients and for the hospital, as control can prove difficult." Dr Colin Brown, consultant medical microbiologist for Public Health England's national infection service, said: "NHS hospitals that have experienced outbreaks of C. auris have not found it to be the cause of death in any patients. "PHE is working closely with the NHS to provide expert support and advice on infection control measures to limit the spread of C. auris." It is unlikely that you will pick up a C. auris infection. However, the risk is higher if you are in a hospital for a long time or if you are in a nursing home, and patients who are in intensive care are much more likely to get a C. auris infection. The risk of picking up an infection is also higher if you have been on antibiotics a lot, because the drugs also destroy good bacteria that can stop C. auris getting in. In the UK, about 60 patients have been infected by C. auris since 2013. The Centers for Disease Control in the US has reported that globally, more and more countries are reporting cases of C. auris infections. Most European countries have now reported some, with Greece being the last - in April this year. Resistance to the common antifungal drugs, like fluconazole, has been found in the majority of C. auris strains found in patients. This means that these drugs do not work on C. auris. Because of this, less common antifungal drugs have been used to treat these infections, but C. auris has now developed resistance to these, too. DNA evidence shows that the antifungal resistance genes in C. auris are very similar to those found in the very common C. albicans. This suggests that the resistance genes have passed from one species to the other. A study suggests that the reason C. auris infections have become so common may be because this species has been forced to live at higher temperatures because of climate change. Most fungi prefer the cooler temperatures found in soil. But, as global temperatures have risen, C. auris has been forced to adapt to higher temperatures. This may have made it easier for the fungus to thrive in the human body, which is warm at 36C to 37C. A better understanding of who is most at risk of contracting a C. auris infection is the first step to reducing the number of infections. Healthcare professionals need to know that people who spend a long time in hospitals, nursing homes or are immunocompromised are at high risk. Not all hospitals identify C. auris in the same way. They are sometimes mistaken for other fungal infections, like thrush, and the wrong treatment is given. Improving diagnosis will help to identify patients with C. auris earlier, which will mean that the right treatment is given - preventing the spread of infection to other patients. C. auris is very tough and can survive on surfaces for a long time. It also cannot be killed using most common detergents and disinfectants. Using the right cleaning chemicals is important to eliminate it from hospitals, especially if there is an outbreak. | What is Candida auris? | 462 | Candida auris (C. auris) is a yeast, a type of fungus, which can cause infections in humans. It is related to the very common Candida albicans, which causes thrush. It was first discovered in the ear canal of a Japanese patient in Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital in 2009. Most of the time, Candida yeasts live on our skin without causing problems, but they can cause infections if we are unwell or they get into the wrong place, like the bloodstream or lungs. | 0.755406 | 0.848326 | 0.801866 |
8669_0 | The demand for on-demand TV has never been higher. Disney has announced its rival to the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime - and they're calling it Disney+. In March, Apple announced its own streaming service: Apple TV+. But in a market that's getting more and more crowded, can they all survive? Disney has a big advantage because it has decades of filmmaking experience already, according to Shona Ghosh, senior tech reporter at Business Insider. "It costs a lot of money to make popular shows and Disney is an expert in offering really well-known film and TV franchises," she says. Disney can draw on its classic movies, as well as Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars - and now Fox films. It's thought that as contracts expire with other streaming services, Disney will slowly take its films off the likes of Netflix and make them exclusive to Disney+. Netflix has already axed its remaining Marvel shows. There will also be shows just for the streaming service - including a new Star Wars spin-off, expected to debut when the service goes live in North America in November. For Apple, the incentive is slightly different: iPhone sales have been slowing down. It's why Shona thinks they are looking at new ways to stay at the top. "Apple knows it has a lot of people that buy iPhones, iPads and Macs. Also there's Apple Music," Shona tells Radio 1 Newsbeat. "So because it knows it has trust as a provider of that stuff, it's branching out into shows and thinking it can really add something for the people that buy their devices." Shona thinks Apple is already realising how difficult that task will be. "It's ambitious for a tech company that isn't really known for providing content itself to try and commission shows," she says. "I'm not sure it's going all that smoothly - they still haven't announced the full roster of shows that will be available. "Apple being Apple I'm sure it will go smoothly eventually, but it's possible it won't work out." "There has probably been a golden period where Netflix was the predominant, very popular streaming service. But now with so much choice, a lot will be splintered up," Shona thinks. So does that mean we'll have to spend more? "If Netflix is no longer top dog it can't suddenly turn around and raise its prices. It has to think about the competition. "On the flip side you won't have one platform where you can find everything. You may have to have multiple subscriptions." With Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, and even the BBC and ITV getting involved, there will soon be loads of streaming options. But Shona thinks the future of how we watch TV might actually end up looking familiar. "With all these different companies offering streaming, you may eventually end up paying for something that looks a bit like your parents' Sky or cable service from 10 or 15 years ago." That could mean streaming services will get bundled together into packages. "People don't have the money to pay PS10 or PS15 a month for Netflix, then another PS10 for the combined streaming service being offered by the BBC and ITV, then Amazon Prime as well - that would get very expensive." And TV content could be used as an incentive for firms trying to get you to buy other products. It's a technique we've already started to see - with the likes of BT offering BT Sport for free to its mobile and internet customers when it launched. "There's a rumour that if you're already an Apple device owner, you may not have to pay extra for some of, if not all of, Apple's streaming services," says Shona. "So if you're already paying for the expensive device, Apple is making it more worth your while by giving you some content for free on top of that." Amazon Prime does similar, offering TV content alongside free delivery on its massive online shop. It's a technique that could be key for streaming services that want to be successful. Apple and Disney are big names and some of its rivals are already feeling the pressure. "I think there will be some companies that do fall by the wayside," adds Shona. "Netflix is spending a lot of money producing great content - whether it can keep it up remains to be seen. "Businesses like Amazon have many other elements it can rely on, not just content, whereas something like Netflix will be under a lot of pressure. "You'll have to wait to see whether consumers buy into this idea that Apple is akin to something like a Disney. "But people have bought in to Netflix, a brand new service that's evolved from being a DVD service to being this content powerhouse. "Companies are capable of pulling it off, but it's possible that not everyone will survive." Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 every weekday on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra - if you miss us you can listen back here. | Why are Disney and Apple getting into streaming TV? | 297 | Disney has a big advantage because it has decades of filmmaking experience already, according to Shona Ghosh, senior tech reporter at Business Insider. "It costs a lot of money to make popular shows and Disney is an expert in offering really well-known film and TV franchises," she says. Disney can draw on its classic movies, as well as Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars - and now Fox films. It's thought that as contracts expire with other streaming services, Disney will slowly take its films off the likes of Netflix and make them exclusive to Disney+. Netflix has already axed its remaining Marvel shows. There will also be shows just for the streaming service - including a new Star Wars spin-off, expected to debut when the service goes live in North America in November. For Apple, the incentive is slightly different: iPhone sales have been slowing down. It's why Shona thinks they are looking at new ways to stay at the top. "Apple knows it has a lot of people that buy iPhones, iPads and Macs. Also there's Apple Music," Shona tells Radio 1 Newsbeat. "So because it knows it has trust as a provider of that stuff, it's branching out into shows and thinking it can really add something for the people that buy their devices." Shona thinks Apple is already realising how difficult that task will be. "It's ambitious for a tech company that isn't really known for providing content itself to try and commission shows," she says. "I'm not sure it's going all that smoothly - they still haven't announced the full roster of shows that will be available. "Apple being Apple I'm sure it will go smoothly eventually, but it's possible it won't work out." | 0.815088 | 0.787178 | 0.801133 |
4406_0 | Cheap steel from China has been blamed for distorting global markets and putting other countries' steelmakers under pressure. How have we got here and why does it all matter? Chinese steel production has expanded hugely. Over the past 25 years, output has grown more than 12-fold. By comparison, the EU's output fell by 12% while the US's remained largely flat. The drive behind that stellar increase has been China's double-digit economic growth over the past decades. That led to ever more domestic demand for steel and the government invested heavily in the industry during the boom years. But that demand has been severely hit by the current slowdown, leaving China with more steel than it needs. It produced more than 822 million tonnes of steel in 2014 and is expected to produce even more this year, yet projected demand for its steel in 2016 is only 672 million tonnes. Chinese steel is therefore sold on the international market at extremely low prices - critics say it's sold at a loss. As a consequence, other countries' steel plants find it increasingly hard to compete. China dismisses claims that its steel is sold at a loss and says it has done what it can to curb overproduction. Beijing's official news agency said that blaming the country for the global steel industry's problems was a "lame and lazy excuse for protectionism". In a commentary piece, Xinhua warned against the imposition of protective import tariffs (a tax on the product which ultimately makes the finished goods more expensive for the consumer). "Blaming other countries is always an easy, sure-fire way for politicians to whip up a storm over domestic economic woes, but finger-pointing and protectionism are counter-productive," it said. Very little. While other countries complain that cheaper Chinese steel is forcing their producers out of business, China is itself faced with severe problems in the industry. The boom of past years means any substantial output cuts would lead to huge job losses, and potential social instability. It is unlikely that China will cut output by a lot and unless domestic demand picks up, cheap exports will continue to affect global markets. A simple response would be setting up higher import tariffs. So if a Chinese manufacturer offers a tonne of steel at a cheap price, the importing country charges a tax on top of the original price, which makes it more expensive for the importing company. That would make Chinese steel more expensive in the importing country and would therefore make domestic producers more competitive again. Steel-producing countries India, the US and Indonesia have already raised their import tariffs on steel from China. But for European countries that is a tricky path to embark on as China is a much bigger trading partner. Introducing higher tariffs could risk triggering a trade war of tit-for-tat import tariffs on all kinds of goods. Yes. Steel is a vital ingredient to countless producing industries in every country around the globe. That's anything from cars to construction and toys to bottle caps. So for those industries, cheap steel is good - regardless of whether it's from China or their own domestic producers. However, if you work in the steel industry in, say, Europe or the US, then of course cheap Chinese steel can drive your company out of business - and you out of a job. But if you're a steel worker in China, then of course you don't want Beijing to cut production and curb exports. Because while that might save European jobs, it might cost you yours. Steel is crucial for the defence industry - just think ships, planes or tanks. So there's the question of whether it is wise to shut down domestic production and import all steel. Even if it is cheaper to do so, there is the question of whether you want to depend entirely on imports when it comes to one of the ingredients you need for national defence. Any intentional or unintentional cut in supply could quickly leave you in a vulnerable position. | China's steel industry - what's the problem? | 176 | Chinese steel production has expanded hugely. Over the past 25 years, output has grown more than 12-fold. By comparison, the EU's output fell by 12% while the US's remained largely flat. The drive behind that stellar increase has been China's double-digit economic growth over the past decades. That led to ever more domestic demand for steel and the government invested heavily in the industry during the boom years. But that demand has been severely hit by the current slowdown, leaving China with more steel than it needs. It produced more than 822 million tonnes of steel in 2014 and is expected to produce even more this year, yet projected demand for its steel in 2016 is only 672 million tonnes. Chinese steel is therefore sold on the international market at extremely low prices - critics say it's sold at a loss. As a consequence, other countries' steel plants find it increasingly hard to compete. | 0.795909 | 0.80401 | 0.799959 |
2148_0 | The people charged with protecting the world's economy are meeting in Washington this week. The decisions made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) affect people around the world. But what is the IMF, why is it important, and what criticism does it face? The IMF is an international organisation with 189 member countries. They work together to try to stabilise the global economy. Any country can apply to join, as long as it meets a few requirements. These include providing information about its economy and paying in a sum of money called a quota subscription. The richer the country, the higher its quota. The IMF does three main things to monitor and support the economy: - Tracking economic and financial events. It monitors how countries are performing and potential risks, like trade fights or Brexit uncertainty - Advising its members on how to improve their economies - Issuing short-term loans and assistance to countries who are struggling These loans are mainly funded by quota subscriptions. In 2018, Argentina received the largest loan in the IMF's history at $57bn (PS44.5bn). The IMF can lend its members a total amount of $1tn. Bankers, government officials and company bosses discuss the most important economic issues of the day at the IMF's meetings. Members then try to make sure their plans are co-ordinated. It's expected that trade tensions, weak economic growth, a slowdown in manufacturing and companies' debts will be big topics this year. The IMF is often described as a "lender of last resort". In times of crisis, countries look to it for financial assistance. Economists like Harvard University's Benjamin Friedman have said it's difficult to measure the organisation's success because we can't know if its policies are "worse than whatever the alternative would have been". However, some praised the Fund's role in supporting Mexico after it declared it would be unable to repay its debts in the early 1980s. More recently, Brazil obtained IMF loans in 2002 to avoid defaulting on its debts. The government was able to turn the economy around relatively quickly, and pay off its entire debt two years ahead of schedule. The conditions the IMF imposes on countries it lends money to have sometimes been described as "harsh". In the past, these have included lower government borrowing, cutting corporate taxes and opening up their economies to foreign investment. Greece was where the eurozone financial crisis started back in 2009, and the hardest-hit economy. After it received bailout loans from the IMF, Greece had to make some changes. Critics said the austerity - intended to get government borrowing needs down - was excessive and did damage to the economy and society. The unemployment rate in Greece still remains high at 17%, down from a peak of over 27% in 2013. Kristalina Georgieva has recently taken on the top job at the IMF - managing director. The economist was previously chief executive of the World Bank, and has succeeded Christine Lagarde. Ms Georgieva is the first person from Bulgaria to lead the IMF, one of the poorest members of the European Union (EU). Since the organisation was created, a European has traditionally been in charge, with a US national taking on the presidency of the World Bank. Ahead of her first annual conference in her new role, Ms Georgieva warned that Brexit will be "painful" for the UK and the EU, whatever form it takes. The IMF was created out of the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 in the United States. It was attended by delegates from 44 countries during World War Two, including the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. They discussed financial arrangements for the expected end of the war, including how to set up a stable system of exchange rates and how to pay for rebuilding damaged European economies. Two organisations were later set up to meet these aims: the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Members of the newly-founded IMF agreed to a system of fixed exchange rates, which would stay in place until the early 1970s. | What is the IMF? | 259 | The IMF is an international organisation with 189 member countries. They work together to try to stabilise the global economy. Any country can apply to join, as long as it meets a few requirements. These include providing information about its economy and paying in a sum of money called a quota subscription. The richer the country, the higher its quota. The IMF does three main things to monitor and support the economy: - Tracking economic and financial events. It monitors how countries are performing and potential risks, like trade fights or Brexit uncertainty - Advising its members on how to improve their economies - Issuing short-term loans and assistance to countries who are struggling These loans are mainly funded by quota subscriptions. In 2018, Argentina received the largest loan in the IMF's history at $57bn (PS44.5bn). The IMF can lend its members a total amount of $1tn. | 0.787098 | 0.811734 | 0.799416 |
4726_0 | The company behind infidelity dating website Ashley Madison has denied that hardly any women used the service. Its rebuttal followed an article by Gizmodo which suggested that only around 12,000 of the site's 36 million members were real women. Gizmodo had analysed the data stolen from Ashley Madison by hackers called the Impact Team. But Ashley Madison said the analysis was based on "incorrect assumptions" and Gizmodo now acknowledges it "misunderstood" the data. There are suggestions from the leaked data, which included thousands of chief executive Noel Biderman's emails, that Ashley Madison did deploy fake profiles. One email written to Mr Biderman described a contractor building profiles, known as angels or engagers, "en masse". It even suggested staff were getting "writer's block" trying to invent believable profiles. Ashley Madison's terms and conditions state some of the site's features "are intended to provide entertainment", but do not explicitly mention fake profiles. The BBC understands fake profiles were deliberately deployed in areas where there were few female profiles. In 2013, the ratio of males to females in one Japanese city was 88:1. The leak suggests engagers brought this ratio down to 5:1. According to Gizmodo, the engagers messaged real users - almost exclusively men - with greetings such as: "hows it going?" and "anybody home? lol". The news site estimated that there were more than 70,000 engager profiles among the leaked data. Ashley Madison charges men to reply to messages from women, including fake ones, so creating fake profiles would have been financially beneficial for the company. Although the details of millions of accounts were leaked by the hackers, the dump did not contain the full database. That makes it difficult to determine how many real women used the site. One woman told the BBC she had used it to find a lesbian relationship. On Monday, Avid Life Media which owns the website released a statement insisting it had an active community of female users. "In the first half of this year the ratio of male members who paid to communicate with women... versus the number of female members who actively used their account... was 1.2 to 1," it said. Without knowing how many of the site's 31 million men paid to reply to messages, it is not possible to work out how many women were active on Ashley Madison. The company insists that despite the enormous data leak it has still managed to attract new members. It says 87,596 women joined the website in the last week. Of course, many of those are likely to be journalists, or people signing up to nose around a secretive website that has had its dirty laundry aired quite publicly. | Did Ashley Madison use fake profiles? | 469 | There are suggestions from the leaked data, which included thousands of chief executive Noel Biderman's emails, that Ashley Madison did deploy fake profiles. One email written to Mr Biderman described a contractor building profiles, known as angels or engagers, "en masse". It even suggested staff were getting "writer's block" trying to invent believable profiles. Ashley Madison's terms and conditions state some of the site's features "are intended to provide entertainment", but do not explicitly mention fake profiles. | 0.74917 | 0.840667 | 0.794918 |
7952_0 | Russian state TV is working on its own version of Chernobyl, a series based on the worst nuclear accident in history. The NTV drama will deviate from the acclaimed HBO series - and from historical reality - by claiming that the CIA was involved in the disaster. Director Aleksey Muradov claims it will show "what really happened back then". HBO's miniseries, which concluded on Monday, received the highest ever score for a TV show on IMdB, as well as a 9.1 rating on Russian equivalent Kinopoisk. But in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russia's most widely-read tabloid, Mr Muradov said his version of the show "proposes an alternative view on the tragedy in Pripyat". "There is a theory that Americans infiltrated the Chernobyl nuclear power plant," he told the paper. "Many historians do not rule out the possibility that on the day of the explosion, an agent of the enemy's intelligence services was working at the station." The Hollywood Reporter reports that the Russian culture ministry has contributed 30 million rubles ($463,000; PS363,000) to the show. The No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded on 26 April 1986 in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat. At least 31 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, and the effects continue to be felt to this day. There has been plenty of praise in Russia for the authenticity of Chernobyl. Izvestia newspaper declared it a more 'realistic' portrayal of the era than most Russian films manage. There's also admiration of how the series conveys the heroism of ordinary people. But there's been a crescendo of criticism, too. One columnist declared the show a plot to undermine Russia's current atomic agency. Others called it American 'propaganda', blackening the image of the USSR and exaggerating the callousness of the Soviet response. No-one disputes that it's got people talking. They're been busy sharing their own Chernobyl stories on social media, with younger Russians often hearing them for the first time. So one Twitter user thanked the series for 'giving us back our history.' In the end, as one commentator concludes, the main reason for the backlash is likely a feeling of shame that it was the US that told the tale of Chernobyl, not Russia itself. The show has been particularly unpopular with Russian state TV and the country's tabloid newspapers. Speaking to TV website Teleprogramma, columnist Anatoly Wasserman said: "If Anglo-Saxons film something about Russians, it definitely will not correspond to the truth." This, he continued, was not because "they don't like us" but because "they simply cannot understand us". Komsomolskaya Pravda published several negative articles about the show - including one floating a conspiracy theory that it was produced by competitors of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear company, to ruin the country's reputation as a nuclear power. But reviewers in independent media outlets praised its writer Craig Mazin for his minute attention to detail. Slava Malamud, a US-based journalist who grew up during the Soviet era in what is now Moldova, wrote on the independent Russian news site Meduza that "the respect and meticulousness the show's creators brought to their work is breathtaking". "Like I see the license plate for a car in one scene has the real numbers for the [Kiev] region," he said. "Who's going to notice that in America or England?" Adam Robinson, BBC Monitoring - The world through its media For the Kremlin, the topic of history is a highly sensitive one - especially about the Soviet Union. Official media now tend to paint a sanitised, idealised vision of the USSR, and portray Putin's Russia as its spiritual heir. This makes it easy to see any critical view of the Soviet past as an attack on the Kremlin's ideological power base. It's a narrative it seeks to completely control and guard from outside influences - particularly from a West it sees as hostile. Some Russians feel the version of reality offered by Kremlin-controlled media is not entirely unlike the lies told by the Soviet state. As a result, perhaps the most dangerous idea was the key question running though Chernobyl - what is the cost of lies? 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. | What did Russia think of HBO's Chernobyl? | 1,288 | There has been plenty of praise in Russia for the authenticity of Chernobyl. Izvestia newspaper declared it a more 'realistic' portrayal of the era than most Russian films manage. There's also admiration of how the series conveys the heroism of ordinary people. But there's been a crescendo of criticism, too. One columnist declared the show a plot to undermine Russia's current atomic agency. Others called it American 'propaganda', blackening the image of the USSR and exaggerating the callousness of the Soviet response. No-one disputes that it's got people talking. They're been busy sharing their own Chernobyl stories on social media, with younger Russians often hearing them for the first time. So one Twitter user thanked the series for 'giving us back our history.' In the end, as one commentator concludes, the main reason for the backlash is likely a feeling of shame that it was the US that told the tale of Chernobyl, not Russia itself. | 0.778854 | 0.799858 | 0.789356 |
7519_0 | President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw the US from the World Trade Organization (WTO), claiming it treats his country unfairly. "If they don't shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO," Mr Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News. The WTO was established to provide rules for global trade and resolve disputes between countries. Mr Trump says the body too often rules against the US, although he concedes it has won some recent judgments. He claimed on Fox News earlier this year that the WTO was set up "to benefit everybody but us", adding: "We lose the lawsuits, almost all of the lawsuits in the WTO." However, some analysis shows the US wins about 90% when it is the complainant and loses about the same percentage when it is complained against. Mr Trump's warning about a possible US pull-out from the WTO highlights the conflict between his protectionist trade policies and the open trade system that the WTO oversees. Washington has recently blocked the appointment of new judges to the WTO's Geneva-based dispute settlement body, which could potentially paralyse its ability to issue judgments. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has also accused the WTO of interfering with US sovereignty. It comes as President Trump set a Friday deadline for Canada to sign a new agreement with the US and Mexico. He has threatened to tax the country's automotive sector or cut it out entirely. The US president has been sounding off about unfair trade since even before he became president. Mr Trump said on Thursday that the 1994 agreement to establish the WTO "was the single worst trade deal ever made". The US has been embroiled in a tit-for-tat trade battle on several fronts in recent months. The one creating the most interest is with China, as the world's two largest economies wrangle for global influence. Mr Trump has introduced tariffs on a number of goods imported into the US. A third round of tariffs on $200bn (PS154bn) of Chinese goods could come as soon as a public-comment period concludes next week, according to a Bloomberg report citing various sources. Asked to confirm this during the Bloomberg interview, President Trump said that it was "not totally wrong". China has responded to US tariffs by imposing retaliatory taxes on the same value of US products and has filed complaints against the tariffs at the WTO. China's commerce ministry has said it "clearly suspects" the US of violating WTO rules. An initial complaint at the WTO was filed by China in July after Mr Trump imposed his first round of tariffs. The WTO is at the heart of the system of rules for international trade. It is the forum for sorting disputes between countries about breaches of global trade rules and for negotiating new trade liberalisation. The EU, meanwhile, is trying to steer the US towards reforming the WTO rather than abandoning it. Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament's trade committee, told Politico magazine that it would submit plans to overhaul the organisation in September. He said it would test whether the US was really interested in reform. "This is certainly about calling [America's] bluff," he said. Mr Trump has not been a fan of multilateral trade agreements. In a 2016 presidential debate with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump described the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) with Mexico and Canada as "the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere" and a "killer" of US jobs. Once in office he said he wanted to renegotiate - not scrap - the accord, triggering a year of talks. On Monday, Mr Trump announced that the US and Mexico had agreed to revamp Nafta, calling it a "really good deal" that was "much more fair" for both countries. Canada is yet to agree to the new terms. On Thursday, Mr Lighthizer held talks in Washington with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland aimed at reaching a new deal. Following four separate meetings, which continued late into the night, Ms Freeland told reporters that a deal could not be reached, adding that talks would resume on Friday. Also during his election campaign Mr Trump railed against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation trade deal that was a linchpin of former President Barack Obama's Asia policy. Mr Trump said the deal was a "potential disaster for our country". One of his first acts as president was to withdraw the US from the TTP, although he has since said he might consider rejoining if the terms were "substantially better". | What's Trump's issue with the WTO? | 1,413 | The US president has been sounding off about unfair trade since even before he became president. Mr Trump said on Thursday that the 1994 agreement to establish the WTO "was the single worst trade deal ever made". The US has been embroiled in a tit-for-tat trade battle on several fronts in recent months. The one creating the most interest is with China, as the world's two largest economies wrangle for global influence. Mr Trump has introduced tariffs on a number of goods imported into the US. A third round of tariffs on $200bn (PS154bn) of Chinese goods could come as soon as a public-comment period concludes next week, according to a Bloomberg report citing various sources. Asked to confirm this during the Bloomberg interview, President Trump said that it was "not totally wrong". China has responded to US tariffs by imposing retaliatory taxes on the same value of US products and has filed complaints against the tariffs at the WTO. China's commerce ministry has said it "clearly suspects" the US of violating WTO rules. An initial complaint at the WTO was filed by China in July after Mr Trump imposed his first round of tariffs. The WTO is at the heart of the system of rules for international trade. It is the forum for sorting disputes between countries about breaches of global trade rules and for negotiating new trade liberalisation. The EU, meanwhile, is trying to steer the US towards reforming the WTO rather than abandoning it. Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament's trade committee, told Politico magazine that it would submit plans to overhaul the organisation in September. He said it would test whether the US was really interested in reform. "This is certainly about calling [America's] bluff," he said. | 0.795501 | 0.782593 | 0.789047 |
7567_0 | President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to block food importers' requests for foreign currency in a bid to boost local agriculture in Africa's most populous country. It is a continuation of a policy that the president began after coming to office in 2015, when he banned the use of foreign exchange to import dozens of items including the staple food, rice. Since then, domestic rice production has increased, but the policy has been criticised for not taking the low capacity of local farmers into consideration. The policy has also coincided with a rise in food prices, which has been blamed on insecurity in some of the country's main food producing areas. According to data from Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the amount of money the country has been spending on importing food and drink increased from 2015 to 2017, dipped in 2018 and if the trend from the first quarter of this year continues, the bill will go up again for this year. In 2015, Nigeria spent nearly $2.9bn (PS2.4bn) and by 2017 that had risen to $4.1bn, the NBS says. But the data picture is confusing as leading figures have quoted other figures. Last December, central bank governor Godwin Emefiele said the annual food import bill was $1.9bn and had fallen from $7.9bn in 2015, the Punch newspaper reported. But in September 2018, the agriculture minister at the time, Audu Ogbeh, said Nigeria spent $22bn importing food every year. Nigeria does produce the basic food commodities such as sugar, wheat flour, fish, milk, palm oil, pork, beef and poultry but up to now domestic farmers have not been able to satisfy demand of the country's 200 million people, hence the need for imports. With the foreign exchange ban Nigerian farmers will now have to increase production. Official figures show that domestic rice production has gone up since 2015. According to figures from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, rice production has increased from an annual average of 7.1 million tonnes between 2013 and 2017 to 8.9 million tonnes in 2018. However, there are also reports that rice smuggling has increased - as customs officials continue to seize large quantities of the grain at the borders. This suggests that Nigerian rice farmers are still not producing enough. Many experts believe that the policy of restricting food imports does have some merits, but the policy cannot be introduced in isolation. Agricultural economist Idris Ayinde argues that restricting food imports should be a gradual process since the country cannot yet meet domestic demand for most food commodities, and the policy risks increasing food price inflation further. Local rice production has increased, but the foreign exchange ban was coupled with policies aimed at supporting farmers through subsidies and loans. For instance, last November, the government spent $165m subsidising rice production. Despite this, people continue to buy rice that has been smuggled into the country. Attempts to boost local production of palm oil have also been hit by smuggling. Foreign exchange to import palm oil was also restricted in 2015, but local producers have not been able to fill the gap. The government now hopes that investing up to $500m in the industry can boost production from 600,000 tonnes a year to five million tonnes. In addition to questions over local capacity, there is also a concern that the government's policy threatens the independence of the central bank. Former deputy governor of the bank Kingsley Moghalu said the president's directive contradicts the law, adding that the central bank's economic policy should not be "imposed by a political authority". Economic theory suggests that reducing the supply of something will increase the price. There is a general belief therefore that if domestic supply cannot immediately replace what was once imported, Nigerians will end up paying more for their food. Between 2015, when the foreign exchange restrictions for rice came into effect, and early 2017, the price of a 50kg bag of rice went from $24 to $82. It later fell in mid-2017 to $34. But in June this year, the price stood at $49. The agricultural sector, which remains a major employer, has suffered years of neglect as Nigeria has spent decades relying on oil to provide much-needed foreign exchange and government revenue. There may be lots of people working on farms but a lack of investment has led to low productivity. In addition, not all available agricultural land is being used. It is estimated that just over a third of available land is being cultivated. But following a big drop in the oil price five years ago, the country has renewed its interest in agriculture. If this enthusiasm can be converted into greater investment then the country should be able to produce more food. | How much is Nigeria spending on importing food? | 688 | According to data from Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the amount of money the country has been spending on importing food and drink increased from 2015 to 2017, dipped in 2018 and if the trend from the first quarter of this year continues, the bill will go up again for this year. In 2015, Nigeria spent nearly $2.9bn (PS2.4bn) and by 2017 that had risen to $4.1bn, the NBS says. But the data picture is confusing as leading figures have quoted other figures. Last December, central bank governor Godwin Emefiele said the annual food import bill was $1.9bn and had fallen from $7.9bn in 2015, the Punch newspaper reported. But in September 2018, the agriculture minister at the time, Audu Ogbeh, said Nigeria spent $22bn importing food every year. | 0.750523 | 0.826218 | 0.78837 |
3327_1 | The southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh recorded 36,749 lightning strikes in just a 13-hour period on Tuesday, officials say. The number is unusually high and the result of "extreme weather patterns", according to the state disaster management authority. Nine people, including a nine-year-old girl, have been killed in the state by lightning strikes since Tuesday. Lightning strikes are common in India during heavy monsoon rains. The season typically begins in June and lasts until September. However, this particular region usually sees increased lightning activity before the monsoon begins, Kishan Sanku, who runs the state emergency operation centre, told the BBC. Tuesday's bout of lightning is being considered an anomaly because data from last year shows that there were some 30,000 lighting strikes throughout the entire month of May in the same region. Some scientists believe that global warming will significantly increase the frequency of lightning strikes. The lightning strikes have been occurring along the northern coast of Andhra Pradesh, an area which often experiences heavy rains. Although there is usually increased lightning activity in the region before the monsoon, this year cold winds from the Arabian sea collided with warmer winds from northern India and produced conditions that led to the formation of more clouds than usual, Mr Sanku said. This increased the chance of lightning strikes. What has made conditions particularly unique, he added, is that the cloud cover extended over 200km (124 miles). "Usually it is in patches, around 15-16km," he said. "In our experience, this is very rare." At least 2,000 people have died in lightning strikes in India every year since 2005, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. In June 2016, 93 people were killed and more than 20 injured by lightning strikes in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. India's death toll from lightning strikes is far higher than that in developed countries such as the United States, where, on average, 27 people die from lightning strikes each year. The lack of a reliable warning system is often cited as one reason for the high number of deaths. Another is that a large number of people work outdoors in India compared to other parts of the world, which makes them more vulnerable. But Mr Sanku says his office has made people more aware of the dangers. On Tuesday, they alerted district officials on messaging services WhatsApp and Telegram, and made announcements on television and radio warning people to stay indoors. He says they also have a subscription-based alert for mobile phone users. "But we are not able to alert the people working in the fields because they don't carry their phones with them." - Seek shelter inside a large building or a car - Get out of wide, open spaces and away from exposed hilltops - If you have nowhere to shelter, make yourself as small a target as possible by crouching down with your feet together, hands on knees and head tucked in - Do not shelter beneath tall or isolated trees - If you are on water, get to the shore and off wide, open beaches as quickly as possible Source: Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents | How common are lightning deaths in India? | 1,631 | At least 2,000 people have died in lightning strikes in India every year since 2005, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. In June 2016, 93 people were killed and more than 20 injured by lightning strikes in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. India's death toll from lightning strikes is far higher than that in developed countries such as the United States, where, on average, 27 people die from lightning strikes each year. The lack of a reliable warning system is often cited as one reason for the high number of deaths. Another is that a large number of people work outdoors in India compared to other parts of the world, which makes them more vulnerable. But Mr Sanku says his office has made people more aware of the dangers. On Tuesday, they alerted district officials on messaging services WhatsApp and Telegram, and made announcements on television and radio warning people to stay indoors. He says they also have a subscription-based alert for mobile phone users. "But we are not able to alert the people working in the fields because they don't carry their phones with them." | 0.787401 | 0.781011 | 0.784206 |
1097_0 | President Trump has told Americans to "get their shots" as measles cases spread across the country. "The vaccinations are so important," he told reporters outside the White House. Nearly 700 cases have been reported across 22 states amid a resurgence of the highly infectious disease, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says. Mr Trump has previously appeared to link vaccines and autism. Public health experts say there is no link. Vaccination rates have dropped steadily in the US with many parents objecting for philosophical or religious reasons. Others, known as "anti-vaxxers", believe discredited information that vaccines cause autism in children. The CDC says measles cases have reached a level not seen since 2000, when the disease was eliminated from the US. Mr Trump's warning comes as hundreds of staff and students at universities in the Californian city of Los Angeles have been quarantined over fears they may have contracted measles. Those who were at risk of being infected were asked to stay at home unless they could prove their immunity. As of Thursday, 82 people at the University of California (UCLA) were unable to provide vaccination records, the university says. At California State University, 156 people - including library employees and students - could not provide records and remain in quarantine, AP news agency reported. Mr Trump's latest comments contrast markedly from his previous public statements about vaccinations. During a Republican primary debate in 2015, he suggested vaccines were responsible for what he called an "epidemic" of autism. He said he was in favour of vaccines, but wanted "smaller doses over a longer period of time". He also held meetings with several prominent anti-vaccine campaigners ahead of the 2016 election. He has also linked vaccinations to autism in earlier social media posts. Measles is a highly infectious disease and can cause serious health complications, including damage to the lungs and brain. But despite the dangers, vaccination rates are declining in many countries. There have been more than 110,000 measles cases worldwide in the first three months of 2019 - a rise of 300% compared to last year, World Health Organization figures show. The increase in measles cases in the US "is part of a global trend seen over the past few years as other countries struggle with declining vaccination rates" the CDC says. | What has Trump said about vaccines? | 1,374 | Mr Trump's latest comments contrast markedly from his previous public statements about vaccinations. During a Republican primary debate in 2015, he suggested vaccines were responsible for what he called an "epidemic" of autism. He said he was in favour of vaccines, but wanted "smaller doses over a longer period of time". He also held meetings with several prominent anti-vaccine campaigners ahead of the 2016 election. He has also linked vaccinations to autism in earlier social media posts. | 0.739858 | 0.82596 | 0.782909 |
1405_0 | Shares in Spotify have started trading in the New York, valuing the music streaming service at about $26bn. In an unconventional move, the firm has not issued new shares, with those held by its private investors being sold. The flotation marks a turning point for Spotify, which is the global market leader but is yet to make a profit. In an open letter, chief executive Daniel Ek said: "We are still early in our journey and we have room to learn and grow." Once an small upstart Swedish music platform, Spotify has grown rapidly in recent years, adding millions of users to its free-to-use ad-funded service and converting many of them to its more lucrative subscription service. It is now the global leader among music streaming companies, boasting 71 million paying customers, twice as many as Apple Music. So far costs and fees to recording companies for the rights to play their music, have exceeded Spotify's revenues, although that gap is narrowing. The firm made a commitment to investors who backed it as the company was growing, that they would be given the chance to cash in their investment. So Spotify had to list its shares sooner or later. But it could also herald a new phase for the firm. Being publicly traded will put pressure on the management, and could provide the excuse they need to make changes, says Mark Mulligan at at MIDia Research. "Once you're a tech stock - more than with a normal listed company - [investors] expect you to do stuff fast, change fast," he says. "So far they've been treading a very fine line between being the dramatic new future of the music business but simultaneously being the biggest friend of the old music industry by giving record labels a platform to build out of decline," says Mr Mulligan. "To go to the next phase [Spotify] will have to stop talking out of both sides of its mouth, which it does at the moment. And stop being so friendly to the record companies." More than half of Spotify's revenue goes directly to the record companies. But they are not likely to make any bold moves immediately, since the labels also control two thirds of the music that Spotify plays. Chris Hayes at Enders Analysis says while it may not be as a direct result of the share listing, he also expects Spotify to evolve. "I think over time they're going to have to diversify their offering," he says, helping to set them apart from a sea of rival streaming services. They have already moved into podcasts and producing original music. They may well start to offer more original content, such as Taylor Swift's recent video that was only made available on the platform, says Chris Hayes. It could also be thinking about emulating Berlin-based Soundcloud, which offers a social media forum for lower-profile content creators, he adds. Mark Mulligan thinks it could offer documentaries, information about artists, special music features, news articles and even comedy. One of the thorniest issues for Spotify in the past has been a backlash from artists, who say only the biggest stars make enough income from the streaming subscription model. "At the moment it's all about record labels. Spotify doesn't have a place for artists," Mulligan says. "The bigger bolder things post [the share listing] will be doing something very clear for artists." He thinks in time Spotify could start offering places for artists to build their own creative spaces and profile pages - so that there are ways to bypass the record labels and go straight to Spotify to reach fans. Chris Hayes thinks it will be some time before record labels are sidelined. But he says if Spotify can attract more subscription customers, payments to artists will increase automatically through the current pay-per-listen model. The firm's first operating profit (not including debt financing) is on the horizon for 2019 based on current trends, according to Mr Hayes. "The strategy has always been, the free tier is not very lucrative but it is a funnel through which to persuade free users to upgrade to the subscription tier, which is lucrative." As long as subscriptions continue to grow it should eventually become profitable. Mr Mulligan thinks as the business matures it will learn to make money from its loyal customers by offering more services. Above all there is scope to exploit the data gleaned from fans' playlists, and the company could sell its data tools back to the music industry. For example Spotify's insights into people's listening habits could inform an artist planning a route for their next tour. Spotify may be the current market leader, but in the long-term there are threats on the horizon in the shape of the Apple, Amazon, Google and possibly even Facebook. "Ultimately Spotify's biggest risk is: what is it like to be the only company in a marketplace that has to turn a profit?" says Mr Mulligan. The tech giants wield vast resources and have ready-built ecosystems from smart speakers to social networks. "Spotify's rivals are the biggest companies in the world with bottomless pockets," he says, and they are using music as a way to sell their core products, not as a business proposition in itself. They could offer the record labels more money than Spotify can afford to pay. "That would be my biggest worry if I were Daniel Ek," he says, referring to Spotify's co-founder. "What if Apple decided: let's throw ten billion at this and see if we can throw Spotify out of the water?" | Why is Spotify listing its shares? | 958 | The firm made a commitment to investors who backed it as the company was growing, that they would be given the chance to cash in their investment. So Spotify had to list its shares sooner or later. But it could also herald a new phase for the firm. Being publicly traded will put pressure on the management, and could provide the excuse they need to make changes, says Mark Mulligan at at MIDia Research. "Once you're a tech stock - more than with a normal listed company - [investors] expect you to do stuff fast, change fast," he says. | 0.760346 | 0.804665 | 0.782505 |
9799_0 | Outgoing German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen has been confirmed as the next president of the European Commission, replacing Jean-Claude Juncker. She will now form a new team of commissioners and they will start their new term on 1 November, a day after the UK is due to leave the EU. But what is the European Commission, and why does it matter to the more than 500 million people living in the EU's 28 countries? Its job is to develop laws for member states and enforce them. Based in Brussels, it's the only EU body that can draft laws. It employs more than 32,000 staff in total and its running costs this year are EUR3.6bn. Once its proposals have the approval of the European Parliament and a council of 28 ministers from the EU states, they can become law. The laws it proposes cover many areas. Clean air The European Commission has referred a number of countries - including the UK - to court for breaching air pollution limits. Fines amounting to millions of pounds could be enforced by the EU body, which says it "owed it to its citizens" to take legal action. Rule of law The European Commission has also taken action against some eastern member states over the rule of law. It launched a series of legal actions against Poland over reforms to its judiciary. And it warned Romania it would take legal action if it failed to scrap measures seen to threaten the independence of its courts. Data protection The EU made changes last year to data privacy regulations, tightening up rules about the way companies use our personal information. The General Data Protection Regulation has seen companies compelled to do more to protect data. There are punishments for those who fail - British Airways, for example, is facing a record fine over a website security breach. Internet giants Curbing the power of internet giants has also been a focus for the European Commission. It has fined Google three times in the past two years. Most recently, it hit the firm with a EUR1.49bn (PS1.28bn) fine for blocking rival online search advertisers. Competition cases have also been brought against Apple, Amazon, Ikea, Gazprom and chip giant Qualcomm. Going overseas Mobile roaming charges for travellers within the EU ended in 2017, after a lengthy battle between the European Commission and mobile operators. The new rules meant consumers travelling within any EU country could text, call or go online on their mobiles for the same cost as they would pay at home. On air safety, the commission maintains a list of airlines which are either banned from operating in Europe, or face restrictions on their operations. Olive oil Less popular was an attempt in 2013 to introduce rules for restaurants about refillable bottles and dipping bowls for olive oil. The move was introduced to improve hygiene and protect consumers, said the commission. But it was ridiculed as unnecessary interference, and the EU backtracked on the idea shortly afterwards. Every five years, the 28 commissioners are replaced. New commissioners - one from each country - and a president of the commission are put forward to be voted on by a newly-elected European Parliament. These candidates all have to be approved by a clear majority of the parliament, which has 751 MEPs. The process of finding a candidate to fill the role of president this time caused controversy. Mrs von der Leyen was put forward by political leaders in the EU as their preferred candidate in a last-minute deal. The leaders rejected the candidacy process agreed with the European Parliament, under which political groupings put forward their own candidates during EU parliamentary elections. Mrs von der Leyen is a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but she faces some opposition from green and left-wing political groups. She is the first woman to lead the European Commission. | What does the European Commission do? | 422 | Its job is to develop laws for member states and enforce them. Based in Brussels, it's the only EU body that can draft laws. It employs more than 32,000 staff in total and its running costs this year are EUR3.6bn. Once its proposals have the approval of the European Parliament and a council of 28 ministers from the EU states, they can become law. The laws it proposes cover many areas. Clean air The European Commission has referred a number of countries - including the UK - to court for breaching air pollution limits. Fines amounting to millions of pounds could be enforced by the EU body, which says it "owed it to its citizens" to take legal action. Rule of law The European Commission has also taken action against some eastern member states over the rule of law. It launched a series of legal actions against Poland over reforms to its judiciary. And it warned Romania it would take legal action if it failed to scrap measures seen to threaten the independence of its courts. Data protection The EU made changes last year to data privacy regulations, tightening up rules about the way companies use our personal information. The General Data Protection Regulation has seen companies compelled to do more to protect data. There are punishments for those who fail - British Airways, for example, is facing a record fine over a website security breach. Internet giants Curbing the power of internet giants has also been a focus for the European Commission. It has fined Google three times in the past two years. Most recently, it hit the firm with a EUR1.49bn (PS1.28bn) fine for blocking rival online search advertisers. Competition cases have also been brought against Apple, Amazon, Ikea, Gazprom and chip giant Qualcomm. Going overseas Mobile roaming charges for travellers within the EU ended in 2017, after a lengthy battle between the European Commission and mobile operators. The new rules meant consumers travelling within any EU country could text, call or go online on their mobiles for the same cost as they would pay at home. On air safety, the commission maintains a list of airlines which are either banned from operating in Europe, or face restrictions on their operations. Olive oil Less popular was an attempt in 2013 to introduce rules for restaurants about refillable bottles and dipping bowls for olive oil. The move was introduced to improve hygiene and protect consumers, said the commission. But it was ridiculed as unnecessary interference, and the EU backtracked on the idea shortly afterwards. | 0.787998 | 0.769404 | 0.778701 |
679_0 | North Korean state media had strong words for Joe Biden - the former US vice-president and current presidential candidate - on Wednesday. Mr Biden had "gone reckless and senseless, seized by ambition for power", a commentary on the news website KCNA said. He was "an imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being, let alone a politician", the commentary said, adding that he was "a fool of low IQ". The piece also accused him of "vulgar acts and words about women" - a reference to earlier allegations of unwelcome touching from women - and said he became a "laughing-stock of the media" when he appeared to fall asleep during a speech by then-President Barack Obama in 2011. It even went back to the 1960s, reminding readers of the fact that Mr Biden "received a grade of F" in a paper because he had plagiarised another article. Mr Biden has admitted to plagiarism, but said he misunderstood rules about citations. Colourful insults in North Korean media are nothing new - KCNA recently quoted officials calling US national security adviser John Bolton "dim-sighted", and accusing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of "fabricating stories like a fiction writer". And, two years ago, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un famously called President Donald Trump a "dotard" - a 14th-Century term that means "an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile". Yet - North Korea is one of the world's most secretive societies, and all of its media are under direct state control, which means its news reports, even when they mostly consist of insults, give us an interesting glimpse into what Pyongyang could be thinking. Wednesday's KCNA report accused Mr Biden of "rhetoric slandering the supreme leadership of the DPRK" during a recent election campaign. This appeared to refer to Mr Biden's rally in Philadelphia on Saturday, where he criticised Mr Trump for working with "tyrants like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Kim Jong-un". "North Korean media tend to react sensitively to any comments made by foreign officials, especially US officials, about the North Korean leader," Rachel Lee, a senior analyst at NK News and a former North Korean media analyst for the US government, told the BBC. However, it's important to note that KCNA is an external agency aimed at international audiences, and "North Korea's public don't have access to it", she added. Often, domestic North Korean media avoid certain sensitive topics - or may avoid commenting on some issues, to ensure the government has more wriggle room later on, Ms Lee says. Meanwhile, Prof Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University, says that such propaganda is part of Pyongyang's attempt to "drive a wedge" between Donald Trump and his political advisers. State media criticism of Mr Biden, as well as Mr Pompeo and Mr Bolton, is an attempt to portray an image that "they would like to deal with Donald Trump, but he's prevented from doing anything meaningful by the hardline American establishment". Whether this is true or not is another matter - the most recent direct talks between Mr Trump and Mr Kim ended in Hanoi in February without any progress towards an agreement. "Given Joe Biden's record of standing up for American values and interests, it's no surprise that North Korea would prefer that Donald Trump remain in the White House," a spokesperson for his campaign, Andrew Bates, told the BBC. North Korean state media are a lot blunter - and ruder - than you'd expect most official government outlets to be. They have not been afraid to be sexist - previously carrying quotes describing former President Park Geun-hye as "an unseemly wench who has never had a chance to marry or bear a child", and criticising the "venomous swish of her skirt". It has also called North Korean defectors, who have spoken about human rights abuses, as "human scum". "Most North Korean propaganda is extremely - almost comically - aggressive," says Prof Lankov. "In North Korea, the harsher you sound, the better... this is how you're supposed to talk about political subjects." Much of it is influenced by China's rhetoric from the late 1960s, he says, but Chinese propaganda has changed over the decades, with many in Chinese media educated in the West or influenced by Western styles. North Korean rhetoric hasn't changed however, because "while society has changed a lot, their ideology has been frozen". Prof Lankov adds that the North Koreans working in state media are likely to be from elite families, and graduates of prestigious local schools, who will be required to follow instructions from the Propaganda and Agitation Department. "North Korea is one of the last countries where the government has full control over the media." Despite the insults, North Korea has actually toned down its anti-US rhetoric in last year and a half, Ms Lee says. "Since the [first] Singapore Trump-Kim summit last June, North Korean domestic media have by and large refrained from carrying negative commentaries about the US." In the past, "the last page of Party Daily newspaper [Rodong Sinmun], was almost always filled with commentaries criticising South Korea and the US - but since 2018 the page is now filled with more international news". "I think the fact they are refraining from explicit criticism of the US using domestic outlets shows they're not closing the door on US-DPRK [North Korea] talks just yet." | Why is North Korea criticising Joe Biden? | 1,630 | Wednesday's KCNA report accused Mr Biden of "rhetoric slandering the supreme leadership of the DPRK" during a recent election campaign. This appeared to refer to Mr Biden's rally in Philadelphia on Saturday, where he criticised Mr Trump for working with "tyrants like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Kim Jong-un". "North Korean media tend to react sensitively to any comments made by foreign officials, especially US officials, about the North Korean leader," Rachel Lee, a senior analyst at NK News and a former North Korean media analyst for the US government, told the BBC. However, it's important to note that KCNA is an external agency aimed at international audiences, and "North Korea's public don't have access to it", she added. Often, domestic North Korean media avoid certain sensitive topics - or may avoid commenting on some issues, to ensure the government has more wriggle room later on, Ms Lee says. Meanwhile, Prof Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University, says that such propaganda is part of Pyongyang's attempt to "drive a wedge" between Donald Trump and his political advisers. State media criticism of Mr Biden, as well as Mr Pompeo and Mr Bolton, is an attempt to portray an image that "they would like to deal with Donald Trump, but he's prevented from doing anything meaningful by the hardline American establishment". Whether this is true or not is another matter - the most recent direct talks between Mr Trump and Mr Kim ended in Hanoi in February without any progress towards an agreement. "Given Joe Biden's record of standing up for American values and interests, it's no surprise that North Korea would prefer that Donald Trump remain in the White House," a spokesperson for his campaign, Andrew Bates, told the BBC. | 0.779563 | 0.774526 | 0.777044 |
4253_0 | Guatemala's Fuego volcano erupted at about noon local time (18:00 GMT) on Sunday. It is one of Central America's most active volcanoes but Sunday's eruption caused more fatalities than any of those previously recorded at Fuego. At least 69 people are known to have died. Most of them lived in villages on the slopes of the 3,763m-high volcano and were killed by what is known as pyroclastic flow, a searing cloud of debris. Fuego is a stratovolcano or composite volcano. Its steep, conical shape, which is typical of this type of volcano, can be seen from the capital, Guatemala City, 44km (27 miles) south-west of Fuego's summit. Fuego sits on the Ring of Fire, a horse-shoe-shaped string of volcanoes, earthquake sites and tectonic plates around the Pacific, which spreads across 40,000km (25,000 miles) from the southern tip of South America all the way to New Zealand. Stratovolcanoes are usually formed over a period of tens to hundreds of thousands of years and commonly produce highly explosive eruptions. Fuego regularly erupts but usually these are smaller events which pose little risk to surrounding villages. Stratovolcanoes are made up of alternating layers of lava, ash and rock. When a stratovolcano erupts, the rock layer is smashed into tiny dust particles. These particles mix with the hot ash and gases to form a giant cloud. Volcanologists say the ash plume from Fuego reached a height of 10km (33,000ft). It could be clearly seen from space, as this image taken by Nasa shows. As the eruption weakened, the ash cloud collapsed under its own weight and cascaded down the side of the volcano as a pyroclastic flow. Pyroclastic flows contain a high-density mix of hot lava blocks, pumice, ash and volcanic gas. They move very quickly down volcanic slopes, typically following valleys. Fuego's pyroclastic flow is the reason why so many people died in the volcano's most recent eruption compared to the last major eruption in 1974, when no deaths were officially recorded. They can reach a speed of up to 700km/h (450mph) and are considered to be the most deadly volcanic event because they are impossible to outrun and can travel for miles. Temperatures inside pyroclastic flows can range between 200C and 700C (390-1300F) and can ignite fires. They destroy everything in their path. Locals living on the slopes are used to smaller eruptions but the virulence of Sunday's event caught them by surprise. Many of the victims were found near their homes, indicating that they did not have time to flee. Others managed to save themselves but are still searching for members of their families. The villages worst affected were San Miguel Los Lotes and El Rodeo. Aerial photographs show how they were covered by pyroclastic flow which rushed down the slopes of the volcano. Video footage showing people gazing at the pyroclastic flow coming down the mountainside suggests they were not aware of how fast it spreads and the danger it poses. Volcanologists warn that while the eruption has seized for now, the danger is not yet over. If heavy rain were to fall on Fuego's slopes, it could cause deadly mudslides carrying ash, boulders and debris down the mountainside. The Guatemalan authorities calculate that 1.7 million people have been affected by the eruption and large areas remain covered in ash. | What type of volcano is Fuego? | 424 | Fuego is a stratovolcano or composite volcano. Its steep, conical shape, which is typical of this type of volcano, can be seen from the capital, Guatemala City, 44km (27 miles) south-west of Fuego's summit. Fuego sits on the Ring of Fire, a horse-shoe-shaped string of volcanoes, earthquake sites and tectonic plates around the Pacific, which spreads across 40,000km (25,000 miles) from the southern tip of South America all the way to New Zealand. Stratovolcanoes are usually formed over a period of tens to hundreds of thousands of years and commonly produce highly explosive eruptions. Fuego regularly erupts but usually these are smaller events which pose little risk to surrounding villages. | 0.752837 | 0.799834 | 0.776335 |
298_1 | The internal Labour row over anti-Semitism has dragged on for nearly three years. Here's a guide to what's been going on. Jewish people have faced prejudice and hostility for centuries. During World War II, six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis or their accomplices in what is known as the Holocaust. Modern-day anti-Semitism can take many forms including, but not limited to, conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the global financial system and the media, to attacks on synagogues, verbal abuse or hate speech and abusive memes on social media. In 2018, anti-Semitic hate incidents in the UK reached a record high, according to the Community Security Trust, which monitors them. In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted a working definition of anti-Semitism which described it as "a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews". The UK and the IHRA's other 30 members accepted the definition, as well as a series of accompanying "contemporary" examples of how anti-Semitism manifests itself in public life. These include Holocaust denial, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (through the existence of the State of Israel), and holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of that state. Labour got itself into trouble over the definition - as we'll explain later. Debates about anti-Semitism in Labour often involve Israel and the term "Zionism". In its modern sense, Zionism refers to support for Israel's existence and prosperity. It began as a political movement in Europe in the late 19th Century which sought to develop Jewish nationhood in the land known as Palestine - also known to Jews as the ancient Land of Israel. The movement evolved and eventually led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Some say "Zionist" can be used as a coded attack on Jewish people, while others say the Israeli government and its supporters are deliberately confusing anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism to avoid criticism. Attitudes to Israel in the UK, and on the left in particular, are influenced by its troubled relationship with its Arab neighbours and its long conflict with the Palestinians. A 2016 report by the Home Affairs Committee of MPs backed the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism but said it should include an additional statement to maintain freedom of speech "in the context of discourse about Israel and Palestine". This, it said, should read "it is not anti-Semitic to criticise the Israeli government without additional evidence to suggest anti-Semitic intent" or to hold Israel "to the same standards as other liberal democracies or to take a particular interest in the Israeli government's policies or actions, without additional evidence to suggest ant-Semitic intent". Anti-Semitism was generally not regarded as a big problem in the Labour Party before Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader in September 2015. Since then, things have changed, with Mr Corbyn and other figures on the left setting a new political direction. There has been an influx of new members, many of whom are vocal critics of Israel and who believe the UK, along with the US, should be tougher towards Israel, especially regarding its policies towards the Palestinians and its building of settlements in the occupied territories. The strength of the left's support for Palestinian statehood, which Jeremy Corbyn has championed for decades, contrasts with the more nuanced position taken by many of his predecessors. As the balance of power within Labour changed after Mr Corbyn's appointment, attention quickly focused on what activists and elected representatives were saying - and had said in the past - on social media and elsewhere about Israel and Jewish people. There were claims that anti-Semitic tropes were being widely propagated and a number of incidents attracted a great deal of attention. High-profile suspensions over alleged anti-Semitic comments include MP Naz Shah, the ex-London Mayor Ken Livingstone and MP Chris Williamson, an ally and friend of Mr Corbyn. Ms Shah apologised for a string of comments on Twitter, including one suggesting Israel should be moved to the United States, although she was subsequently re-instated. Mr Livingstone quit the party after a long-running row over claims Adolf Hitler had once supported Zionism while Mr Williamson was stripped of his membership for saying the problem of anti-Semitism had been over-stated and Labour had been "too apologetic" over the issue. Mr Williamson's case is still ongoing - he was allowed back into the party several months later, but was suspended again two days later. pending further consideration of his future. In February this year Labour released figures showing that the party received 673 accusations of anti-Semitism by Labour members between April 2018 and January 2019. However the scale of the issue remains disputed. In April 2019, the Sunday Times reported that Labour had received 863 complaints against party members, including councillors. The newspaper claimed leaked e-mails it had seen showed more than half of the cases remained unresolved while there had been no investigation in 28% of them. It said fewer than 30 people had been expelled while members investigated for posting online comments such as "Heil Hitler" and "Jews are the problem" had not been suspended. Labour disputed the reports while Jewish Voice for Labour, a newly constituted group supportive of Mr Corbyn, maintained the number of cases being investigated represented a tiny fraction of Labour's 500,000 plus membership. Not nearly enough, say its critics. In 2016, Mr Corbyn asked the barrister and human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti - who was appointed a Labour peer soon after her report was published - to look into the extent of anti-Semitism and other forms of racism within the party. The report concluded that while Labour was not "overrun by anti-Semitism or other forms of racism", there was an "occasionally toxic atmosphere". It called for a series of recommendations to tackle what it said was the "clear evidence of ignorant attitudes" within sections of the party. The report's launch was marred, though, by a verbal confrontation which led to the expulsion of activist Marc Wadsworth from the party after he criticised a Jewish MP. Labour's General Secretary Jennie Formby says she has strengthened and speeded up the party's disciplinary procedures, with more staff to handle investigations but Baroness Chakrabarti - now Labour's shadow attorney general - has criticised the pace of progress. The Home Affairs Committee's 2016 report said the leadership's lack of action "risks lending force to allegations that elements of the Labour movement are institutionally anti-Semitic". More recently, in early 2019, Labour approached its former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer about leading a review into its complaints process, which critics say has become politicised. This, in turn, led to complaints from prominent Jewish MPs that he was too close to the party for any review to be independent. But in a politically damaging move, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced it would be conducting its own wide-ranging investigation into whether Labour "unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish". Labour said it would co-operate fully with the watchdog. It is only the second time the EHRC has investigated a political party - in 2010, it ordered the BNP to re-write its constitution to comply with race relation laws. A Labour spokesman rejected "any suggestion that the party does not handle ant-Semitism complaints fairly and robustly, or that the party has acted unlawfully". The party faced further criticism following a BBC Panorama called Is Labour Anti-Semitic? The programme spoke to a number of former party officials who alleged that senior Labour figures - namely Ms Formby and Mr Corbyn's communications chief Seumas Milne - had interfered in the process of dealing with anti-Semitism complaints. The disputes team is supposed to operate independently from the party's political structures, including the leader's office. The whistleblowers also claimed they had faced a huge increase in anti-Semitism complaints since Mr Corbyn became leader in 2015. Labour strenuously disputed the claims, insisting there was no interference and the former staff were "disaffected" individuals with "personal and political axes to grind". It also said the programme was "heavily slanted and inaccurate" - a suggestion Panorama has rejected. The party's deputy leader, Tom Watson, said he "deplored" the official response to the documentary, and other senior figures joined him to call on the leadership to listen to the concerns it raised. MPs and peers are now pushing for a fully independent complaints process. In July 2018, Labour adopted a new anti-Semitism code which critics, including Jewish leaders and some Labour MPs, said fell unacceptably short of the IHRA definition. Labour's version did not include a number of its examples of anti-Semitism, including: - accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than their home country - requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations Following a consultation - and widespread criticism - Labour subsequently adopted the full IHRA definition and examples, along with an accompanying statement that "this will not in any way undermine freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of Palestinians". Critics have said the addition of a "caveat" undermines the IHRA definition - but Labour says it is intended to reassure members they can be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic. Mr Corbyn proposed a longer additional statement - which would have allowed criticism of the foundation of the state of Israel as a racist endeavour - but this was not accepted by the party's ruling executive. Jeremy Corbyn has insisted time and time again there is no place for anti-Semitism in Labour. Some of his supporters say the problem has been exaggerated and is being used as a stick to beat the Labour leader by people who don't like him or his views on the Middle East. He comes from a different political tradition than virtually every other post-war Labour leader, having campaigned for 40 years against Western imperialism and aggression. Mr Corbyn's opponents accuse him of being too close to Hamas, a militant Islamist group, and Hezbollah, a Lebanese paramilitary group. Both groups are widely viewed in the West as terrorist organisations. He described representatives of Hamas as his "friends" after inviting them to a controversial meeting in Parliament in 2009. He later said he regretted his use of language, but insisted his motivation in talking to enemies of Israel was the promotion of peace in the Middle East. But his critics argue his views have created the space for anti-Semitism to flourish in the party and he has condoned anti-Jewish prejudice through several of his own actions. Mr Corbyn faced criticism in August 2018 after a video emerged on the Daily Mail website of a 2013 clip in which he said a group of British Zionists had "no sense of English irony". Former chief rabbi Lord Sacks branded the comments "the most offensive statement" by a politician since Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech and accused the Labour leader of being an anti-Semite. Mr Corbyn said he had used the term "Zionist" in an "accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people". He added: "I am now more careful with how I might use the term 'Zionist' because a once self-identifying political term has been increasingly hijacked by anti-Semites as code for Jews." It isn't the only row he has been embroiled in, though. In August 2018, the Labour leader also came under fire over his presence at a ceremony in Tunisia in 2014 which is said to have honoured the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich massacre, during which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by Palestinian militants and killed. The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Mr Corbyn deserved "unequivocal condemnation" for laying a wreath on the grave of one of those behind the atrocity. The Labour leader tweeted that Mr Netanyahu's claims about his "actions and words are false", adding: "What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children." Mr Corbyn said he had attended the event in Tunis as part of a wider event about the search for peace. Earlier in August 2018, Jeremy Corbyn apologised over an event he hosted as a backbench MP in 2010 where a Holocaust survivor compared Israel to Nazism. After the Times published details of the event, the Labour leader said he had "on occasion appeared on platforms with people whose views I completely reject" and was sorry for the "concerns and anxiety that this has caused". In March 2018, Mr Corbyn was criticised for sending an apparently supportive message to the creator of an allegedly anti-Semitic mural in 2012. In a message sent via Facebook, he had appeared to question a decision to remove the artist's controversial work from a wall in east London. He later said he had not looked at it properly, calling it "deeply disturbing and anti-Semitic". The artist, called Mear One, denied this, saying the mural was about "class and privilege". Following the row, Mr Corbyn said he was "sincerely sorry for the pain" caused and conceded there were "pockets" of anti-Semitism within the party. Unease within Labour ranks in Parliament intensified in 2017 and 2018 amid concerns the leadership was not doing enough to defend Jewish MPs, such as Luciana Berger, who were themselves the targets of anti-Semitic abuse and death threats. In March 2018, scores of Labour MPs joined Jewish groups, including the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and other anti-racism campaigners to demand action in an unprecedented "Enough is Enough" rally outside Parliament. In a further sign of the breakdown in trust between Labour and the Jewish community, the Jewish Labour Movement considered severing its century-old affiliation to the party. While deciding to retain its ties, the organisation of 2,000 members did pass a motion of no confidence in Mr Corbyn and voted to describe the party as "institutionally anti-Semitic". In February 2019, nine MPs quit Labour, many of them citing the leadership's handling of anti-Semitism as their reason for leaving. Ms Berger, who had a police escort at the 2018 Labour Party conference, said she had come to the "sickening conclusion" that the party had become institutionally anti-Semitic and that she was "embarrassed and ashamed" to stay. Ms Berger's supporters, including deputy leader Tom Watson, claimed she has been "bullied out of her own party by racist thugs". Among the other defectors, Joan Ryan claimed the party had "become infected with the scourge of anti-Jewish racism" while Ian Austin blamed Mr Corbyn for "creating a culture of extremism and intolerance". In March 2018, the head of the Labour Party's disputes panel quit after it emerged she had opposed the suspension of a council candidate accused of Holocaust denial. Christine Shawcroft said she had not not been aware of the "abhorrent" Facebook post that had led to his suspension In July 2018, the UK's three main Jewish newspapers published the same front page, warning that a government led by Mr Corbyn would pose an "existential threat to Jewish life". Earlier that month the party brought disciplinary action against the Labour MP Margaret Hodge, after she reportedly called Mr Corbyn an "anti-Semite" and a "racist". Ms Hodge refused to apologise and the action was later dropped. Frank Field, the MP for Birkenhead since 1979, quit the party's group in Parliament in August 2018, saying the leadership had become "a force for anti-Semitism in British politics". In May 2019, a member of Labour's ruling National Executive Committee - Peter Willsman - was suspended after LBC radio reported he had been recorded as saying that the Israeli embassy was "almost certainly" behind the anti-Semitism row. And Labour's successful candidate in the Peterborough by-election, Lisa Forbes, was engulfed in a row after it emerged she had liked a social media post suggesting Theresa May had a "Zionist slave masters agenda". She apologised and calls for her to be suspended were rejected but the controversy led to fresh ructions and claims racism had become "institutionalised" within the party. Update 25th June 2019: Although intended as a general guide, an earlier version of this article omitted some relevant information and it has since been updated. Correction 23rd July 2019: An earlier version of this article inaccurately said that Labour has never confirmed the number of anti-Semitism cases it is investigating and this has been amended to confirm that the party did release figures for a 10 month period in 2018/19. | What is the Labour anti-Semitism row about? | 2,796 | Anti-Semitism was generally not regarded as a big problem in the Labour Party before Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader in September 2015. Since then, things have changed, with Mr Corbyn and other figures on the left setting a new political direction. There has been an influx of new members, many of whom are vocal critics of Israel and who believe the UK, along with the US, should be tougher towards Israel, especially regarding its policies towards the Palestinians and its building of settlements in the occupied territories. The strength of the left's support for Palestinian statehood, which Jeremy Corbyn has championed for decades, contrasts with the more nuanced position taken by many of his predecessors. As the balance of power within Labour changed after Mr Corbyn's appointment, attention quickly focused on what activists and elected representatives were saying - and had said in the past - on social media and elsewhere about Israel and Jewish people. There were claims that anti-Semitic tropes were being widely propagated and a number of incidents attracted a great deal of attention. High-profile suspensions over alleged anti-Semitic comments include MP Naz Shah, the ex-London Mayor Ken Livingstone and MP Chris Williamson, an ally and friend of Mr Corbyn. Ms Shah apologised for a string of comments on Twitter, including one suggesting Israel should be moved to the United States, although she was subsequently re-instated. Mr Livingstone quit the party after a long-running row over claims Adolf Hitler had once supported Zionism while Mr Williamson was stripped of his membership for saying the problem of anti-Semitism had been over-stated and Labour had been "too apologetic" over the issue. Mr Williamson's case is still ongoing - he was allowed back into the party several months later, but was suspended again two days later. pending further consideration of his future. In February this year Labour released figures showing that the party received 673 accusations of anti-Semitism by Labour members between April 2018 and January 2019. However the scale of the issue remains disputed. In April 2019, the Sunday Times reported that Labour had received 863 complaints against party members, including councillors. The newspaper claimed leaked e-mails it had seen showed more than half of the cases remained unresolved while there had been no investigation in 28% of them. It said fewer than 30 people had been expelled while members investigated for posting online comments such as "Heil Hitler" and "Jews are the problem" had not been suspended. Labour disputed the reports while Jewish Voice for Labour, a newly constituted group supportive of Mr Corbyn, maintained the number of cases being investigated represented a tiny fraction of Labour's 500,000 plus membership. | 0.836887 | 0.71554 | 0.776214 |
390_0 | Heavy seasonal rains are a regular feature of life in Nigeria and towns close to the country's main rivers are particularly vulnerable. This year floods have killed almost 200 people with many thousands displaced. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) say these figures are likely to rise as the full impact becomes clear. A state of emergency has been declared in four of the worst-hit states: - Niger - Kogi - Anambra - Delta President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged $8.2m (PS6.2m) for relief efforts. The NEMA has activated five local operation centres to coordinate emergency responses. Flooding regularly wreaks havoc in Nigeria: - In 2017, floods affected 250,000 people in the eastern-central region - In 2016, 92,000 were displaced and 38 died - In 2015, more than 100,000 were displaced, with 53 deaths - In 2012, devastating flooding forced two million Nigerians from their homes and 363 died, according to authorities "Floods have become a perennial challenge with increasing intensity each year, leaving colossal losses and trauma," the Nigerian Meteorological Agency says. So why does Nigeria keep flooding, and is it getting worse? Nigeria hosts two of West Africa's great rivers: - the Niger which enters the country from the north-west - the Benue, which flows into Nigeria from its eastern neighbour Cameroon These two immense waterways meet in central Nigeria and then flow south as a single river on to the Atlantic Ocean. Much, though by no means all, of Nigeria's flooding occurs along these two rivers as their banks overflow in the rainy season. In 2012, hundreds of thousands of acres of land were flooded in Nigeria when the Benue and Niger over-spilled. That year, the Niger River reached a record-high level of 12.84m (42ft). In 2018, levels reached 11.06m, with fears that the heavy rain, expected to continue through October this year, could lead it to approach similar heights. There has also been extensive damage to farmlands, according ACAPS, a humanitarian data-analysis organisation, which is the mainstay of most livelihoods in the affected regions. Flooding is also caused by: - the tidal movements of coastal waters, such as in the Delta region of the south-east - saturated drainage systems, such as in the country's largest city, Lagos, in the south-west Heavy rainfall has certainly increased the likelihood of rivers overflowing and flash floods. And there's evidence to suggest increasing rainfall over time. Data from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency from 1981-2017, analysing 13 affected locations, reveals a rising trend in annual rainfall, which it says is likely to be a significant factor responsible for floods. But it's not just rain falling in Nigeria itself. Heavy precipitation upstream on the Benue and Niger rivers - in Cameroon, Mali and the country of Niger - contributes large volumes of water to Nigeria's river system, according to Zahrah Musa at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education. Another factor in Nigeria's flood problem is dams. Nigeria's three main electricity-generating dams, at Kainji and Jebba on the Niger river and the Shiroro dam on the Kaduna River, "have become bloated" by the heavy rains and excess water has had to be released downstream over the past month, says Hussaini Ibrahim, of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA). The uncompleted Zungeru dam, in Niger state, which is part-funded by the Chinese government, is also believed to be affecting areas once free from flooding. On the Benue River, the main concern is the Lagdo Dam, in neighbouring Cameroon, which has previously caused the river to swell by releasing water. In 2012, water flowing in from the Lagdo dam was blamed for 30 deaths in Nigeria. The Cameroonian authorities have yet to allow water to pour out from Lagdo during the current rainy season - but there are concerns in Nigeria that this might happen. Nigeria's population is expanding rapidly, currently estimated at 186 million, and the lack of proper town planning can make flooding worse in urban areas. "Town planning in Nigeria is very weak," says Aliyu Salisu Barau, of Bayero University. "These areas are affected by a lack of drainage networks." The city of Lokoja, for example, at the meeting-point of Benue and Niger rivers, is particularly prone to flooding. "If you go to Lokoja, you see massive developments along the Niger River," says Mr Barau. These developments are almost always unregulated, with people building on floodplains, reducing the surface areas for water to travel, and without constructing drainage systems. Because of the unregulated nature of town planning, there's also limited information on how much land has been built on and therefore little assessment of the impact. In the city of Makurdi, for example, on the Benue river, Mr Barau says, "one can see all forms of informal activities" along the river bank. New land developments along the Niger River has more than doubled in Nassarwa and Kogi States, according to estimates. The dumping of waste in the streets can also prevent the steady flow of water and put pressure on the few urban drainage systems. It's also common, after the floods, for people to come back and start rebuilding in the same vulnerable areas. Hussaini Ibrahim, of the NSEMA, also points the finger at deforestation, which he says is happening across Nigeria. It's a resource that people use for fuel or to sell - but trees play an important role in storing rain-waters. If the impact of flooding is to be reduced in the future, the consequences of rapid urbanisation and poor urban planning need to be addressed. And greater co-operation with Nigeria's neighbours in the control of river levels will need to be achieved in order to avoid dangerous surges in water levels during the periods of heavy rain. The wider issue of the increasing rainfall levels identified by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency is one that some in Nigeria have attributed to climate change. Read more from Reality Check Send us your questions Follow us on Twitter | Are Nigeria's rains causing the floods? | 2,303 | Heavy rainfall has certainly increased the likelihood of rivers overflowing and flash floods. And there's evidence to suggest increasing rainfall over time. Data from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency from 1981-2017, analysing 13 affected locations, reveals a rising trend in annual rainfall, which it says is likely to be a significant factor responsible for floods. But it's not just rain falling in Nigeria itself. Heavy precipitation upstream on the Benue and Niger rivers - in Cameroon, Mali and the country of Niger - contributes large volumes of water to Nigeria's river system, according to Zahrah Musa at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education. | 0.782008 | 0.769737 | 0.775873 |
8522_1 | Former FBI director James Comey's evidence to the Senate Intelligence Committee has been keenly awaited by the US public. Mr Comey, who was sacked by Donald Trump on 9 May, gave some clues to the inner workings of the Trump administration and its relationship with the intelligence services. But despite the forensic examination of the witness by senators some questions remain unanswered, whether because they involve classified information or because, well, the answers just aren't there yet. Here are a few of them: The former FBI director said there were a "variety of reasons" why Mr Sessions' involvement in the investigation of Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 election campaign would be problematic. However, he said he was unable to speak about them in an open session of the hearing. Mr Sessions recused himself from the investigation in March after revelations that he had had conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the election campaign. He had failed to reveal these conversations at his confirmation hearings. Three days after Mr Comey was fired, the president tweeted that the former FBI director should hope there were no tapes of their conversations. Mr Comey has since expressed the hope that there are tapes and at the hearing he urged the president to release all their conversations if tapes exist. "I'm good with it," he said. But while Mr Comey has himself kept detailed memos of his conversations, there is no actual evidence that tapes exist. Mr Comey testified that President Trump asked Attorney General Sessions, aide Jared Kushner and senior intelligence officials to leave the room during a meeting on counter-intelligence on 14 February. Mr Trump then mentioned Mike Flynn, whom he had recently sacked as national security adviser. Near the end of the conversation, Mr Trump said: "He is a good guy, I hope you can let this go." In his testimony, Mr Comey did not explain why Mr Trump wanted to speak to him alone, and Mr Trump has as yet shed no light on the matter. The committee's Republican chairman hinted that Mr Trump might be called to give evidence at some stage. "The American people need to hear your side of the story, just as they need to hear the president's description of events," Richard Burr told Mr Comey. To date, only one sitting US president has ever testified before a Senate committee. In August 1919, Woodrow Wilson gave testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee on the Treaty of Versailles with Germany after World War One and the establishment of the League of Nations. The Senate twice rejected the treaty and the US never joined the League of Nations. However, President George Washington testified on Indian treaties before the whole Senate in 1789, and Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Gerald Ford gave evidence to Senate committees after they had left office. Mr Comey said in his statement released on Wednesday that he had assured Mr Trump on three occasions that he was not personally under investigation, confirming Mr Trump's own accounts. Explaining why he hadn't gone public with this information at the time, he said that if anything changed and an investigation into the president was started, he would have felt obliged to go public with that as well. Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz said that the president felt "totally vindicated" by Mr Comey's account. But since Mr Comey is no longer in charge of the FBI, and the investigation has now been passed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, it is possible that Mr Trump is now being investigated after all. | Are there tapes of Mr Comey's conversations with Mr Trump? | 1,054 | Three days after Mr Comey was fired, the president tweeted that the former FBI director should hope there were no tapes of their conversations. Mr Comey has since expressed the hope that there are tapes and at the hearing he urged the president to release all their conversations if tapes exist. "I'm good with it," he said. But while Mr Comey has himself kept detailed memos of his conversations, there is no actual evidence that tapes exist. | 0.742958 | 0.808493 | 0.775726 |
7584_0 | MPs have rejected Prime Minister Boris Johnson's attempt to hold an early general election on 12 December. But why does the PM want an election and what are his remaining options? The next general election is not due until 2022, but the PM wants an early election to try to restore the Conservative Party's majority. While an early election carries risks, Mr Johnson hopes to win more seats in the House of Commons, to make it easier to pass a Brexit deal. Once an election is called, there has to be a gap of at least five weeks before polling day. That is because the law requires Parliament to dissolve 25 working days beforehand. At this point, MPs lose their status and campaign for re-election, if they choose to stand again. So, in order for polling day to take place on Mr Johnson's preferred date of 12 December, the election would have to be triggered before 6 November. Mr Johnson can't just decide to hold an early election. He needs the support of two-thirds of all MPs - at least 434. This is a legal requirement, set out under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The latest rejection by MPs on Monday night comes after Mr Johnson lost two previous attempts last month to trigger an early election. Labour says it will support an early election, but only once the risk of a no-deal Brexit is "off the table". Had the PM secured enough votes, he would have then recommended the day of the election to the Queen. Despite losing the vote, there are other options the government can pursue. The government plans to get round the two-thirds threshold by introducing a very short law that fixes the date of the election as 12 December. The advantage of this route - from the government's point of view - is that it would only require a simple majority of MPs to support it rather than two-thirds. MPs are set to vote on it on Tuesday. The SNP and Liberal Democrats had already discussed the idea of a similar bill - although they want a different date. Under their plan, both parties had said they would propose a law on Tuesday that sets an election for Monday 9 December - three days earlier than Mr Johnson's preferred date. It is not yet clear if they might switch to support the government's bill. If an election was held on 9 December, it would be the first time since 1931 that a UK election had not been held on a Thursday. If an election was brought via this route - either for 9 or 12 December - it would need to clear all stages in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. There is also a risk the law could be altered if MPs or peers propose changes - such as allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote. Rather than the government, it could be the opposition that initiates an early election. This could happen if Labour proposed a no-confidence vote. This would give all MPs a vote on whether they wanted the current government to continue. Only a simple majority would be needed. If it succeeded, opposition parties would be allowed two weeks to come together to try to form an alternative government. If this happened, Mr Johnson would be expected to resign and a new prime minister would take over. But if nothing was resolved during those two weeks, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act says a general election would be automatically triggered. Under this scenario, an election would take place at least seven weeks after a no-confidence vote was passed. That's because two weeks would be taken up by opposition parties trying to form a government, plus a further five weeks to dissolve Parliament for the campaign. This would leave 19 December as the earliest possible date - a week after Mr Johnson's preferred date. If the government felt it had no other way of forcing an early election, it could in theory call a motion of no confidence in itself. In order for it to succeed, Conservative MPs would have to vote to bring down their own government. While such a tactic might appear extreme to outside observers, it would trigger an automatic early election - as long as opposition parties failed to form an alternative government within the 14 days. As such, this option would be extremely high risk. Brexit - British exit - refers to the UK leaving the EU. A public vote was held in June 2016 to decide whether the UK should leave or remain. | Why does Boris Johnson want an early election? | 180 | The next general election is not due until 2022, but the PM wants an early election to try to restore the Conservative Party's majority. While an early election carries risks, Mr Johnson hopes to win more seats in the House of Commons, to make it easier to pass a Brexit deal. | 0.793617 | 0.755712 | 0.774664 |
4848_0 | Feeling a little lost on Brexit? Never really got your head around it in the first place? Let us walk you through it. Brexit is short for "British exit" - and is the word people use to talk about the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union (EU). The EU is a political and economic union of 28 countries that trade with each other and allow citizens to move easily between the countries to live and work (click here if you want to see the full list). The UK joined the EU, then known as the EEC (European Economic Community), in 1973. A public vote - called a referendum - was held on Thursday 23 June 2016 when voters were asked just one question - whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union. The Leave side won by nearly 52% to 48% - 17.4m votes to 16.1m - but the exit didn't happen straight away. It was due to take place on 29 March 2019 - but the departure date has been delayed (we will explain in more detail below). The 2016 vote was just the start. Since then, negotiations have been taking place between the UK and the other EU countries. The discussions have been mainly over the "divorce" deal, which sets out exactly how the UK leaves - not what will happen afterwards. This deal is known as the Withdrawal Agreement. The withdrawal agreement covers some of these key points: - How much money the UK will have to pay the EU in order to break the partnership - that's about PS39bn - What will happen to UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU and, equally, what will happen to EU citizens living in the UK - How to avoid the return of a physical border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland when it becomes the frontier between the UK and the EU It also includes a transition period, which has been agreed to allow the UK and EU to agree a trade deal and to give businesses the time to adjust. That means that if the withdrawal agreement gets the green light, there will be no huge changes between the date of Brexit and 31 December 2020. Another, much shorter, document has also been drawn up that gives an overview of what the UK and EU's future relationship will be in the longer term. This is the political declaration. However, neither side has to stick exactly to what it says - it is a set of ambitions for future talks. The deal was agreed by the UK and the EU in November 2018, but it also has to be approved by British MPs. Well, no. They have voted against it three times. On 15 January they rejected the deal by 432 votes to 202 - a record defeat. Then on 12 March, after Theresa May - the prime minister at the time - had gone back to the EU to secure further legal assurances, they rejected it again. And on 29 March - the original day that the UK was due to leave the EU - MPs rejected it for a third time (this vote was slightly different as it did not include the political declaration). Yes. As MPs did not approve Mrs May's withdrawal deal, she was forced to ask other EU leaders to delay Brexit. The deadline was delayed until 31 October - but, unable to see a way forward, Mrs May stepped down as PM and was replaced by Boris Johnson. There is a broad range of complaints, many of which claim the deal fails to give back to the UK control of its own affairs from the EU. One of the biggest sticking points has been over what happens at the Irish border. Both the EU and UK want to avoid the return of guard posts and checks (here's why), so something called the backstop - a sort of safety net - was included in the deal. The backstop is meant to be a last resort to keep an open border on the island of Ireland - whatever happens in the Brexit negotiations. It would mean that Northern Ireland, but not the rest of the UK, would still follow some EU rules on things such as food products. Theresa May insisted that, if all went as planned, it would never be used. But it has annoyed some MPs, who are angry that the UK would not be able to end it without the EU's permission and so EU rules could remain in place for good. Other MPs would prefer the UK to stay closer to the EU - or even still in it. And others say Northern Ireland should not be treated separately from the rest of the UK. Boris Johnson has said he wants to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement with the EU - and remove the backstop. If he succeeds in doing this, it will still have to be approved by MPs before being passed into UK law. However, EU leaders have consistently said they will not renegotiate the withdrawal agreement and that the backstop is an essential part of any deal. If the prime minister fails to convince the EU to change the withdrawal agreement, he has promised to take the UK out of the EU without a deal on 31 October. Leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement would be known as a "no-deal Brexit". "No deal" means the UK will have failed to agree a withdrawal agreement. It would mean there would be no transition period after the UK leaves and EU laws would stop applying to the UK immediately (more on that here). The government says it is preparing for this potential situation. It expects some food prices could rise and customs checks at borders could cost businesses billions of pounds. (Read the government's report here). It has published a series of guides - which cover everything from mobile roaming on holiday to the impact on electricity supplies. Here is a list of 10 ways you could be affected by a no-deal Brexit. It is still written into law that the UK will be leaving, even though the deadline has shifted. The European Court of Justice has said the UK could cancel Brexit altogether without the agreement of other nations - but few politicians publicly back this option. | What is Brexit? | 118 | Brexit is short for "British exit" - and is the word people use to talk about the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union (EU). | 0.735541 | 0.81249 | 0.774016 |
9319_0 | Saudi Arabia and Iran are at loggerheads. They have long been rivals, but it's all recently got a lot more tense. Here's why. Saudi Arabia and Iran - two powerful neighbours - are locked in a fierce struggle for regional dominance. The decades-old feud between them is exacerbated by religious differences. They each follow one of the two main branches of Islam - Iran is largely Shia Muslim, while Saudi Arabia sees itself as the leading Sunni Muslim power. This religious schism is reflected in the wider map of the Middle East, where other countries have Shia or Sunni majorities, some of whom look towards Iran or Saudi Arabia for support or guidance. Historically Saudi Arabia, a monarchy and home to the birthplace of Islam, saw itself as the leader of the Muslim world. However this was challenged in 1979 by the Islamic revolution in Iran which created a new type of state in the region - a kind of revolutionary theocracy - that had an explicit goal of exporting this model beyond its own borders. In the past 15 years in particular, the differences between Saudi Arabia and Iran have been sharpened by a series of events. The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq overthrew Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab who had been a major Iranian adversary. This removed a crucial military counter-weight to Iran. It opened the way for a Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and Iranian influence in the country has been rising ever since. Fast-forward to 2011 and uprisings across the Arab world caused political instability throughout the region. Iran and Saudi Arabia exploited these upheavals to expand their influence, notably in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, further heightening mutual suspicions. Iran's critics say it is intent on establishing itself or its proxies across the region, and achieving control of a land corridor stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean. The strategic rivalry is heating up because Iran is in many ways winning the regional struggle. In Syria, Iranian (and Russian) support for President Bashar al-Assad has enabled his forces to largely rout rebel group groups backed by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is trying desperately to contain rising Iranian influence while the militaristic adventurism of the kingdom's young and impulsive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - the country's de facto ruler - is exacerbating regional tensions. He is waging a war against the rebel Houthi movement in neighbouring Yemen, in part to stem perceived Iranian influence there, but after four years this is proving a costly gamble. Iran has denied accusations that it is smuggling weaponry to the Houthis, though successive reports from a panel of UN experts have demonstrated significant assistance for the Houthis from Tehran in terms of both technology and weaponry. Meanwhile in Lebanon, Iran's ally, Shia militia group Hezbollah, leads a politically powerful bloc and controls a huge, heavily armed fighting force. Many observers believe the Saudis forced Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, whom it backs, to resign in 2017 over Hezbollah's involvement in regional conflicts. He later returned to Lebanon and put the resignation on hold. There are also external forces at play. Saudi Arabia has been emboldened by support from the Trump administration while Israel, which sees Iran as a mortal threat, is in a sense "backing" the Saudi effort to contain Iran. The Jewish state is fearful of the encroachment of pro-Iranian fighters in Syria ever closer to its border. Israel and Saudi Arabia were the two countries most resolutely opposed to the 2015 international agreement limiting Iran's nuclear programme, insisting that it did not go far enough to roll back any chance of Iran obtaining the bomb. Broadly speaking the strategic map of the Middle East reflects the Shia-Sunni divide. In the pro-Saudi camp are the other major Sunni actors in the Gulf - the UAE and Bahrain - as well as Egypt and Jordan. In the Iranian camp is Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, a member of a heterodox Shia sect, who has relied on pro-Iranian Shia militia groups, including the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, to fight predominantly Sunni rebel groups. Iraq's Shia-dominated government is also a close ally of Iran, though paradoxically it also retains a close relationship with Washington on whom it has depended for help in the struggle against so-called Islamic State. This is in many ways a regional equivalent of the Cold War, which pitted the US against the Soviet Union in a tense military standoff for many years. Iran and Saudi Arabia are not directly fighting but they are engaged in a variety of proxy wars (conflicts where they support rival sides and militias) around the region. Syria is an obvious example, while in Yemen Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of supplying ballistic missiles fired at Saudi territory by the rebel Houthi movement. Iran is also accused of flexing its muscle in the strategic waterways of the Gulf, through which oil is shipped from Saudi Arabia. The US says Iran was behind recent attacks on foreign tankers there - something it denies. So far Tehran and Riyadh have fought via proxies. Neither is really geared up for a direct war with the other but a major Houthi attack against the Saudi capital or, as in the most recent case, against a key economic target could upset the apple cart. Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia's infrastructure have inevitably added a new front to the confrontation between Tehran and Riyadh. As in the Gulf, where Iran and Saudi face each other across a maritime border, rising tensions could risk a much broader conflict. For the US and other Western powers, freedom of navigation in the Gulf is essential and any conflict that sought to block the waterway - vital for international shipping and oil transportation - could easily draw in US naval and air forces. For a long time the US and its allies have seen Iran as a destabilising force in the Middle East. The Saudi leadership increasingly sees Iran as an existential threat and the crown prince seems willing to take whatever action he sees necessary, wherever he deems it necessary, to confront Tehran's rising influence. Saudi Arabia's vulnerability has been demonstrated by these latest attacks on its oil installations. If a war breaks out, it will be more perhaps by accident rather than design. But the Saudis' own activism, encouraged in part by a lingering uncertainty as to the Trump administration's own goals in the region, inevitably adds another element of tension. | How is the Saudi-Iranian rivalry being played out? | 4,360 | This is in many ways a regional equivalent of the Cold War, which pitted the US against the Soviet Union in a tense military standoff for many years. Iran and Saudi Arabia are not directly fighting but they are engaged in a variety of proxy wars (conflicts where they support rival sides and militias) around the region. Syria is an obvious example, while in Yemen Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of supplying ballistic missiles fired at Saudi territory by the rebel Houthi movement. Iran is also accused of flexing its muscle in the strategic waterways of the Gulf, through which oil is shipped from Saudi Arabia. The US says Iran was behind recent attacks on foreign tankers there - something it denies. | 0.802515 | 0.744455 | 0.773485 |
3220_0 | India is preparing to send a robotic spacecraft into orbit around Mars - a first for the country. Yogita Limaye from the BBC's India Business Report spoke to K Radhakrishnan, chair of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) - the country's space agency - about his hopes for the mission. A: Essentially in this Mars mission, which we are planning, the prime objective is to demonstrate India's capability to capture the Martian orbit and then to conduct a few meaningful scientific experiments. A: See, essentially when we talk about Mars and exploration of Mars, you look at life as one of those goals. So (we look for) the presence of methane in the Martian environment and see whether this methane, if it is there, has a biological origin or a geological origin. We also would like to study the Martian atmosphere and the escape processes there. A: No, see Curiosity is measuring the presence of methane in a small area where it is there today. We are talking about the entire Martian environment. So Curiosity saying "no" is not a point to be worried about. A: Any mission to Mars has to be done in an opportune window and the imminent window is November 2013, that is we need to get out of this sphere of influence of earth by 30 November to ensure that we have the minimum distance between Earth and Mars. Now we are launching this Mars orbiter from Sriharikota in the east coast of India in the first week of November and then the PSLV-XL (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) is used for the launch which will put this orbiter into an elliptical orbit around the Earth... then around the last week of November, we have a crucial operation, it's called the "trans-Martian injection" where the spacecraft is directed towards Mars. Then it is a long voyage of 300 days where the orbiter spacecraft passes through the sphere of influence of the Earth... Then it goes through a long phase of heliocentric flight where the orbiter spacecraft will be influenced not only by the Sun but by the other planets too. Then as it approaches Mars... we have another major action: capturing the orbit of Mars, which is on 21st of September 2014. A: Soon after the orbiter is put into the orbit of Mars, we would start the experimentation and even before this orbiter reaches the Martian environment we would be calibrating these instruments as it travels from Earth to Mars. But the most important part of it is looking at the distances involved. It takes at least 20 minutes for any signal to come from the Mars orbiter to Earth in some phases. It could be anything between four to 20 minutes one-way. A: Why India has to be in the space programme is a question that has been asked over the last 50 years. The answer then, now and in the future will be: "it is for finding solutions to the problems of man and society." And in this area, India has become a role model for the whole world. Let me talk in terms of numbers. We spend in India about a billion dollars for the space programme. If we look at the central government expenditure, we spend 0.34% of its budget for the space programme. This goes primarily for building satellites in communications and remote sensing and navigation for space applications. Nearly 35% of it goes on launch vehicle development and about 7-8% goes on the science and exploration programme. So the Mars mission we're talking about today is part of that 8% of the 0.34% of Indian central government expenditure. And if you look at the benefit that the country has accrued over the years, it has surpassed the money that has been spent in terms of tangible and intangible benefits. [This can be expressed in terms of] the advantage that the people have got, the fishermen have got, the farmers have got, the government bodies have got for informed decision-making, the support the country has got for disaster management and by providing a communication infrastructure for this country using the INSAT satellites. Today we have nearly 10 communication satellites and 10 remote sensing satellites in orbit. This is a great revolution that has taken place over these last 50 years in the country by a meagre expenditure that has been put into the space programme. A: See, Chandrayaan-1 was an orbiter, but Chandrayaan-2 as you said looks at the surface of the Moon using a rover and a landing module there. In 2009-2010, we planned this as a joint mission where India was to provide the launch and the orbiter and Russia was to provide the lander and the rover. Over these years there has been a programmatic realignment on this and, as of now, the plan is that the rover will be made by India and the lander will also be developed by India, and we must have this lander developed by the year 2016. Now, we also require a reliable GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket) for launching Chandrayaan-2. In December 2013, we are going to launch the GSLV T5 rocket with our own cryogenic engine stage. If that is successful, and we are able to have one more successful flight of the GSLV, then we would be ready - from the launch angle - for Chandrayaan-2. So, this is the scenario emerging and there will be scientific experiments in the lander module and in the rover, and a few in the orbiter too. Yes, 2016 is the correct target and the limiting factor for that is the development of the lander module. A: See, as of now we have no declared programme on human space flight, but in the year 2006-07 we began a study... and as of now we have taken up the critical new technologies that India needs to master a human space flight. The core module development, environment control and life support systems, the crew escape system, these are all part of that and we are working on it at the moment. But we require a human-rated vehicle that is capable of taking the crew module into a lower orbit. So you need to have a reliable GSLV for a manned mission or a GSLV Mark 3 developed and then manned-rated. A: As of now, there is no timeline for a mission but we are working on the development of the critical technologies required for it. A: Let me first say each country has its own priorities and focus. Right from the beginning, right from the early sixties, India's focus has been on peaceful uses of outer space and space applications and there India is today a role model for the whole world. One can be proud of it. China has its own priorities and it is moving in that direction. So, we are not in a race with anybody, but I would say we are in a race with ourselves. We need to excel, we need to improve, and we need to bring new services. We need to do it more cost-effectively and deliver it to the target audience in the country, whether it is to the people or the government or other agencies in the country. So that has been the focus of the Indian space programme. This interview has been abridged for reasons of article length. | Q: What is the objective of India's Mars mission? | 294 | A: Essentially in this Mars mission, which we are planning, the prime objective is to demonstrate India's capability to capture the Martian orbit and then to conduct a few meaningful scientific experiments. | 0.684731 | 0.859782 | 0.772257 |
9369_0 | Brunei has introduced a tough Islamic penal code, known as Sharia law, sparking concern from the UN and the US. The BBC explains how the Sharia system works. Sharia law is Islam's legal system. It is derived from both the Koran, Islam's central text, and fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars. Sharia literally means "the clear, well-trodden path to water". Sharia law acts as a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donations to the poor. It aims to help Muslims understand how they should lead every aspect of their lives according to God's wishes. Background on Sharia law (BBC religion) Sharia can inform every aspect of daily life for a Muslim. For example, a Muslim wondering what to do if their colleagues invite them to the pub after work may turn to a Sharia scholar for advice to ensure they act within the legal framework of their religion. Other areas of daily life where Muslims may turn to Sharia for guidance include family law, finance and business. The many faces of Sharia Sharia law divides offences into two general categories: "hadd" offences, which are serious crimes with set penalties, and "tazir" crimes, where the punishment is left to the discretion of the judge. Hadd offences include theft, which can be punishable by amputating the offender's hand, and adultery, which can carry the penalty of death by stoning. Some Islamic organisations have argued that there are many safeguards and a high burden of proof in the application of hadd penalties. The UN has spoken out against death by stoning, saying it "constitutes torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is thus clearly prohibited". Not all Muslim countries adopt or enforce such punishments for hadd offences, and polling suggests attitudes of Muslims to harsh penalties for such offences vary widely. Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim thinker in Europe, has called for a moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the Muslim world. He argues that the conditions under which such penalties would be legal are almost impossible to re-establish in today's world. Governing under Sharia (external link) Apostasy, or leaving the faith, is a very controversial issue in the Muslim world and experts say the majority of scholars believe it is punishable by death. But a minority of Muslim thinkers, particularly those engaged with Western societies, argue that the reality of the modern world means the "punishment" should be left to God - and that Islam itself is not threatened by apostasy. The Koran itself declares there is "no compulsion" in religion. Like any legal system, Sharia is complex and its practice is entirely reliant on the quality and training of experts. Islamic jurists issue guidance and rulings. Guidance that is considered a formal legal ruling is called a fatwa. There are five different schools of Sharia law. There are four Sunni doctrines: Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanafi, and one Shia doctrine, Shia Jaafari. The five doctrines differ in how literally they interpret the texts from which Sharia law is derived. | What is Sharia? | 158 | Sharia law is Islam's legal system. It is derived from both the Koran, Islam's central text, and fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars. Sharia literally means "the clear, well-trodden path to water". Sharia law acts as a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donations to the poor. It aims to help Muslims understand how they should lead every aspect of their lives according to God's wishes. Background on Sharia law (BBC religion) | 0.697411 | 0.845403 | 0.771407 |
9352_0 | Reality check verdict: The US president has the power to both dismiss and appoint the director of the FBI. US President Donald Trump sacked James Comey, director of the FBI, on 9 May, with immediate effect. Mr Trump said he had acted on the recommendation of senior figures at the Justice Department, criticising Mr Comey's handling of the investigation over Hillary Clinton's emails. Mr Comey was sworn in as the seventh FBI director in September 2013, under the Obama administration. He was in his fourth year of a potential 10-year term, heading the organisation within the Justice Department with a broad array of powers to investigate domestic crime and to gather intelligence. According to federal law, the president has authority to both appoint and dismiss the director of the FBI, as well as other senior officials in the Justice Department, but the nominee has to pass hearings and be confirmed by a simple majority vote in the Senate. Only one FBI director has been removed by the President in the bureau's 100-plus-year history. That man was William Sessions, who was fired by President Bill Clinton in 1993. As president, Mr Trump has used his power to remove senior officials in the Justice Department before. He fired the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, at the end of January this year. The White House says the search for the next director has already begun. Before his removal from office, Mr Comey was in charge of investigations into alleged Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election. During a Senate hearing on 20 March 2017, Mr Comey acknowledged that potential links between Trump's associates and Russia were also under review. There's no reason why the investigation would stop, but with Mr Comey gone, Democrats in Congress are demanding that a special prosecutor be appointed to oversee the investigation into Russian involvement in the election. Deconstructing Comey's testimony on Clinton emails | How can a president simply fire the head of the FBI? | 683 | According to federal law, the president has authority to both appoint and dismiss the director of the FBI, as well as other senior officials in the Justice Department, but the nominee has to pass hearings and be confirmed by a simple majority vote in the Senate. Only one FBI director has been removed by the President in the bureau's 100-plus-year history. That man was William Sessions, who was fired by President Bill Clinton in 1993. As president, Mr Trump has used his power to remove senior officials in the Justice Department before. He fired the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, at the end of January this year. | 0.779497 | 0.762989 | 0.771243 |
5084_0 | The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping route in the Gulf region, is at the centre of rising tensions. Two Royal Navy warships are now in the Gulf, to protect ships sailing under the British flag. So, what is the waterway and why does it matter? Despite its small size, the Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most important shipping routes. It is about 96 miles long and only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, with shipping lanes in each direction just two miles wide. Bounded to the north by Iran and to the south by Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Strait of Hormuz connects the Gulf with the Arabian Sea. The strait is deep enough for the world's biggest crude oil tankers, and is used by the major oil and gas producers in the Middle East - and their customers. At any one time, there are several dozen tankers on their way to the Strait of Hormuz, or leaving it. About a fifth of the world's oil, nearly 21 million barrels a day, passed through the Strait of Hormuz last year. In 2016, the most recent year for which comparable figures are available, the strait was the world's busiest sea route for oil. It carried about 19 million barrels a day - more than the 16 million barrels a day that went through the the Strait of Malacca, a major international waterway in the Indian Ocean. In comparison, just five or six million barrels a day went via the Suez Canal and Bab el-Mandeb in the Red Sea. The Strait of Hormuz is vital for the main oil exporters in the Gulf region, whose economies are built around oil and gas production. In 2018, Saudi Arabia sent nearly 6.4 million barrels of oil per day via the strait, while Iraq sent more than 3.4 million, the UAE nearly 2.7 million and Kuwait just over two million. Iran also relies heavily on this route for its oil exports. And Qatar, the biggest global producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), exports nearly all its gas through the strait. It has become particularly important in recent years for the major economies in Asia. Most of the oil going through the strait in 2018 went to China, Japan, South Korea and India. And the US also imported nearly 1.4 million barrels a day via this route. The UK does import some oil from the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz, as well as around a third of its liquefied natural gas. The Strait of Hormuz is still the best route for transporting large volumes of oil out of the Gulf and is the only route by sea. There are some land-based pipelines that can carry oil. A Saudi pipeline goes to the Red Sea, and has a capacity of about five million barrels of oil a day. Abu Dhabi has a pipeline that can carry about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day down the coast, to beyond the Strait of Hormuz. And there is a pipeline that can transport Iraq's oil to the Mediterranean coast. But not all these pipelines are working at full capacity. And they cannot transport nearly as much oil as can be carried by ship. UN rules allow countries to exercise control up to 12 nautical miles (13.8 miles) from their coastline. This means that at its narrowest point, the strait and its shipping lanes lie entirely within Iran and Oman's territorial waters. - Iran diverted a British-flagged oil tanker to one of its ports, which the UK said was illegal - US forces destroyed an Iranian drone that came close to the USS Boxer - The US said it was ready to carry out air strikes after Iran shot down a US drone - Two tankers were damaged by explosions after leaving the Strait of Hormuz - Four tankers were hit by blasts within the UAE's territorial waters - Shipping and oil installations were targeted during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war However, international conventions give ships - including military vessels - the right of passage through a state's territorial waters. Iran is allowed to act in its own territorial waters - but not at the expense of the right of passage for foreign ships. The US has now beefed up its military presence in the region. But it has also said it is keen for other countries to play a part in safeguarding the Gulf and wider region. And the UK is providing a naval escort for British-flagged ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. | What is the Strait of Hormuz? | 246 | Despite its small size, the Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most important shipping routes. It is about 96 miles long and only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, with shipping lanes in each direction just two miles wide. Bounded to the north by Iran and to the south by Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Strait of Hormuz connects the Gulf with the Arabian Sea. The strait is deep enough for the world's biggest crude oil tankers, and is used by the major oil and gas producers in the Middle East - and their customers. At any one time, there are several dozen tankers on their way to the Strait of Hormuz, or leaving it. | 0.756965 | 0.78268 | 0.769822 |
6053_0 | More than 1,000 firefighters are battling a forest fire in Portugal that has claimed the lives at least 64 people and injured more than 130 since Saturday. Many of the victims died after becoming trapped in cars as they tried to flee. Planes have been used to drop water over the Pedrogao Grande region. Civil protection officials have said they expect the blaze to be under control soon, but warn that soaring temperatures are hampering efforts. The week's highest temperatures in the area are expected to reach around 38C (100F) and, together with windy conditions, could reignite fires already quelled. Despite 70% of the fire now under control, officials said what remained was a source "of great concern". One of the victims has been identified as a 40-year-old firefighter who died in hospital. Many died inside their cars as they tried to escape or were a short distance from them when they became trapped. The government has declared a state of emergency in the forested region around Pedrogao Grande, north-east of the capital, Lisbon. Civil protection commander Elisio Oliveira said there was great concern for the fires still burning. He described the operation as "complex" and said many residents were being forced to evacuate. The blaze continues to rage on several fronts. One volunteer rescuer quoted by Reuters news agency said teams were not optimistic about bringing the blaze fully under control anytime soon. "Low humidity, windy conditions and high temperatures will easily re-ignite the fire, and it will spread very fast," he said. When asked about the plan for Tuesday, he added: "It all depends on the weather." Police believe the fires were started by lightning on Saturday during an intense heatwave and rainless thunderstorms. Wildfires are an annual menace in Portugal. More broke out there between 1993 and 2013 than in Spain, France, Italy or Greece, the European Environment Agency reported last year, despite the country's relatively small geographical size. Given that, was this year's tragedy preventable? Could Portugal have done anything more to save lives and minimise the damage? Read more: Just what makes Portugal such a tinderbox? One of the worst-hit areas was around the village of Nodeirinho. Thirty bodies were found inside cars and another 17 next to vehicles on the N-236 road. Portuguese media have dubbed the N-236 the "road of death". A few miles north, 11 people died in the village of Pobrais, many as they tried to escape the flames. A survivor spoke of the roads being blocked and of no-one coming to their aid. Betty Jesus, a 50-year-old Venezuelan who has lived in the area for decades, said: "I have witnessed a lot of fires, but never like this. The way it spread, the speed." Virgilio Godinho, who lives in the village of Figueiro, said the fire quickly overwhelmed the community. "The fire didn't spread by the ground, it spread through the air at the height of the trees. In five minutes all were on fire in an area of around 10km," he said. Portugal is observing three days of mourning for the victims. | Why are Portugal's wildfires so deadly? | 1,756 | Wildfires are an annual menace in Portugal. More broke out there between 1993 and 2013 than in Spain, France, Italy or Greece, the European Environment Agency reported last year, despite the country's relatively small geographical size. Given that, was this year's tragedy preventable? Could Portugal have done anything more to save lives and minimise the damage? Read more: Just what makes Portugal such a tinderbox? | 0.758066 | 0.780607 | 0.769337 |
3082_0 | The US is cutting hundreds of troops in Africa as it focuses on countering threats from Russia and China. Around 700 counter-terrorism troops will be removed over the next few years, the Department of Defense said. About 7,200 US soldiers are currently based in dozens of African countries including Nigeria and Libya. There will now be a shift away from tactical assistance to advising and sharing intelligence in West Africa, the Pentagon said. However, counter-terrorism activities in several countries including Somalia and Djibouti will remain largely the same. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters, said the reduction of troops would likely take place over three years and could include countries such as Kenya, Cameroon and Mali. Pentagon spokeswoman Candice Tresch said: "We will realign our counter-terrorism resources and forces operating in Africa over the next several years in order to maintain a competitive posture worldwide." A military official said an attack in Niger in October 2017 in which four US troops were killed did not play a role in the decision to cut troops, the Voice of America reports. The move comes as US President Donald Trump works to implement his National Defense Strategy, which ushers in a new era of "Great Power competition" with Moscow and Beijing. On Wednesday, a bipartisan congressional panel reviewing the strategy said America's focus on counter-insurgency operations had weakened its military capability. By Tomi Oladipo, BBC Africa Security Correspondent The announcement of cuts has been coming for some time. In January, the US Defence Secretary James Mattis unveiled a new strategy indicating a shift away from terrorism and towards America's standing when compared to Russia and China. While the cuts begin in Africa, they will eventually affect US military personnel elsewhere. The funding will now be put into military muscle-flexing, as Beijing and Moscow embark on renewed global ambitions. The Pentagon will feel it has been successful in training partner forces in Africa and setting them up to competently fight insurgent groups - particularly Islamist extremists. An example is in Cameroon, where the US feels local Special Forces are now able to operate independently. Even though the US has spent years growing a secret military footprint across Africa, it will only keep those that are most essential, and focus on areas where there is a security vacuum, such as Libya and Somalia. | Why is the US cutting troops in Africa? | 1,479 | By Tomi Oladipo, BBC Africa Security Correspondent The announcement of cuts has been coming for some time. In January, the US Defence Secretary James Mattis unveiled a new strategy indicating a shift away from terrorism and towards America's standing when compared to Russia and China. While the cuts begin in Africa, they will eventually affect US military personnel elsewhere. The funding will now be put into military muscle-flexing, as Beijing and Moscow embark on renewed global ambitions. The Pentagon will feel it has been successful in training partner forces in Africa and setting them up to competently fight insurgent groups - particularly Islamist extremists. An example is in Cameroon, where the US feels local Special Forces are now able to operate independently. Even though the US has spent years growing a secret military footprint across Africa, it will only keep those that are most essential, and focus on areas where there is a security vacuum, such as Libya and Somalia. | 0.769008 | 0.769 | 0.769004 |
3690_0 | Introducing the SNP's general election pledges in an independent Scotland could lead to more austerity, according to an economic research group. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the SNP's manifesto set out plans to increase spending while also setting out a list of tax-cutting measures. It said the SNP had not costed these pledges, unlike the other main parties. But it said spending cuts would have to be made elsewhere, or other taxes would have to rise to pay for them. The IFS has previously said that the spending pledges of both the Conservatives and Labour ahead of the election were "not credible", and accused both parties of not being honest with voters. It said the Liberal Democrats' manifesto would involve lower levels of borrowing than under Labour or the Conservatives, but would still be seen as "radical" in "most periods". The SNP manifesto was unveiled last month by leader Nicola Sturgeon, who said her party was offering Scottish voters a chance to "escape Brexit and put Scotland's future in Scotland's hands". In his analysis of the SNP's manifesto, IFS associate director David Phillips said it differed from those of the other three major parties because it was not "a plan of action for five years of governing the UK". Writing in the Scotsman newspaper, Mr Phillips argued that the document was instead about "starting the process of leaving the UK in the next year". He highlighted the party's call for the UK government to dramatically increase spending on the NHS in England, which would add hundreds of millions of pounds to the Scottish government budget through the Barnett Formula. He said spending proposals such as the abolition of the so-called "bedroom tax", ending the two-child cap on means-tested benefits and other increases to Universal Credit would benefit low-income, working age families. But he said other proposals aimed at pensioners, such as keeping universal free TV licences for the over-75s and offering "compensation" for the so-called Waspi women, could actually increase inequality. This is because pensioners are already "less likely to be in poverty than the rest of the population", he said. - CONFUSED? Our simple election guide - POLICY GUIDE: Who should I vote for? - POLLS: How are the parties doing? - A TO Z: Our tool to explain election words The SNP has also set out a list of tax-cutting measures - including reducing VAT on e-books, bikes, solar panels and energy efficiency measures and calling for National Insurance thresholds to "fit devolved income tax rates" - which Mr Phillips said could mean changes that reduce revenues by billions of pounds across the UK as a whole. He argued that it could therefore have been "problematic" for the party to have set out the cost of the measures it was proposing. Mr Phillips said this was because the SNP's own Growth Commission, which examined the finances of an independent Scotland, had already recognised that the country would "start life with a significant budget deficit". He said the SNP should be "commended" for setting out a plan through the Growth Commission to reduce the budget deficit significantly over the course of a decade. But he said it was "inconsistent" to claim that the Growth Commission's plans would not be austerity but at the same time argue that the UK government had been pursuing austerity in recent years. He added: "Pursuing the types of policies suggested in the SNP manifesto in an independent Scotland would mean either those cuts would have to be even bigger, or other taxes would have to be increased to pay for the proposed net giveaways. "Therefore, in the short-term at least, independence would likely necessitate more, not less, austerity. "Of course, that does not mean Scotland could not afford to be independent, or even that in the longer term better governance and better policymaking as an independent country could mean a stronger economy and more to spend on public services. That is possible - although far from guaranteed. "It just means that an independent Scotland would have to count its pennies and pounds in at least its first decade of life." Kirsty Blackman, the SNP's deputy Westminster leader and economy spokeswoman, insisted that investment in public services would increase "year in year out" after independence, which she said was in "stark contrast to the brutal austerity that is the hallmark of successive UK governments." She added: "The Growth Commission explicitly rejected austerity and instead proposed that Scotland's inherited deficit be reduced by growing the economy, not cutting spending. "The latest Gers figures proves that this is possible. It shows that Scotland's notional deficit fell by 1.1% at the same time as spending increased by 2.5%. This was achieved because growing the economy increases tax receipts. "Brexit is the biggest threat to Scotland's economy and will have a deep and lasting impact on our public services." But Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said it was clear that "independence means more not less austerity", and that the SNP was looking to "lead Scotland down the road to economic ruin, all for the price of a flag". Scottish Labour finance spokeswoman Rhoda Grant claimed that the SNP had "abjectly failed to come up with serious and credible policies". And Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said independence would mean "at least a decade of new deep cuts at a time when we need to invest in education and boost mental health services". In analysis published last week, the IFS said it was "highly likely" the Tories would end up spending more than their manifesto pledges, while Labour would be unable to deliver its promised spending increases. Neither party was therefore being "honest" with voters, IFS director Paul Johnson said. The Liberal Democrats' manifesto, he said, would involve lower levels of borrowing than under Labour or the Conservatives, but would still be seen as "radical" in "most periods". However, he added that, given the uncertainty around Brexit, it was difficult to determine what the exact effects of the three parties' offers would be. | What does the IFS says about the SNP manifesto? | 1,047 | In his analysis of the SNP's manifesto, IFS associate director David Phillips said it differed from those of the other three major parties because it was not "a plan of action for five years of governing the UK". Writing in the Scotsman newspaper, Mr Phillips argued that the document was instead about "starting the process of leaving the UK in the next year". He highlighted the party's call for the UK government to dramatically increase spending on the NHS in England, which would add hundreds of millions of pounds to the Scottish government budget through the Barnett Formula. He said spending proposals such as the abolition of the so-called "bedroom tax", ending the two-child cap on means-tested benefits and other increases to Universal Credit would benefit low-income, working age families. But he said other proposals aimed at pensioners, such as keeping universal free TV licences for the over-75s and offering "compensation" for the so-called Waspi women, could actually increase inequality. This is because pensioners are already "less likely to be in poverty than the rest of the population", he said. - CONFUSED? Our simple election guide - POLICY GUIDE: Who should I vote for? - POLLS: How are the parties doing? - A TO Z: Our tool to explain election words The SNP has also set out a list of tax-cutting measures - including reducing VAT on e-books, bikes, solar panels and energy efficiency measures and calling for National Insurance thresholds to "fit devolved income tax rates" - which Mr Phillips said could mean changes that reduce revenues by billions of pounds across the UK as a whole. He argued that it could therefore have been "problematic" for the party to have set out the cost of the measures it was proposing. Mr Phillips said this was because the SNP's own Growth Commission, which examined the finances of an independent Scotland, had already recognised that the country would "start life with a significant budget deficit". He said the SNP should be "commended" for setting out a plan through the Growth Commission to reduce the budget deficit significantly over the course of a decade. But he said it was "inconsistent" to claim that the Growth Commission's plans would not be austerity but at the same time argue that the UK government had been pursuing austerity in recent years. He added: "Pursuing the types of policies suggested in the SNP manifesto in an independent Scotland would mean either those cuts would have to be even bigger, or other taxes would have to be increased to pay for the proposed net giveaways. "Therefore, in the short-term at least, independence would likely necessitate more, not less, austerity. "Of course, that does not mean Scotland could not afford to be independent, or even that in the longer term better governance and better policymaking as an independent country could mean a stronger economy and more to spend on public services. That is possible - although far from guaranteed. "It just means that an independent Scotland would have to count its pennies and pounds in at least its first decade of life." | 0.791757 | 0.745303 | 0.76853 |
5096_0 | Social issues like gay marriage and abortion have taken centre stage in the lead up to Canada's autumn election, as the Liberal Party tries to convince voters that the Conservatives want to backtrack on LGBTQ and abortion rights. Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party has fired an early salvo against Conservative party leader Andrew Scheer, and his past record on gay marriage and abortion. But whether it will wound his primary opponent remains to be seen. A Liberal minister released footage last week of Mr Scheer in 2005 opposing same-sex marriage during a debate in parliament. Although his remarks have been a matter of public record for some time, the footage renewed concerns that he would let his personal beliefs influence policy decisions. For days Mr Scheer avoided commenting on his past statements, but on Thursday he gave a press conference where he tried to assuage concerns. Just before, the Liberals launched another attack, this time with footage taken during the 2017 Conservative leadership contest. In it, an anti-abortion activist says Mr Scheer has promised him that Conservative MPs who oppose abortion would be allowed to vote with their conscience if the matter were to come up in parliament. During his press conference, Mr Scheer accused the Liberals of "dredging up divisive issues" in order to distract people from Liberal scandals and poor economic policy. He reiterated that his Conservative Party considered both same-sex marriage and abortion to be "settled law", meaning the party would not seek to make either illegal again. However, he was a bit hazy on how he would deal with members of his own party who wished to pass socially conservative legislation. In 2005, about a year after Mr Scheer was elected to parliament, he voted against same-sex marriage. He was one of 133 members, from all parties, who voted against the law, which passed with 158 votes. "There is nothing more important to society than the raising of children, for its very survival requires it. Homosexual unions are by nature contradictory to this," Mr Scheer, who is Catholic, said during a debate on the proposed legislation. That clip was tweeted out by Liberal public safety minister Ralph Gooddale last week. Since 2005, the Conservative Party has largely given up on making same-sex marriage illegal. In 2016, Mr Scheer voted in favour of removing the heterosexual definition of marriage from the party's policy book. Also in 2016, he voted against a bill to protect gender identity and expression under the Human Rights Act. The bill passed with 248 in favour, including many Conservatives, and only 40 opposed. Mr Scheer is personally opposed to abortion, but says he will keep the party's current policy on the issue, which is to not support legislation that would regulate abortion or reopen the debate. But on Thursday, another Liberal minister tweeted out a video from 2017 that seemed to contradict this promise. In the clip, a member of RightNow, an anti-abortion group, tells conservative television host Faytene Grasseschi that Mr Scheer - who was running for party leadership at the time - had promised that he would allow a "free vote" on abortion if it should come up in parliament. This would mean he would allow his party members to vote with their conscience. This policy stands in stark contrast to Mr Trudeau, who has said no Liberal Party member is allowed to vote against abortion rights, regardless of personal beliefs. "The Liberals showed how intolerant they are, and how they don't actually believe in people's rights to hold personal beliefs," Mr Scheer told the Globe and Mail in 2018. On Thursday, after mounting calls for him to clarify his previous statements, Mr Scheer gave a press conference where he accused the Liberal Party of using socially divisive issues to distract from their own scandals. "Trudeau can't run on his record. He can't possibly defend all his broken promises, massive deficits, tax increases and ethical and corruption scandals," he said. When asked about his personal views on gay marriage, Mr Scheer said he supported it, legally speaking. "My personal views are that LGBT Canadians have the same inherent self-worth and dignity as any other Canadian and I will always uphold the law and always ensure they have equal access to the institution of marriage," he said. He said that while he does not attend pride parades, he supports the community in other ways, such as his motion last year to condemn Russia for its treatment of LGBTQ people. On abortion, his stance was less clear. He reiterated that he would not reopen the abortion debate. "I will oppose measures or attempts to reopen this debate and Canadians can have confidence in that," he said. But he also reaffirmed that individual MPs would be allowed to "express themselves on matters of conscience", which seems to leave the door open for backbenchers to introduce private members bills on the issue. When asked how he personally would vote if such a bill were to be tabled, Mr Scheer declined to answer the "hypothetical" question. There is nothing new about Liberals attacking Conservatives for allegedly being anti-gay or anti-choice. When a dozen Conservative MPs attended an anti-abortion rally in May, Liberals called on Mr Scheer to defend his position. Earlier in August, three federal party leaders - Mr Trudeau. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party leader Elizabeth May - marched in the pride parade. Mr Trudeau did not let Mr Scheer's absence go unnoticed. "It's just unfortunate that there are still some party leaders who want to be prime minister, who choose to stand with people who are intolerant instead of standing with the LGBT community," he said. Both abortion rights and same-sex marriage are popular in Canada. A 2017 IPSOS poll found 77% of Canadians supported legal abortion. Two-thirds of Canadians also support same-sex marriage, according to a recent Research Co. online survey of 1,000. Mr Trudeau has made progressive issues an integral part of his own brand, and his party's platform. The Liberals' slogan for the campaign, "Choose Forward", speaks to this perception, along with the unwritten implication that to choose Conservative would be a step backward. | What were Mr Scheer's views on same sex marriage? | 1,688 | In 2005, about a year after Mr Scheer was elected to parliament, he voted against same-sex marriage. He was one of 133 members, from all parties, who voted against the law, which passed with 158 votes. "There is nothing more important to society than the raising of children, for its very survival requires it. Homosexual unions are by nature contradictory to this," Mr Scheer, who is Catholic, said during a debate on the proposed legislation. That clip was tweeted out by Liberal public safety minister Ralph Gooddale last week. Since 2005, the Conservative Party has largely given up on making same-sex marriage illegal. In 2016, Mr Scheer voted in favour of removing the heterosexual definition of marriage from the party's policy book. Also in 2016, he voted against a bill to protect gender identity and expression under the Human Rights Act. The bill passed with 248 in favour, including many Conservatives, and only 40 opposed. | 0.717919 | 0.81847 | 0.768195 |
449_0 | South Korea and the US have this week launched the world's first commercial 5G services, promising a new wave of capabilities for smartphone users. Samsung said its Galaxy S10 5G device will offer speeds up to 20 times faster than current phones as it began selling the handsets on Friday. Countries are racing to build 5G networks that will be crucial for future tech such as driverless cars. Nations are also working to resolve security concerns tied to the networks. 5G is the fifth-generation of mobile internet connectivity. Users will get more data faster, with less delay. It also promises wider coverage and more stable connections. Ed Barton, chief television and entertainment analyst at Ovum, said the shift from today's 4G networks to 5G will be significant. He said first-generation or 1G networks enabled voice, 2G brought text, 3G static images or photos, and 4G enabled video. "We're expecting the leap from 4G to 5G to be a much greater leap than ever before." Part of the "leap" will come from the ability to move much greater volumes of data across networks. 5G will mean more devices can be connected to the network at better speeds. Nikhil Batra, senior research manager at technology consultancy IDC Asia Pacific, said speeds will be 10 times faster than what is possible with 4G. Samsung said its 5G device will be up to 20 times faster. Initially, 5G will bring higher-quality streaming and the ability to livestream to bigger audiences - a better experience for people watching live sports or cloud gaming. Ovum's Mr Barton said down the track it will enable more augmented reality capabilities, such as better mapping apps and shopping experiences. 5G will be crucial for driverless cars. The scope of possibilities is vast, from remote surgery to holographic video calls. Mr Barton said we don't yet know what the "killer apps and use cases will be". "It's a bit like no one predicted that ubiquitous smartphones with payments and location awareness would give rise to Uber," he said. The technology is being piloted in trials all over the world but commercial applications are just becoming available. South Korea's top three mobile carriers launched 5G services this week, while US telco Verizon also launched 5G services in parts of two cities this week. DJ Koh, president of IT & mobile communications at Samsung Electronics said it has begun "a new era where the incredible speed and connectivity of 5G becomes a reality". Frost & Sullivan telecoms analyst Quah Mei Lee says South Korea and Japan have been leaders in 5G development. She said South Korea has always been strong in consumer applications but there's "more than it can do" in 5G. "We will see more applications coming to the market over the next three-to-six months." Much discussion about 5G infrastructure has centred around possible security risks, namely the participation of China's Huawei. Huawei, the world's largest maker of telecoms equipment, has faced resistance from foreign governments over the risk that its technology could be used for espionage. The US, Australia and New Zealand have all blocked local firms from using Huawei gear in 5G networks. In principle, controlling the technology that sits at the heart of vital communications networks gives an operator like Huawei the capacity to conduct espionage or disrupt communications. This becomes a bigger problem as more things - from autonomous vehicles to domestic appliances - become connected to the internet. The US argues Huawei could use malicious software updates to spy on those using 5G, pointing to a Chinese law that says organisations must "support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work". Additionally, IDC's Mr Batra said one of the fundamental differences between 4G and 5G networks is the ability for remote control which raises "potential security concerns". Mr Batra said with 4G, software and hardware were very tightly coupled. In 5G networks, hardware is separated from the software. "That allows for remote control... of the network assets. All of these things can be managed virtually, and that makes it challenging in terms of security." Still, he said authorities around the world are working with operators to address these concerns and "we haven't really seen any hard proof in terms of what is the issue". | What will 5G enable? | 1,361 | Initially, 5G will bring higher-quality streaming and the ability to livestream to bigger audiences - a better experience for people watching live sports or cloud gaming. Ovum's Mr Barton said down the track it will enable more augmented reality capabilities, such as better mapping apps and shopping experiences. 5G will be crucial for driverless cars. The scope of possibilities is vast, from remote surgery to holographic video calls. Mr Barton said we don't yet know what the "killer apps and use cases will be". "It's a bit like no one predicted that ubiquitous smartphones with payments and location awareness would give rise to Uber," he said. | 0.762505 | 0.773812 | 0.768158 |
9018_0 | Abortion is now legal across the UK for the first time, after a change in the law in Northern Ireland. So, what are the laws on abortion, how many are carried out and how do they compare with those of other countries? Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland at midnight on Monday 21 October. That's because MPs in London voted for legislation requiring abortion laws to be changed - unless Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive had been restored by then. The Northern Ireland Assembly was recalled for the first time since it was suspended in 2017, in an attempt to stop the abortion law changes, but the move failed. The UK government published guidelines for abortion laws in Northern Ireland for the period between 22 October and 31 March 2020. During this time, no criminal charges will be brought against women who have an abortion or against healthcare professionals who provide and assist them. Women travelling from Northern Ireland elsewhere for an abortion will have their travel and accommodation funded. Some abortions, where there is a "fatal or serious fetal anomaly", can be carried out in Northern Ireland during this time too. A public consultation on the proposed laws for Northern Ireland after 31 March is set to open around 22 October. From next April, medical abortions will also be provided on two hospital sites in Northern Ireland. Abortions were previously allowed in Northern Ireland only if: - a woman's life was at risk - there was a risk of permanent and serious damage to her mental or physical health An 1861 law made it a criminal offence to procure a miscarriage. In 1945, an exception was added to say abortion could be permitted to preserve the mother's life. But rape, incest or diagnoses of fatal fetal abnormality - where medics believe the baby will die before, during or shortly after birth - were not grounds for a legal abortion. Northern Ireland's abortion law was challenged in the High Court by Sarah Ewart. She was told she could not have a legal abortion, in 2013, even though doctors said her fetus would not survive outside the womb. She travelled to England for a termination and spoke of the trauma and expense that "awful experience" had caused her. In the High Court, Mrs Justice Keegan found in Mrs Ewart's favour. Women from Northern Ireland could already have free abortions in England, Scotland and Wales. In 2018, 1,053 travelled to undergo the procedure in England and Wales. Abortions can take place in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy in England, Scotland and Wales. However, they have to be approved by two doctors. They must agree having the baby would pose a greater risk to the physical or mental health of the woman than a termination. Abortions were illegal before the the introduction of the 1967 Abortion Act, which initially allowed them to take place up to 28 weeks. This was reduced to 24 weeks in 1990. Abortions after 24 weeks are allowed only if: - the woman's life is in danger - there is a severe fetal abnormality - the woman is at risk of grave physical and mental injury Since 2018, women in England have been allowed to take the second of two early abortion pills at home, rather than in a clinic. This brings the rules in line with Scotland and Wales. In 2018, there were 205,295 legal abortions in England and Wales. A total of 4,687 abortions for non-residents were carried out, a slight increase on the previous year. The large majority took place in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. About two-thirds were medically induced, which involves taking two types of tablet to end an unwanted pregnancy. In Scotland, there were 13,286 abortions. There were 32 medical abortions in Northern Ireland in 2017-18. In the US, a number of Republican-led states have passed stricter abortion legislation this year but none of those laws has taken effect. This is because a number of legal challenges are due to take place. In Georgia, for example, a judge has temporarily blocked a strict new abortion law that would have banned terminations as early as six weeks into pregnancy. The law, signed in May by Republican Governor Brian Kemp, was scheduled to come into effect on 1 January. Abortion was recently decriminalised across Australia, after New South Wales voted in favour of changing its laws. Previously, abortions were allowed there only if a doctor ruled there was a "serious" risk to a woman's health. The new law makes it legal for terminations to be carried out across the country up to 22 weeks into a pregnancy. In the European Union, there are no common laws on abortion - but in several European countries terminating a pregnancy can still risk punishment. Around the world, some countries have total bans, including Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Malta. And Cuba and Uruguay are the only places in Latin America region where women can have abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy regardless of circumstances. | What is happening to abortion laws in Northern Ireland? | 218 | Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland at midnight on Monday 21 October. That's because MPs in London voted for legislation requiring abortion laws to be changed - unless Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive had been restored by then. The Northern Ireland Assembly was recalled for the first time since it was suspended in 2017, in an attempt to stop the abortion law changes, but the move failed. The UK government published guidelines for abortion laws in Northern Ireland for the period between 22 October and 31 March 2020. During this time, no criminal charges will be brought against women who have an abortion or against healthcare professionals who provide and assist them. Women travelling from Northern Ireland elsewhere for an abortion will have their travel and accommodation funded. Some abortions, where there is a "fatal or serious fetal anomaly", can be carried out in Northern Ireland during this time too. A public consultation on the proposed laws for Northern Ireland after 31 March is set to open around 22 October. From next April, medical abortions will also be provided on two hospital sites in Northern Ireland. | 0.756684 | 0.77839 | 0.767537 |
6791_0 | Why does the UK drive on the left? This was just one of the motoring mysteries our readers asked us about. Here are the answers. Gareth Edmunds, 59, from Bristol, said he was curious as his family hosts English language students from all over the world. "As I drive them around I hear them wince as they see an oncoming car to our right and think we're going to crash - it's a question that always crops up," he said. "My pet theory is that it's something to do with times gone by when if you met a stranger on the road you'd pass on the left so your weapon arm was on their side." Mr Edmunds' theory is one shared by Stephen Laing, curator of the British Motor Museum in Warwickshire. He said it dated back to Roman times. "Most people are right handed, naturally mount a horse from the left and so need their right hand free for combat," he said. "Roman armies marched on the left hand side of the carriageway and this is a convention that stayed." Motoring author Giles Chapman said Britain's Highway Act of 1835 enshrined driving on the left in law for this country and its colonies. "The rule was exported, for example, to Japan, where British engineers planned its railways to drive on the left, leading to a similar edict for road vehicles." Richard Mace, 63, who lives near Chatham in the south-east of England, said he had always been curious as to why they drive on the right in the US. "The reason I have been given goes back to when wagons were drawn by oxen," he said. He could be on the right track. In the late 1700s wagons pulled by horses arranged in pairs became increasingly popular, Fraser McAlpine wrote for BBC America. The driver sat on the back of the rear left-hand horse, to whip the others right handed. The best way for one wagon to pass another without banging wheels was the right hand side of the road, according to McAlpine. The government examined such a plan in 1969, two years after Sweden switched to driving on the right. Its report rejected the idea on grounds of safety and costs. In 1969, the financial burden of making the switch was calculated by the government to be PS264m. That equates to about PS4bn in today's money. But given the huge advances in infrastructure since 1969 this would now be an extremely conservative estimate. Stephen Laing, curator at the British Motor Museum, said he could not see Britain swapping sides. "I think we are kind of set in our ways," he said. "The infrastructure is built around driving on the left hand side. I can't really see that changing in the future." The Department for Transport said: "We do not have a policy on this because it's not something we are interested in at this time." The Highway Code's Rules for Pedestrians advise that where there is a pavement "avoid being next to the kerb with your back to the traffic." The code goes on to advise: "If there is no pavement, keep to the right-hand side of the road so that you can see oncoming traffic." And when it comes to pavements, as the BBC's home editor Mark Easton wrote, "the British have little sense" of etiquette, "preferring a slalom approach to pedestrian progress". | Why does the UK drive on the left? | 129 | Gareth Edmunds, 59, from Bristol, said he was curious as his family hosts English language students from all over the world. "As I drive them around I hear them wince as they see an oncoming car to our right and think we're going to crash - it's a question that always crops up," he said. "My pet theory is that it's something to do with times gone by when if you met a stranger on the road you'd pass on the left so your weapon arm was on their side." Mr Edmunds' theory is one shared by Stephen Laing, curator of the British Motor Museum in Warwickshire. He said it dated back to Roman times. "Most people are right handed, naturally mount a horse from the left and so need their right hand free for combat," he said. "Roman armies marched on the left hand side of the carriageway and this is a convention that stayed." Motoring author Giles Chapman said Britain's Highway Act of 1835 enshrined driving on the left in law for this country and its colonies. "The rule was exported, for example, to Japan, where British engineers planned its railways to drive on the left, leading to a similar edict for road vehicles." | 0.824529 | 0.710095 | 0.767312 |
8601_0 | A group of international steel producing countries has called for urgent action to curb overproduction. The call comes days after international talks to find measures to tackle the industry crisis failed. The joint statement comes from the US, Canada, the EU, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey. Record production in China has in the past months led to criticism that it was distorting international markets by selling steel at a loss. The statement calls for "ongoing international dialogue" to remove "market-distorting policies" and promote greater transparency in the global industry. On Monday, representatives from more than 30 countries met in Belgium but concluded only that overcapacity had to be dealt with in a swift and structural way. The US explicitly pointed the finger at China, saying the country would face possible trade action if it didn't cut overcapacity. But China rejected suggestions that it subsidised its loss-making steel companies, and the meeting ended without any formal agreement. Chinese steel production has expanded hugely. Over the past 25 years, output has grown to more than 12 times the size. By comparison, the EU's output fell by 12% while the US's remained largely flat. The drive behind that stellar increase has been China's double-digit growth over the past decades - but the current slowdown has severely hit domestic demand. Chinese steel is therefore sold on the international market at extremely low prices, critics say it's sold at a loss. As a consequence, other country's steel plants find it increasingly hard to compete. China dismisses claims that its steel is sold at a loss and says it has done what it can to curb overproduction. Beijing's official news agency said that blaming the country for the global steel industry's problems was a "lame and lazy excuse for protectionism". In a commentary piece, Xinhua warned of protective import tariffs, saying that "blaming other countries is always an easy, sure-fire way for politicians to whip up a storm over domestic economic woes, but finger-pointing and protectionism are counter-productive." Very little. While other countries complain that cheaper Chinese steel is forcing their producers out of business, China is itself faced with severe problems in the industry. The boom of past years means any substantial output cuts will lead to huge job losses, potentially leading to social instability. It's unlikely that China will cut output by a lot and unless domestic demand picks up, cheap exports will continue to affect global markets. China is the world's biggest steel producer, accounting for around 822 million tonnes a year. On Tuesday, the country said its production hit a record high last month as rising profits had encouraged more output. With China's domestic market slowing, their producers have been looking for export markets, such as the EU. This has led to accusations of unfair competition, that Chinese producers are "dumping" steel products on overseas markets - that is not just selling them cheaply, taking advantage of their lower production costs, but actually selling them at a loss. India's Tata steel recently announced plans to sell its loss-making UK business, citing "rapidly deteriorated" trading conditions due to global oversupply. In 2015, the EU imposed anti-dumping duties for six months on some steel imports from China and Taiwan. The EU and China have already clashed over the alleged dumping of products such as wine, solar panel and steel pipes. | China's steel industry - what's the problem? | 1,029 | Chinese steel production has expanded hugely. Over the past 25 years, output has grown to more than 12 times the size. By comparison, the EU's output fell by 12% while the US's remained largely flat. The drive behind that stellar increase has been China's double-digit growth over the past decades - but the current slowdown has severely hit domestic demand. Chinese steel is therefore sold on the international market at extremely low prices, critics say it's sold at a loss. As a consequence, other country's steel plants find it increasingly hard to compete. | 0.733005 | 0.798337 | 0.765671 |
7553_1 | The number of drug-related deaths in Scotland soared to 1,187 last year, according to official statistics. The figure is 27% higher than the previous year, and the highest since records began in 1996. It means there were more drug-related deaths in Scotland last year than the 1,136 alcohol-specific deaths. And the country's drug death rate is now nearly three times that of the UK as a whole, and is higher than that reported for any other EU country. The latest figures also mean Scotland has a higher drug death rate than the one reported for the US, which was previously thought to be the highest rate in the world. There were more than 70,000 drug deaths in the US in 2017 but the rate of 217 per million of the population is now marginally lower than Scotland's rate (218). There were 3,756 deaths relating to drug poisoning in England and Wales in 2017, a rate of 66 deaths per million. The rate in Northern Ireland is about 75 per million, with 136 deaths in 2017. However, countries differ in how deaths are recorded, and there may be under-reporting in some cases. The statistics published by National Records of Scotland show that nearly three quarters - 72% - of those who died last year were male. The vast majority of drug-related deaths - 1,021 - involved heroin, but a large percentage - 792 - had also taken pills such as diazepam and etizolam. The 35-44 age group was associated with the most deaths at 442, followed by those aged 45-54 (345). The Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area had the highest number of deaths at 394, followed by Lothian (152), Lanarkshire (130) and Tayside (109). But the report said that the problem was "clearly very widespread" across the whole country. There are said to be about 60,000 problem drug users in Scotland, which has a population of 5.4 million people. Dr Saket Priyadarshi, of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde addiction services, told MPs last week that Scotland had a much higher drug death rate than the rest of the UK because it had far more problem users. He also said that Scottish users were taking a lethal cocktail of drugs that often combined opiates such as heroin and methadone with benzodiazepines, pills often known as street valium or street blues. Dr Priyadarshi said there was an ageing population of drug addicts, mainly men, who had been using heroin for decades and were now also taking new street pills, often containing etizolam which is stronger than prescription benzos. Earlier this month, The Daily Record newspaper launched a campaign calling for the decriminalisation of drug use. It said Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Canada and, most notably, Portugal were among 25 nations to loosen the punitive attitude to drug possession to enable treatment programmes to succeed. Jacquie, from Glenrothes in Fife, has told how her father, mother, two sisters and brother all died because of drugs. She said losing her parents and siblings "was like a fire ripping through my family". Jacquie, 34, is herself a recovering drug addict. She told BBC Scotland's The Nine: "It is scary how quick it can take a grip and devastate a family. "I feel my life has been ruined. "People could say that has been my fault, I understand that with the drug side. I can't help the fact that I have lost all my family to the drugs. And it is hard." Jacquie, who began taking heroin at the age of 17 and is now trying to kick the habit, said she could not remember a time when the family wasn't affected by drugs. She is the last remaining member of her immediate family - who all lived and died in the Fife town of Glenrothes. Read more here Scottish Public Health Minister Joe Fitzpatrick said the number of people who have lost their lives because of drug use was "shocking" and it was time for drug abuse to be treated as a public health issue. During evidence to MPs at Westminster last week, Mr Fitzpatrick praised the "bold move" taken in Portugal to decriminalise drugs but said his government in Scotland was unable to make changes as drugs policy was reserved to Westminster. But he has pledged to give consideration to any proposals that are brought forward by a new drugs taskforce set up by the Scottish government to examine how best to tackle the issue and save lives. The woman leading the taskforce, Prof Catriona Matheson, told BBC Scotland the evidence for decriminalisation was strong. She said: "It is about not putting these marginalised drug users into prison because that further marginalises them and that makes the recovery all the more difficult." Glasgow City Council's plan for users to be able to take their own drugs under the supervision of medical staff at a special facility in the city would also need a change in UK law. The Home Office has refused permission for Glasgow to set up the so-called "fix rooms", where users could inject heroin or cocaine in a safe and clean environment. It was hoped the special room would encourage addicts into treatment, cut down on heroin needles on city streets and counter the spread of diseases such as HIV. The Scottish Conservatives said the SNP has had sole control over Scotland's health and justice systems for 12 years, but has "only worsened the drugs crisis" in that time. Tory MSP Annie Wells claimed the Scottish government was "pinning their hopes on consumption rooms, because they know it's something the UK government does not agree with". She added: "They should be focusing their efforts on rehabilitation and abstinence-based recovery, the very services they have cut to the bone. "Over the last decade, the Scottish government's approach has been to park vulnerable users on methadone. Yet these figures show methadone now causes even more deaths than heroin". Meanwhile, Scottish Labour said the Scottish government has cut funding for Alcohol and Drug Partnerships by 6.3% since 2014/15. | Why does Scotland have so many drug deaths? | 1,709 | There are said to be about 60,000 problem drug users in Scotland, which has a population of 5.4 million people. Dr Saket Priyadarshi, of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde addiction services, told MPs last week that Scotland had a much higher drug death rate than the rest of the UK because it had far more problem users. He also said that Scottish users were taking a lethal cocktail of drugs that often combined opiates such as heroin and methadone with benzodiazepines, pills often known as street valium or street blues. Dr Priyadarshi said there was an ageing population of drug addicts, mainly men, who had been using heroin for decades and were now also taking new street pills, often containing etizolam which is stronger than prescription benzos. Earlier this month, The Daily Record newspaper launched a campaign calling for the decriminalisation of drug use. It said Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Canada and, most notably, Portugal were among 25 nations to loosen the punitive attitude to drug possession to enable treatment programmes to succeed. | 0.805805 | 0.723207 | 0.764506 |
4090_0 | The African Union has launched a new passport. A lot remains unclear about the document but here is what we do know: The idea behind the passport, which was launched this weekend, is for all African citizens to be able to travel throughout the continent without visas. There are two passports - one issued by the African Union for officials and people who travel a lot on business, and the other by individual countries for everyone else. It will bear the African Union's name and that of the issuing country. Here is a diplomatic passport issued this week: It is not known what a normal citizen's passport will look like. It is an attempt to ease movement of people across the continent and stimulate trade across the continent. This month Ghana introduced a new visa-on-arrival policy for citizens of AU member states. But this is unusual. The Africa Development Bank report on visa openness found only 13 out of 55 countries allow all Africans to enter either without a visa or to get one on arrival. These kind of blockages hinder inter-African trade, which remains very low. Many countries still do more business with their former colonial power, than with their neighbours. AU Deputy Chairman Erastus Mwencha told the BBC that the issue of free movement had been "on the table" for 25 years. He believes that it is necessary for Africa to "harness" the talents, skills and labour of its population. At first it will be rolled out to African heads of state and top AU officials and foreign ministers. The first recipients were chairperson of the African Union Idris Deby and Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The ultimate goal is that all African citizens will be able to apply for an African Union passport. However, this still depends on countries passing the necessary legislation in their own countries. It is unclear if everyone who applies for a new passport will automatically get an African Union one or if you have to request one. It is also unclear if everyone will have to update their passport before travelling or if people will still be able to travel with their old passports. All the African Union has said is that individual countries will make their own decisions on issuing passports. All members of the African Union should get an African Union passport, provided they pass the legislation in their country. This means every African country apart from Morocco - although Morocco has just asked to rejoin the AU. Some heads of state have already been given an African Union passport. The full roll-out for African citizens is supposed to happen by the end of 2018. However, details of that roll-out are sketchy. One interpretation is that the strategy is not clear because the passport has been rushed through before all the necessary arrangements have been put in place. It is a biometric, or e-passport, that meets international standards and will be modelled on the European Union one. Mr Mwencha argues that they will be more secure than the current passports that are not biometric documents. The old passports, he says, are easier to forge. He told the BBC it will be easier to track criminals and terrorists. However, with all countries able to issue the passports, that means a lapse in a single country could affect the entire continent. It isn't clear why a reciprocal agreement among all African countries to allow each others' citizens through their borders without visas wasn't made instead. It is possible that this may be seen as more secure. The AU is also pushing for citizens of all African countries to be allowed to stay visa-free for 30 days across the continent, before the roll-out of the passports. AU Deputy Chairman Erastus Mwencha says not one country in the African Union has objected to the plan. So it only won't go through if parliaments block it. But again, the details of the plan are sketchy. However, many African countries might be reluctant to open their borders, fearing a huge influx of people from other countries. This might be especially true of South Africa, which currently hosts large numbers of migrants from across the continent, and has seen xenophobic attacks. BBC Africa readers heavily criticised the initiative, on BBC Africa's Facebook page. Many argued that the passports should not be issued to the "elite" first. While others complained that it would have been cheaper to have an agreement about visa-free travel and that there were more important things to worry about. A big one is travel infrastructure. Many countries have more flights to London or Paris than with other countries on the continent. For example, there are very few flights between Abuja and Dakar - two major West African capitals - and passengers sometimes have to travel via Nairobi or Addis Ababa in East Africa, or even Europe. So even if the passport is introduced, a lot of work would still need to be done to make African trade easier. | What is the African passport? | 117 | The idea behind the passport, which was launched this weekend, is for all African citizens to be able to travel throughout the continent without visas. There are two passports - one issued by the African Union for officials and people who travel a lot on business, and the other by individual countries for everyone else. It will bear the African Union's name and that of the issuing country. Here is a diplomatic passport issued this week: It is not known what a normal citizen's passport will look like. | 0.737169 | 0.791422 | 0.764295 |
8717_0 | Vociferous protests against a proposal to tax earnings on withdrawals from a popular college savings plan prompted a rapid U-turn by US President Barack Obama's administration. It was a potent demonstration of the power of the middle class lobby in the US, But who are the American middle classes, and why do they feel like they are getting a raw deal? In the US, the "middle class" is an oft-used but poorly understood category that increasingly seems to be defined by who is not included, rather than who should be. The only people who clearly don't belong in the middle class are the very poor and the very rich. The US has never had a rigid class system. As a result, when people think of "class", they essentially divide people into three groups: - the poor (lower-class) - the very rich (upper-class) - everybody else (middle class) Given these groupings, when people refer to the "middle class" they include both the "near poor" and the "barely rich." The US Census Bureau sorts citizens by income quintile, not class. The 2013 data shows that households with earnings that exceed $105,911 (approximately PS70,000) fall in the highest income quintile. Middle-income households (the third quintile) earn between $40,188 and $65,501, and the median income for US households is $53,000. Despite the sizeable gap between earnings for top- and middle-income US households, many people who earn over $100,000 feel they are middle-class, not upper-class. And, compared with the top 1% of US households, who by some estimates earn more than $663,000, the "barely rich" really aren't upper-class. Members of the middle class (as broadly defined) are struggling financially. Despite an improving economy, job creation, and overall positive economic news, they remain worried about their financial future and their children's future. Recent polls confirm how financially fragile most Americans feel. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed are still feeling the impact of the recession, most people who earn less than $75,000 feel like they are falling behind, and almost 50% of those polled feel the US is still in a recession. Only 64% (the lowest in two decades) still believe in the American Dream that hard work will result in financial riches. The middle class has reason to worry. Income for all workers except the highest earners has been stagnant for about 30 years, and average family income (adjusted for inflation) has not changed much since 1995. A Federal Reserve survey reports that most US families didn't have a wage increase between 2010 and 2013, while income and wealth for the top 3% of US families rose to historically high levels during that period. In addition to worrying about themselves, middle-class parents worry that their children will not have a middle-class lifestyle. While the highest earners (the top 1-3%) do not fret about how they will pay for their children's college education, middle-class parents do. They are not confident they will be able to pay for their children's college education, and they do not want their children to be saddled with thousands of dollars of debt to secure their financial future. A college degree has now become a prerequisite to joining the middle class, and even parents who earn as much as $150,000 struggle to pay for their children to attend college because tuition has been surging in the US for years, rising faster than incomes and financial aid. A college degree has become a necessity because college-educated workers in the US now earn about twice as much as high-school graduates. Projections are that by the end of this decade two-thirds of new job openings will require at least some college education, and virtually all jobs will require some type of training after high school. Middle-class Americans will not have confidence in their or their children's future until median income increases. And, they will continue to be financially (and socially) stressed as long as income and wealth inequality in the US continues to grow. The wealth and income gaps are staggering, and a recent study reports that wealth inequality is now at a record high level. The middle class often feels neglected in political discussions, probably because we lack a workable definition for the category and Americans from different income groups all claim membership in the middle class. With such an unwieldy definition of the middle class, it is has become increasingly hard for politicians to find politically palatable ways to target its true members. If politicians propose benefits for the "near poor" (who are struggling just to make ends meet) they predictably anger the "barely rich" (who worry that they are losing economic ground to the enormous income and wealth held by the top 1%). The middle class is angry, and a recent proposal by the Obama administration involving college savings shows the depth of that anger. The Obama administration's proposal was touted as relief for the middle class and would have ended a tax break for a popular college savings plan (commonly known as 529 college accounts) that disproportionately benefits upper-income families. Savings from eliminating the tax breaks would have been diverted into tax credits for lower- and middle-income taxpayers. The Obama administration had to abandon this proposal, barely days after it was floated, and appears to have been blindsided by the vociferous opposition from parents who had 529 college savings accounts. Upper-income parents opposed the proposal because it taxed them to provide relief for lower- and middle-income families. Republican and Democratic politicians profess that their policies will best provide relief to the middle class. Despite these professions, they do not agree on the best way to address the concerns of the middle class, probably because it's not clear who is in that category and also because neither political party seems willing to anger upper-income Americans by proposing policies that appear to ignore their economic concerns. Prof Mechele Dickerson, a law professor at University of Texas at Austin, has written on this subject for The Conversation. | Who is middle class in the US? | 353 | In the US, the "middle class" is an oft-used but poorly understood category that increasingly seems to be defined by who is not included, rather than who should be. The only people who clearly don't belong in the middle class are the very poor and the very rich. The US has never had a rigid class system. As a result, when people think of "class", they essentially divide people into three groups: - the poor (lower-class) - the very rich (upper-class) - everybody else (middle class) Given these groupings, when people refer to the "middle class" they include both the "near poor" and the "barely rich." The US Census Bureau sorts citizens by income quintile, not class. The 2013 data shows that households with earnings that exceed $105,911 (approximately PS70,000) fall in the highest income quintile. Middle-income households (the third quintile) earn between $40,188 and $65,501, and the median income for US households is $53,000. Despite the sizeable gap between earnings for top- and middle-income US households, many people who earn over $100,000 feel they are middle-class, not upper-class. And, compared with the top 1% of US households, who by some estimates earn more than $663,000, the "barely rich" really aren't upper-class. | 0.739344 | 0.789182 | 0.764263 |
8045_0 | Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen and there is "no question" of her being allowed into the country, Bangladesh's ministry of foreign affairs has said. The UK has stripped the 19-year-old - who fled London to join the Islamic State group - of British citizenship. Such a move is only possible if an individual is eligible for citizenship elsewhere. It was thought Ms Begum had Bangladeshi citizenship through her mother. But the ministry of foreign affairs said the government was "deeply concerned" she had been "erroneously identified" as a Bangladeshi national. In a statement, it said Ms Begum had never applied for dual nationality with Bangladesh and had never visited the country. It added that the country had a "zero tolerance" approach to terrorism and violent extremism. Ms Begum was a schoolgirl when she left Bethnal Green in 2015, and was found in a Syrian refugee camp last week after reportedly leaving Baghuz - IS's last stronghold. She gave birth to a son at the weekend and now wants to return home. Ms Begum's mother is believed to be a Bangladeshi national, and lawyers have told the BBC that under Bangladesh law this means Ms Begum is automatically a citizen of the country as well. But Ms Begum told the BBC's Middle East correspondent Quentin Sommerville that she only had "one citizenship" and it was wrong for the UK to revoke it without speaking to her first. "I wasn't born in Bangladesh, I've never seen Bangladesh and I don't even speak Bengali properly, so how can they claim I have Bangladeshi citizenship," she said. While he said he would not comment on individual cases, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has suggested Ms Begum's baby could still be British. He told the Commons: "Children should not suffer. So, if a parent does lose their British citizenship, it does not affect the rights of their child." Mr Javid said the power to deprive a person of citizenship was only used "in extreme circumstances", for example, "when someone turns their back on the fundamental values and supports terror". Asked about the situation on ITV's Peston, the home secretary said he would not leave an individual "stateless". He said: "I'm not going to talk about an individual, but I can be clear on the point that I would not take a decision - and I believe none of my predecessors ever have taken a decision - that at the point the decision is taken would leave that individual stateless." But shadow home secretary Diane Abbott accused him of breaching the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "no-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality". Ms Begum told the BBC: "I was hoping Britain would understand I made a mistake, a very big mistake, because I was young and naive." She said she changed her mind about IS after they imprisoned and tortured her Dutch husband - an armed jihadi. Escape was impossible, she claimed: "They'd kill you if you tried." The lawyer for Ms Begum's family, Tasnime Akunjee, said they were considering "all legal avenues" to contest the Home Office decision and that she had effectively been made stateless. Earlier, Ms Begum told ITV News that she found the Home Office's decision "heartbreaking", but she may try for Dutch citizenship via her husband. He is a Dutch convert to Islam and is thought to have surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters about two weeks ago. Islamic State has lost most of the territory it once controlled, but an estimated 300 militants are believed to be left in a tiny pocket of land near Syria's border with Iraq. Under the 1981 British Nationality Act, a person can be deprived of their citizenship if the home secretary is satisfied it would be "conducive to the public good" and they would not become stateless as a result. Ms Begum has the right to challenge the Home Office's decision either by tribunal or judicial review, said former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Lord Carlile, but would have to prove the home secretary had acted disproportionately. He said it was a "complex issue" which "could run for a very long time through the courts", and Ms Begum could stay where she is "for maybe two years at least". Lord Carlile said her baby may be entitled to British, Dutch and Bangladeshi nationality. By Clive Coleman, BBC legal correspondent Lawyers have told the BBC that under Bangladesh law, a UK national born to a Bangladeshi parent is automatically a Bangladeshi citizen - a dual national - but the Bangladeshi authorities assert that's not the case for Ms Begum. Under this "blood line" law, Bangladeshi nationality and citizenship lapse when a person reaches the age of 21, unless they make active efforts to retain it. So, it is Ms Begum's age, 19, that is likely - in part - to have given Home Office lawyers and the home secretary reassurance there was a legal basis for stripping her of her UK citizenship. In 2017, the government lost an appeal case brought by two British citizens of Bangladeshi origin who were stripped of their citizenship when they were abroad. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that E3 and N3 had not tried to retain their citizenship before they reached the age of 21, and so it had automatically lapsed. That meant that the decision to strip them of their UK citizenship had rendered them stateless. Ms Begum's case is different. Her Bangladeshi citizenship, if established, would remain intact until she reaches 21, even if she has never visited the country or made active efforts to retain her citizenship. | Is Shamima Begum entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship? | 4,250 | By Clive Coleman, BBC legal correspondent Lawyers have told the BBC that under Bangladesh law, a UK national born to a Bangladeshi parent is automatically a Bangladeshi citizen - a dual national - but the Bangladeshi authorities assert that's not the case for Ms Begum. Under this "blood line" law, Bangladeshi nationality and citizenship lapse when a person reaches the age of 21, unless they make active efforts to retain it. So, it is Ms Begum's age, 19, that is likely - in part - to have given Home Office lawyers and the home secretary reassurance there was a legal basis for stripping her of her UK citizenship. In 2017, the government lost an appeal case brought by two British citizens of Bangladeshi origin who were stripped of their citizenship when they were abroad. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that E3 and N3 had not tried to retain their citizenship before they reached the age of 21, and so it had automatically lapsed. That meant that the decision to strip them of their UK citizenship had rendered them stateless. Ms Begum's case is different. Her Bangladeshi citizenship, if established, would remain intact until she reaches 21, even if she has never visited the country or made active efforts to retain her citizenship. | 0.772951 | 0.753574 | 0.763263 |
3908_0 | Bombardier's Northern Ireland operations have been sold to Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems, in a deal worth nearly PS1bn. It follows years of cuts and uncertainty among the firm's workforce in Northern Ireland. BBC News NI looks at the company's background, and what the news could mean. Bombardier, and its predecessors Shorts, have been major employers in Northern Ireland for decades. In 2017, it was estimated that the wages of the company's employees put PS158m into the local economy annually. The company employs about 3,600 people in plane-making activities at a number of sites in and around Belfast. When suppliers are included, it is estimated to impact on 12,000 jobs. Wings for Bombardier's A220 planes are made at the Belfast plant. The PS520m facility was opened by former prime minister David Cameron in 2013. There have been several redundancy programmes at Bombardier in Northern Ireland since 215. In November 2018, the company said it would cut 490 jobs in Belfast. Earlier this year, unions called off an industrial action ballot when the company suspended compulsory redundancies. May 2015: Firm announced a cut of at least 220 jobs due to a fall in demand for business jets. February 2016: It said it would lose about 20% of its NI workforce, with 580 jobs to go in 2016 and 500 in 2017. April 2016: Job cuts revised - from 580 to 630. September 2017: Another 95 redundancies announced. October 2017: Plan to cut another 280 jobs revealed. November 2018: A further 490 job cuts announced, but then shelved. In May 2019, the company said it was going to sell its Northern Ireland operation as part of a reorganisation of the business. At the time, Bombardier said it was consolidating all aerospace assets into a "single, streamlined and fully integrated business". In October, it was announced that the US firm Spirit AeroSystems had bought its aerostructures business, in a deal worth nearly PS1bn. Spirit is paying $500m and taking on $700m of liabilities, including pension commitments. The firm's chief executive Tom Gentile said the Belfast operation brings "world-class engineering expertise to Spirit". "Belfast has developed an impressive position in business jet fuselage production, in addition to the world-acclaimed fully integrated A220 composite wing. "This acquisition is in line with our growth strategy of increasing Airbus content, developing low-cost country footprint, and growing our aftermarket business." The Belfast factory will also remain a major supplier to Bombardier's business jet programmes. The company said: "Spirit will continue to supply structural aircraft components and spare parts to support the production and in-service fleet of Bombardier Aviation's Learjet, Challenger and Global families of aircraft." As part of the deal, Bombardier will sell two aerostructure facilities - the Belfast plant and another in Morocco - along with a smaller repair plant in Dallas. The Belfast firm doesn't just make parts for Bombardier, they also supply external customers such as Airbus. In an interview last year, Bombardier Belfast director Michael Ryan said the Belfast factory would be capable of functioning as an outside supplier to Bombardier's business-jets division. Following news of the sale, Mr Ryan said employees would be updated about the implications of the deal in due course. | How important is Bombardier to the Northern Ireland economy? | 288 | Bombardier, and its predecessors Shorts, have been major employers in Northern Ireland for decades. In 2017, it was estimated that the wages of the company's employees put PS158m into the local economy annually. | 0.70422 | 0.821447 | 0.762833 |
3999_0 | An election campaign adviser to Donald Trump has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the timing of meetings with alleged go-betweens for Russia. George Papadopoulos admitted the talks happened while he worked for Mr Trump, not before, court papers show. He said he had been told the Russians possessed "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Separately, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering unrelated to the 2016 election. The charges against Mr Papadopoulos are the first to be brought by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating alleged links between Russia and the Trump campaign. It has the potential to damage the US leader because it relates directly to his campaign, analysts say. Mr Papadopoulos - a Chicago-based international energy lawyer - was close enough to then-candidate Trump to be part of a photograph (third from left) of his national security team which Mr Trump tweeted on 1 April 2016. According to the court documents, Mr Trump's former foreign policy adviser admitted on 5 October 2017 to having impeded the FBI's investigation into alleged collusion with Russia. When he was interviewed by the FBI this January, he falsely claimed that he had met two figures with Russian connections before joining the Trump campaign in March 2016. In fact, he met them after joining the campaign. One was an unnamed Russian woman who, Mr Papadopoulos believed, had connections to Russian government officials. He admitted seeking to use her connections in an effort to arrange a meeting "between the campaign and Russian government officials". The other person was an unnamed, London-based professor who was said to have "substantial connections to Russian government officials". The professor only took an interest in Mr Papadopoulos because of his status within the Trump campaign, the statement says. Russian "dirt" on Mrs Clinton, in the form of "thousands of emails", was allegedly mentioned by the professor at a breakfast meeting in a London hotel on or around 26 April 2016. The professor said he had been informed about the compromising emails when he met senior Russian government officials on a recent trip to Moscow. By Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington Robert Mueller, in journalism terms, buried the story. Initial headlines on Monday morning were about Paul Manafort's indictment for money laundering and undisclosed foreign lobbying activities. The real blockbuster, however, may end up being George Papadopoulos's plea bargain, which was disclosed shortly after the Manafort news came out. Unlike Mr Manafort, pinched for activities largely conducted before he joined the Trump team, Mr Papadopoulos has admitted to lying to the FBI about contacts he had with Russian nationals while serving as a Trump foreign policy adviser. Mr Papadopoulos's indictment document reveals he learned from his connections that Russia claimed to have "dirt" on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails" in a late April 2016 meeting. Damaging emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta started emerging, through Wikileaks, just a few months later. Now Mr Papadopoulos is co-operating with the independent counsel's office. At the very least, he has told them who in the top levels of the Trump campaign he was passing this information to. If Mr Mueller's case ends up about more than just illegal activities by Mr Manafort and a business associate years ago, Mr Papadopoulos could be a key piece of the puzzle. Read more: The biggest news wasn't about Manafort Mr Manafort and one of his business associates, Rick Gates, appeared in a Washington court on Monday to deny 12 charges, including conspiracy to launder money. The former campaign manager was placed under house arrest and ordered to post a $10m (PS8m) bond while Mr Gates was also placed under house arrest and ordered to post a bond of $5m. The indictment against the two men, which accuses them of "conspiracy against the United States", looks at their links to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine between 2006 and 2015. It says they acted as "unregistered agents" of Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych and his party, both in opposition and government. Mr Yanukovych was deposed as president in 2014 amid mass unrest over his pro-Russian policies. Mr Manafort is accused of having laundered more than $18m through offshore bank accounts, using it to buy property, goods and services in transactions concealed from the US authorities. Speaking outside the court, Mr Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, said his client was innocent. "Maintaining offshore accounts to bring all your funds into the United States as a scheme to conceal from the United States government is ridiculous," he added. Mr Gates is accused of having transferred more than $3m from the offshore accounts to other accounts he controlled. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the role of Mr Papadopoulos in the Trump campaign had been "extremely limited". He had been in a "volunteer position", she said, and "no activity was done in an official capacity". She also stressed that none of the charges against Mr Manafort related to the Trump campaign. When it came to allegations of Russian influence, she said, the focus should be on Hillary Clinton's campaign. "The real collusion scandal, as we've said several times before, has everything to do with the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS, and Russia," she added. According to US media reports, Perkins Coie, a law firm representing the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, hired intelligence firm Fusion GPS in April 2016. Fusion GPS, based in Washington DC, was paid to dig up dirt on Mr Trump, who was then Mrs Clinton's rival for the presidency. | How does the Papadopoulos case affect Trump? | 642 | It has the potential to damage the US leader because it relates directly to his campaign, analysts say. Mr Papadopoulos - a Chicago-based international energy lawyer - was close enough to then-candidate Trump to be part of a photograph (third from left) of his national security team which Mr Trump tweeted on 1 April 2016. According to the court documents, Mr Trump's former foreign policy adviser admitted on 5 October 2017 to having impeded the FBI's investigation into alleged collusion with Russia. When he was interviewed by the FBI this January, he falsely claimed that he had met two figures with Russian connections before joining the Trump campaign in March 2016. In fact, he met them after joining the campaign. One was an unnamed Russian woman who, Mr Papadopoulos believed, had connections to Russian government officials. He admitted seeking to use her connections in an effort to arrange a meeting "between the campaign and Russian government officials". The other person was an unnamed, London-based professor who was said to have "substantial connections to Russian government officials". The professor only took an interest in Mr Papadopoulos because of his status within the Trump campaign, the statement says. Russian "dirt" on Mrs Clinton, in the form of "thousands of emails", was allegedly mentioned by the professor at a breakfast meeting in a London hotel on or around 26 April 2016. The professor said he had been informed about the compromising emails when he met senior Russian government officials on a recent trip to Moscow. | 0.732561 | 0.789992 | 0.761276 |
4757_0 | Pulling the US out of the world's biggest trade deal - the Trans Pacific Partnership - was always part of President Donald Trump's plans. And already, union chiefs are cheering his move. "The TPP and agreements like it would actually speed up China's growing dominance and give Beijing access to trade benefits without asking for anything in return," writes Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, the US's largest labour federation in this morning's USA Today. Sounds like a fine argument, except for one big problem. China is not actually in the TPP, though it has quickly become the focus point of anger amongst many Americans about the loss of jobs in the US. And as I've written about before, the US could stand to lose far more in a trade war than other countries if Mr Trump sticks to this protectionist stance. Before he came to office, and since, President Trump has had plenty to say about the TPP. But how much fact is there in those comments? Let's take a look at a few of them 1)"A great thing for the American worker, we just did" So said President Trump in the Oval office as he signed the memorandum to pull the US out of the deal. It is true that America has lost some factory jobs because of free trade. And when China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, the draw of cheap and flexible labour did mean that workers in the US were laid off. But the reality is you can't turn back the clock - and those jobs aren't going to come back to the US no matter how much Mr Trump wills them to. That's because they're not going to people. They're going to robots. A study at Ball State University's Center for Business and Economic research last year found that trade accounted for just 13% of America's lost factory jobs. 88% of the jobs were taken by robots. Just take a look at the example provided by Apple's main supplier Foxconn in Taiwan. It's replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots. In my reporting trips across China, I have heard similar business plans for the future. Chinese manufacturers are automating their factories as a way to stay competitive in the future. After all, robots don't get sick, complain or argue about unfair wages and labour practices. What's not to like? So the theory that jobs will come flooding back to the US because it is no longer part of the TPP is inherently flawed. 2) "The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country." It is true that the TPP was a secretive-ish deal, negotiated behind "closed-doors" - but frankly, most trade deals are, so how valid was this comment? And it was a trade deal that arguably could have brought a lot of benefits to the US. For example, the trade-friendly Peterson Institute for International Economics writes that "United States will be the largest beneficiary of the TPP in absolute terms". It claimed that the TPP would increase annual real incomes in the US by US$131bn, or 0.5% of GDP. According to these estimates then, Americans would have become richer, albeit marginally so, under the deal, and that the agreement would "raise US wages...but not change US employment levels". 3) "Not only will the TPP undermine our economy, but it will undermine our independence." I'm not even sure what President Trump means with this statement, but perhaps it's got something to do with having the independence to choose who to trade with and how. American companies would have been amongst the most to benefit from the deal, as they would have access to some of the world's fastest growing markets says Deborah Elms at the Asian Trade Centre. At least 18,000 American products would have been covered under the TPP and would have been exported to other markets with few or zero tariffs. "The TPP is a better agreement with the Americans included," says Ms Elms of the Asian Trade Centre. "It was designed to fit a supply chain world and to more accurately meet the needs of companies than existing trade arrangements." But, she adds, the game isn't over just because President Trump has pulled the plug on the deal. In this study, Ms Elms shows how the other TPP countries could go ahead without the US, and access the same benefits to the US even though it's not in the agreement. "It will be American companies that lose out in Asia" she says. "And that will almost certainly filter down to American workers." | Trumpisms on the TPP: How true are they? | 825 | Before he came to office, and since, President Trump has had plenty to say about the TPP. But how much fact is there in those comments? Let's take a look at a few of them 1)"A great thing for the American worker, we just did" So said President Trump in the Oval office as he signed the memorandum to pull the US out of the deal. It is true that America has lost some factory jobs because of free trade. And when China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, the draw of cheap and flexible labour did mean that workers in the US were laid off. But the reality is you can't turn back the clock - and those jobs aren't going to come back to the US no matter how much Mr Trump wills them to. That's because they're not going to people. They're going to robots. A study at Ball State University's Center for Business and Economic research last year found that trade accounted for just 13% of America's lost factory jobs. 88% of the jobs were taken by robots. Just take a look at the example provided by Apple's main supplier Foxconn in Taiwan. It's replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots. In my reporting trips across China, I have heard similar business plans for the future. Chinese manufacturers are automating their factories as a way to stay competitive in the future. After all, robots don't get sick, complain or argue about unfair wages and labour practices. What's not to like? So the theory that jobs will come flooding back to the US because it is no longer part of the TPP is inherently flawed. 2) "The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country." It is true that the TPP was a secretive-ish deal, negotiated behind "closed-doors" - but frankly, most trade deals are, so how valid was this comment? And it was a trade deal that arguably could have brought a lot of benefits to the US. For example, the trade-friendly Peterson Institute for International Economics writes that "United States will be the largest beneficiary of the TPP in absolute terms". It claimed that the TPP would increase annual real incomes in the US by US$131bn, or 0.5% of GDP. According to these estimates then, Americans would have become richer, albeit marginally so, under the deal, and that the agreement would "raise US wages...but not change US employment levels". 3) "Not only will the TPP undermine our economy, but it will undermine our independence." I'm not even sure what President Trump means with this statement, but perhaps it's got something to do with having the independence to choose who to trade with and how. American companies would have been amongst the most to benefit from the deal, as they would have access to some of the world's fastest growing markets says Deborah Elms at the Asian Trade Centre. At least 18,000 American products would have been covered under the TPP and would have been exported to other markets with few or zero tariffs. "The TPP is a better agreement with the Americans included," says Ms Elms of the Asian Trade Centre. "It was designed to fit a supply chain world and to more accurately meet the needs of companies than existing trade arrangements." But, she adds, the game isn't over just because President Trump has pulled the plug on the deal. In this study, Ms Elms shows how the other TPP countries could go ahead without the US, and access the same benefits to the US even though it's not in the agreement. "It will be American companies that lose out in Asia" she says. "And that will almost certainly filter down to American workers." | 0.733915 | 0.787869 | 0.760892 |
10135_0 | President Donald Trump has said he is prepared to be questioned under oath as part of an investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election. He said he was "looking forward" to it, subject to the advice of his lawyers. Investigators are assessing if the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election in his favour - a claim denied by Mr Trump and Russia. Investigators will also determine if Mr Trump obstructed the inquiry. The US intelligence community has already concluded that Moscow tried to sway the presidential election in favour of Mr Trump. The president had previously said he thought an interview was "unlikely" because there had been no collusion. He has called the Russia investigation a "witch hunt" and a "hoax". Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, Mr Trump maintained he was "absolutely" prepared to be questioned under oath by the top investigator. "There's been no collusion whatsoever, there's no obstruction whatsoever," he said. On Thursday morning Mr Trump landed in Zurich, on his way to the World Economic Forum in Davos. He is the first sitting US president to do so since Bill Clinton 18 years ago. The president's lawyers have been talking to the investigation team led by justice department special counsel Robert Mueller about an interview, and the form it might take. The questioning could happen face-to-face, in writing, or it could be a combination of both. As to when it might happen, Mr Trump said: "Yesterday they were talking about two to three weeks." Asked if he thought Mr Mueller would be fair, the president replied: "We are going to find out... I hope so." A Lawyer's Worst Nightmare Analysis: Anthony Zurcher - BBC Washington A lawyer's worst nightmare is a client who won't stop talking. And when the client is the president, whose every public utterance is carefully inspected, the headaches are compounded. Such is the fate of Ty Cobb, Donald Trump's personal lawyer. At the moment, his legal team is in delicate negotiations with Robert Mueller about how - or whether - the president might answer questions the special counsel has relevant to his investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Could the interview be conducted in person or via written answers? Will it be open-ended or will the boundaries of any discussion be delineated? This is all reportedly on the table. Then, on Wednesday night, Mr Trump not only said he's eager to talk directly with Mr Mueller, but that he's willing to do so "under oath". The president also appears to have outlined a defence against allegations that he may have illegally interfered with the Russia investigation, saying his efforts to "fight back" against a partisan witch hunt were being unfairly characterised as obstruction. That kind of strategy is better suited for a war for public opinion than a legal fight. Mr Trump, however, may end up with both. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions was interviewed by the Mueller inquiry for several hours last week. The country's top prosecutor is thought to be the first member of the Trump cabinet to be questioned. Four people have already been criminally charged as part of Mr Mueller's investigation. Michael Flynn, the president's former national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about a meeting with a Russian ambassador. Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has been charged on 12 counts, including conspiring to defraud the US in his dealings with Ukraine, and conspiracy to launder money. Mr Manafort's business associate Rick Gates was also charged with conspiracy to launder money. A third adviser to the campaign - George Papadopoulos - pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. | How will Trump's questioning take place? | 1,166 | The president's lawyers have been talking to the investigation team led by justice department special counsel Robert Mueller about an interview, and the form it might take. The questioning could happen face-to-face, in writing, or it could be a combination of both. As to when it might happen, Mr Trump said: "Yesterday they were talking about two to three weeks." Asked if he thought Mr Mueller would be fair, the president replied: "We are going to find out... I hope so." | 0.748918 | 0.770685 | 0.759802 |
3471_0 | The government has published guidance for healthcare professionals on abortion law in Northern Ireland. The new guidelines cover the period from 22 October to 31 March 2020. They set out what will happen following changes to the law after 21 October, if the NI Executive is not restored. The guidance states that no criminal charges can be brought against those who have an abortion, or against health care professionals who provide and assist in an abortion. The government said it has made arrangements to support women resident in Northern Ireland wishing to access services under the existing travel scheme. In the interim period, abortions in cases of "fatal or serious fetal anomaly" may be carried out. Health professionals will be given information about funded services in England. If a woman approaches them and is considering an abortion, they should give her the number for the Central Booking Service in England or call the helpline on her behalf. Also from 22 October all the travel and accommodation needs of women will be funded, regardless of income. Further detail is also provided on conscientious objection. The guidance notes that in England and Wales, the courts have found that its scope is limited to participating in a "hands on" capacity and does not allow for objection to ancillary or administrative tasks. It further states "in the interim period, anyone who has a conscientious objection to abortion may want to raise this with their employer". It says if they see a patient who is considering an abortion, they should follow guidance from their professional body. Analysis by Marie-Louise Connolly, Health Correspondent What's critical about these guidelines is that they recognise that women must be made aware of all choices available to them. Also any support and advice must be provided without fear of either party worrying about being prosecuted. In effect, what the guidelines do is remove the abortion issue from under the shadows, bringing it out into the open and allowing a light to be thrown on what is an extremely emotive and contentious issue. Will they remove all stigma? Absolutely not. As Sarah Ewart described last week outside court, no one wakes up and willingly or without feeling chooses to have a termination. Some details have yet to be spelt out. For instance, if a woman or girl needs to be accompanied, will that person's expenses be covered too? How is this information or guidance to be shared among the public? While the guidelines were dropped somewhat quietly into the public domain, the response from some will be a lot more robust, with many people publicly shocked and dismayed about what is about to become legal in just a fortnight's time. The guidance recognises that some women may continue to buy medical abortion pills online. As these are prescription only, their sale and supply remains unlawful but women "will be able to seek medical assistance in NI". Health professionals, notes the guidance, will not be under any duty to report an offence. It also sets out that a public consultation on the proposed legal framework for Northern Ireland will open on or just after 22 October. The government said it is "imperative that health and social care professionals understand these changes and their duties under the law, if the duty comes into effect and the law changes". It also makes clear that this supersedes guidance provided by the Northern Ireland Department of Health in 2016. The government states that, given the "urgent timescales" presented by the 21 October deadline, there are no plans for additional services to be routinely available in Northern Ireland before 31 March 2020. For example, there is no expectation that GPs will prescribe medication for early medical abortion. For 52 years, the law on terminations has been much more restrictive in this part of the UK than in England, Scotland and Wales. But that is set to change if the devolved government at Stormont is not restored by 21 October. Legislation brought in by MPs at Westminster means abortion will be decriminalised and the government will have to put in place regulations for abortion services by next April. The change in legislation in Northern Ireland will be welcomed by many people, but many others are strongly opposed and hundreds of health professionals wrote to the Northern Ireland secretary expressing their opposition to any change. Northern Ireland's abortion legislation is very different from the law in Great Britain. The 1967 Abortion Act, which was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales, was never extended to Northern Ireland. Currently, a termination is only permitted in Northern Ireland if a woman's life is at risk or if there is a risk of permanent and serious damage to her mental or physical health. Rape, incest or diagnoses of fatal fetal abnormality - where medics believe that a baby will die before, during or shortly after birth - are not grounds for a legal abortion in Northern Ireland. Last week, the High Court in Belfast ruled that Northern Ireland's abortion law breaches the UK's human rights commitments. The case was taken in Belfast by Sarah Ewart, who challenged the law after she was denied a termination in 2013. Doctors said her fetus would not survive outside the womb. She travelled to England for a termination. Since then she has led a high-profile campaign to change Northern Ireland's law in cases of fatal fetal abnormality. Dawn McAvoy, from Both Lives Matters, told BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme that there are "grave concerns that for the first time in Northern Ireland, children diagnosed in the womb with disabilities are going to be permitted to have their lives ended in law". She said there was still hope that Stormont would be restored before 21 October. "This document shows why it is seriously reckless to remove legislation without putting a pre-arranged regulatory framework in place first," she added. Grainne Teggart, from Amnesty NI, argued that the changes to the law "cannot come quick enough". She added: "What is very clear is that we are finally getting to a place where we will have a compassionate response to crisis pregnancy. "This is about placing the issue where it should always have been - not a criminal justice matter but between each individual woman and her doctor." | What are the current rules on abortion in Northern Ireland? | 4,405 | Northern Ireland's abortion legislation is very different from the law in Great Britain. The 1967 Abortion Act, which was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales, was never extended to Northern Ireland. Currently, a termination is only permitted in Northern Ireland if a woman's life is at risk or if there is a risk of permanent and serious damage to her mental or physical health. Rape, incest or diagnoses of fatal fetal abnormality - where medics believe that a baby will die before, during or shortly after birth - are not grounds for a legal abortion in Northern Ireland. | 0.746184 | 0.772991 | 0.759587 |
8871_1 | Shamima Begum - the teenager who fled London to join Islamic State - has said she only has "one citizenship" and it was wrong for the UK to revoke it without speaking to her first. It is only possible to strip someone of their UK nationality if they are eligible for citizenship elsewhere. It is thought Ms Begum has Bangladeshi citizenship through her mother. But the Bangladesh foreign ministry said the matter had nothing to do with the country. The 19-year-old told BBC News she had hoped the UK would understand she made a "very big mistake" by joining IS. She was a schoolgirl when she left Bethnal Green in 2015, and was found in a Syrian refugee camp last week after reportedly leaving Baghuz - IS's last stronghold. She gave birth to a son at the weekend and now wants to return home. While he said he would not comment on individual cases, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has suggested Ms Begum's baby could still be British. He told the Commons "Children should not suffer. So, if a parent does lose their British citizenship, it does not affect the rights of their child." Ms Begum's mother is believed to be a Bangladeshi national, and lawyers have told the BBC that under Bangledesh law this means Ms Begum is automatically a citizen of the country as well. But Ms Begum told the BBC's Middle East correspondent Quentin Sommerville: "I wasn't born in Bangladesh, I've never seen Bangladesh and I don't even speak Bengali properly, so how can they claim I have Bangladeshi citizenship. "I have one citizenship... and if you take that away from me, I don't have anything. I don't think they are allowed to do that. "This is a life changing decision and they haven't even spoke[n] to me." She continued: "I was hoping Britain would understand I made a mistake, a very big mistake, because I was young and naive." She said she changed her mind about IS after they imprisoned and tortured her Dutch husband - an armed jihadi. Escape was impossible, she claimed: "They'd kill you if you tried." She added that she understood the anger about her wanting to come home. "I understand why you don't want to be sympathetic because of everything IS did... and claiming it's all for the sake of Islam... it's really not," she said. Mr Javid said the power to deprive a person of citizenship was only used "in extreme circumstances", for example, "when someone turns their back on the fundamental values and supports terror". "We must put the safety and security of our country first," he added. But shadow home secretary Diane Abbott accused him of breaching the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "no-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality". Earlier, Ms Begum, 19, told ITV News that she found the Home Office's decision "heartbreaking", but she may try for Dutch citizenship via her husband. He is a Dutch convert to Islam and is thought to have surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters about two weeks ago. The lawyer for Ms Begum's family, Tasnime Akunjee, said they were considering "all legal avenues" to contest the Home Office decision. He told the Independent that the Bangladesh government "does not know who she is", adding: "Our position is that to all practical purposes she has been made stateless." Under the 1981 British Nationality Act, a person can be deprived of their citizenship if the home secretary is satisfied it would be "conducive to the public good" and they would not become stateless as a result. Ms Begum has the right to challenge the Home Office's decision either by tribunal or judicial review, said former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Lord Carlile, but would have to prove the home secretary had acted disproportionately. He said it was a "complex issue" which "could run for a very long time through the courts", and Ms Begum could stay where she is "for maybe two years at least". Lord Carlile said her baby may be entitled to British, Dutch and Bangladeshi nationality. By Clive Coleman, BBC legal correspondent Lawyers have told the BBC that under Bangladesh law, a UK national like Ms Begum who is born to a Bangladeshi parent is automatically a Bangladeshi citizen. That means that such a person would have dual nationality. The Bangladeshi authorities however assert Ms Begum is not a Bangledeshi citizen. Under this "blood line" law, Bangladeshi nationality and citizenship lapse when a person reaches the age of 21, unless they make active efforts to retain it. So, it is Ms Begum's age, 19, that is likely - in part - to have given Home Office lawyers and the home secretary reassurance there was a legal basis for stripping her of her UK citizenship. In 2017, the government lost an appeal case brought by two British citizens of Bangladeshi origin who were stripped of their citizenship when they were abroad. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that E3 and N3 had not tried to retain their citizenship before they reached the age of 21, and so it had automatically lapsed. That meant that the decision to strip them of their UK citizenship had rendered them stateless. Ms Begum's case is different. Her Bangladeshi citizenship, if established, would remain intact until she reaches 21, even if she has never visited the country or made active efforts to retain her citizenship. Former Conservative Home Secretary Ken Clarke said refusing Britons who joined IS the right to return would be a "great boost for jihadism" as the "hundreds of foreign jihadis stuck in camps in northern Syria" would be further radicalised. And MP Joanna Cherry, the SNP's spokeswoman for justice and home affairs, said the home secretary's actions were "more about his leadership ambitions than security issues or due process". Islamic State has lost most of the territory it once controlled, but an estimated 300 militants are believed to be left in a 0.5 sq km area near Syria's border with Iraq. Mr Javid told MPs earlier this week that more than 100 dual nationals had already lost their UK citizenship after travelling in support of terrorist groups. Last year, two British men, accused of being members of an IS cell dubbed "The Beatles" were stripped of their citizenship after being captured in Syria. In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Ms Begum said she never sought to be an IS "poster girl" and now simply wished to raise her child quietly in the UK. She left the UK with two school friends, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase. Ms Sultana is thought to be dead, while the fate of Ms Abase is unknown. | Is Shamima Begum entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship? | 3,960 | By Clive Coleman, BBC legal correspondent Lawyers have told the BBC that under Bangladesh law, a UK national like Ms Begum who is born to a Bangladeshi parent is automatically a Bangladeshi citizen. That means that such a person would have dual nationality. The Bangladeshi authorities however assert Ms Begum is not a Bangledeshi citizen. Under this "blood line" law, Bangladeshi nationality and citizenship lapse when a person reaches the age of 21, unless they make active efforts to retain it. So, it is Ms Begum's age, 19, that is likely - in part - to have given Home Office lawyers and the home secretary reassurance there was a legal basis for stripping her of her UK citizenship. In 2017, the government lost an appeal case brought by two British citizens of Bangladeshi origin who were stripped of their citizenship when they were abroad. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that E3 and N3 had not tried to retain their citizenship before they reached the age of 21, and so it had automatically lapsed. That meant that the decision to strip them of their UK citizenship had rendered them stateless. Ms Begum's case is different. Her Bangladeshi citizenship, if established, would remain intact until she reaches 21, even if she has never visited the country or made active efforts to retain her citizenship. | 0.75352 | 0.760916 | 0.757218 |
5760_0 | Schools and workplaces in Venezuela have closed as an electricity blackout continues into a second day. The power cuts, which started on Thursday afternoon, have been caused by issues at a major hydroelectric plant. The government of President Nicolas Maduro has blamed the opposition, accusing them of sabotage. It comes amid rising tensions over opposition efforts - backed by the US and some Latin American countries - to remove Mr Maduro from power. Commuters in Caracas were plunged into almost complete darkness during rush hour on Thursday before the blackout extended to other areas. The lack of electricity has caused flights to be diverted from the main airport in Caracas, from where thousands of workers were forced to walk home. The problems stem from the Guri dam plant and have affected the telephone network and metro in Caracas. State television on Friday said power had been restored in some parts of the capital. However, local media reports say 15 of the country's 23 states have been affected by the blackouts, as well as Caracas. Venezuela depends on its vast hydroelectric infrastructure, rather than its oil reserves, for its domestic electricity supply. But decades of underinvestment has damaged the major dams, and sporadic blackouts are commonplace. Mr Maduro has accused opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido of trying to mount a coup with the help of "US imperialists". Mr Guaido said on Twitter that the blackout was a matter of "chaos, concern and anger" and "evidence of the usurper's inefficiency", adding that "light would return" once Mr Maduro was removed from power. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also weighed in, blaming the "Maduro regime's incompetence". "No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro," he tweeted. By Will Grant, BBC News, Caracas In a country where food is scarce and prices exorbitantly high for many ordinary people, there is currently a lot of food rotting and going to waste in switched-off fridges. Venezuela has seen blackouts before, often. But few last as long or are as widespread as this one. The country's politicians - from President Nicolas Maduro to opposition leader, Juan Guaido - are blaming each other via Twitter. The sense of confusion has only added to the growing stress for Venezuelans over the conflict in their country. Blackouts are nothing new in Venezuela. Critics say they have been getting worse since the nationalisation of the power grid in 2007. In 2016, the problem reached such a critical level that the government declared a 60-day nationwide state of emergency. In an attempt to stem the country's chronic power shortages, the government has periodically enforced controlled blackouts, where they would switch the power off for up to six hours at a time. Critics say that far from helping, this has caused perishable food to go bad and crime to run rampant. And when unplanned blackouts - such as the latest one - have happened, officials have blamed a number of different outside forces. Last October, Electricity Minister Luis Motta Dominguez posted on Instagram that outages were caused by "animals such as rats, mice, snakes, cats, squirrels" getting into the hydroelectric system's substations - before adding that "of course iguanas are included". A few months earlier another senior official, Lisandro Cabello, said the power cuts were caused by the country's position near the Equator. He said the fact that "we are very close to the Sun" means more intensive use of power in Venezuela than in other countries. Mr Maduro took over the presidency when his late mentor Hugo Chavez died in 2013. In recent years Venezuela has experienced an economic collapse, with severe food shortages and inflation reaching at least 800,000% last year. The Maduro government is becoming increasingly isolated as more and more countries blame it for the economic crisis, which has prompted more than three million people to leave Venezuela. Mr Guaido, who leads the opposition-controlled National Assembly, declared himself interim president on 23 January and has been at loggerheads with President Maduro ever since. He has been recognised as interim president by more than 50 countries but Mr Maduro retains the support of his close allies Russia, Cuba and China, among others. | Why do blackouts happen in Venezuela? | 2,344 | Blackouts are nothing new in Venezuela. Critics say they have been getting worse since the nationalisation of the power grid in 2007. In 2016, the problem reached such a critical level that the government declared a 60-day nationwide state of emergency. In an attempt to stem the country's chronic power shortages, the government has periodically enforced controlled blackouts, where they would switch the power off for up to six hours at a time. Critics say that far from helping, this has caused perishable food to go bad and crime to run rampant. And when unplanned blackouts - such as the latest one - have happened, officials have blamed a number of different outside forces. Last October, Electricity Minister Luis Motta Dominguez posted on Instagram that outages were caused by "animals such as rats, mice, snakes, cats, squirrels" getting into the hydroelectric system's substations - before adding that "of course iguanas are included". A few months earlier another senior official, Lisandro Cabello, said the power cuts were caused by the country's position near the Equator. He said the fact that "we are very close to the Sun" means more intensive use of power in Venezuela than in other countries. | 0.735337 | 0.7779 | 0.756618 |
8180_0 | Reports that a firefighting plane crashed during an operation to tackle huge blazes in central Portugal have been denied by the country's civil protection authority. This contradicts earlier reports that a Canadair aircraft went down near the central Pedrogao Grande area. More than 1,000 firefighters on the ground and planes from several countries are battling the fires. The fires have claimed the lives of at least 64 people since Saturday. Many of the victims died in their cars as they tried to escape. More than 130 people have been injured. Portugal fires: Varzeas mourns villagers who fled Civil protection officials have said they expect the blazes to be under control soon, but warn that soaring temperatures are hampering efforts. The week's highest temperatures in the area are expected to reach about 38C (100F) and, together with windy conditions, could reignite fires that have already been brought under control. Wildfires are an annual menace in Portugal. More broke out there between 1993 and 2013 than in Spain, France, Italy or Greece, the European Environment Agency reported last year, despite the country's relatively small geographical size. Given that, was this year's tragedy preventable? Could Portugal have done anything more to save lives and minimise the damage? Read more: Just what makes Portugal such a tinderbox? One of the worst-hit areas was around the village of Nodeirinho. Thirty bodies were found inside cars and another 17 next to vehicles on the N-236 road. Portuguese media have dubbed the N-236 the "road of death". Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa has questioned why the emergency services did not close the road. | Why are Portugal's wildfires so deadly? | 930 | Wildfires are an annual menace in Portugal. More broke out there between 1993 and 2013 than in Spain, France, Italy or Greece, the European Environment Agency reported last year, despite the country's relatively small geographical size. Given that, was this year's tragedy preventable? Could Portugal have done anything more to save lives and minimise the damage? Read more: Just what makes Portugal such a tinderbox? | 0.730378 | 0.780607 | 0.755493 |
1710_0 | The artist Banksy has confirmed that a new graffiti piece that has appeared in south Wales is his. He used his verified Instagram account to announce: "Season's greetings" - with a video of the artwork in Port Talbot. The image appears on two sides of a garage depicting a child enjoying snow falling - the other side reveals it is a fire emitting ash. The garage owner said he had not slept over fears it might be vandalised. Ian Lewis, who built the garage in the 90s to prevent his car being damaged, said he found out about the possible Banksy "yesterday morning on my Facebook account". "I didn't think much of it at the time, I knew a little bit about Banksy but I never thought it would be him - if it is him," he said. Banksy is a famous - but anonymous - British graffiti artist. He keeps his identity a secret He produces pieces of work which pop up in public places, such as on the walls of buildings. A lot of his art is done in a particular style which people can easily recognise. He began spray-painting trains and walls in his home city of Bristol in the early 1990s. But in the 2000s, he expanded his work beyond Bristol and was soon leaving his artistic mark all over the world. "There were people coming here all night. "I am very pleased, I think it is a smashing bit of artwork. It is good for the town and I just want to protect it, and it is here for everybody." Plaid Cymru councillor for Aberavon, Nigel Thomas Hunt said the whole town had been "buzzing" with speculation that the work was by Banksy. "The placing of the work is very clever, in between the blast furnace and the M4, yards from where Richard Burton was brought up and where we've had bonfires for years," he said. "You can look at the painting and see the furnaces in the background." Anthony Taylor, deputy leader of Neath Port Talbot council, said: "The council has been liaising with the property owner throughout the day and has put in place fencing to assist in protecting this artwork whilst they consider what their next steps might be. "We have also been in contact with other local authorities who have previously had Banksy artworks within their area, to take advice." Speculation that the piece was a genuine Banksy piece was fuelled when a sketch bearing striking similarities to the latest piece emerged. It appeared in a documentary last year, featuring exchanges between the film director Danny Boyle and Banksy, as they collaborated on an alternative "nativity" play in Bethlehem. | Who is Banksy? | 727 | Banksy is a famous - but anonymous - British graffiti artist. He keeps his identity a secret He produces pieces of work which pop up in public places, such as on the walls of buildings. A lot of his art is done in a particular style which people can easily recognise. He began spray-painting trains and walls in his home city of Bristol in the early 1990s. But in the 2000s, he expanded his work beyond Bristol and was soon leaving his artistic mark all over the world. | 0.676268 | 0.834136 | 0.755202 |
4958_0 | There have been widely-shared reports on social media and some state-run services that healthcare services in Wuhan - one of China's largest cities - are under strain following the outbreak of coronavirus. Hu Xijin, the editor of state-run newspaper Global Times, said there had been a "failure" to contain the virus, and videos of patients queuing to get seen in hospitals. However, other Communist-party outlets have praised the response to the outbreak. Wuhan is a major transit hub with a population of about 11 million people, and has effectively been put on lockdown, along with other major cities in the region, in an unprecedented move to stop the spread of the virus. The city serves as the main economic hub for the wider province, Hubei, and has the most advanced healthcare facilities in the region. The metropolitan area has seven major hospitals - considered some of the best in China, with Tong Ji Hospital ranked third nationally - treating patients. It has seven more hospitals supporting the efforts, and 61 clinics around the city which are testing patients for symptoms of the virus. A local government report from 2014 included Wuhan among the top six cities for medical treatment in the country - although it ranks behind Beijing and Shanghai. In terms of capacity, the report said Wuhan had 6.51 hospital beds and 3.08 doctors per 1,000 people - this isn't a straightforward indication of healthcare capacity (more doctors doesn't always mean better healthcare), but it does rank Wuhan among the more developed places in the world. The UK and US have 2.8 and 2.6 doctors per 1,000 heads, respectively. So - is is this enough for a such a large city undergoing a mass shutdown? The lockdown in Wuhan has caused panic in the city - the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that containing a large city like this is "new to science". Hubei as a province has a lower number of doctors per 1,000 people, at 2.55 according to the latest government statistics. "It's yet to be seen whether the costs associated with this kind of mass quarantine measure (not just financially, but with respect to personal liberty too) will translate into effective infection control," said Dr. Maia Majumder, an expert at Harvard Medical School in the US, who is tracking the virus. Hubei has declared a "Grade 1 public health emergency", the most severe level - that means the response is led centrally from Beijing by the State Council, the government's cabinet. Beijing has tried to allay concerns by sending more healthcare professionals, and constructing two hospitals from scratch providing more than 2,000 extra beds. Reports from state-run media say there are 405 medical staff from Shanghai and 205 staff from Guangdong travelling to the region. They're also expanding existing capacity in other facilities. The government has also assigned 21 centres in Hubei province to help co-ordinate treatment, and train local health officials. Professor Shenglan Tang, an expert in global health at Duke University in the US, says there are concerns that rural areas will struggle to cope. "I'm confident that the health centres in Wuhan will be able to handle the outbreak, but I am a bit worried about Hubei province - rural workers have gone back home from Wuhan to celebrate Chinese New Year, and in these areas the hospital capacity is weak," said Professor Tang. Despite resilient rhetoric from the government, people are expressing concern about the city's ability to cope with the outbreak. The BBC spoke to a number of people in the region who said that getting test results was taking longer than officials are claiming. We were told that in some cases medical staff lack equipment and doctors are overstretched. There are also claims that local government, which was apparently made aware of the outbreak in mid-December, ignored initial warning signs. We haven't been able to independently verify these claims. The government has called for people to report poor medical responses to an online "inspection" platform. The regional government has issued a statement appealing for donations to help with the response, including asking for facemasks. Read more from Reality Check Send us your questions Follow us on Twitter | Can healthcare in Wuhan cope? | 677 | The city serves as the main economic hub for the wider province, Hubei, and has the most advanced healthcare facilities in the region. The metropolitan area has seven major hospitals - considered some of the best in China, with Tong Ji Hospital ranked third nationally - treating patients. It has seven more hospitals supporting the efforts, and 61 clinics around the city which are testing patients for symptoms of the virus. A local government report from 2014 included Wuhan among the top six cities for medical treatment in the country - although it ranks behind Beijing and Shanghai. In terms of capacity, the report said Wuhan had 6.51 hospital beds and 3.08 doctors per 1,000 people - this isn't a straightforward indication of healthcare capacity (more doctors doesn't always mean better healthcare), but it does rank Wuhan among the more developed places in the world. The UK and US have 2.8 and 2.6 doctors per 1,000 heads, respectively. So - is is this enough for a such a large city undergoing a mass shutdown? The lockdown in Wuhan has caused panic in the city - the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that containing a large city like this is "new to science". Hubei as a province has a lower number of doctors per 1,000 people, at 2.55 according to the latest government statistics. "It's yet to be seen whether the costs associated with this kind of mass quarantine measure (not just financially, but with respect to personal liberty too) will translate into effective infection control," said Dr. Maia Majumder, an expert at Harvard Medical School in the US, who is tracking the virus. Hubei has declared a "Grade 1 public health emergency", the most severe level - that means the response is led centrally from Beijing by the State Council, the government's cabinet. Beijing has tried to allay concerns by sending more healthcare professionals, and constructing two hospitals from scratch providing more than 2,000 extra beds. Reports from state-run media say there are 405 medical staff from Shanghai and 205 staff from Guangdong travelling to the region. They're also expanding existing capacity in other facilities. The government has also assigned 21 centres in Hubei province to help co-ordinate treatment, and train local health officials. Professor Shenglan Tang, an expert in global health at Duke University in the US, says there are concerns that rural areas will struggle to cope. "I'm confident that the health centres in Wuhan will be able to handle the outbreak, but I am a bit worried about Hubei province - rural workers have gone back home from Wuhan to celebrate Chinese New Year, and in these areas the hospital capacity is weak," said Professor Tang. | 0.771308 | 0.738677 | 0.754992 |
7860_0 | India's Supreme Court has ruled that Aadhaar - the world's largest and most controversial biometrics-based identity database - has sufficient legal grounds to exist. But the sole dissenting opinion expressed by one of the five judges holds valuable lessons, argue Ronald Abraham and Elizabeth S Bennett. More than 1.2 billion Indian residents, or one-sixth of humanity, have an Aadhaar number. The government has promoted - and indeed mandated - the use of Aadhaar for many services. However, India's civil society resisted, citing four main objections: legality, privacy, data security and efficacy. India's parliament passed the Aadhaar Act in 2016, seven years after the programme's inception and after more than a billion people had enrolled by giving their fingerprints and retina scans. However, a clause in the Act retroactively legalised all previous executive actions of the government related to Aadhaar. It was passed using a special provision that linked it to primarily financial matters. This allowed the bill to bypass formal approval from parliament's upper house, where the current government doesn't enjoy a majority. All this rightfully led to the validity of the Act being challenged. However, for better or for worse, Wednesday's judgement ruled that the Act is indeed valid. The most salient premise for the legal challenge was the issue of privacy. Petitioners claimed that privacy was infringed because biometrics represent sensitive personal information. They also raised concerns that the unique number enabled the government to potentially profile individuals and place them under surveillance. But the majority opinion dismissed these concerns, expressing confidence in current safeguards. This is dangerous and will further cement the government's stance that there are no privacy risks associated with Aadhaar. They would do well to follow the spirit of Justice D Chandrachud's dissenting judgement, which carefully highlights the various privacy risks Aadhaar poses. Security breaches of the Aadhaar database are frequently reported, often by independent researchers. While the biometrics database itself hasn't yet been breached, various associated databases and software have been hacked. Instead of trying to benefit from such crowd-sourced independent research, the government typically issues strong denials after every breach and/or denies its seriousness. This is neither effective as a security strategy nor as a means to foster public trust. According to the majority judgement, Aadhaar is unquestionably worth the privacy and data security risks. Over the last two years, we have researched Aadhaar's efficacy using publicly available data and a survey we conducted in rural India. Our survey covered three states - representative of 150 million rural residents - selected to demonstrate socioeconomic and geographic diversity, along with differential levels of Aadhaar's use. While we found that Aadhaar has achieved scale, the quality of demographic data could still improve. The error rate for basic information on Aadhaar is about 8.8% of all enrolled in the three surveyed states. This puts beneficiaries at risk of exclusion and undermines the utility of the database. Another area of promise for Aadhaar was encouraging financial inclusion among poor populations. The idea was that it could provide a means of identification to those who did not have one readily accepted by banks. It also promised increased efficiency because it uses digital authentication. We found that about two-thirds of bank account holders provided a copy of their Aadhaar to open their most recent account. However, its role as a digital ID has been limited. Of those who opened a bank account since 2014, we estimate that fewer than one in five people used Aadhaar's electronic identification system to do so. Lastly, we found that Aadhaar-related exclusion from India's critical food subsidy programme is significant. Across rural areas of the three states we surveyed, we estimate that each month nearly two million residents are prevented from receiving subsidised food grain due to complications arising from Aadhaar. In the majority opinion, Justice AK Sikri argued that jettisoning Aadhaar for this reason amounted to "throw[ing] the baby out with the bath water" since only a small percentage of Indians had been excluded. While the judgement asks the government to focus on minimising future exclusion, such efforts have not yielded sufficient results. The risks, pointed out by Justice Chandrachud's strong dissent, should give the government ample pause. In fact, we believe it should use the risks outlined in the dissent to shape its future course - and do so with transparency. Every time there's a privacy or data breach, the government should avoid its default response of outright denial. It should engage with researchers, rather than accuse them of fear mongering. Neither should the government overstate the benefits of Aadhaar. Its reports on fiscal savings due to the scheme have never been confirmed by independent scrutiny. The government should proactively release information on data quality and security, and document shortcomings as well as steps being taken to improve the scheme. Such transparency will help Aadhaar. The government may use the majority verdict to aggressively pursue the use of Aadhaar for various governance initiatives. Instead, it should focus on simply being an identity platform - and do that well and securely. This would include improving its data quality and security, enabling easier updates for residents in rural India, and exploring ways to eliminate exclusion due to Aadhaar. Ronald Abraham and Elizabeth S Bennett are with IDinsight and co-authors of the State of Aadhaar Report 2017-18. | So, is the Aadhaar Act legal? | 601 | India's parliament passed the Aadhaar Act in 2016, seven years after the programme's inception and after more than a billion people had enrolled by giving their fingerprints and retina scans. However, a clause in the Act retroactively legalised all previous executive actions of the government related to Aadhaar. It was passed using a special provision that linked it to primarily financial matters. This allowed the bill to bypass formal approval from parliament's upper house, where the current government doesn't enjoy a majority. All this rightfully led to the validity of the Act being challenged. However, for better or for worse, Wednesday's judgement ruled that the Act is indeed valid. | 0.713856 | 0.794489 | 0.754172 |
2126_0 | Islamist militant group al-Shabab is battling the UN-backed government in Somalia, and has carried out a string of attacks across the region. The group, which is allied to al-Qaeda, has been pushed out of most of the main towns it once controlled, but it remains a potent threat. Al-Shabab means The Youth in Arabic. It emerged as the radical youth wing of Somalia's now-defunct Union of Islamic Courts, which controlled Mogadishu in 2006, before being forced out by Ethiopian forces. There are numerous reports of foreign jihadists going to Somalia to help al-Shabab, from neighbouring countries, as well as the US and Europe. It is banned as a terrorist group by both the US and the UK and is believed to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters. Al-Shabab advocates the Saudi-inspired Wahhabi version of Islam, while most Somalis are Sufis. It has imposed a strict version of Sharia in areas under its control, including stoning to death women accused of adultery and amputating the hands of thieves. What drives al-Shabab? In a joint video released in February 2012, then al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane said he "pledged obedience" to al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri. There have also been numerous reports that al-Shabab may have formed some links with other militant groups in Africa, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, based in the Sahara desert. Al-Shabab debated whether to switch allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group after it emerged in January 2014. It eventually rejected the idea, resulting in a small faction breaking away. Al-Shabab is currently led by Ahmad Umar, also known as Abu Ubaidah. The US has issued a $6m (PS4.5m) reward for information leading to his capture. Al-Shabab wants IS to back off Somalia's government blamed it for the killing of at least 500 people in a huge truck bombing in the capital Mogadishu in October 2017. It was East Africa's deadliest bombing. Al-Shabab, however, did not claim responsibility for it. It did confirm carrying out a massive attack on a Kenyan military base in Somalia's el-Ade town in January 2016, killing, according to Somalia's then-President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, about 180 soldiers. The Kenyan military disputed the number, but refused to give a death toll. It has also staged several attacks in Kenya, including the 2015 massacre at Kenya's Garissa University, near the border with Somalia. A total of 148 people died when gunmen stormed the university at dawn and targeted Christian students.. In 2013, its gunmen stormed the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, resulting in a siege which left at least 67 people dead. During the 2010 football World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands, it bombed a rugby club and a restaurant in Uganda's capital Kampala, killing 74 people watching the match. Al-Shabab cash targets disillusioned Kenyans The cleric who predicted he would be killed Although it has lost control of most towns and cities, it still dominates in many rural areas. It was forced out of the capital, Mogadishu, in August 2011 following an offensive spearheaded by about 22,000 African Union (AU) troops, and left the vital port of Kismayo in September 2012. The loss of Kismayo has hit al-Shabab's finances, as it used to earn money by taking a cut of the city's lucrative charcoal trade. The US has also carried out a wave of air strikes, which led to the killing of the group's leader, Aden Hashi Ayro, in 2008 and his successor, Ahmed Abdi Godane. In March 2017, US President Donald Trump approved a Pentagon plan to escalate operations against al-Shabab. The US has more than 500 troops in Somalia and conducted 30 airstrikes in 2017, more than four times the average number carried out in the previous seven years, according to The Washington Post. Although the military operations are weakening al-Shabab, the group is still able to carry out suicide attacks and has regained control of some towns. The AU is reducing its troop presence - about 1,000 have left and a further 1,000 are due to leave in 2018. This follows a cut in funding by the European Union (EU), amid allegations of corruption within the AU force, made up of troops from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Somalia has not had an effective national government for more than 20 years, during which much of the country has been a war-zone. Al-Shabab gained support by promising people security. But its credibility was knocked when it rejected Western food aid to combat a 2011 drought and famine. With Mogadishu and other towns now under government control, there is a feeling of optimism and many Somalis have returned from exile, bringing their money and skills with them. Basic services such as street lighting, dry cleaning and rubbish collection have resumed in the capital. But Somalia is still too dangerous and divided to hold democratic elections - the last one was in 1969. So, its parliament and president are elected through a complex system, with clan elders playing an influential role in the process. Somalia's 'touch and feel' e-commerce hit Somalia's 'Mr Cheese' president has a lot on his plate | Who are al-Shabab? | 280 | Al-Shabab means The Youth in Arabic. It emerged as the radical youth wing of Somalia's now-defunct Union of Islamic Courts, which controlled Mogadishu in 2006, before being forced out by Ethiopian forces. There are numerous reports of foreign jihadists going to Somalia to help al-Shabab, from neighbouring countries, as well as the US and Europe. It is banned as a terrorist group by both the US and the UK and is believed to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters. Al-Shabab advocates the Saudi-inspired Wahhabi version of Islam, while most Somalis are Sufis. It has imposed a strict version of Sharia in areas under its control, including stoning to death women accused of adultery and amputating the hands of thieves. What drives al-Shabab? | 0.73806 | 0.769867 | 0.753963 |
9844_0 | The man who led an inquiry into the future safety of Britain's banks has said Bank of England plans are not strong enough. Sir John Vickers, who headed up the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), said: "The Bank of England proposal is less strong than what the ICB recommended." In a BBC interview, he added: "I don't think the ICB overdid it." The Bank of England rebuffed the criticism. Sir John has specifically questioned the plans to ensure that banks have enough capital. Capital is considered vital to a bank's safety, as it serves to protect it from sudden losses. It comes in many forms, but the most common is funding from shareholders, who expect a hefty return on the risk they are taking. The backdrop to this news is the current slump in bank share prices across Europe. Since the start of the year, European banking stocks have lost a quarter of their value. The Bank of England "might want to reflect on the turmoil we've seen in banking shares", Sir John told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "That's a very important lesson that you have to get the basics right," he said. Regulators, bankers and investors have been debating since the crisis just how much capital, and of what quality, will be needed for banks to survive the next crisis without another bailout from the taxpayer. Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group alone required a PS65bn bailout, while all banks were aided by cheap funding. Sir John, who has served as chief economist for the Bank of England and is now professor and warden of All Souls College, Oxford, says more capital is needed because no-one can predict the nature or scale of the next shock to the system. High-quality capital in the form of shares is the best option, he says, in part because it is tried and tested. "A good way to think about it is as an insurance policy," he said. "You do have to pay a premium to insure your house and you hope nothing bad will happen. But if it does, you are much better off in paying that premium, and for full coverage." "If banks run out of capital, all sorts of havoc could ensue. We want to be in a position where there's enough of a buffer to take any losses that might occur." Cheaper alternatives such as bonds which convert to high-quality capital - dubbed contingent convertible bonds (CoCos) - are untested. "Other types of capital - CoCos, for example - and new forms of loss-absorbent bank debt are welcome but untested. Equity capital is the best shock absorber - even if you haven't got a clue what's going to hit you, it works." Authorities have been criticised for what appears to be a softer approach to bank regulation. City watchdog chief Martin Wheatley, considered a tough regulator, was fired in the summer. The regulator then scrapped an inquiry into banking culture. The ICB report recommended that the six largest banks should have 3% of extra capital in reserve compared to loans, when taking into account their risk. The new Bank of England suggestion is for a 2.5% buffer for the very largest, and as low as 1% for the smaller lenders of the six. But the Bank of England said that it was in fact proposing "a higher level of capital and overall resilience" than was recommended in the ICB report. It added that its proposals reflected the cost of the crisis as well as the benefits of more resilient banks. "This judgement is informed by two years of severe but plausible stress tests," a Bank of England spokesperson said. "UK banks are now within touching distance of meeting these proposed new standards. "On a comparable basis, globally systemic banks in the UK will be required to have ten times more capital than before the crisis." The financial crash of 2008 exposed the Big Shortage - of bank capital. Some banks that had lent out, say, 40 times their shareholders' capital couldn't absorb their losses when loans went bad. Hence the taxpayer bailouts and further economic damage from bank lending seizing up. The clear lesson is that banks, especially major banks providing core retail services, need much bigger safety buffers - more capital relative to loan exposures. Important progress has been made internationally and in the UK on this front, but a key policy question remains open: how big a safety buffer should major British banks have? On 29 January, the Bank of England set out for consultation its proposed answer. The BoE expects that it would increase capital requirements, relative to banks' exposures, by about 5%. Well worth having, but not ambitious. So on bank safety buffers, the BoE's answer to the question "Are we nearly there yet?" is "Yes". I am not so sure. In 2011 the Independent Commission on Banking, which I chaired, recommended considerably stronger capital buffers for British retail banks. They would have significantly exceeded the buffers that some UK banks must have because of their global importance. That is not so true of the BoE proposals, which is why they add quite modestly to capital in British retail banking. Who is right? Nobody knows. But that in itself is a reason for strong capital buffers. Large uncertainties, and the massive costs to society of systemic bank failures, call for ample insurance. The main argument made against stronger buffers is rather a reason for them. Equity capital, it is said, is costly for banks because investors expect high returns. But high returns make sense only if they compensate for risk. It is in the public interest, however, to contain risks from banks - especially those providing core services such as current accounts - which is best done by more equity, not less. Banking, as it involves lending, will always be risky to some degree. That's fine, but only so long as capital buffers are strong enough to ensure that taxpayers aren't again on the hook when things go wrong. The worldwide fall in bank shares this year underlines the importance of the capital buffer question. The BoE might want to reconsider the answer. | Sir John Vickers: How big a safety buffer should banks have? | 3,669 | The financial crash of 2008 exposed the Big Shortage - of bank capital. Some banks that had lent out, say, 40 times their shareholders' capital couldn't absorb their losses when loans went bad. Hence the taxpayer bailouts and further economic damage from bank lending seizing up. The clear lesson is that banks, especially major banks providing core retail services, need much bigger safety buffers - more capital relative to loan exposures. Important progress has been made internationally and in the UK on this front, but a key policy question remains open: how big a safety buffer should major British banks have? On 29 January, the Bank of England set out for consultation its proposed answer. The BoE expects that it would increase capital requirements, relative to banks' exposures, by about 5%. Well worth having, but not ambitious. So on bank safety buffers, the BoE's answer to the question "Are we nearly there yet?" is "Yes". | 0.7106 | 0.794497 | 0.752549 |
300_0 | The bearded figure being dragged from his home, into a waiting police van, was a far cry from the man who had entered the building seven years previously. Julian Assange - who co-founded website Wikileaks - had sought sanctuary in Ecuador's embassy from extradition to Sweden and, he feared, to the US. Ecuador withdrew his asylum on Thursday, leading to his arrest and then conviction for failing to surrender to the court. But who exactly is Assange and what has he been accused of? Julian Assange was born in Townsville, Australia, in 1971. His parents ran a touring theatre and his childhood was filled with upheaval. He became a father at 18, later becoming entangled in custody battles. He showed an aptitude for computers and was fined several thousand Australian dollars in 1995 after pleading guilty to hacking activities. Assange avoided jail on the condition that he would not reoffend. He went on to help write a book about the internet, before studying physics and maths at Melbourne University. In 2006, Assange co-founded the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, along with a group of like-minded people from across the internet. The site published thousands of classified documents covering everything from the film industry to national security and war. One of its most high-profile releases came in 2010, when it published a video from a US military helicopter that showed the killing of 18 civilians in Baghdad, Iraq. In the same year, Wikileaks published hundreds of thousands of documents leaked by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. They revealed how the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the war in Afghanistan. Files from the Iraq war showed that 66,000 civilians had been killed and that prisoners had been tortured by Iraqi forces. At the time, the US government made it clear it hoped to prosecute Assange over the leak of the secret files. Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for Assange over allegations of sexual assault in 2010. He was detained in the UK, and later bailed over the allegations. It followed claims that while on a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture, Assange had raped one woman and sexually molested and coerced another. Assange says both encounters were entirely consensual and the Swedish efforts against him are part of a smear campaign. Following a long legal battle, the Wikileaks founder took refuge in Ecuador's embassy in 2012 to avoid being taken to Sweden to be questioned. He argued that he could also be extradited to the US and put on trial for publishing the secret US documents The Ecuadorian embassy was an obvious choice, since the South American country's then-president, Rafael Correa, was a strong advocate for Wikileaks, Swedish prosecutors dropped the rape investigation into Assange in 2017 because they were unable to formally notify him of the allegations while he stayed in the embassy. The two other charges of molestation and unlawful coercion had to be dropped in 2015 because time had run out. But even after Sweden dropped the charges, Assange stayed in the embassy as he still faced a UK charge of failing to surrender to a court. Relations between Assange and Ecuador's government worsened under President Lenin Moreno, who took office in 2017. Before withdrawing Assange's asylum, Ecuador accused him of improper behaviour, interference in the affairs of other countries and spying. Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed Assange's arrest, saying it showed that "no one is above the law" in the UK. But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Assange had revealed "evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan" and that his extradition to the US "should be opposed by the British government". Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said Assange should face the criminal justice system if Swedish authorities decide to charge him. Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson said they would fight the US extradition request. She said it set a "dangerous precedent" where any journalist could face US charges for "publishing truthful information about the United States". Actress Pamela Anderson - a friend of Assange - has said the UK is "America's bitch" in response to the arrest. Assange faces legal action in three countries - the UK, Sweden and the US. Westminster Magistrates' Court found him guilty of a British charge of breaching bail on Thursday. He faces up to 12 months in prison for that conviction. Meanwhile, Swedish authorities have said they are considering reopening their investigation into sexual assault allegations against him. The US has already charged the 47-year-old with a single count of participating in the hacking of intelligence computers to reveal controversial intelligence operations in the United States. But he is likely to face more charges if he is extradited to the US - a decision that will be taken by a judge and the UK home secretary. If Sweden also makes an extradition request, one legal expert has said it would be for the home secretary to decide which request would take precedence. | Who is Julian Assange? | 485 | Julian Assange was born in Townsville, Australia, in 1971. His parents ran a touring theatre and his childhood was filled with upheaval. He became a father at 18, later becoming entangled in custody battles. He showed an aptitude for computers and was fined several thousand Australian dollars in 1995 after pleading guilty to hacking activities. Assange avoided jail on the condition that he would not reoffend. He went on to help write a book about the internet, before studying physics and maths at Melbourne University. In 2006, Assange co-founded the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, along with a group of like-minded people from across the internet. | 0.783929 | 0.721008 | 0.752468 |
748_1 | A pause by Russia in carrying out air strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo has brought a brief respite for civilians and fighters under siege in the Syrian city. At least 250,000 people have been trapped there almost continuously since pro-government forces encircled the area in July. Conditions are said to be appalling, with destruction on a massive scale. Readers told us they wanted to know why people were still living there, so we put the question to residents through Facebook and WhatsApp. Formerly Syria's economic hub, Aleppo had an estimated pre-war population of about two million. About one million people are now living in the west, in comparative safety. Those trapped in the east are living in appalling conditions. The UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien recently described the area as "the apex of horror". Food and fuel are running out and basic infrastructure and health care have been obliterated. The rebels have retaliated by shelling the west - resulting in the deaths of civilians there - but this is on a smaller scale. The main reason why people have not left is that they have become trapped, they told us. "Some people left before the siege. Now no-one can leave," says Mohammed, a 31-year-old phonetics teacher at the university in Aleppo. People have to be careful not to use up their phone batteries because there are only a few hours of electricity each day. However, they are still able to get messages to the outside world. Dr Ossama, 32, is one of only 30 doctors left treating the 250,000 population of east Aleppo. He describes the dire situation: "The city is under siege completely. "No food, no electricity, no pure water, no roads out of Aleppo. The general situation is very dangerous. Every second you can be targeted by shelling or by snipers." Fatemah, 26, who is a teacher, says she never expected the siege to happen. "All my family got out three years ago and went to Egypt and Turkey. I stayed here because I wanted to complete my studies in law at the University of Aleppo. "We couldn't imagine we'd be under siege. We didn't think that the regime would do that. Before the siege, there was food and medicine and we had got used to the bombing. The bombing is more dangerous now." The Syrian government and its Russian allies have periodically opened "humanitarian corridors" for civilians to leave through. There is a lot of scepticism from residents of east Aleppo over how safe these routes actually are. "The regime lied about making humanitarian corridors," says Abdulkafi, who teaches English at the university. "If you were with your family, and a robber came and killed your son and daughter and then, after 10 days, he says, 'Come and be a guest in my house', would you trust him? "[President] Assad and the Russians kill civilians and now they say, 'Come on in'. How can we do that? We prefer to eat the leaves from the trees than go back." Abdulkafi has lived in Aleppo for three years. Before the uprising, he was a lecturer in a different town. He attended the demonstrations against President Assad. "I was accused and ran away to Aleppo. Assad's regime considers us all terrorists. We are going to die defending ourselves. I am not a fighter but I will fight to the death." Some in east Aleppo point out that fleeing their homes and becoming refugees would be a massive undertaking, even if they weren't trapped. "A very important reason people are staying here is that they are very poor," says Fatemah. "They have no money to rent a house somewhere else or to buy food, or even have the money to leave Syria for Turkey or another country." Everyone we spoke to also told us that they would continue to refuse to leave Aleppo because it was their home. "Aleppo is my life and my country. How could I leave it?" asks Fatemah. "The people here are civilians. They are not fighters - they just want freedom from the regime." Mohammed adds: "This is our land and it belongs to us. Assad wants us to be kicked out of our house and is trying to displace us. People want to keep their homes. It is as clear as glass. "My wife is seven months pregnant and it is very dangerous, especially now we are under siege. "She is really scared and she worries that every day is the last of our lives. Her only wish is to live to see our newborn baby." Ismail is a volunteer for the White Helmets, who rescue people from sites which have been bombed. He tells us he will never leave. "I am staying because it is my land and my city. It's my home. "We have nothing to eat. We will run out of bread and fuel in a month. Our best hope is that the siege is broken. But we are not asking for bread or food we want freedom and social justice." "Many people would prefer to die in Aleppo than to leave it," says Dr Ossama. "If we go out of Aleppo we will lose our home and our home is our life... and the regime and the Russians would win." We interviewed Abdulkafi while he was teaching English to children. He asked Hamad, a boy in his class if he would leave. "No, of course I will not leave," Hamad replied. "I have lived here and I will stay. This is my land." Like the other people we spoke to, Abdulkafi, who has an eight-month-old daughter, will stay in Aleppo, whatever happens. "Danger is everywhere - but freedom is not everywhere. "People stayed here because we first asked for freedom. We can't leave. "The blood of the children who died would not forgive us. The people suffering now would not forgive us. To be free is more precious than anything on earth." | Why haven't people fled east Aleppo? | 1,049 | The main reason why people have not left is that they have become trapped, they told us. "Some people left before the siege. Now no-one can leave," says Mohammed, a 31-year-old phonetics teacher at the university in Aleppo. People have to be careful not to use up their phone batteries because there are only a few hours of electricity each day. However, they are still able to get messages to the outside world. Dr Ossama, 32, is one of only 30 doctors left treating the 250,000 population of east Aleppo. He describes the dire situation: "The city is under siege completely. "No food, no electricity, no pure water, no roads out of Aleppo. The general situation is very dangerous. Every second you can be targeted by shelling or by snipers." Fatemah, 26, who is a teacher, says she never expected the siege to happen. "All my family got out three years ago and went to Egypt and Turkey. I stayed here because I wanted to complete my studies in law at the University of Aleppo. "We couldn't imagine we'd be under siege. We didn't think that the regime would do that. Before the siege, there was food and medicine and we had got used to the bombing. The bombing is more dangerous now." The Syrian government and its Russian allies have periodically opened "humanitarian corridors" for civilians to leave through. There is a lot of scepticism from residents of east Aleppo over how safe these routes actually are. "The regime lied about making humanitarian corridors," says Abdulkafi, who teaches English at the university. "If you were with your family, and a robber came and killed your son and daughter and then, after 10 days, he says, 'Come and be a guest in my house', would you trust him? "[President] Assad and the Russians kill civilians and now they say, 'Come on in'. How can we do that? We prefer to eat the leaves from the trees than go back." Abdulkafi has lived in Aleppo for three years. Before the uprising, he was a lecturer in a different town. He attended the demonstrations against President Assad. "I was accused and ran away to Aleppo. Assad's regime considers us all terrorists. We are going to die defending ourselves. I am not a fighter but I will fight to the death." Some in east Aleppo point out that fleeing their homes and becoming refugees would be a massive undertaking, even if they weren't trapped. "A very important reason people are staying here is that they are very poor," says Fatemah. "They have no money to rent a house somewhere else or to buy food, or even have the money to leave Syria for Turkey or another country." | 0.733081 | 0.770565 | 0.751823 |
770_0 | Nine more people have been injured in stabbings in London as the spate of violent crime in the capital continues. Seven people were stabbed in five incidents on Thursday. Two more were injured earlier - a male in his late teens or early 20s, and a 16-year-old boy who were found with stab injuries at the Whitgift Shopping Centre in Croydon, south London. They were taken to hospital following the attack at about 17:15 BST. No arrests have been made. It comes as the Met's commissioner Cressida Dick said the force has "not lost control" of London's streets despite the "ghastly" spate of violent crime. On Thursday, a boy aged 13 was seriously hurt in an attack in Newham, east London, and another in his late teens suffered stab wounds in Ealing, west London. Two 15-year-old boys and a 16-year-old were hurt in Mile End and another 15-year-old was stabbed in Poplar. A man, in his 40s, was stabbed in Herne Hill, south-east London, but his injuries are not thought to be serious. A man has been held on suspicion of attempted murder in connection with the assault in Mile End and the injured 16-year-old, who had minor injuries, was also arrested. In addition to the stabbings, a man in his 20s was shot in the face in Tyers Street, Vauxhall, at about 01:25. He is in hospital and his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening, police said. No arrests have been made. - 12:50 Billet Road, Walthamstow - man in his early 20s, stable condition, no arrests - 17:30 East India Dock Road, Poplar - boy, 15, stable condition, no arrests - 18:06 Grove Road, Mile End - two boys aged 15, both serious but stable in hospital. One boy, 16, who was not stabbed but was treated at the scene for minor injuries, has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm - 18:57 Gainsborough Avenue, Newham - boy, 13, serious but stable. Police said three youths have been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm with intent. A section 60 order, granting police stop and search powers across the whole borough, was announced on Friday afternoon and will remain in place until 06:00 on Saturday - 19:05 Ealing Broadway - man, 18, taken to hospital, not thought to be life-threatening injuries, no arrests - 22:05 Railton Road, Herne Hill - man in his 40s, not thought to be life-threatening injuries, no arrests Analysis by Daniel Wainwright, BBC England Data Unit One of the most alarming aspects of the latest stabbings in London is the very short space of time between them. Six of the reported stabbings on Thursday happened within 95 minutes of each other. Over the past two years there have been between eight and 15 "knife crimes with injury" on average each day in London, according to the Metropolitan Police. There were between 243 and 476 knife crimes with injury recorded in each month between February 2016 and February 2018. Last April there were 420 such crimes, an average of 14 every day. Protesters and community leaders gathered at Hackney Central station, east London, to call for an end to the recent bloodshed. It comes after London Mayor Sadiq Khan denied police had "lost control of crime in London" in the wake of more than 50 murders in the capital this year. On Wednesday, 18-year-old Israel Ogunsola was stabbed to death in Link Street, Hackney. On Monday, 17-year-old Tanesha Melbourne was killed in a drive-by shooting. Less than an hour after Tanesha was killed, 16-year-old Amaan Shakoor, from Leyton, was shot in the face in Walthamstow. He died the following day, becoming the youngest murder victim to die in London this year. Speaking to BBC Newsbeat near to where the schoolgirl died, a young man called Brandon urged his peers to "get out" of gangs. Brandon, who used to "chill out" with many gang members in the area, said: "One day I just thought, what am I really doing here? "People are dying that are not even in gangs. I don't know what it is, if they getting killed (by) accident, or mistaken identity, and it's just making me think, you gonna be next. "Could it be one of my family, one of my friends. Could it be me?" At the Hackney protest, people huddled around the station entrance before locking fists in a wide circle in solidarity for those killed. Protest organisers Guiding A New Generation - commonly known as G.A.N.G. - asked people to share their stories and pleaded for an end to the killings over a megaphone. Activist Boogz, 40, said: "We are trying to guide these children to let them know that their life is not going in the right direction. "I want to say to them this is not the life. "All the music that you listen to which glorifies this kind of thing, all the money that they see, all the cars that they see people driving, they are being sold a lie, they are being sold a false narrative - and we are here to change that narrative for them." Four hours before Mr Ogunsola was stabbed on Wednesday, Hackney police were called to a bookmakers on Upper Clapton Road. There were reports of an unconscious man following an altercation. Medical staff tried to help the victim, aged 53, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. A post-mortem examination was set to take place earlier. A man has been arrested and will be interviewed by murder detectives from City of London Police, who have stepped in due to the "current demand" on the Met's Homicide and Major Crime Command (HMCC). There was also a fatal stabbing of a suspected burglar on Wednesday in Hither Green, south-east London, and, on Thursday, a man in his mid-20s was stabbed in Walthamstow. His injuries are not considered to be life-threatening. Officers need help from other organisations to stop the UK from becoming a "police state", the vice chairman of the Police Federation told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Che Donald said the recent spike in violent crime had led to questions "that the police can't answer on their own". He said London must learn from the joined up approach taken by Glasgow more than a decade ago, where knife crime was treated as a public health problem. "We have to look at the fundamental root causes of why people - young men in particular - are carrying knives on the street. Do they feel unsafe? Is it a cultural issue, is it a social issue, is it an ideological issue?" he added. "What we do not want to do is turn it into a police state, but unfortunately we are left with very little options and opportunities to address this growing crime." In a statement, the Met said it is "absolutely clear that we cannot tackle knife crime alone, we cannot enforce our way out of this and will do all we can to mobilise communities behind us and to help protect London". | Is it unusual to have so many stabbings in London? | 2,331 | Analysis by Daniel Wainwright, BBC England Data Unit One of the most alarming aspects of the latest stabbings in London is the very short space of time between them. Six of the reported stabbings on Thursday happened within 95 minutes of each other. Over the past two years there have been between eight and 15 "knife crimes with injury" on average each day in London, according to the Metropolitan Police. There were between 243 and 476 knife crimes with injury recorded in each month between February 2016 and February 2018. Last April there were 420 such crimes, an average of 14 every day. | 0.736926 | 0.76665 | 0.751788 |
6304_0 | A Congolese journalist who had been raising awareness about the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been killed at his home. The army said unidentified attackers raided Papy Mumbere Mahamba's home in Lwebma, in the north-eastern province of Ituri, killing him, wounding his wife and burning their house down. DR Congo is experiencing the world's second-worst Ebola epidemic on record. People working to stop the virus are often targeted. The BBC World Service's Africa editor Will Ross says over the past year there have been dozens of attacks on health centres and on people working to stop Ebola. The violence is thought to be fuelled by the belief among many people that the virus is not real, which can lead to mistrust of those working in the sector. When medics call for people to forgo traditional rites to ensure safe burials, for example, it can create animosity. Some people even feel Ebola is a hoax created by medics to get well-paid jobs. Mr Mahamba had just hosted an Ebola awareness programme on a community radio station when the attack took place. Prof Steve Ahuka, national co-ordinator of the fight against Ebola, confirmed the reports from the army that a "community worker" involved in the fight against Ebola had been killed. A journalist at Radio Lwemba, the local radio station where he worked, also confirmed the details. Jacques Kamwina told AFP news agency that Mahamba had been stabbed to death. The DRC declared an Ebola epidemic in August 2018. More than 2,000 lives have been lost amid a total of 3,000 confirmed infections, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The outbreak is affecting the DRC's North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces. In July, the WHO said the situation there was a "public health emergency of international concern." Efforts to control the outbreak have been hampered by violence against healthcare workers and Ebola treatment facilities. - Ebola is a virus that initially causes sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain and a sore throat. - It progresses to vomiting, diarrhoea and both internal and external bleeding. - People are infected when they have direct contact through broken skin, or the mouth and nose, with the blood, vomit, faeces or bodily fluids of someone with Ebola. - Patients tend to die from dehydration and multiple organ failure. | What is the situation with Ebola in the DRC? | 1,440 | The DRC declared an Ebola epidemic in August 2018. More than 2,000 lives have been lost amid a total of 3,000 confirmed infections, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The outbreak is affecting the DRC's North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces. In July, the WHO said the situation there was a "public health emergency of international concern." Efforts to control the outbreak have been hampered by violence against healthcare workers and Ebola treatment facilities. | 0.689631 | 0.813712 | 0.751671 |
2899_7 | After Brexit, the UK wants to boost business trade with Africa, but as a major UK-Africa business summit starts in London, Matthew Davies asks if there really will be new opportunities for the continent. Trade is tricky. Trade agreements are trickier. Trade negotiations to get those agreements are exponentially more complicated. And the road that the Brexit can has been kicked down for so long is rapidly running out. Once the UK leaves the European Union at the end of January, it has 11 months to come up with a trade deal with the European Union to avoid reverting to WTO rules. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Leave supporters have always expounded the virtues of being outside the EU, including the ability to negotiate its own trade deals on its own terms for the benefits of its own citizens. Being part of a big gang has its advantages and disadvantages. Yes, you have to make compromises and adapt your goals to match commonly-agreed policies. But you also get the power of the bloc behind you in trade negotiations. The UK's International Development Secretary, Alok Sharma, is, as one would expect, very optimistic saying that Britain's relations with Africa will be "turbo-charged", with trade, business and investment deals being struck left, right and centre. The UK government seems to be taking it seriously. The UK-Africa Investment Summit can be seen as evidence of that but any potential change in actual trade conditions is some way off. Possibly years. Mostly, nothing changes at the end of January. There will be much political posturing and speech making, but the UK will still be a member of the EU Customs Union and Single Market until the end of the year. There is a provision for it to extend that by a further two years, but that would seem to be ruled out by Prime Minister Johnson. That means trade relations between the UK and Africa stay the same for 2020, conducted under the EU's various existing deals with the continent. Beyond the 2020 horizon, trade arrangements between many African countries and a fully-Brexited UK are also set to remain the same under a number of "continuity agreements". These basically say that the trade conditions (tariffs, quotas, standards and so on) remain the same as they are currently between a number of African countries and trading blocs and the EU. For example, in September last year, the UK initiated an Economic Partnership Agreement with the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) - which is made up of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and eSwatini - and Mozambique. It is designed to keep things as they are under the current trade relationship that the southern African nations have with the EU. It mirrors the agreement that the EU already has with Sacu. According to Britain's International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, the agreement "will allow businesses to keep trading after Brexit without any additional barriers". And that seems to be the UK's approach - keep the same conditions in place that already exist between the UK and African countries under EU deals. Worldwide, the UK has in place about 40 such "continuity" deals, covering some 70 countries. The UK has been allowed to strike these deals with countries that already have similar agreements with the EU. Part of the reason of doing it this way is that it allows the UK to negotiate new arrangements with those who do not have an existing trade deal with the EU. The big one here is the United States. Sounds simple, but it's not. At least, not in the longer term because of the uncertainty that is still very much part of post-Brexit picture. The "continuity agreements" will eventually run out. That's when the real opportunities and challenges for African states will emerge. Outside the big EU gang, the UK, technically, has less negotiating clout. That could mean that the African countries that trade with the UK may be able to squeeze out slightly more preferential terms in negotiations. Perhaps. As mentioned earlier, trade negotiations are complex and require time and resources. With the starting gun fired at the end of January, the UK's trade negotiating efforts will have to be prioritised. The lion's share of the UK's effort will be aimed at getting the best deal possible with the EU, its closest and, by far, its biggest trading partner. Beyond that, deals with the likes of the US, China, South Korea and Australia will be prioritised, which means that African countries will be quite far down the list. But it is also a question of volume and value. For example, South Africa is the sub-Saharan African country that does the most trade with the European Union. Minerals, cars and agricultural products are exported into EU and of that total 18% end up in the UK. But some agricultural products are subject to quotas. In theory, the UK could allow greater access to the British market than it does under the current arrangement, something which, for example, South African wine makers could take advantage of. But equally, their French counterparts could lean on their government to lean on Brussels negotiators to get their exported wine into the UK under more preferential terms than those from South Africa. You may also be interested in: In truth, it is impossible to tell what could happen, but this does point to the complexities of over-arching trade negotiations. Uncertainty remains a factor, despite the efforts being made to counter it. Razia Khan from Standard Chartered Bank says: "In the short-term, greater uncertainty will weigh on prospects, although this has been mitigated to some extent by the UK's offer of an extension of trade agreements for two years, in order to deal with this uncertainty." Of course, the Brexit effect goes beyond trade. This may be seen if the UK falls into a recession after Brexit. That would hit places like South Africa hard. The UN calculates that the UK is South Africa's eighth-largest import and export market in global terms. If the UK's economy gets a recessionary cold, South Africa's could get flu. And given South Africa's powerhouse status as regards other African economies, that would not bode well. Brexit could also require new infrastructure in the UK to deal with certain imports. Flowers are one of Kenya's biggest exports and foreign currency earners. The industry is also a major employer, providing 100,000 people with direct work and around two million indirectly. At the moment, Kenya's flowers enter the EU through the massive market in Amsterdam. From there 18% of them end up in the UK. But what happens after Brexit? Zero-tariff arrangements can still be place under a continuity agreement, but there could be physical problems. The Kenya Flower Council has pointed out that the infrastructure for flying flowers directly to the UK is not as developed as the Nairobi-Amsterdam route. In other words, there could be an impact. As far as African companies are concerned, the post-Brexit world will depend very much on the nature of their business with both the EU and the UK. "Companies that depend heavily on EU-related preferences in the UK market need to keep a watchful eye on developments in Europe; and on negotiations between the UK and their own country on future arrangements," says Matthew Stern at DNA Economics in Pretoria. "If all goes to plan, these preferences will be maintained, but any slippage from either party could be costly for certain firms." As African politicians and business leaders gather in London for the UK-Africa Investment Summit, uncertainty remains. It may be mitigated to some degree by the continuity agreements, but somewhere down the line, new negotiations are likely to happen. Uncertainty is the enemy of investment. And behind the handshakes and smiles at the summit, it will be at least one of the elephants in the room. | Could Brexit effect other aspects of the African economy? | 5,697 | Of course, the Brexit effect goes beyond trade. This may be seen if the UK falls into a recession after Brexit. That would hit places like South Africa hard. The UN calculates that the UK is South Africa's eighth-largest import and export market in global terms. If the UK's economy gets a recessionary cold, South Africa's could get flu. And given South Africa's powerhouse status as regards other African economies, that would not bode well. | 0.759791 | 0.743265 | 0.751528 |
10028_2 | Until late December, 2016 had been a decent year for Toshiba. Then a bombshell. The Japanese industrial giant warned of a big one-off hit at its US nuclear business. At the time we did not know quite how huge that loss would be. But by February it emerged it would be about $6.3bn (PS5.05bn). Toshiba's chairman resigned, the firm delayed releasing its full financial figures - initially for a month - and then even longer. We're still waiting. To plug the gap, Toshiba is set to sell a majority stake in its NAND flash-memory business to get it through its ongoing financial turbulence. And its US nuclear business Westinghouse has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy - which temporarily shelters struggling firms as they try to restructure their affairs and outstanding debts. All this comes as it struggles to turn the corner after a profit-inflating scandal. Most people still recognise the name Toshiba for its electrical products but that is no longer at the heart of its business. It no longer makes televisions for export, for example, and its white goods business is losing money. Today Toshiba is a very diverse conglomerate, and these latest problems stem from its nuclear services business which brings in about a third of its revenue. Toshiba had initially alerted investors in December 2016 to the fact that it faced a heavy one-off loss linked to a deal done by its US nuclear subsidiary, Westinghouse Electric. Westinghouse bought a nuclear construction and services business from Chicago Bridge & Iron (CB&I) in 2015. But assets that it took on are likely to be worth less than initially thought, and there is also a dispute about payments that are due. Toshiba has also reported "inefficiencies" in the labour force at CB&I, along with other factors driving up costs. Toshiba hopes its saviour will be another major part of its business, the unit that makes memory chips for smartphones and computers, which has been valued at between $9bn and $13bn. It is the second largest chip maker in the world, behind Samsung. On 27 January, Toshiba announced it would split off this part of the business from the rest of the company - with plans to sell a slice of it to raise much-needed funds to help offset the losses in the nuclear division. Initially the idea was to sell a small chunk of this business, about 20%, but now Toshiba finds itself in such dire straits that it may have to shed a larger proportion of this NAND memory unit. A 20% sale would raise more than $2bn, which may not be sufficient given the current difficulties. Also would-be buyers are likely to try and negotiate a knockdown price. The Development Bank of Japan has been talked about as one potential investor. Industry rivals including Canon and Western Digital are also thought to be eyeing a bid, and another potential buyer could be South Korea firm, SK Hynix. It wouldn't be the first time in recent memory Toshiba has sold off profitable ventures. Its medical devices business (making things like MRI, ultrasound and X-ray equipment) was snapped up by Canon in 2016 for $5.9bn. It seems somebody, somewhere got the numbers wrong or did not anticipate the scale of problems in the nuclear business, and that reflects badly on the firm's management. Also, the fiasco of its earnings announcement will not have helped. Toshiba has not release its figures as scheduled in February, then missed anther self-imposed deadline a month later. It did however release earnings guidance and unaudited numbers, with the promise of audited figures in a month. In addition, Toshiba is still struggling to recover after it emerged in 2015 that profits had been overstated for seven years, prompting the chief executive to resign. Toshiba's nuclear business has not made a profit since 2013. And while the firm has said the huge writedown will be a one-off, nuclear services globally are struggling. Since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, nuclear energy has been a much harder sell. Some governments have opted to scale back how much they planned to rely on nuclear as an electricity source, or - as in the case of Taiwan - turn away from nuclear energy altogether to focus on renewables. Big nuclear projects around the world have faced heavy delays, partly caused by a lack of skilled workers needed to meet regulatory standards. For example in the US, Westinghouse (which Toshiba bought in 2006) is working on two new generation nuclear reactors in Georgia and South Carolina which are running late and over budget. By filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Westinghouse will be able to renegotiate or break its construction contracts - although the businesses that own the projects it is working on would likely seek damages. Shares have fallen for a reason: investors selling up because of the unease they feel about the position the company is in. That uncertainty saw ratings agencies cut their ratings on Toshiba's credit, making it more expensive for the firm to borrow money. A lower share price also reduces the amount of new funds that can be raised by selling shares. So if it needs to raise funds, that means going to the banks for support or, as we are seeing, selling off parts of the business. And clearly for investors who've held on to Toshiba shares, they are now worth markedly less than they were before Christmas. Longer term though, Toshiba shares had been doing very well in 2016. Until 26 December they were the second biggest gainer on the Nikkei 225 index for the year, adding more than 70%. The sharp losses in late December meant annual gains were pared to about 5%. | What are the prospects for Toshiba's nuclear business? | 3,709 | Toshiba's nuclear business has not made a profit since 2013. And while the firm has said the huge writedown will be a one-off, nuclear services globally are struggling. Since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, nuclear energy has been a much harder sell. Some governments have opted to scale back how much they planned to rely on nuclear as an electricity source, or - as in the case of Taiwan - turn away from nuclear energy altogether to focus on renewables. Big nuclear projects around the world have faced heavy delays, partly caused by a lack of skilled workers needed to meet regulatory standards. For example in the US, Westinghouse (which Toshiba bought in 2006) is working on two new generation nuclear reactors in Georgia and South Carolina which are running late and over budget. By filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Westinghouse will be able to renegotiate or break its construction contracts - although the businesses that own the projects it is working on would likely seek damages. | 0.756776 | 0.745841 | 0.751309 |
724_0 | A diet of cassava, Irish potatoes and indigenous vegetables helped Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni shed 30kg (4 stone), he told the BBC. "I am always fit but the doctors pointed out the mistakes and then I decided to shed off," Mr Museveni said. The 75-year-old leader said he had not been watching his weight, which had gone up to 106kg. He denied comments on social media that he "looked tired", saying that he had deliberately shed some fat. In his personal blog last month, he said he "had allowed fat to accumulate in his body frame because the doctors had not explained to us clearly the mistake of not fighting fat". He added that his current weight of 76kg was suitable for his 5ft 7in (170cm) height. Mr Museveni did not say how long it took him to shed the 30kg. "I eat some cassava, because I don't eat your European food and your Asian foods. I eat our food; which is cassava, some bananas, millets and our vegetables," Mr Museveni told BBC Newsday presenter Alan Kasujja. "So I normally eat a little bit of that in the morning. Then no lunch, I just drink water and coffee without sugar because it's very bad - sugar is not good," he said. "Then at around seven [in the evening] I eat two Irish potatoes because they have got low starch, and a lot of vegetables to deceive the stomach that I am putting there something when in fact it's just the roughage," he added. Philippa Roxby, BBC News health reporter It is hard to assess President Museveni's diet without knowing the quantities involved. However, cutting down on sugar is certainly advised if weight loss is the aim. And going without lunch presumably means that, overall, he is eating less and if there are more locally-grown vegetables in his diet, that is also a change for the better. Potatoes and cassava are packed full of carbohydrates and fibre - an essential part of any diet, although they are not normally associated with losing weight. In 2015, he said that then US President Barack Obama told him during a meeting in Ethiopia that he looked young. "I forgot to tell him that it's because I eat Ugandan grown foods," Mr Museveni said. He has advised Ugandans several times to shun Western foods for local ones, which are, according to him, healthier and also stave off diseases. Mr Museveni has been in power since 1986 and plans to run for a sixth term in 2021. Pop star-turned politician Bobi Wine, 37, plans to run against him. Two weeks ago Mr Museveni walked 195km (121 miles) through central Uganda to retrace the journey his forces used in 1986 when they seized power. | How healthy is Museveni's diet? | 1,383 | Philippa Roxby, BBC News health reporter It is hard to assess President Museveni's diet without knowing the quantities involved. However, cutting down on sugar is certainly advised if weight loss is the aim. And going without lunch presumably means that, overall, he is eating less and if there are more locally-grown vegetables in his diet, that is also a change for the better. Potatoes and cassava are packed full of carbohydrates and fibre - an essential part of any diet, although they are not normally associated with losing weight. | 0.736036 | 0.766564 | 0.7513 |
6760_3 | Japan plans to leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to resume commercial hunting, media reports say. The government told its MPs of the decision, NHK reports. There has been no official confirmation of the move. Commercial whaling was banned by the IWC in 1986 after some whales were driven almost to extinction. For many years Japan has hunted whales for what it calls "scientific research" and to sell the meat, a programme widely criticised by conservationists. The Japanese government is expected to cite the recovery of certain whale species as justification for the move, although it's thought to be considering whaling only in its own waters. Officials in Japan say eating whales is part of its culture. A number of coastal communities in Japan have hunted whales for centuries, but consumption in the country surged only after World War Two when whales were the main source of meat. It has plummeted in recent decades. Wildlife protection groups have already criticised the planned withdrawal. Despite Japanese media widely reporting the decision has been taken, there has been no official announcement yet. Hideki Moronuki, from the Fisheries Agency of Japan, told the BBC that Japan was considering every possible option but has "not yet come up with a decision". Citing unnamed government sources, Kyodo news agency said a formal announcement could come next week. In September Tokyo tried to get the IWC to allow commercial catch quotas but the proposal was rejected. In 1986, IWC members agreed to a moratorium on hunting to allow whale stocks to recover. Pro-whaling nations expected the moratorium to be temporary, until consensus could be reached on sustainable catch quotas. Instead, it became a quasi-permanent ban. Whaling nations, such as Japan, Norway and Iceland, however argue the practice is part of their culture and should continue in a sustainable way. Today, whale stocks are carefully monitored, and while many species are still endangered, others - like the minke whale that Japan primarily hunts - are not. If Japan wants to leave the IWC, it has to send a notification by the end of the year. It would then be able to leave on 30 June 2019. Japan would, however, still be bound by certain international laws. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea binds countries to co-operate on the conservation of whales "through the appropriate international organisations for their conservation, management and study". The text does not say which international organisation that is. Japan could either try to set up another international body if it manages to get enough other countries to sign up - or join an existing one like the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (Nammco) instead. Like a smaller version of the IWC, Nammco is a grouping of pro-whaling nations - Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands - born out of frustration with the IWC. Yes, Japan has been hunting whales for the past 30 years but under a scientific programme, granted as an exception under the IWC ban. Critics say the practice is a cover for what actually amounts to commercial whaling. It means that whales can be taken for scientific studies and the meat can later be sold for consumption. Japan has caught between about 200 and 1,200 whales each year, saying it is investigating stock levels to see whether the whales are endangered or not. Japan has repeatedly tried to overturn the moratorium and secure agreement on sustainable catch quotas. The last attempt to do so came in September at an IWC summit in Brazil. Japan offered a package of measures, including setting up a Sustainable Whaling Committee and sustainable catch limits "for abundant whale stocks/species". The proposal was voted down. Since then there has been talk of the country simply leaving the body so it will no longer be bound by its rules. | Hasn't Japan been whaling all along? | 2,895 | Yes, Japan has been hunting whales for the past 30 years but under a scientific programme, granted as an exception under the IWC ban. Critics say the practice is a cover for what actually amounts to commercial whaling. It means that whales can be taken for scientific studies and the meat can later be sold for consumption. Japan has caught between about 200 and 1,200 whales each year, saying it is investigating stock levels to see whether the whales are endangered or not. | 0.701665 | 0.799829 | 0.750747 |
3642_1 | US President Donald Trump has urged Nato allies to commit 4% of their annual output (GDP) to military spending - double the current target. The White House confirmed he had made the remarks during the Western military alliance's summit in Brussels. The meeting also saw Mr Trump single out Germany for criticism over its defence spending. Nato's secretary-general said the main focus should be on all members reaching the current target of 2% of GDP. Jens Stoltenberg declined to answer a specific question about Mr Trump's remarks, but told reporters: "I think we should first get to 2%, focus on that now... the good thing is that we are moving to that." For decades after the end of the Cold War, he said, Nato countries had cut defence budgets as tensions fell - and now needed to increase them at a time when tensions were rising. Previous US presidents have urged Europe to take more responsibility for their defence and reduce the burden on US taxpayers of maintaining forces in Europe long after the end of the Cold War - but none as bluntly as Mr Trump. Confirming Mr Trump's comments, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: "President Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations." The Brussels meeting comes less than a week before Mr Trump is due to hold his first summit with Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki, reviving concerns among US allies over his proximity to the Russian president. Mr Trump's main objection is that all but a handful of member states have still not increased their defence budgets to meet a goal of spending at least 2% of their annual economic output on defence by 2024. Of Nato's 29 members, just five meet that target this year: the US, Greece, Estonia, the UK and Latvia. However, several, such as Poland and France, are close to the mark. At a news conference after the first meetings of leaders at the summit, Mr Stoltenberg insisted that more united Nato than divided it. "We have had discussions, we do have disagreements, but most importantly we have decisions that are pushing this alliance forward and making us stronger. "In the history of Nato we have had many disagreements and we have been able to overcome them again and again, because at the end of the day we all agree that North America and Europe are safer together." All 29 Nato members released a declaration which reaffirmed a commitment to increase military spending. The communique also condemned "Russian aggression", including the annexation of Crimea, the use of a nerve agent in southern England and "election interference". The BBC's James Cook, at the summit, says the question is, will President Trump take up those concerns directly with President Putin? Our correspondent adds that some European diplomats worry he will not, harbouring a suspicion that Mr Trump's commitment to the multilateral institutions which buttress the liberal world order is only skin deep. By Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent So is this mission accomplished at Nato for Donald Trump? Has he achieved his goal of persuading his European allies to spend more on defence? He began the day by calling them "delinquents" and ended it with smiles. The Nato summit communique contained the usual words about "turning a corner" in terms of defence spending, while recognising "the need to do more". How much more and how quickly still remains an issue, with Mr Trump suggesting that the benchmark Nato spending goal of 2% of GDP devoted to defence should be doubled to 4%. That is a level that all the allies apart from the US would struggle to attain. But the real underlying issue remains Mr Trump's commitment to Nato. Does he see it merely as a set of transactional relationships, or as an organisation enshrining the transatlantic partnership that has been the central element of European and US security since World War Two? Mr Trump clashed with Mrs Merkel ahead of the summit. The US president accused Germany of only spending "a little bit over 1%" of its economic output on defence compared to the 4.2% spent by the US "in actual numbers". Germany spends 1.24% of GDP on defence and the US 3.5%, according to the latest Nato estimate. The US leader also said: "Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they will be getting from 60% to 70% of their energy from Russia, and a new pipeline, and you tell me if that's appropriate because I think it's not and I think it's a very bad thing for Nato." EU figures suggest Russia is responsible for between 50% and 75% of Germany's gas imports, but gas makes up less than 20% of Germany's energy mix for power production. Mr Trump made more conciliatory remarks on Wednesday after he and Mrs Merkel met on the sidelines of the Brussels summit, saying defence spending and trade had been discussed. "We have a very, very good relationship with the chancellor. We have a tremendous relationship with Germany," Mr Trump said. But he later repeated his criticism of Germany and other allies in a tweet: Mrs Merkel has responded by comparing German independence now with the time when she grew up in the former East Germany, a satellite of the then Soviet Union. Mrs Merkel told reporters: "I am very happy that today we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany. Because of that we can say that we can make our independent policies and make independent decisions." | Is Trump committed to Nato? | 2,957 | By Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent So is this mission accomplished at Nato for Donald Trump? Has he achieved his goal of persuading his European allies to spend more on defence? He began the day by calling them "delinquents" and ended it with smiles. The Nato summit communique contained the usual words about "turning a corner" in terms of defence spending, while recognising "the need to do more". How much more and how quickly still remains an issue, with Mr Trump suggesting that the benchmark Nato spending goal of 2% of GDP devoted to defence should be doubled to 4%. That is a level that all the allies apart from the US would struggle to attain. But the real underlying issue remains Mr Trump's commitment to Nato. Does he see it merely as a set of transactional relationships, or as an organisation enshrining the transatlantic partnership that has been the central element of European and US security since World War Two? | 0.726043 | 0.775383 | 0.750713 |
3254_0 | Pakistani troops have been using helicopter gunships to try to dislodge a group of bandits from their hideouts in Punjab province. The offensive comes after more than 20 police officers were taken hostage by the gang. They are a gang of bandits operating along a stretch of Indus river in the remote south of Punjab province. Led by Ghulam Rasool, nicknamed Chhotu, they have been active in the region for more than a decade. The gang's members run into hundreds - more than 300 according to one account. It is one of the more prominent gangs among dozens operating along a 150km (95 mile) stretch between Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab and Kashmore in neighbouring Sindh province. These gangs are linked and conduct a range of activities including smuggling, gun-running, kidnapping for ransom and highway robberies. Chhotu and the rest of the core of the gang come from a branch of the Mazari tribe which dominates the Rojhan sub-district of Rajanpur. Remote and poor, the area is marked by feuds over land and family honour. It is dominated by politically influential landowners who are accused of paying off both the police and the bandits to protect their own interests. The Chhotu gang controls some key river islands along Rajanpur district, which are deeply forested. These islands lie between the Punjab regions of Rajanpur and Rahimyarkhan, and Kashmore district in Sindh. This riverine belt lies at the confluence of southern Punjab, Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It has served as a hideout of choice for bandits and freedom fighters/militants since the colonial era because it provides easy access into different jurisdictional zones that often lack a co-ordinated response. Due to the remoteness of the region, banditry has traditionally attracted little attention. Besides, the Mazari tribal leaders have often been able to prevail on the bandits to reverse actions that might embarrass the government. So in 2005, the Chhotu gang found themselves under considerable pressure after they kidnapped 12 Chinese engineers from nearby Indus Highway. They ended up releasing them without a ransom. Many believe the army's current move against the bandits is part of its plans to reassure the Chinese and secure the Indus Highway, which passes through the area and is the main route for the $46bn (PS32bn) economic corridor the Chinese propose to build to connect north-western China with the Pakistani port of Gwadar. The area is also understood to have served as a sanctuary for sectarian militants and Baloch insurgents, with whom the bandits are believed to share economic interests. In a recent telephone interview with Zafar Aheer, a Jang newspaper correspondent based in Multan, Chhotu admitted they were using Indian-made weapons, although he added they had been procured from Afghanistan. Mr Aheer, who met Chhotu in his island hideout in 2006, says the gang members were armed with both light and heavy machine guns, including an anti-aircraft gun which he said was planted near one of Chhotu's camps. During 18 days of police action, the bandits killed seven policemen and took 24 of them hostage. They have lost two men in the fighting so far. Since the army arrived on the scene there have been reports of shelling of the bandits' hideouts, but no ground action has been reported yet. One reason may be because the Chhotu gang are using hostages as human shields. Civilian populations along the riverbank, which may get caught in crossfire, have also not fully vacated the area yet despite several warnings The word Chhotu is a pet version of Chhota, meaning a small boy, and was given to him by Baba Lowng, the leader of a gang he joined when he was barely in his teens. His story is typical of any tribal youth from this region. The son of a small farmer, he served as a table boy at a truckers' tea stall in Kashmore in 1988, when he was 13. He told his Jang interviewer that one of his brothers went to jail because of a tribal dispute, and his father and other brothers went on the run to avoid arrest. A year or so later, he himself was implicated by some policemen in a "false" theft case after he failed to pay them bribes. In their absence, their family land, some 12 acres in all, was appropriated by their neighbours. When he came out of jail two years later, he joined Baba Lowng's gang to retrieve his family land. Later his brother also joined him. | Who are the Chhotu gang? | 218 | They are a gang of bandits operating along a stretch of Indus river in the remote south of Punjab province. Led by Ghulam Rasool, nicknamed Chhotu, they have been active in the region for more than a decade. The gang's members run into hundreds - more than 300 according to one account. It is one of the more prominent gangs among dozens operating along a 150km (95 mile) stretch between Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab and Kashmore in neighbouring Sindh province. These gangs are linked and conduct a range of activities including smuggling, gun-running, kidnapping for ransom and highway robberies. | 0.655093 | 0.845289 | 0.750191 |
1856_0 | The Afghan Taliban say they have unleashed "special forces" in an increasingly bloody battle with fighters from the rival, so-called Islamic State (IS) group. The Taliban's dominance and monopoly on insurgency in a region home to numerous local and foreign militant groups is being challenged by IS, which has been gaining some support. Who's winning the war of the militants? According to Taliban sources, the special task force, part of the Taliban's special forces command, was set up in early October and has more than 1,000 fighters - better equipped and trained than regular Taliban and with the sole aim of crushing IS. Special ops teams are handpicked for their fighting skills and experience and are active in all provinces where IS has a current or potential presence - including Nangarhar, Farah, Helmand and Zabul. But Taliban special forces will deploy anywhere against IS, leaving other Taliban to fight Afghan and foreign troops. When IS planned its expansion into Afghanistan, the Taliban quietly ordered their commanders to confront the group by "all means possible". Since April, the Taliban and IS have attacked each other many times as they try to hold or take territory. IS cells, mostly led by disgruntled ex-Afghan Taliban commanders - as well as some militants from Pakistan and Uzbekistan - have been targeted. Nangarhar, Helmand, Farah and Zabul provinces have seen most of the fighting, with hundreds of insurgents from both sides killed. Exact figures are not available but Taliban special ops units are thought to have killed dozens of IS fighters since October. For their part, IS has also killed dozens of Taliban, mainly in Nangarhar. They seek out Taliban whenever they can and have ambushed them many times. IS beheaded 10 Taliban fighters earlier this year in Nangarhar. In June, the Taliban shadow governor for the province, Mawlawi Mir Ahmad Gul, was assassinated in Peshawar. It was believed that IS was behind the attack. For the time being, it seems that IS has been largely eliminated in the south and west of the country. But its small groups of fighters are active in eastern Afghanistan, especially Nangarhar and Kunar provinces. IS is also focusing on northern Afghanistan where it wants to establish pockets to link up with other Uzbek, Tajik, Chechen and Uighur militants and cross international borders with ease. The two groups declared war on one another in January 2015 after IS announced the establishment of its branch in "Khorasan", an old name for Afghanistan and parts of neighbouring Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia. It was the first time that Islamic State, which has its roots in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, had officially spread outside the Arab world. IS, or "Daesh" as it is known by its Arabic acronym, was the first major militant group to directly challenge the authority of the Taliban's founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar, who was regarded by the Taliban as Amir-ul Momineen (Leader of the Faithful) of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda's leaders were given shelter by the Taliban leader and they had acknowledged his authority. But IS has been vocally opposed, with statements and propaganda videos questioning the legitimacy of the Taliban and accusing them of promoting the interests of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency. The Taliban hit back, telling the IS to stop "creating a parallel jihadist front". In an open letter to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dated 16 June, the Taliban warned they would be compelled "to defend our achievements". The IS response a week later, from its central spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, specifically mentioned opponents in Khorasan, Libya and Syria and accused them of committing a religious crime. IS fighters were ordered to "have no mercy or compassion" for those who didn't "repent" and "join the Caliphate". The Taliban's dominance has never been so directly challenged by other militants. Now their worst nightmare is a large-scale defection of their cadres to IS. To prevent this they have been confronting their new enemy on two fronts - militarily and ideologically. Islamic State is running an aggressive recruitment campaign and mainly targets militant commanders who have been expelled or sidelined. It has been exploiting the internal power struggle within the Taliban that became more visible when Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour was appointed as the new leader after the death of Mullah Omar was announced in July. Last month a breakaway Taliban faction was formed, further complicating matters - it says it is also against IS. The vast monetary resources enjoyed by IS have been a lure too. Many, especially the young unemployed, have been attracted by salaries as high as $500 a month. IS's future in Afghanistan is also closely linked to the fortunes of IS in Iraq and Syria, where it has taken swathes of territory. But many militants are in a "wait and see" phase or are too scared of the Taliban's harsh reprisals to make their allegiance to IS public. Elements in Pakistan's powerful military, who are accused of backing the Taliban, will have an important role to play in how things pan out. There are several ideological and cultural differences between the two groups. IS is a pan-Islamist organisation, has an agenda of borderless global jihad and aims to establish a single political entity consisting of all Muslim countries and territories. The Taliban insist their agenda is local, confined only to Afghanistan. Their stated aim is to free Afghanistan of "foreign occupation" and the full and immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country. By declaring the Caliphate, Abu Bakar Al-Baghdadi claims the allegiance of all Muslims. A video posted by the IS's Khorasan chapter in late May categorically says that there cannot be two Caliphs in the world and in the presence of the eligible one, the other Caliph needs to be eliminated. There are theological differences too. The Taliban is a conservative clerical movement loyal to the puritanical version of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, practised by the vast majority of Sunni Afghans. They generally believe in Sufism and have tended to avoid anti-Shia sectarian violence. IS, which subscribes to the ideology of the more austere Wahhabi/Salafi branch of Sunni Islam, does not believe in Sufism and regards Shias as non-believers. While announcing the establishment of its Khorasan chapter, IS said that the aim was "to impose Tawhid (monotheism) and rout Shirk (polytheism)", a reference to traditional Islam in which Sufi saints are venerated and shrines visited. The Taliban's religious scholars have also issued fatwas (religious edicts) against IS's legitimacy and ideology and justified fighting against it on religious grounds. Such attacks have been a serious setback for the newly-recruited IS militants in Afghanistan. The group appointed Hafiz Saeed Khan (a former Pakistani Taliban commander) as its "Khorasan governor" and Abdul Rauf Khadem (a prominent former Afghan Taliban commander) as his deputy. But just two weeks after his appointment, Khadem was killed in a US drone strike on 9 February in Helmand. A few days later, his successor was also killed in a similar strike. In early July, another key IS commander - formerly a Pakistani Taliban commander - and the group's local spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, were killed in a US airstrike in Nangarhar province. A few days later, the Afghan intelligence agency announced that Hafiz Saeed Khan had been killed along with 30 fighters in a "co-ordinated" drone strike in Nangarhar. The group denied the killing but has not provided credible evidence that he survived. Over the past year, up to 1,000 IS-linked fighters have been killed in US drone strikes and in fighting with the Taliban, statements by Afghan officials and media reports suggest. In some cases Islamic State fighters have come up with harsher and more elaborate ways of punishing and killing their opponents than their counterparts in the Middle East - particularly in Nangarhar province, their de facto "capital". One video in particular, released in August, created horror and fear throughout the country. It showed IS fighters herding 10 blindfolded people, including old men, to a hillside in Achin district, who were forced to sit on the ground on top of holes already filled with explosives. The video titled "monotheists take revenge on Apostates 2" also shows the aftermath, including flying ripped up body parts and dirt. In some parts of Nangarhar province, IS told villagers to provide wives for the newly recruited fighters and banned the smoking and selling of cigarettes. Narcotics, including the cultivation of opium poppies, were also banned. In December IS launched a local FM radio station in Nangarhar as part of its propaganda to attract more recruits. IS fighters have looted and burned hundreds of their opponents' houses and taken over others that had become vacant. While IS's ideology and the announcement of the Caliphate has attracted recruits in South and Central Asia, its brutal tactics have also alienated many in the region. The emergence of IS in Afghanistan poses a serious challenge to the Taliban's supremacy. But it has also helped them in many ways. Taliban leaders have already opened dialogue with several regional countries, assuring them that they would not allow IS to gain a foothold in Afghanistan and threaten their stability. States such as Iran, China and Russia have had to review their old policies of non-interaction with the Afghan Taliban. The Taliban are now fighting against two enemies - Islamic State and the Afghan government and its international allies (as well as the breakaway Taliban faction). IS is finding it hard to become a major force in the already congested militant market - but if it were to, it would not only fundamentally change the insurgency, but also mark the end of any hopes for a peace process in Afghanistan. Instability in the wider region would increase. Unless regional states implement a joint plan to bring stability, the prospects for the region look grim. | How many Taliban special forces are fighting Islamic State? | 377 | According to Taliban sources, the special task force, part of the Taliban's special forces command, was set up in early October and has more than 1,000 fighters - better equipped and trained than regular Taliban and with the sole aim of crushing IS. Special ops teams are handpicked for their fighting skills and experience and are active in all provinces where IS has a current or potential presence - including Nangarhar, Farah, Helmand and Zabul. But Taliban special forces will deploy anywhere against IS, leaving other Taliban to fight Afghan and foreign troops. | 0.746672 | 0.753551 | 0.750112 |
4324_0 | Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced an independent review into why 450,000 women in England failed to receive invitations for a final routine breast cancer screening between the ages of 68 and 71. So what went wrong with the NHS's screening programme? Breast screening aims to find cancer early by using an X-ray called a mammogram that can spot tumours when they're too small to see or feel. Around one-in-eight women in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime, and if it's detected early treatment is more likely to be successful. As the likelihood of getting breast cancer increases with age, women in the UK from the age of 50 who are registered with a GP are automatically invited for a screening with a letter every three years up until their 71st birthday. Women can't ask for an appointment themselves until they turn 70, when screening requests can be made every three years. The AgeX trial has been looking at offering screening to women as young as 47 and up to the age of 73 to see what risks and benefits there are to expanding the service for these women. In older women screening can pick up cancers that do not need to be treated. The NHS national breast screening programme invites more than 2.5 million women every year for a test, with about two million women taking up the offer. Mr Hunt told the Commons the problem was caused by a "computer algorithm failure", which led to some women not receiving their final breast screening when they were between the ages of 68 and 71. The problems happened between 2009 and the start of 2018. It is not currently known if anyone died as a result of the errors, but Mr Hunt said it was estimated that between 135 and 270 women may have had their life shortened. Public Health England spotted the issue in January during an analysis of data from the Age X trial. For the trial, women in some parts of England were put into two groups - one that got screening services beyond the normal cut-off ages and a control group that had screening invites at the standard ages. The BBC understands an error led to women in the control group wrongly being offered screenings up until their 70th birthday, rather than their 71st. This led to a bigger review that found a number of other issues, including some local services not inviting everyone for a final screen in the three years before their 71st birthday. Mr Hunt said further analysis found there had been issues with how people's ages were programmed into the IT system. The health secretary said the errors came to light after an upgrade to the breast screening invitation IT system. The issues were escalated to ministers in March by PHE following an urgent clinical review, and the government was told the error should not be made public to ensure existing screening services were not overwhelmed. The problems were fixed in April, the health secretary said. Scotland has a different system, and Wales and Northern Ireland have similar ones but do not seem to be affected, Mr Hunt said. Of those who were affected, 309,000 are estimated to be alive. Mr Hunt said the NHS intended to contact these women if they were still living in the UK and registered with a GP by the end of May, with the first 65,000 letters going out this week. Anyone who does not receive a letter this month is not likely to have been affected, he said. Those under the age of 72 will receive an appointment letter informing them of the time and date. Those over 72 will be offered access to a helpline to decide if it will be beneficial for them, as scans in older women can pick up cancers that do not require treatment. - Call the breast screening helpline number 0800 169 2692 - Go the NHS Choices website for more information Mr Hunt said "best endeavours" would be made to contact the next of kin of women who had missed a scan and subsequently died of breast cancer. A process will be set up to establish if the missed scan was a likely cause of death and whether compensation should be paid, Mr Hunt said. The independent review into the "serious failure" will look at how many people were affected, why that failure happened and how it can be prevented from happening again. But beyond this, Mr Hunt said it will also examine why systems did not detect the problem sooner, whether there were warnings that should have been noticed earlier, and if ministers should have been informed quicker. He also said it would look at what patient safety lessons could be learned. The review will be chaired by Lynda Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, and Professor Martin Gore, from the Royal Marsden Hospital - it is expected to report back in six months. | How does breast cancer screening work in England? | 259 | Breast screening aims to find cancer early by using an X-ray called a mammogram that can spot tumours when they're too small to see or feel. Around one-in-eight women in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime, and if it's detected early treatment is more likely to be successful. As the likelihood of getting breast cancer increases with age, women in the UK from the age of 50 who are registered with a GP are automatically invited for a screening with a letter every three years up until their 71st birthday. Women can't ask for an appointment themselves until they turn 70, when screening requests can be made every three years. The AgeX trial has been looking at offering screening to women as young as 47 and up to the age of 73 to see what risks and benefits there are to expanding the service for these women. In older women screening can pick up cancers that do not need to be treated. The NHS national breast screening programme invites more than 2.5 million women every year for a test, with about two million women taking up the offer. | 0.70347 | 0.793453 | 0.748462 |
9938_0 | Ed Miliband has vowed that a Labour government would give employees on "exploitative" zero-hours contracts the legal right to a regular contract after they have worked 12 weeks of regular hours. A: Zero-hours contracts, or casual contracts, allow employers to hire staff with no guarantee of work. They mean employees work only when they are needed by employers, often at short notice. Their pay depends on how many hours they work. Some zero-hours contracts require workers to take the shifts they are offered, while others do not. Sick pay is often not included, although holiday pay should be, in line with working time regulations. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says that 697,000 people were employed on zero-hours contracts for their main job between October and December 2014, based on figures from the Labour Force Survey. That represents 2.3% of the UK workforce. This figure is higher than the figure of 586,000 (1.9% of people in employment) reported for the same period in 2013. The ONS said it was unclear how much of the rise was due to greater recognition of the term "zero-hours contracts", rather than new contracts being offered. The number of contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours was 1.8 million as of August 2014. That was 400,000 more than the previous estimate for January 2014. The ONS said the differences in the two totals could reflect seasonal factors, because they cover different times of the year. A survey of employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that a third of voluntary sector organisations used zero-hours contracts, along with a quarter of public sector employers and 17% of private sector firms. A high proportion of staff at companies including retailer Sports Direct, pub chain JD Wetherspoon and cinema operator Cineworld are on zero-hours contracts. They are also used by other employers, including a number of London councils and Buckingham Palace. A: There is concern that zero-hours contracts do not offer enough financial stability and security. The ONS found that employees on such a contract worked an average of 25 hours a week. However, about a third of those on zero-hours contracts want more hours - mostly in their current job - compared with just 10% of other people in employment. The CIPD research found that 16% of zero-hours workers said their employer often failed to provide them with sufficient hours each week. The ONS said that zero-hours workers were more likely to be women or in full-time education and aged under 25 or over 65. Employees on zero-hours contracts also do not have the same employment rights as those on traditional contracts, and critics are concerned that the contracts are being used to avoid employers' responsibilities to employees. The CIPD warned that employers may also take advantage of zero-hours contracts by using them as a management tool - offering more hours to favoured employees and fewer to those less valued. Employers say zero-hours contracts allow them to take on staff in response to fluctuating demand for their services, in sectors such as tourism and hospitality. Employers also say that many workers appreciate the flexibility that a zero-hours contract gives them. Some 38% of workers in the CIPD research described themselves as employed full-time, working 30 hours or more a week, despite being on zero hours. Michael Burd, joint head of employment at the law firm Lewis Silkin, says the majority of employers use zero-hour contracts, not to avoid giving employees their rights, but to avoid paying fixed overheads and give them flexibility over their workforce. He points out that this flexibility is envied by employers in struggling economies such as Spain and Greece, where potential costs may dissuade employers from taking on staff. The Institute of Directors has voiced concern about Labour's proposed policy, saying the changes would be unnecessary and potentially damaging. Christian May, head of communications and campaigns, said: "Limiting the use of a zero-hours contract to just 12 weeks would apply rigid controls on an important element of our flexible labour market. They are used by a little over 2% of workers, which can hardly be described as an epidemic. Nobody supports the misuse of these contracts, but demonising and ultimately outlawing them will simply risk jobs." Simon Rice-Birchall, partner at law firm Eversheds, said it was not clear how the proposed new right would apply, given that Labour refers to "employees" rather than "workers". "Many staff on zero-hours contracts are workers and do not have full employment status. In addition, depending how the change in the law is drafted, there is a risk that some employers may simply offer contracts with minimal fixed hours to limit its impact," he said. | Q: What are zero-hours contracts? | 195 | A: Zero-hours contracts, or casual contracts, allow employers to hire staff with no guarantee of work. They mean employees work only when they are needed by employers, often at short notice. Their pay depends on how many hours they work. Some zero-hours contracts require workers to take the shifts they are offered, while others do not. Sick pay is often not included, although holiday pay should be, in line with working time regulations. | 0.672982 | 0.823877 | 0.74843 |
9162_3 | For a business that now sees itself as being all about wellness and not just shedding pounds, the company formerly known as Weight Watchers looks like it has been on a crash diet. In the second half of its financial year, it dropped 600,000 subscribers. And at the beginning of its peak season - when Christmas overindulgence morphs into New Year virtuousness - membership is well below forecasts. The problem, it seems, is all in the name. After 56 years of trading as Weight Watchers, the company changed its name last September to WW, which, it says, doesn't stand for anything - not Weight Watchers, not even its new tagline "Wellness that Works". The intention, under new chief executive Mindy Grossman, was to modernise the brand amid a cultural shift to body positivity that now emphasises health and wellness as opposed to counting calories. But Ms Grossman this week admitted to analysts - when the company missed full-year forecasts and warned on profits - that using the word "weight" in its marketing actually carried, well, more weight. "I think it needed to be more weight-loss focused, especially in the January season," she said. She added that it needed to be made clearer that Weight Watchers is now WW. Yanhui Zhao, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, says that the rebranding of Weight Watchers to WW was "a risky move" in the first place. "A rebranding project may lead to losses in brand awareness and brand familiarity. "These risks were even bigger for WW, considering their almost 60-year brand history in the market. Firms should be especially cautious when abandoning a long-standing brand name." Not even the motivational tones of Oprah Winfrey - a board member, strategic adviser and owner of an 8% stake in WW - could lift subscriber numbers and avoid the PS50m dent to operating profit in the first quarter following the name change. Despite introducing a voice over by Ms Winfrey to its advertising explaining that Weight Watchers is now WW, the company made a "soft start" to the year which, its chief financial officer Nick Hotchkin says, is "difficult to recover from". Camilla Butcher, strategist at branding company Siegel+Gale, questions whether the company should have changed the brand at all. "The name, if anything, for any brand is really sometimes the most important asset. That is what a brand is when it really comes down to it, it can be name, the meaning and the feelings that are associated with that name." She adds: "I think that we live in such a fast-moving time... and there's nothing more shifting than the diet and weight loss category." WW boss Ms Grossman says the company is operating in a "very competitive environment", with trends such as the high-fat, low carb "keto" diet becoming popular. But Ms Butcher says: "By nature, it is a whole industry of fads and things that come and go, and Weight Watchers' absolute strength was the fact that they had stood the test of time." Shareholders, it appears, also weren't too sold on the name change when it was announced back in September. In a study looking at the effects of rebranding on share price returns by University of Nebraska's Prof Zhao, in association with Prof Roger Calantone and Prof Clay Voorhees from Michigan State University, an examination of 215 announcements showed that on average, stocks rose 2.5%. But the research also found that 40% of the rebranding announcements were associated with negative shareholder reactions. For WW, Prof Zhao found that its share price fell 30% in the month after it said it was changing its name. While the name change may have puzzled some, the reasoning behind it makes sense. Ms Butcher says: "I think there are very valid conversations to be had about the term 'weight' and whether that is a helpful thing to be talking about any more." Also, the image of the company needed refreshing, says Prof Zhao: "Their previous brand image was outdated and was not appealing to millennials, males and many other demographics." In order to address this, WW recruited singer Robbie Williams and Instagram star DJ Khaled as "brand ambassadors". However, it was not the idea, but its execution that has hurt WW. "I just think it happened very quickly... the timing was probably a mistake," Brian Nagel, senior equity analyst at Oppenheimer told CNBC. "They did this around October, November of last year, two months before the peak season." WW's peak first quarter season brings in about 40% of its annual recruits. While its total subscribers for 2018 rose by 22% on the previous year - helped by strong first half as it introduced its new WW Freestyle programme - recruitment numbers have fallen in the first quarter. Revenue for the first three months of the year will now be down by 10% and operating profit will drop by $50m compared to the same period last year. For the full year, sales will now be $1.4bn, down from $1.5bn in 2018, and WW will no longer meet its $2bn annual revenue target by 2020. Prof Zhao says: "Although rebranding was necessary for them, they probably shouldn't have acted so fast to change their brand name. "They should have started with a revised brand strategy and updated brand offerings, and then started to made small changes to their brand identity, such as brand logo and tagline. "Corporate name change should have been their very last step of rebranding." For its part, WW is sticking with its new name. Ms Grossman said: "We believe [in] the most WW and Wellness that Works for the long-term relevance and performance as a brand is the right thing to do. She added: "We are not giving up our leadership in healthy weight loss." | How should have Weight Watchers changed its brand? | 4,998 | Prof Zhao says: "Although rebranding was necessary for them, they probably shouldn't have acted so fast to change their brand name. "They should have started with a revised brand strategy and updated brand offerings, and then started to made small changes to their brand identity, such as brand logo and tagline. "Corporate name change should have been their very last step of rebranding." For its part, WW is sticking with its new name. Ms Grossman said: "We believe [in] the most WW and Wellness that Works for the long-term relevance and performance as a brand is the right thing to do. She added: "We are not giving up our leadership in healthy weight loss." | 0.783486 | 0.713248 | 0.748367 |
2455_0 | Opposition leaders in Sudan say its military rulers are being exploited by foreign powers, eager to take advantage of the country's natural resources and strategic location. A power-sharing deal has recently been reached between the military and opposition groups - but Sudan's political future remains uncertain. So which countries are involved with Sudan and what are they hoping to gain? The United Arab Emirates is Sudan's biggest destination for exports. It buys most of the country's lucrative money-earner, gold. Second is China, which imports significant amounts of crude oil. Sudan's oil industry was once a much larger proportion of its economy - but when South Sudan broke away in 2011, most of its oil fields went with it. Oil now accounts for just 1% of Sudan's economy, compared with just under 20% in 2011. The next significant destination for Sudan's goods is Saudi Arabia, which buys mostly livestock. With the drop in oil exports, Sudan has sought to bolster its agriculture sector - and this has involved granting land leases to foreign powers. Sudan has agreed to lease millions of acres to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey and China, and is in the process of making similar deals for other countries, including Jordan, Egypt and the UAE. Sudan's coastline, on the Red Sea, is an important shipping route, close to the continuing war in Yemen, and various countries are vying for influence. Most of the country's trade currently passes through Port Sudan. However, a contract worth $2.4bn (PS1.9bn) to develop and operate the port, granted to a Philippine company, has been suspended by the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC), following a strike by workers earlier this year. And an even bigger contract has been agreed to develop another port facility, in the city of Suakin, south of Port Sudan. In march last year, Turkey and Qatar signed a deal worth $4bn to support Sudan in the development of this port. This is seen as both a highly strategic move and a politically sensitive one - as it could allow Turkey to establish a military presence on the Red Sea. But both Turkey and Qatar are political rivals to Sudan's increasingly influential backers, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And Saudi Arabia and the UAE, having provided an aid package of about $3bn to Sudan since the military took power in April, have been putting pressure on the government to cancel the deal. "It's becoming clear that the UAE is extremely influential in the TMC," says Annette Weber, a senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Sudan is also a recipient of significant amounts of Chinese infrastructure investment as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative to create a global trade route. The growing economic and political influence of Saudi Arabia and the UAE is nowhere more apparent than in the military support the Sudanese military has been providing in Yemen. Sudanese forces have been active in Yemen in support of the Saudi-led coalition against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. "Sudan has 16,000 troops securing the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border," says Dr Weber, who cites a senior ranking government official as the source. These forces have been under the command of Gen Mohammed "Hemeti" Hamadan, now a powerful figure within Sudan's military leadership. This deployment of troops to Yemen, which began as far back as 2015, has been seen as a clear shift of Sudanese foreign policy towards Saudi Arabia and its allies and away from its earlier close ties with Iran. Read more from Reality Check Send us your questions Follow us on Twitter | Who's buying Sudan's resources? | 391 | The United Arab Emirates is Sudan's biggest destination for exports. It buys most of the country's lucrative money-earner, gold. Second is China, which imports significant amounts of crude oil. Sudan's oil industry was once a much larger proportion of its economy - but when South Sudan broke away in 2011, most of its oil fields went with it. Oil now accounts for just 1% of Sudan's economy, compared with just under 20% in 2011. The next significant destination for Sudan's goods is Saudi Arabia, which buys mostly livestock. With the drop in oil exports, Sudan has sought to bolster its agriculture sector - and this has involved granting land leases to foreign powers. Sudan has agreed to lease millions of acres to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey and China, and is in the process of making similar deals for other countries, including Jordan, Egypt and the UAE. | 0.760215 | 0.734191 | 0.747203 |
7930_0 | China has hit back at President Donald Trump by announcing new trade tariffs on $60bn of US goods. It comes after the US slapped duties on $200bn of Chinese imports to take effect from next Monday, escalating its trade war with Beijing. China will target goods such as liquefied natural gas, produced in states loyal to the US president. However, in a tweet, Mr Trump warned Beijing against seeking to influence the upcoming US midterm elections. "There will be great and fast economic retaliation against China if our farmers, ranchers and/or industrial workers are targeted!" he said. Earlier he had suggested that this would mean further US tariffs on another $267bn worth of Chinese products. Such a move would mean roughly all of China's exports to the US would be subject to new duties. The Chinese commerce ministry said it would impose its tariffs from 24 September - the date the US duties come into effect - but at lower rates than previously expected. It will place an additional 5% in duty on US products including smaller aircraft, computers and textiles, and an extra 10% on goods such as chemicals, meat, wheat and wine. By contrast, the US duties will apply to almost 6,000 items, making them the biggest round of trade tariffs yet from Washington. They will affect handbags, rice and textiles, although some items such as smart watches and high chairs have been exempted. They will start at 10% and increase to 25% from the start of next year unless the two countries agree a deal. On Monday Mr Trump said the latest round of tariffs was in response to China's "unfair trade practices". "We have been very clear about the type of changes that need to be made, and we have given China every opportunity to treat us more fairly. But, so far, China has been unwilling to change its practices," he said. Yes. In fact, the latest round of US duties marks the third set of tariffs put into motion so far this year. In July, the White House increased charges on $34bn worth of Chinese products. Then last month, the escalating trade war moved up a gear when the US brought in a 25% tax on a second wave of goods worth $16bn. This latest round means that about half of all Chinese imports to the US are now subject to the new duties. Unlike the earlier rounds, the list also targets consumer goods such as luggage and furniture. That means households may start to feel the impact from higher prices. US companies have already said they are worried about the effect of higher costs on their businesses and warned of the risk of job cuts. Many everyday items such as suitcases, handbags, toilet paper and wool are included in this latest round of tariffs. The list also includes food items from frozen cuts of meat, to almost all types of fish, soybeans, various types of fruit and cereal and rice. The list of Chinese products slated for tariffs originally included more than 6,000 items, but US officials later removed about 300 types of items, including smart watches, bicycle helmets, play pens, high chairs and baby car seats. The changes come after fierce opposition from US companies including Apple and Dell, which fear the tariffs will increase their costs as many of their products are made in China. Earlier this month, Apple wrote to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer warning that consumers would have to pay more for its products as a result of the proposed tariffs. At the time, Mr Trump replied with a tweet urging Apple: "Make your products in the United States instead of China." The White House says its tariffs are a response to China's "unfair" trade policies. The import charges will make Chinese-made products more expensive - a move intended to convince US businesses and consumers to buy elsewhere. US officials hope the risk to the Chinese economy will convince Beijing to change its policies. But many US businesses are critical of the tariffs with farmers, manufacturers, retailers and other industry groups calling them taxes on American families. Before its latest round of tariffs, China had previously imposed duties on $50bn of US products in retaliation, targeting key parts of the president's political base, such as farmers. The aim is to put pressure on businesses in states that supported Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election. The European Union has also used the tactic in its trade skirmishes with the US. Not really. Talks between high-level officials ended in May without resolving the matter and efforts to restart discussions have failed. US and China officials had discussed a new round of talks over the past week, but Mr Trump's latest move is likely to sour relations further. Andrew Walker, BBC economics correspondent The immediate objective of President Trump's action against China is to address what he calls the theft of American companies' technology, but it also plays into his wider concern about the US trade deficit. He sees it as something that needs to be corrected and as the result of bad trade agreements and unfair trading by other countries. The trouble is that a trade deficit is generally regarded as being the result of savings and investment decisions rather than trade policy. A country that spends more than it earns has a trade deficit. President Trump's other policies include tax cuts that could increase government borrowing, which is equivalent to cutting national saving and could create a bigger trade deficit. What Mr Trump hopes is that the tax cuts will boost economic activity so much that they will generate more revenue - and "pay for themselves". That's another area of economic controversy. | Hasn't the US already imposed tariffs on China? | 1,817 | Yes. In fact, the latest round of US duties marks the third set of tariffs put into motion so far this year. In July, the White House increased charges on $34bn worth of Chinese products. Then last month, the escalating trade war moved up a gear when the US brought in a 25% tax on a second wave of goods worth $16bn. This latest round means that about half of all Chinese imports to the US are now subject to the new duties. Unlike the earlier rounds, the list also targets consumer goods such as luggage and furniture. That means households may start to feel the impact from higher prices. US companies have already said they are worried about the effect of higher costs on their businesses and warned of the risk of job cuts. | 0.745441 | 0.748377 | 0.746909 |
2433_2 | Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said when it comes to trade with the EU after Brexit: "We want a comprehensive free trade agreement, similar to Canada's". The EU's agreement with Canada is called the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or Ceta for short. The EU began negotiating with Canada in 2009, and Ceta provisionally came into force in 2017, although it has not yet been signed off by all the EU member states. We've heard a lot about wanting a "zero-tariff, zero-quota" deal between the UK and the EU. Ceta does not do that. Ceta gets rid of most, but not all, tariffs (that's taxes on imports) on goods traded between the EU and Canada. Tariffs remain on poultry, meat and eggs. It also increases quotas (that's the amount of a product that can be exported without extra charges) but does not get rid of them altogether. For example, quotas on EU cheese exports to Canada increase from 18,500 tonnes to 31,972 tonnes a year. It does little for the trade in services and in particular almost nothing for the trade in financial services, which is very important for the UK economy. It also does not remove border checks, so there is still a possibility that goods have to be examined at ports to make sure they meet regulatory requirements, and their paperwork is in order. Ceta protects EU "geographical indications", meaning for example that you can only make Parma ham in Italy and camembert cheese in France, and Canada can't import something that calls itself camembert from any other country. They have also agreed to open up government contracts to each other, so Canadian companies could bid to build French railways, for example. There is also co-operation between the two countries on standards, so a piece of equipment made in an EU country can go through all its safety and quality checks there, without needing to have them repeated in Canada - and vice versa. Ceta also allows professional qualifications to be recognised both in Canada and the EU, making it easier, for example, for architects or accountants to work in both places. And it aligns Canadian rules in some areas of copyright and patents with those of the EU. Countries that are closer to each other tend to trade more, especially in goods, and this is the case with the UK and the EU. The UK exported PS291bn of goods and services to other EU countries in 2018, which was 45% of all UK exports. It imported PS357bn of goods and services from the EU, which was 53% of all UK imports. On the other hand, Canada exported 46.2bn Canadian dollars (PS26.7bn) of goods and services to the EU in 2017, which was 7.9% of its exports. It imported 63.6bn Canadian dollars of goods and services to the EU, which was 10.5% of its imports. The prime minister also mentioned having an arrangement with the EU similar to Australia's. The EU does not have a free trade deal with Australia. They are in negotiations for one, but they currently operate mainly on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. There was an EU-Australia Partnership Framework agreed in 2008, which reduces barriers to trade, but was not a free trade agreement. So, trading on a similar basis to Australia would be largely the same as trading under WTO rules. In other words, it's another way of saying the UK would leave with no trade deal in place. What claims do you want BBC Reality Check to investigate? Get in touch Read more from Reality Check Follow us on Twitter | Is the UK's trade with the EU like Canada's? | 2,154 | Countries that are closer to each other tend to trade more, especially in goods, and this is the case with the UK and the EU. The UK exported PS291bn of goods and services to other EU countries in 2018, which was 45% of all UK exports. It imported PS357bn of goods and services from the EU, which was 53% of all UK imports. On the other hand, Canada exported 46.2bn Canadian dollars (PS26.7bn) of goods and services to the EU in 2017, which was 7.9% of its exports. It imported 63.6bn Canadian dollars of goods and services to the EU, which was 10.5% of its imports. | 0.731947 | 0.761382 | 0.746665 |
6790_0 | We all do it - we don't quite understand something, so we reach for our phones and Google it. And Brexit is no different. Here we answer the five most-googled questions to do with Brexit over the past 24 hours. Don't worry, we promise to keep it simple. Brexit - short for "British exit" - is the process of the UK leaving the EU (European Union). The EU is a group of 28 countries which trade with each other and allow anyone to easily move between the countries to live and work. The UK had a referendum in June 2016 where it voted to leave the EU, which it's been part of for more than 40 years. But the exit didn't happen straight away - it's happening on 29 March 2019. After Brexit was voted for, negotiations started between the UK and the EU. The negotiations are over the "divorce" deal. This is a withdrawal agreement which sets out how exactly we leave the EU - not what will happen after we leave. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May presented that deal. Here are some key points: - Payment: The UK will pay PS39bn to the EU to cover what it owes - Transition period: Between 29 March 2019 and 31 December 2020 nothing much changes to allow the UK and EU to strike a trade deal and to give businesses the time to adjust - Immigration: EU citizens and their families can continue to move to the UK freely before 31 December 2020 - Trade: There won't be any changes to trade in the transition period - Northern Ireland: Neither the UK or the EU wants there to be a physical border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (here's why). But in the deal, there's an agreement for a backstop. This has been one of the biggest sticking points of the whole thing. Neither the UK or the EU want a visible or "hard" border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland with guard posts and checks. So they've agreed to put in place a "backstop" - that's just another word for a deal to make sure a hard border never happens. It would mean that Northern Ireland - but not the rest of the UK - would still follow some EU rules on things like food products and goods standards. The backstop would only be introduced if a trade deal between the EU and the UK isn't sorted out during the transitional period. But this bit is controversial. Some people say it means the UK would still be tied to EU rules while others don't like the idea of Northern Ireland having different regulations to the rest of the UK. On 25 November, the prime minister will try and get European leaders to officially back the deal. If approved, she then has to take it to MPs for a vote in Parliament. That's expected to happen in December. At the moment it looks like her deal would be defeated. She doesn't have enough Conservative MPs to force it through and there are MPs from all parties who aren't happy with what's being suggested. Well, it is written into UK law that Brexit is going to happen. But some people are calling for a second referendum (they call it a "People's Vote"), which would basically ask the question: "Do you want the UK to leave the EU, now we know what the deal is?" If that happened, then Brexit could potentially be reversed - but Theresa May has repeatedly said there won't be another referendum. *The list of most searched for questions was provided by Google Trends. Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 every weekday on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra - if you miss us you can listen back here. | What does Brexit mean? | 254 | Brexit - short for "British exit" - is the process of the UK leaving the EU (European Union). The EU is a group of 28 countries which trade with each other and allow anyone to easily move between the countries to live and work. The UK had a referendum in June 2016 where it voted to leave the EU, which it's been part of for more than 40 years. But the exit didn't happen straight away - it's happening on 29 March 2019. | 0.749149 | 0.743767 | 0.746458 |
8420_0 | Iran says it seized a "foreign tanker" and its 12 crew on Sunday for smuggling fuel in the Gulf. Iran's state media published footage of Iranian speedboats circling around the Panamanian-flagged Riah tanker. In a separate development, US President Donald Trump said the US Navy downed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz. He said the USS Boxer "took defensive action" after the drone had come within about 1,000 yards (914m) of the vessel. Iran has so far made no public comments on the drone. Relations between the US and Iran are badly strained, with the US blaming Iran for attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf. Iran denies the allegations. The Revolutionary Guards' Sepah News site said on Thursday that the alleged fuel-smuggling ship was seized on Sunday during naval patrols aimed at "discovering and confronting organised smuggling". The ship had a two-million-litre capacity, but was carrying one million litres of fuel when it was seized south of Iran's Larak Island, the website said. The ship and crew were caught "trying to hand over smuggled fuel which it had received from Iranian dhows to foreign ships further afield", it went on. The case is now "going through judicial procedures". State media later published footage of Iranian speedboats circling around the Panamanian-flagged Riah tanker. Iran earlier in the week said it had come to the aid of a broken-down tanker, without naming the Riah. It made no mention of seizing the ship. The UK government said it was seeking further information over the reports and urged the Iranian authorities to "de-escalate the situation in the region". Tensions have been high in the Gulf since the US tightened the sanctions that it reimposed on Iran's oil sector after unilaterally withdrawing from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal. The US has blamed Iran for two separate attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman in May and June - an allegation Tehran has denied. Iran also shot down a US surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz in disputed circumstances. UK warships have meanwhile been shadowing British oil tankers in the area since Iran threatened to seize one in response to the impounding of an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar. The UK said the tanker was suspected of breaching EU sanctions against Syria. Iran denied it was en route there. US Central Command Chief General Kenneth McKenzie, speaking on a visit to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, said he was working "aggressively" to find a solution to free passage for ships through the Gulf region, Reuters news agency reports. The situation of missing or impounded tankers in the congested waters of the southern Gulf is far from clear. Commercial vessels navigating the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the high seas are all normally equipped with a transponder known as AIS (Automatic Identification System). This transmits their location on two dedicated VHF (Very High Frequency) channels. When it is switched off, the ship's signal disappears from the satellite map, making it difficult, as in this case, to work out where a ship has gone to and what it is up to. What is beyond doubt is that illegal smuggling has been going on for decades in the Gulf, including by oil tanker captains hugging the Iranian coastline to stay out of international waters, allegedly bribing local coastguards along the way. For years a fleet of fast Iranian speedboats has plied the short distance between the Omani port of Khasab and Iranian ports close to Bandar Abbas, evading coastguard patrols and smuggling cigarettes and other lucrative contraband. May 2018: US President Donald Trump withdraws from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, and later imposes punishing sanctions against Iran 2 May 2019: Mr Trump steps up pressure on Tehran by ending exemptions from secondary sanctions for countries still buying Iranian oil 5 May: The US sends an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers to the Gulf because of "troubling and escalatory indications" related to Iran 8 May: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says Iran will scale back its commitments under the nuclear deal in retaliation for the US sanctions 12 May: Four oil tankers are damaged by explosions off the UAE coast in the Gulf of Oman. The UAE says the blasts were caused by limpet mines planted by a "state actor". The US blames Iran, but Tehran denies the allegation 13 June: Explosions hit two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The US again accuses Iran, releasing footage purportedly showing Iranian forces removing an unexploded limpet mine from a damaged vessel. Iran says the evidence is fabricated 20 June: Iranian forces shoot down a US military drone over the Strait of Hormuz 1 July: Iran breaches a limit on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium set under the nuclear deal. Enriched uranium is used to make reactor fuel, and potentially nuclear weapons 4 July: Gibraltar, assisted by British Royal Marines, seizes Iranian oil tanker Grace 1 on suspicion of breaking EU sanctions on trade with Syria. Iran says the tanker was not going to Syria 7 July: Iran breaches another commitment under the nuclear deal by resuming enriching uranium to higher levels. It vows to reverse the step if European countries do more to mitigate the effects of the US sanctions 10 July: UK says Iranian naval vessels tried to impede a British tanker as it moved into the Strait of Hormuz, before being forced to back off by a Royal Navy frigate. Iran denied attempting to seize the tanker. | What did Iran say about the tanker? | 647 | The Revolutionary Guards' Sepah News site said on Thursday that the alleged fuel-smuggling ship was seized on Sunday during naval patrols aimed at "discovering and confronting organised smuggling". The ship had a two-million-litre capacity, but was carrying one million litres of fuel when it was seized south of Iran's Larak Island, the website said. The ship and crew were caught "trying to hand over smuggled fuel which it had received from Iranian dhows to foreign ships further afield", it went on. The case is now "going through judicial procedures". State media later published footage of Iranian speedboats circling around the Panamanian-flagged Riah tanker. Iran earlier in the week said it had come to the aid of a broken-down tanker, without naming the Riah. It made no mention of seizing the ship. The UK government said it was seeking further information over the reports and urged the Iranian authorities to "de-escalate the situation in the region". | 0.76117 | 0.731109 | 0.74614 |
9000_0 | Fortnite, the video game whose sudden rise has grabbed the imagination of gamers, is "not addictive", a Scottish university researcher has claimed. Andrew Reid, a doctoral researcher of serious games at Glasgow Caledonian University, said people found the game hard to stop playing. But he warned against using the term "addictive", which could stigmatise regular consumers of video games. He said some research showed "positive characteristics of play". After six years in development Epic games released Fortnite in July 2017. It is a co-operative survival shooting game that lets players build structures out of materials they scavenge from the game world. Its most popular format is the Battle Royale mode which pits 100 players against each other, some of whom are in small teams, to see who is the last person standing. The game is free but players can spend real money on in-app purchases. Concerns have been raised about hackers getting access to accounts used for purchases and over the potential dangers of children playing the game online with strangers. Since last year's release, it has been available to play on gaming devices such as the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, as well as PC and Mac. It has recently become available on some mobile devices. Mr Reid said the game was proving very popular because it was "carefully created to deliver a truly engaging experience". He said the gaming experience was different for each player and changed each time. Mr Reid said there was scope for further research on what constituted video-game addiction but it had been "suggestively been defined as the excessive consumption of games that conflict with everyday living". The researcher said it would be better to consider the reasons for wide and regular consumption of video games without calling players "addicts". "To do otherwise would be to stigmatise the medium as an evil to our society, despite a growing portfolio of video games and research that reinforce the positive characteristics of play and interactivity," he said. Mr Reid said Fortnite had a "cartoony, exaggerated style" unlike 18-rated games such as Call of Duty whose hyper-realistic style may have different consequences on children's perceptions. He advised parents to try to encourage children to play in moderation. Mr Reid added: "I'd also suggest playing Fortnite yourself to understand why children might be interested in it - so that you can speak the same language and get on the same wavelength." | What is Fortnite? | 455 | After six years in development Epic games released Fortnite in July 2017. It is a co-operative survival shooting game that lets players build structures out of materials they scavenge from the game world. Its most popular format is the Battle Royale mode which pits 100 players against each other, some of whom are in small teams, to see who is the last person standing. The game is free but players can spend real money on in-app purchases. Concerns have been raised about hackers getting access to accounts used for purchases and over the potential dangers of children playing the game online with strangers. Since last year's release, it has been available to play on gaming devices such as the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, as well as PC and Mac. It has recently become available on some mobile devices. | 0.72643 | 0.765646 | 0.746038 |
6590_2 | When Hong Kong was handed back to China on 1 July 1997, following more than 150 years of British control, the "one country, two systems" principle was established as the foundation of the relationship. While Hong Kong is part of China, the policy has given the Special Administrative Region (SAR) a high degree of autonomy. Here is a breakdown of how this unique system works. The "one country, two systems" principle is enshrined in a document called the Basic Law - Hong Kong's mini constitution. That came into effect on 1 July 1997, the day British rule ended and the territory was returned to China. That agreement is only valid for 50 years. Basic Law protects rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of speech - neither of which exist in mainland China - and also sets out the structure of governance for the territory. Hong Kong is ruled by a chief executive with support from a formal body of advisors, called the Executive Council. The chief executive is responsible for implementing the Basic Law, signing bills and budgets, promulgating laws - declaring them as in effect - and issuing executive orders. It also has a two-tiered semi-representative system of government: the law-making Legislative Council and district councils, as well as an independent judiciary. The chief executive is elected by an Election Committee of 1,200 people, who are in turn chosen by representatives of various sectors in Hong Kong - who only make up 6% of the electorate. The chief executive must be formally appointed to the role by the central Chinese government. The Basic Law states that the "ultimate aim" is for the chief executive to be selected by "universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee". This means that many in Hong Kong feel they were promised a level of democracy that has not been delivered. LegCo, as it is widely known, makes and amends Hong Kong's laws. It is made up of 70 seats. Of these, 35 seats are directly voted for by the public, in five constituencies. Another 30 seats represent "functional constituencies" - these are voted for by smaller groups representing special interests, primarily businesses, banking and trade. Historically, these sectors have been largely pro-Beijing. Five district councillors are also elected by the public to sit on LegCo. Each of Hong Kong's 18 districts has its own local council. The district councils have very little actual power. They're primarily advisory, acting as the eyes and ears of the government at a local level, passing on information about public facilities and services and how funds should be used. They also have access to some funds to spend on environmental improvements or community and cultural projects. However, 117 of the district councillors also sit on the committee that votes for the chief executive, giving them potential for greater influence. Elections take place every three years. In the 2020-23 cycle, there will be a total of 479 seats - 452 will be directly elected, and the remaining 27 automatically go to the elected representatives of Hong Kong's tiny rural populations. Politically, a lot. Under the Basic Law, Hong Kong's courts are responsible - "within the limits of [its] autonomy" - for determining whether the government's actions are legal. But the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) - China's rubber-stamp parliament - holds the ultimate "power of interpretation" of the law. Since the handover, it has acted five times to interpret the law, most recently in 2016 when two pro-independence lawmakers modified their oaths of allegiance to China. Following that interpretation, critics said the NPCSC was effectively changing the law, rather than clarifying how it should be enacted. Beijing must also approve the chief executive appointment and controls Hong Kong's defence and foreign affairs. There are also about 5,000 Chinese soldiers permanently based in Hong Kong. But they can only intervene in Hong Kong if China declares an all-out state of emergency or war, at the request of the Hong Kong government, or for the "maintenance of public order and in disaster relief". The freedoms enshrined under the Basic Law expire in 2047 and it is not clear what Hong Kong's status will be after that. | How do Hong Kong's district councils work? | 2,326 | Each of Hong Kong's 18 districts has its own local council. The district councils have very little actual power. They're primarily advisory, acting as the eyes and ears of the government at a local level, passing on information about public facilities and services and how funds should be used. They also have access to some funds to spend on environmental improvements or community and cultural projects. However, 117 of the district councillors also sit on the committee that votes for the chief executive, giving them potential for greater influence. Elections take place every three years. In the 2020-23 cycle, there will be a total of 479 seats - 452 will be directly elected, and the remaining 27 automatically go to the elected representatives of Hong Kong's tiny rural populations. | 0.665444 | 0.826046 | 0.745745 |
4583_0 | Asylum seekers who refused to leave a former Australian-run detention centre in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have been moved to new housing after a three-week stand-off, Canberra has confirmed. The group had resisted leaving the Manus Island camp after it shut on 31 October, fearing attacks by locals. Buses carrying about 300 asylum seekers left the centre on Friday after police entered the facility for a second day. Some detainees claimed they were struck with poles by PNG police. Australia's Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said that claims of violence were "inaccurate and exaggerated". Australian police said they were not involved in the operation. Under a controversial policy, Australia has detained asylum seekers arriving by boat in centres on Manus Island and Nauru, a small Pacific nation. The government has said the detainees will never settle in Australia, arguing such a move would encourage human trafficking and prompt deaths at sea. The Manus Island centre, which held only men, was shut down by Australia after a PNG court ruled it was unconstitutional. A majority of the men still there are refugees, the UN says. About 600 asylum seekers and refugees initially refused to leave the camp, arguing they were unsafe in the local community - where their presence is a cause of tension. Human Rights Watch has said the men could face "unchecked violence" after being attacked in the past with rocks and knives. About 300 men left the centre before Friday, after enduring squalid conditions and pressure from authorities. Electricity, food and water was cut at the centre when it closed. Video on social media showed PNG authorities swinging poles towards asylum seekers on Friday, in what some of the men described as beatings. "They [the asylum seekers] don't like to move but then they beat us," one refugee told the BBC on Friday. Mr Dutton rejected such claims, saying that reports violence and injuries were "inaccurate and exaggerated". Earlier, PNG police commissioner Gari Baki said that the police operation was being conducted "peacefully and without the use of force" They were moved by buses to three transit centres elsewhere on Manus Island. The sites are secure and provide food and medical services, according to Australia. However, that claim has been repeatedly contradicted by the UN's refugee agency. On Tuesday, a representative said the housing remained "under construction", was inadequately secured, and lacked sufficient medical and welfare care. Mr Dutton said on Friday that some equipment, including generators, had been "sabotaged" at the transit centres. Hywel Griffith, BBC News Sydney correspondent The stand-off is over, but there's still no real resolution to the situation on Manus Island. Some of the refugees moved today are still hoping an agreement with the US will eventually see them resettled abroad. But it's now a year since that deal was struck and progress has been slow, with only a few dozen people accepted so far. Even if Australia is right about the transit centre facilities, refugees and asylum seekers do not know how long they will stay there - or what their final destination will become. Refugees had been given the option of permanent resettlement in PNG, applying to live in Cambodia, or requesting a transfer to Nauru. Advocates say few have taken up these options. The US has agreed to take up to 1,250 refugees from Manus Island and Nauru. However, it may ultimately accept fewer than that. The agreement, which is being administered under the UNHCR, is prioritising women, children and families and other refugees found to be the most vulnerable. New Zealand has offered to take 150 refugees from the PNG centre, but Canberra has rebuffed this proposal - arguing it would effectively be a "back door" to Australia. Last month, Australia and PNG each said the other was responsible for the asylum seekers in the meantime. Yes. Six asylum seekers have died on Manus Island since the facility was re-opened in 2012, including Iranian man Reza Barati who was murdered during a riot. Earlier this year, the government offered compensation totalling A$70m (PS41m; $53m) to asylum seekers and refugees detained on Manus Island who alleged they had suffered harm while there. | Why are the asylum seekers on Manus Island? | 655 | Under a controversial policy, Australia has detained asylum seekers arriving by boat in centres on Manus Island and Nauru, a small Pacific nation. The government has said the detainees will never settle in Australia, arguing such a move would encourage human trafficking and prompt deaths at sea. The Manus Island centre, which held only men, was shut down by Australia after a PNG court ruled it was unconstitutional. A majority of the men still there are refugees, the UN says. | 0.714216 | 0.777249 | 0.745732 |
5199_0 | In August 2011, Myanmar's President Thein Sein invited 15 of the country's ethnic armies and militias to talks. It was rightly seen as a historic move to try and bring an end to conflicts that have blighted Myanmar - also known as Burma -since independence. Now four years on, that process has reached its first milestone with the signing of what is being called the nationwide ceasefire agreement. But only eight of the 15 armed groups have put pen to paper. Despite the absentees, Thein Sein's supporters are still hailing it a significant moment. But many are openly questioning what has been achieved. The agreement is neither truly nationwide nor strictly speaking a ceasefire. In order to take part in this collective agreement the armed groups had to have previously signed a bilateral ceasefire with the government. So it is not actually halting any conflicts. This at times tortuous process has been about trying to get everyone to the start line before the next phase, political dialogue, gets underway. With only about half the groups having made it to the start line, the way forward from here will be ever more complex. Most of the clauses in the agreement are logistical arrangements designed to minimise clashes, build trust and bring help to those affected by years of conflict - and to let people feel the dividends of peace. The agreement also contains broad guidelines as to how the next phase will unfold. Most important for the ethnic armed groups is that "federalism" is enshrined as a guiding principle for future talks. Much of the rest of the document smacks of a need to get a deal done. So there are vague, sometimes contradictory phrases, with thorny issues deferred to a later stage. There is no guidance, for example, of how the voices of those without guns such as civil society organisations and activists will be incorporated. Of the eight armed groups who have taken the plunge with the government, the Myanmar Peace Monitor estimates they have about 16,000 armed combatants between them. Among them are the Karen National Union which was - until their bilateral ceasefire in 2012 - the world's longest-running rebel insurgency. There are, however, more combatants out than in. It's estimated that there are at least 48,000 under the control of non-signing ethnic armed groups. Most significant among then is the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) which is at least 10,000-strong. It continues to clash with the Burmese army on a regular basis, and if brought on board would have encouraged smaller allied groups to commit too. For some it just simply doesn't make sense. The United Wa State Army, for example, has about 25,000 members and total control over a strip of land that borders China. They have had their own ceasefire with the government since 1989 which is respected, and they believe they will only lose from signing another deal. Others such as the KIA have agreed on the draft but object to the government's exclusion of smaller armed groups such as the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and the Kokang (MNDAA) group from the signing. They argue that the ethnic armies should have shown solidarity with each other and gone for "all or nothing". Those more cynical see a crude political calculation in the timing. It's less than a month before the general election and President Thein Sein's party is touting him as a man of stability and peace. An agreement now, however flawed, will be presented as one of his greatest achievements. It's possible that some ethnic armed groups may well be delaying their approval, simply to avoid giving the ruling party a boost. There's deep unease about the Burmese army. Myanmar has changed a great deal in the last five years. But despite all the talk of reform, the military has not given up any of its power, nor changed its behaviour in any significant way. Backed into a corner, the last session of the Burmese parliament saw the military forced to show their hand. Faced with an almost unanimous group of elected parliamentarians calling for a small constitutional change the military representatives lined up and used their veto. The ethnic groups are now being asked to believe that despite plenty of evidence to the contrary there has been a seismic shift; that after years of fighting, and making money from resources in conflict-hit areas the Burmese military has changed; that it now wants peace and transparency and is committed to respecting their rights and a federal future. It is not hard to understand why so many have hesitated. | What's in the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement? | 606 | The agreement is neither truly nationwide nor strictly speaking a ceasefire. In order to take part in this collective agreement the armed groups had to have previously signed a bilateral ceasefire with the government. So it is not actually halting any conflicts. This at times tortuous process has been about trying to get everyone to the start line before the next phase, political dialogue, gets underway. With only about half the groups having made it to the start line, the way forward from here will be ever more complex. Most of the clauses in the agreement are logistical arrangements designed to minimise clashes, build trust and bring help to those affected by years of conflict - and to let people feel the dividends of peace. The agreement also contains broad guidelines as to how the next phase will unfold. Most important for the ethnic armed groups is that "federalism" is enshrined as a guiding principle for future talks. Much of the rest of the document smacks of a need to get a deal done. So there are vague, sometimes contradictory phrases, with thorny issues deferred to a later stage. There is no guidance, for example, of how the voices of those without guns such as civil society organisations and activists will be incorporated. | 0.706864 | 0.783783 | 0.745323 |
5222_4 | The UK government is facing a rebellion over its plans to work with the Chinese phone-maker Huawei on the UK's 5G network. Ministers approved Huawei's involvement in January, but some senior Tories want to prevent that because of concerns over security. Huawei was founded in 1987 in Shenzhen, southern China, by Ren Zhengfei, a former army officer. It started making communications equipment for mobile phone networks and is now a global leader, employing 180,000 workers. Huawei is the world's second-largest smartphone supplier after Samsung, with 18% of the market - ahead of Apple and others. At the heart of the debate is a simple question: can the West trust Huawei or will using its equipment leave communication networks, and our own mobile phones, vulnerable? The US says Huawei could be used by China for spying, via its 5G equipment. It points to Mr Ren's military background and Huawei's role in comms networks to argue it represents a security risk. Mr Ren was member of China's army, the People's Liberation Army, for nine years until 1983. He is also a member of China's Communist party. But Huawei says this is not relevant: "When Ren Zhengfei was a young man, you needed to be a Communist Party member to have any position of responsibility." Washington has banned US firms from doing business with Huawei, and wants its allies to ban it from their 5G networks. Australia and New Zealand have joined the US. Germany has put off making a decision - at least until the next EU summit in March. For the UK, using Huawei equipment may hit vital UK-US trade talks and the US has warned such a decision could risk future security co-operation. But if the UK had banned Huawei from 5G, it could have faced Chinese retaliation. Many countries are preparing to move from 4G to more advanced 5G mobile networks. Download speeds 10 times faster than today will radically change how we work, communicate and stream videos. In principle, controlling the tech at the heart of these networks could give Huawei the capacity to spy or disrupt communications during any future dispute. This is important, as more things - from self-driving cars to fridges, baby monitors and fire alarms become connected to the internet. The concern is that state-sponsored hackers could use these devices, which often have weaker security features, as back doors into strategically vital networks. For instance, this could make it possible to shut down a rivals' power stations. The Chinese company will be banned from supplying equipment to "sensitive parts" of the network, known as the core. In addition, it will only be allowed to account for 35% of the kit in a network's "periphery", and it will be excluded from areas near military bases and nuclear sites. The core is essentially the phone network's heart and brain. It is where voice and other data is routed to ensure it gets to its where it needs. This involves making sure users can only access the services they have paid for, sending a call to the right radio tower, delivering SMS messages, or keeping track of usage to calculate bills. The core is distinct from the Radio Access Network (RAN) or the periphery - made up of the base stations and masts used to link our mobile devices to the core. Some say this is what Huawei should be involved in. But others worry this boundary between the core and periphery will disappear in future, as more operations are carried out closer to users. They say it will no longer be possible to keep Huawei out of a network's most sensitive areas. The US argues China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, which says organisations must "support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work", means Beijing could force Huawei to do its bidding. Huawei says it's never been asked to spy and "would categorically refuse to comply". It adds: "We would never compromise or harm any country, organization, or individual, especially when it comes to cyber-security and user privacy protection." Your phone, whoever makes it, is tracking you in various ways - but it's you that have to agree. And you're in charge of what it learns. For instance, depending on what permissions you've granted your apps, it may track how often you visit certain websites or whether you use it to buy stuff. If you use a Huawei phone, it's very unlikely the firm's handing your data to the Chinese government, though it is possible. In the same way, technically, data from a Google Pixel phone could be handed over to the US government. In March last year, Google halted Huawei's licence for Android - the operating system for most of the world's phones, aside from Apple's iPhone. If your Huawei phone was issued before the ban it will receive Android updates, but newer models won't. However Huawei is trying to work around this. US buyers will almost certainly favour kit from US companies, such as Cisco, Juniper Networks, or Qualcomm. In Europe, 5G manufacturers include Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia. In the UK, going Huawei-free would have been a challenge. The country has been using its equipment since 2005. Even if the UK had chosen to ditch Huawei, it could not just rip up the existing 4G infrastructure. It would have cost a fortune and risked delaying 5G for years. To monitor the company, the UK has set up the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, which comes under the National Cyber Security Centre It says it has never found evidence of malicious Chinese state activity, but that it has identified some serious defects in Huawei's software engineering and cyber-security competence. The UK says risks will need to be managed, and it will have several 5G suppliers to avoid depending on one firm. As Huawei is from Guangdong province where Cantonese is the main dialect, the firm says its name should be pronounced "wah-way". However, some Mandarin speakers argue that the name is pronounced "hwah-way". Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 every weekday on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra - if you miss us you can listen back here. | Is Huawei spying on us? | 3,533 | The US argues China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, which says organisations must "support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work", means Beijing could force Huawei to do its bidding. Huawei says it's never been asked to spy and "would categorically refuse to comply". It adds: "We would never compromise or harm any country, organization, or individual, especially when it comes to cyber-security and user privacy protection." | 0.691885 | 0.798447 | 0.745166 |
6966_0 | The French government has said it will not recognise Catalonia if it declares independence from Spain and such a move will mean expulsion from the EU. European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said the crisis following the banned 1 October referendum had to be resolved through dialogue within Spain. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont is expected to address the regional parliament on Tuesday. There has been no sign of a compromise being struck with Madrid. Economic pressure on the pro-independence camp is rising with three more companies expected to discuss moving their offices out of Catalonia on Monday, sources told Reuters news agency. These are infrastructure firm Abertis, telecoms company Cellnex and property group Inmobiliaria Colonial. Major lenders Caixabank and Sabadell announced earlier that they were moving their offices out of the region. The region of Catalonia, home to 7.5 million people in the north-east, is crucial to Spain, which is the EU's fifth-biggest economy and a member of Nato. In other developments: - Catalonia's High Court asked for Spanish national police to provide extra security at the court building in the event of the Catalan parliament declaring independence; the building is currently guarded by local police - The leader of Spain's Socialist opposition party, Pedro Sanchez, told reporters in Barcelona that his party would back government action if independence was declared unilaterally on Tuesday: "We reach out for dialogue but we'll support the response of the rule of law in the face of any attempt to break social harmony" "If there was a declaration of independence, it would not be recognised," Ms Loiseau told French broadcaster CNews (video in French). "The first consequence would be its exit from the European Union." "Obviously," she added, "there is more to Catalonia than the consultation organised by the independence movement... "This crisis needs to be resolved through dialogue at all levels of Spanish politics." Casting doubt on the validity of the vote, she described Spain as a "great democracy" and pointed to the "particularly" high level of devolution its regions already enjoyed. However, Catalans have long been calling for more say in spending, higher status for their language and recognition that they are a nation distinct from Spain. By Damian Grammaticas, BBC News Europe correspondent It Catalonia were to split from Spain, the region would immediately cease to be part of the European Union, the EU has made clear. While EU's treaties don't specify what happens if part of a member state declares independence, EU sources say what's called the "Prodi doctrine" would apply. Named after the former president of the European Commission Romano Prodi, the position is that a region seceding from a member country is automatically no longer part of the EU. It means that, on the day any Catalan independence took effect, Catalonia would quit the EU; it would lose the right to free movement around Europe for any holders of Catalan passports, and for goods and services too. Even using the euro as a Catalan currency could prove problematic. And Catalonia could only rejoin the EU by starting a new membership application, as a new country. But any existing member state could veto this. So Spain, or any other country, could prevent an independent Catalonia's EU membership. Catalonia's parliament had been due to meet on Monday with the expectation that it would endorse the declaration of independence, based on the majority Yes vote on 1 October. However, the session was blocked by the Spanish Constitutional Court, which had likewise sought to stop the referendum itself. Speculation is intense as to what Mr Puigdemont may say when he addresses the parliament in Barcelona on Tuesday evening. He could ask the parliament to declare independence on the basis of the referendum law it passed last month, which in turn could lead the Spanish government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to suspend devolution, acting under Article 155 of the constitution. The BBC understands that whatever Mr Puigdemont says, his statement will trigger the 48-hour period within which MPs need to declare independence, according to the Catalan law. It is also understood the Catalan leadership has already decided on the way forward. An MP from Mr Puigdemont's party told the BBC on Sunday that the current plan was to stop short of declaring independence unilaterally and make a "symbolic statement" instead. Final results from the referendum suggest 43% of Catalan voters turned out and 90% of them backed independence - but "No" voters largely boycotted the ballot. At least 350,000 people joined a unionist rally in Barcelona on Sunday, after recent massive rallies by separatists and democracy activists in the city. The crisis has been largely peaceful, although some 900 civilians and 33 police officers were hurt on referendum day when police sought to stop the vote at some polling stations by force. Are you in Catalonia? Are you affected by these events? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk You can also contact us in the following ways: - Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSay - WhatsApp: +447555 173285 - Text an SMS or MMS to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (international) - Please read our terms & conditions | Could the EU throw out an independent Catalonia? | 2,321 | By Damian Grammaticas, BBC News Europe correspondent It Catalonia were to split from Spain, the region would immediately cease to be part of the European Union, the EU has made clear. While EU's treaties don't specify what happens if part of a member state declares independence, EU sources say what's called the "Prodi doctrine" would apply. Named after the former president of the European Commission Romano Prodi, the position is that a region seceding from a member country is automatically no longer part of the EU. It means that, on the day any Catalan independence took effect, Catalonia would quit the EU; it would lose the right to free movement around Europe for any holders of Catalan passports, and for goods and services too. Even using the euro as a Catalan currency could prove problematic. And Catalonia could only rejoin the EU by starting a new membership application, as a new country. But any existing member state could veto this. So Spain, or any other country, could prevent an independent Catalonia's EU membership. | 0.675996 | 0.814182 | 0.745089 |
5338_2 | US President Donald Trump has called for drug traffickers to face the death penalty as part of his plan to combat the US painkiller-addiction epidemic. He outlined the proposal during a speech in New Hampshire, a state badly affected by the opioid crisis. Mr Trump said his administration was attempting to change the law to execute drug dealers, but it will face stiff political and judicial headwinds. Opioids are a class of drugs including prescription painkillers and heroin. Some 2.4 million Americans are estimated to be addicted to the drugs. The crisis claimed an estimated 63,600 lives nationwide in 2016, say health officials. Mr Trump was cheered on Monday as he told a crowd in Manchester, New Hampshire: "If we don't get tough on the drug dealers we're wasting our time. "And that toughness includes the death penalty." Mr Trump previously suggested the "ultimate" punishment for traffickers at a rally in Pennsylvania this month. Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington Donald Trump is calling for an expansion of the federal death penalty at a time when its use is being increasingly curtailed across the US. Congress appears unlikely to pass any new extensions of the death penalty and, if it did, the resulting cases would almost certainly be bogged down in legal battles for years, if not decades. On the ground in states like New Hampshire, West Virginia and Kentucky - the front lines of the struggle to control opioid addiction - concern is largely directed at shutting down the supply of illegal narcotics, particularly potent fentanyl and carfentanil, shipped from overseas - and treating the lifelong struggles of millions of addicts. Mr Trump's get-tough rhetoric may garner applause, but in the view of local officials it's federal dollars for prevention and treatment that save lives. Outlining its plan, the White House said the Department of Justice would seek the death penalty against drug traffickers "when it's appropriate under current law". Drug-related murder is already a capital offence in the US, but no one has ever been executed using those rules. Mr Trump said on Monday: "We have to change the laws and we're working on that now. The Department of Justice is working very hard on that." However, such a move would require an act of Congress. And it would probably fall afoul of previous Supreme Court rulings on proportional punishment. The US president seemed to accept on Monday that his policy faced an uphill battle. "The ultimate penalty has to be the death penalty," he said. "Now maybe our country's not ready for that. It's possible, it's possible." "Take a look at some of these countries where they don't play games, they don't have a drug problem," said Mr Trump on Monday. He has previously praised Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, whose war against drug dealers has led to extra-judicial killings. Philippines police say they have killed 4,100 drug suspects as part of the campaign. But human rights groups say the real death toll is triple that number, and the International Criminal Court is investigating. Advocates of capital punishment for drug dealers credit it to Singapore's low drug use. But Iran also imposes the death penalty for drug use, yet it is plagued by opiate addiction. The Republican president said his administration would amend government healthcare programmes in order to cut opioid prescriptions by a third over the next three years. He opened the way for a crackdown on negligent physicians and pharmacies, adding that implicated pharmaceutical companies could face litigation. The president said his plan would also require electronic data for most international mail shipments to deter the posting of illicit opioids. Mr Trump said he wanted Congress to approve $6bn ($4.2bn) in new funding in 2018-19 to help fight the opioid crisis. | What else does Trump's opioid plan involve? | 3,262 | The Republican president said his administration would amend government healthcare programmes in order to cut opioid prescriptions by a third over the next three years. He opened the way for a crackdown on negligent physicians and pharmacies, adding that implicated pharmaceutical companies could face litigation. The president said his plan would also require electronic data for most international mail shipments to deter the posting of illicit opioids. Mr Trump said he wanted Congress to approve $6bn ($4.2bn) in new funding in 2018-19 to help fight the opioid crisis. | 0.692781 | 0.797121 | 0.744951 |
6525_0 | Rocky Johnson, a former professional wrestler and father of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, has died aged 75. His death was confirmed on Wednesday in a statement released by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). No cause of death was given. Johnson, whose real name was Wayde Douglas Bowles, rose to fame with WWE in the 1980s. Known as "Soul Man", he was part of the first black tag team to win a WWE championship. Following his retirement in 1991, Johnson helped train his son Dwayne, now a Hollywood star who became a WWE wrestling icon in his own right. In 2008, Dwayne inducted him into the WWE Hall of Fame, where "he will be forever enshrined as one of sports-entertainment's most influential performers", the WWE said. In its statement, WWE said it was "saddened" to hear of his death and "extends its condolences to Johnson's family, friends and fans". Wrestling stars have paid tribute to Johnson, described as a "barrier-breaking performer" by fellow hall of fame member Triple H. Born on 24 August 1944, Johnson grew up in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada before moving to Toronto in his teens, when he began wrestling. In his teenage years, Johnson trained to be a boxer, sparring with the likes of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. But he would choose wrestling as his profession, entering the industry with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in the mid-1960s. Adopting the ring name "Rocky Johnson", he wrestled for 18 years with the NWA, winning tag team championships. More success would follow when he joined WWE in the 1980s. "He found his greatest success when he teamed up with Tony Atlas as The Soul Patrol," WWE said in its statement. "The two men became the first African-American World Tag Team Champions in WWE history when they defeated The Wild Samoans on 10 December, 1983." Described as "physically imposing and wildly charismatic" by WWE, Johnson was best-known for his high-flying drop kick in the ring. A gravity-defying feat, this move would often send Johnson's opponents hurtling towards the canvas. In a 2017 interview with Hannibal TV, Johnson said he faced racism during his career. He said "there was a lot [of racism]" but he "wouldn't be denied" his place in the ring, adding: "I was headstrong." "I kept myself in shape and the stuff they were doing in the South, I wouldn't go for," Johnson said. "They wanted to whip me on TV, like they used to do with the slaves and all that. I said: 'No. I came in as an athlete, and I'll leave as an athlete.' And they respected me for that." When Johnson retired from the ring he offered to train his son Dwayne, known as "The Rock" during his WWE wrestling career. His son became a huge success in the sport before becoming an actor, starring in blockbuster movies such as The Scorpion King, Fast & Furious 6 and the Jumanji franchise. Wrestlers past and present have paid their respects to Johnson on social media. | Who was Rocky 'Soul Man' Johnson? | 986 | Born on 24 August 1944, Johnson grew up in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada before moving to Toronto in his teens, when he began wrestling. In his teenage years, Johnson trained to be a boxer, sparring with the likes of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. But he would choose wrestling as his profession, entering the industry with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in the mid-1960s. Adopting the ring name "Rocky Johnson", he wrestled for 18 years with the NWA, winning tag team championships. More success would follow when he joined WWE in the 1980s. "He found his greatest success when he teamed up with Tony Atlas as The Soul Patrol," WWE said in its statement. "The two men became the first African-American World Tag Team Champions in WWE history when they defeated The Wild Samoans on 10 December, 1983." Described as "physically imposing and wildly charismatic" by WWE, Johnson was best-known for his high-flying drop kick in the ring. A gravity-defying feat, this move would often send Johnson's opponents hurtling towards the canvas. In a 2017 interview with Hannibal TV, Johnson said he faced racism during his career. He said "there was a lot [of racism]" but he "wouldn't be denied" his place in the ring, adding: "I was headstrong." | 0.74179 | 0.747961 | 0.744875 |
8760_0 | The Ebola virus has claimed around 7,000 lives during the current epidemic in West Africa, the largest outbreak since the virus was discovered nearly 40 years ago. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 18,000 people have been infected during the outbreak. Ebola is a serious infectious illness which often proves fatal. The virus, which is thought to have originated in fruit bats, was first detected in 1976 in an outbreak near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. People are infected when they have direct contact through broken skin, or the mouth and nose, with the blood, vomit, faeces or bodily fluids of someone with Ebola. The virus can be present in urine and semen too. Infection may also occur through direct contact with contaminated bedding, clothing and surfaces - but only through broken skin. It is still unclear how long the virus exists on surfaces but there is some evidence to suggest it can last up to six days. Bleach and chlorine can kill Ebola. The disease is not airborne, like flu. Very close direct contact with an infected person is required for the virus to be passed to another person. It can take up anything from two to 21 days for humans with the virus to show symptoms. People are not infectious until the symptoms develop. People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus - in some cases, up to seven weeks after they recover. World Health Organization guidance on Ebola The early symptoms are a sudden fever, muscle pain, fatigue, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, a rash and bleeding - both internal and external - which can be seen in the gums, eyes, nose and in the stools. Patients tend to die from dehydration and multiple organ failure. There is no proven cure for Ebola. Severely ill patients need to be rehydrated quickly using intravenous fluids. They should be isolated from other people and given intensive care by medical experts. Potential vaccines are being tested. If the trials are successful they would be used to protect healthcare workers first. Experimental drugs such as ZMapp have also been used, but their effectiveness has not been proved. Blood products from survivors are also being tried as a potential therapy. The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says this outbreak comes from the deadliest and most aggressive strain of the virus. It is not known which factors allow some people to recover while most succumb but experts say early treatment is key. Experimental treatments Ethics: Resolving the Ebola dilemma I caught Ebola in Guinea and survived Anyone in close contact with Ebola patients is at risk. Healthcare workers are using protective clothing such as full-body suits and goggles, but hundreds have still died. Family members of patients are also at risk. In West African funerals, it is traditional for mourners to have direct contact with the body of the dead person, washing and embracing them before burial. But the Ebola virus is still dangerous and present in the body after death. Prompt and safe burials are now being urged. MSF has been trying to make people aware of how their treatment of dead relatives might pose a risk to themselves. However, it is a very difficult message to get across. Avoid contact with Ebola patients and their bodily fluids, the WHO advises. Do not touch anything - such as shared towels - which could have become contaminated in a public place. Carers should wear gloves and protective equipment, such as masks, and wash their hands regularly. The WHO also warns against consuming raw bushmeat and any contact with infected bats or monkeys and apes. Fruit bats in particular are considered a delicacy in the area of Guinea where the outbreak started. In March, Liberia's health minister advised people to stop having sex, in addition to existing advice not to shake hands or kiss. The WHO says men can still transmit the virus through their semen for up to seven weeks after recovering from Ebola. How not to catch Ebola Profile: Dr Sheik Umar Khan Saving lives on the Ebola front line No handshakes, no sex Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa are the countries worst affected by this outbreak, which was identified as Ebola in March 2014. It started in Guinea, which has never before been affected, and quickly spread to urban areas. From Nzerekore, a remote area of south-eastern Guinea, the virus spread to the capital, Conakry, and neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Nigeria and Senegal have confirmed a small number of cases, and the US has had three confirmed cases. In October, a nurse in Spain became the first person to contract the virus outside of West Africa. Ebola deaths since 1976 The virus has taken hold in major urban areas this time, allowing it to spread more easily. The countries most severely affected by the disease have weak health systems. They are short of qualified doctors and nurses, and lack the appropriate equipment and resources to combat the virus. As a result, this is the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since the virus was discovered. There have been more cases and deaths in this one than all other outbreaks combined. | What is Ebola? | 278 | Ebola is a serious infectious illness which often proves fatal. The virus, which is thought to have originated in fruit bats, was first detected in 1976 in an outbreak near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. | 0.710238 | 0.779235 | 0.744736 |
4981_4 | As firefighters work endlessly to control California's raging fires, experts warn of long-term damage from wildfire smoke that could affect millions - and potentially even those on the east coast. The fires have burned through over 200,000 acres, blanketing parts of California with clouds of thick smoke. So what are the biggest impacts of wildfires and why is the western US state so susceptible to such deadly blazes? Wildfire smoke is comprised of water vapour, carbon monoxide and dioxide, chemicals and very small particulates. Strong winds can carry harmful pollutants for hundreds of miles, and at current levels, the plumes can cause breathing difficulties even in healthy individuals. Those with pre-existing chronic conditions like asthma or heart disease, as well as children, pregnant women and the elderly are most susceptible to negative health effects, according to the National Institutes of Health. Yohannes Tesfaigzi, a senior scientist at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico, says for those with susceptible lungs, even very low levels of smoke exposure can result in an emergency room visit, and lasting long-term effects. "The particulates generated by wildfires are very fine, therefore they can penetrate to the lung and they're not really filtered out," Mr Tesfaigzi says. He says when wildfires occur in California, particulate levels in the air increase threefold in New Mexico, several states away. A study by Georgia Tech during last year's wildfire season even detected particles at high altitudes on the US east coast. The smoke from 2017's massive blazes had been swept across the country along the jet stream. "These are levels that we would not smell. If you're actually smelling the fire, you're talking much higher levels," Mr Tesfaigzi adds. The types of vegetation burning can affect exactly how harmful the plumes are. Smoke from pine trees, for example, may be carcinogenic and eucalyptus is particularly toxic to humans. One study by researchers from several US universities, including Yale and Harvard, estimates that more than 82 million people in the western US will suffer "significant" health consequences from wildfire smoke in the next 20 years. Masks can help mitigate some of the dangers, but only certain kinds can keep out all the toxins, and some California communities are already experiencing a mask shortage, Kaiser Health reported. According to Mr Tesfaigzi, it is unclear what the lasting impacts of wildfire smoke are on healthy individuals, as those studies are still ongoing. Once evacuation orders are issued by local law enforcement, residents generally have hours to leave, Kathleen Schori, information officer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) told the BBC. "But in those initial stages of a fire, you may have minutes," she added. Fleeing in a vehicle is ideal as most wildfires cannot be outrun. But the Camp Fire's especially rapid spread, fuelled by high winds, made the situation even more dangerous. "This fire moved so fast - I don't think anybody did anything wrong," Ms Schori says when asked whether those forced to abandon vehicles and escape on foot could have acted differently. "During the initial phases, it was burning 80 miles in an hour." Sometimes, you do fight fire with fire. In addition to old-fashioned water and flame retardant (delivered from ground-level and above the flames by aircraft), sometimes firefighters have to burn more to quell the flames. Intentionally burning areas around a wildfire can help starve the blaze and control its direction. Clearing out brush and flammable material from an area to create "firebreaks" is another way to achieve the same. "Ninety-eight percent of fires are small and/or suppressed quickly," Prof David Peterson of the University of Washington, a former senior researcher with the US Forest Service, told the BBC. "The other 2% are very challenging when they get large, and are almost impossible to put out, at least until it rains." Ms Schori of Cal Fire said that with wind-driven blazes like the Camp Fire, officials often have no choice but to wait for conditions to improve. "There are never enough firefighters to combat a fire that's moving as fast as this was moving," she says. Officials define wildfires, or wildland fires, as any fire occurring on undeveloped land. Forest fires are uncontrolled wildfires burning in lands covered at least in part by timber or flammable vegetation. In nature, two things can spark wildfires: lava and lightning. According to the National Park Service, 90% of wildfires in the US are caused by humans - whether by unattended campfires, burning debris, cigarettes or arson. About 2% of California's 2,816 wildfires in 2016 were caused by lightning, according to data from Cal Fire. The majority could be attributed to humans, though only 8% were caused by arson. Determining the cause of a wildfire can be a painstaking process. Investigators search for a fire's point of origin by looking at how the fire spread - at the start, flames grow outward in a circle unless wind or terrain affects it otherwise, according to National Wildfire Coordinating Group's handbook. From there, officials comb through the area to determine if the blaze was of natural or human origin, looking for pieces of evidence like lightning scars on trees, campfire kindling, or cigarette butts. According to Prof Peterson, fires in the region have not necessarily increased in frequency in the last 100 years - but the area affected has. "The area burned annually has been higher during the past 30 years or so," he told the BBC. "It should be noted that 2% of fires burn 98% of the area." In California, recent years have seen a combination of extremely high temperatures, strong winds, a long drought, and population growth causing lethal, fast-moving blazes. Last year, the state had over 9,500 wildfires that burned over a million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, and had the highest number of homes and buildings lost in one state. And straying away from natural burning cycles has also contributed to the lethality of recent fires, Prof Peterson says. Keeping fires from starting in Western forests has caused fuel to accumulate "far beyond" historical levels. "When fires occur they can burn hotter," he says. "These high-intensity fires can cause rapid and in some cases long-term changes in vegetation, making it more difficult for the ecosystem to recover." Some of the hyper-wealthy may never see any damage in the first place. This week, TMZ first reported that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West had a team of private firefighters protecting their cul-de-sac from the Woolsey Fire. These firefighters for hire are usually affiliated with insurance companies like AIG and Chubb, which have special wildfire protection units. According to 2017 data from Verisk Analytics, 4.5 million US homes were in areas of high or extreme wildfire risk - and over 2 million of those homes were in California. Damage caused by wildfires has cost $5.1bn in the last decade, Verisk found. In California, homeowners who do not qualify for private insurance coverage can opt into a statewide pool, called the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plan. FAIR is comprised of all property and casualty insurers in California and is not run by a state agency. | Why are California fires so devastating? | 5,408 | According to Prof Peterson, fires in the region have not necessarily increased in frequency in the last 100 years - but the area affected has. "The area burned annually has been higher during the past 30 years or so," he told the BBC. "It should be noted that 2% of fires burn 98% of the area." In California, recent years have seen a combination of extremely high temperatures, strong winds, a long drought, and population growth causing lethal, fast-moving blazes. Last year, the state had over 9,500 wildfires that burned over a million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, and had the highest number of homes and buildings lost in one state. And straying away from natural burning cycles has also contributed to the lethality of recent fires, Prof Peterson says. Keeping fires from starting in Western forests has caused fuel to accumulate "far beyond" historical levels. "When fires occur they can burn hotter," he says. "These high-intensity fires can cause rapid and in some cases long-term changes in vegetation, making it more difficult for the ecosystem to recover." | 0.728347 | 0.760621 | 0.744484 |
2228_0 | The BBC has made its international news website available via the Tor network, in a bid to thwart censorship attempts. The Tor browser is privacy-focused software used to access the dark web. The browser can obscure who is using it and what data is being accessed, which can help people avoid government surveillance and censorship. Countries including China, Iran and Vietnam are among those who have tried to block access to the BBC News website or programmes. Instead of visiting bbc.co.uk/news or bbc.com/news, users of the Tor browser can visit the new bbcnewsv2vjtpsuy.onion web address. Clicking this web address will not work in a regular web browser. The dark web copy of the BBC News website will be the international edition, as seen from outside the UK. It will include foreign language services such as BBC Arabic, BBC Persian and BBC Russian. But UK-only content and services such as BBC iPlayer will not be accessible, due to broadcast rights. Tor is a way to access the internet that requires software, known as the Tor browser, to use it. The name is an acronym for The Onion Router. Just as there are many layers to the vegetable, there are many layers of encryption on the network. It was originally designed by the US Naval Research Laboratory, and continues to receive funding from the US State Department. It attempts to hide a person's location and identity by sending data across the internet via a very circuitous route involving several "nodes" - which, in this context, means using volunteers' PCs and computer servers as connection points. Encryption applied at each hop along this route makes it very hard to connect a person to any particular activity. To the website that ultimately receives the request, it appears as if the data traffic comes from the last computer in the chain - known as an "exit node" - rather than the person responsible. As well as allowing users to visit normal websites anonymously, it can also be used as part of a process to host hidden sites, which use the .onion suffix. Tor's users include the military, law enforcement officers and journalists, as well as members of the public who wish to keep their browser activity secret. But it has also been associated with illegal activity, allowing people to visit sites offering illegal drugs for sale and access to child abuse images, which do not show up in normal search engine results and would not be available to those who did not know where to look. While the Tor browser can be used to access the regular version of the BBC News website, using the .onion site has additional benefits. "Onion services take load off scarce exit nodes, preserve end-to-end encryption [and] the self-authenticating domain name resists spoofing," explained Prof Steven Murdoch, a cyber-security expert from University College London. In a statement, the BBC said: "The BBC World Service's news content is now available on the Tor network to audiences who live in countries where BBC News is being blocked or restricted. This is in line with the BBC World Service mission to provide trusted news around the world." On Wednesday, the BBC also announced the UK's first interactive voice news service for smart speakers. People using an Amazon Alexa-powered device will be able to skip ahead and get more information about the stories they are most interested in. | What is Tor? | 959 | Tor is a way to access the internet that requires software, known as the Tor browser, to use it. The name is an acronym for The Onion Router. Just as there are many layers to the vegetable, there are many layers of encryption on the network. It was originally designed by the US Naval Research Laboratory, and continues to receive funding from the US State Department. It attempts to hide a person's location and identity by sending data across the internet via a very circuitous route involving several "nodes" - which, in this context, means using volunteers' PCs and computer servers as connection points. Encryption applied at each hop along this route makes it very hard to connect a person to any particular activity. To the website that ultimately receives the request, it appears as if the data traffic comes from the last computer in the chain - known as an "exit node" - rather than the person responsible. As well as allowing users to visit normal websites anonymously, it can also be used as part of a process to host hidden sites, which use the .onion suffix. Tor's users include the military, law enforcement officers and journalists, as well as members of the public who wish to keep their browser activity secret. But it has also been associated with illegal activity, allowing people to visit sites offering illegal drugs for sale and access to child abuse images, which do not show up in normal search engine results and would not be available to those who did not know where to look. | 0.664412 | 0.823963 | 0.744187 |
8965_0 | Everyone is talking about FaceApp - the app that can edit photos of people's faces to show younger or older versions of themselves. Thousands of people are sharing the results of their own experiments with the app on social media. But since the face-editing tool went viral in the last few days, some have raised concerns over its terms and conditions. They argue that the company takes a cavalier approach to users' data - but FaceApp said in a statement most images were deleted from its servers within 48 hours of being uploaded. The company also said it only ever uploaded photos that users selected for editing and not additional images. FaceApp is not new. It first hit the headlines two years ago with its "ethnicity filters". These purported to transform faces of one ethnicity into another - a feature that sparked a backlash and was quickly dropped. The app can, however, turn blank or grumpy expressions into smiling ones. And it can tweak make-up styles. This is done with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). An algorithm takes the input picture of your face and adjusts it based on other imagery. This makes it possible to insert a toothy smile, for instance, while adjusting lines around the mouth, chin and cheeks for a natural look. Eyebrows were raised lately when app developer Joshua Nozzi tweeted that FaceApp was uploading troves of photos from people's smartphones without asking permission. However, a French cyber-security researcher who uses the pseudonym Elliot Alderson investigated Mr Nozzi's claims. He found that no such bulk uploading was going on - FaceApp was only taking the specific photos users decided to submit. FaceApp also confirmed to the BBC that only the user-submitted photo is uploaded. Others have speculated that FaceApp may use data gathered from user photos to train facial recognition algorithms. This can be done even after the photos themselves are deleted because measurements of features on a person's face can be extracted and used for such purposes. "No, we don't use photos for facial recognition training," the firm's chief executive, Yaroslav Goncharov told BBC News. "Only for editing pictures." Not quite. Some question why FaceApp needs to upload photos at all when the app could in theory just process images locally on smartphones rather than send them to the cloud. In FaceApp's case, the server that stores user photos is located in the US. FaceApp itself is a Russian company with offices in St Petersburg. Cyber-security researcher Jane Manchun Wong tweeted that this may simply give FaceApp a competitive advantage - it is harder for others developing similar apps to see how the algorithms work. Steven Murdoch, at University College London, agreed. "It would be better for privacy to process the photos on the smartphone itself but it would be likely [to be] slower, use more battery power, and make it easier for the FaceApp technology to be stolen," he told BBC News. US lawyer Elizabeth Potts Weinstein argued the app's terms and conditions suggested user photos could be used for commercial purposes, such as FaceApp's own ads. But Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of tech site Lifewire, pointed out that Twitter's terms, for example, contained a similar clause: For some, this is the nub of the issue. Privacy advocate Pat Walshe pointed to lines in the FaceApp's privacy policy that suggested some user data may be tracked for the purposes of targeting ads. The app also embeds Google Admob, which serves Google ads to users. Mr Walshe told BBC News this was done "in a manner that isn't obvious" and added: "That fails to provide people with genuine choice and control." Mr Goncharov said terms in FaceApp's privacy policy were generic. He said the company does not share any data for ad-targeting purposes. The app made money through paid subscriptions for premium features instead, he added. "The FaceApp terms allow the company to do effectively what they like with photos of their users, which is concerning but is fairly typical," Dr Murdoch said. "Companies know that almost nobody reads privacy policies and so they ask for as many rights as possible, just in case it becomes useful, even if their current plans don't need them." Mr Goncharov shared a company statement that said FaceApp only uploads photos selected by users for editing. "We never transfer any other images," the statement added. "We might store an uploaded photo in the cloud. "The main reason for that is performance and traffic: we want to make sure that the user doesn't upload the photo repeatedly for every edit operation. "Most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date." The statement said that while FaceApp accepts requests from users to have their data deleted, the company's support team was currently "overloaded". FaceApp advises users to submit such requests through settings, support, "report a bug" and add "privacy" in the subject line. User data was not transferred to Russia, the statement added. The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) told BBC News it was aware of stories raising concerns about FaceApp and that it would be considering them. "We would advise people signing up to any app to check what will happen to their personal information and not to provide any personal details until they are clear about how they will be used," a spokeswoman for the ICO said. The BBC's Own It team has produced a video guide to app terms and conditions and an explainer on how to manage your digital footprint. | What is FaceApp? | 643 | FaceApp is not new. It first hit the headlines two years ago with its "ethnicity filters". These purported to transform faces of one ethnicity into another - a feature that sparked a backlash and was quickly dropped. The app can, however, turn blank or grumpy expressions into smiling ones. And it can tweak make-up styles. This is done with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). An algorithm takes the input picture of your face and adjusts it based on other imagery. This makes it possible to insert a toothy smile, for instance, while adjusting lines around the mouth, chin and cheeks for a natural look. | 0.715424 | 0.772695 | 0.744059 |
2005_3 | If you want to know why India has courted international controversy by awarding a medal to an army officer who tied a civilian to the front of a jeep, you need to understand what is really happening in Indian-administered Kashmir. On 9 April, a Kashmiri man called Farooq Ahmed Dar was trussed to the spare tyre at the front of a jeep and driven on a five-hour journey through several villages at the head of an army convoy. He had just voted in a by-election for the national parliament when he was picked up by an army patrol. He was allegedly beaten before he was lashed to the vehicle with a sign saying "This is the fate that will befall stone throwers" pinned to his chest. Kashmir is disputed between India and Pakistan and Indian-administered Kashmir has seen a fresh upsurge of violence in the past few months, with stone-throwing civilians pitted against military personnel. The young army officer responsible, Major Leetul Gogoi, said Mr Dar was seized because he was directing a stone-throwing mob that was besieging a polling station - something denied by both Mr Dar and witnesses in the village. Major Gogoi says he decided to tie Mr Dar to the jeep in a "fraction of a moment" and subsequently claimed it saved 12 lives. Despite the length of Mr Dar's ordeal, he argues it created "a window to move out of the area safely". The incident was filmed and shared on social media, causing uproar in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley. The use of Mr Dar as a human shield was criticised around the world. Amnesty International described it as "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment amounting to torture". The Indian government announced there would be an inquiry into the incident but on 22 May, before the inquiry had been completed, the army awarded Major Gogoi a commendation medal for, it said, his "sustained efforts during counter-insurgency operations". This incident shows just how difficult India is finding it to keep a lid on unrest in Kashmir. Indian army sources have told the BBC that morale among soldiers stationed in the valley is very low. Many soldiers are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their role in Kashmir, saying they fear they are effectively becoming an army of occupation. Meanwhile, opposition to Indian rule in Kashmir appears to be deepening. That is reflected in the fact that Mr Dar was just one of 7% of eligible voters who actually voted in the by-election - the lowest turnout for decades. "We are fighting a legacy of political betrayal, infiltration, rigging in local elections, cynical politics, bad governance, vested interests, religion and regional divides," one senior army officer in Kashmir told my colleague, Soutik Biswas, a few weeks ago. The officer acknowledged how difficult it is to operate in an environment where many people want the army to withdraw and said that, despite efforts to reach out to Kashmiris, the army remains unpopular. This weekend the chief of the Indian army, General Bipin Rawat, was clear why he wanted to honour Major Gogoi. He told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that the medal was given as a way of boosting the morale of young officers. Gen Rawat served for many years in Kashmir and, like many Indians, believes much of the opposition to Indian rule is orchestrated by Pakistan. He described Major Gogoi's actions as an "innovation", arguing the armed forces have the right to self-defence and that by using Mr Dar as a human shield, he avoided the need to fire on the crowd. "This is a proxy war and a proxy war is a dirty war. It is played in a dirty way. That is where innovation comes in. You fight a dirty war with innovations," he told PTI. "People are throwing stones at us, people are throwing petrol bombs at us. If my men ask me what do we do, should I say, just wait and die? I will come with a nice coffin with a national flag and I will send your bodies home with honour. Is it what I am supposed to tell them as chief? I have to maintain the morale of my troops who are operating there," Gen Rawat said. That's certainly what many Kashmiris fear will happen. They say that the award of the medal to Major Gogoi has deepened opposition to Indian rule and to the presence of the army. Gen Rawat actually appears to be keen to see an escalation in the conflict in Kashmir. "In fact," he told journalists, "I wish these people, instead of throwing stones at us, were firing weapons at us. Then I would have been happy. Then I could do what I [want to do]." This is an extraordinary sentiment and a measure of just how difficult India is finding it to keep order in its most restive province. His worry is that Kashmiris are losing their fear of his troops. If that happens, he says, the country is doomed. "Adversaries must be afraid of you and at the same time your people must be afraid of you," says Gen Rawat. "We are a friendly army, but when we are called to restore law and order, people have to be afraid of us." | What does the decision to award the medal tell us about the situation in Kashmir? | 1,872 | This incident shows just how difficult India is finding it to keep a lid on unrest in Kashmir. Indian army sources have told the BBC that morale among soldiers stationed in the valley is very low. Many soldiers are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their role in Kashmir, saying they fear they are effectively becoming an army of occupation. Meanwhile, opposition to Indian rule in Kashmir appears to be deepening. That is reflected in the fact that Mr Dar was just one of 7% of eligible voters who actually voted in the by-election - the lowest turnout for decades. "We are fighting a legacy of political betrayal, infiltration, rigging in local elections, cynical politics, bad governance, vested interests, religion and regional divides," one senior army officer in Kashmir told my colleague, Soutik Biswas, a few weeks ago. The officer acknowledged how difficult it is to operate in an environment where many people want the army to withdraw and said that, despite efforts to reach out to Kashmiris, the army remains unpopular. | 0.767188 | 0.720193 | 0.743691 |
6050_1 | Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort has had his bail revoked by a Washington DC judge and has been ordered to jail pending trial. Robert Mueller, who is investigating alleged Russian election interference, accuses him of trying to tamper with potential witnesses before the trial. Mr Manafort was accused of using encrypted mobile phone apps to contact people in breach of his bail terms. He faces charges of tax fraud, money laundering, and illegal lobbying. US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said on Friday that Mr Manafort had "abused the trust placed in you" and treated the court proceedings as "just another marketing exercise". "This is not middle school, I can't take his cell phone," she added, according to US media. Mr Trump said it was "very unfair" and called it "a tough sentence", although Mr Manafort has not gone on trial yet. In a separate development, Mr Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that there is a "good chance" that the president will decide next week whether he will sit down for an interview with Mr Mueller. But the former New York mayor advised that Mr Trump should not co-operate, saying: "Why would he get interviewed in a corrupt investigation?" Analysis by Antony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington While Paul Manafort is facing charges unrelated to his time at the top of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, his prosecution - and now his pre-trial imprisonment - is widely viewed as a means for the special counsel team to pressure the former Washington power broker to co-operate with the Russia meddling probe. While other members of Mr Trump's orbit in Mr Mueller's spotlight have admitted guilt to lesser charges, Mr Manafort is one of the few holdouts. If found guilty, the 69-year-old could spend the rest of his life in jail. On Friday morning, Mr Trump distanced himself from his former campaign aide. By the afternoon, however, he appeared to offer a lifeline, noting that his prosecution was "very unfair". That's the same kind of language the president has used in justifying pardons for former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, Bush administration official Scooter Libby and conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza. Mr Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was even more direct, telling a New York newspaper that the Manafort situation could eventually get "cleaned up" by presidential pardons. That may be exactly what Mr Manafort is counting on. Mr Manafort's trial on charges of money laundering and illegal lobbying is due to begin in September. He is accused of laundering more than $30m (PS22m) and failing to disclose his lobbying efforts to the Department of Justice. His other trial - on tax fraud charges - is due to start next month. The indictments are not connected with allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the US election in 2016. If Mr Manafort is convicted, he faces years in jail. Last week, Mr Manafort and his aide, Konstantin Kilimnik, were charged with witness tampering. Mr Kilimnik, who denies having ties to Russian intelligence, was a long-serving employee of Mr Manafort's political consultancy. Mr Manafort, who resigned as chairman of the Trump campaign in August 2016, has been under house arrest since he was charged last October. He had been confined to that Alexandria, Virginia home since his arrest, and was forced to wear a GPS monitoring device. He was indicted after FBI agents seized documents from his home in a pre-dawn raid in July last year. According to Mr Mueller's motion, Mr Manafort tried to reach witnesses who could be called to testify about unlawful lobbying that he allegedly carried out on behalf of Ukraine's previous pro-Russian government. He is said to have made tens of millions of dollars from a campaign to bolster that government's reputation within Europe and the US, but not to have registered this work. Prosecutors provided the judge with a summary of contacts they said were made with potential witnesses between February and April this year using encrypted text messaging apps. The communications were an "effort to influence their testimony and to otherwise conceal evidence", FBI Special Agent Brock Domin wrote in a separate declaration filed to the court. Mr Manafort's lawyers said in a response filed with the court that his "limited communications" did not "reflect an intent to corruptly influence a trial witness". The response added that it was not a crime for Mr Manafort "to communicate his view to others, especially when he is not aware of who the Special Counsel may call as witnesses". So far, four former Trump campaign officials have been indicted by Mr Mueller. Besides Mr Manafort, they include Michael Flynn, the president's former national security adviser; Rick Gates, a former deputy campaign chair; and George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser. None of the charges against them relate to alleged collusion with Russia. Sixteen Russian individuals and firms have also been indicted for alleged meddling in the election. | What is Manafort charged with? | 2,414 | Mr Manafort's trial on charges of money laundering and illegal lobbying is due to begin in September. He is accused of laundering more than $30m (PS22m) and failing to disclose his lobbying efforts to the Department of Justice. His other trial - on tax fraud charges - is due to start next month. The indictments are not connected with allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the US election in 2016. If Mr Manafort is convicted, he faces years in jail. Last week, Mr Manafort and his aide, Konstantin Kilimnik, were charged with witness tampering. Mr Kilimnik, who denies having ties to Russian intelligence, was a long-serving employee of Mr Manafort's political consultancy. Mr Manafort, who resigned as chairman of the Trump campaign in August 2016, has been under house arrest since he was charged last October. He had been confined to that Alexandria, Virginia home since his arrest, and was forced to wear a GPS monitoring device. He was indicted after FBI agents seized documents from his home in a pre-dawn raid in July last year. | 0.705752 | 0.78063 | 0.743191 |
10035_2 | US President Donald Trump has cast doubt on a report by his own government warning of devastating effects from climate change. Asked outside the White House about the findings that unchecked global warming would wreak havoc on the US economy, he said: "I don't believe it." The report found that climate change will cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars annually and damage health. The Trump administration has pursued a pro-fossil fuels agenda. The world's leading scientists agree that climate change is human-induced and warn that natural fluctuations in temperature are being exacerbated by human activity. He told reporters on Monday that he had "read some of" Friday's report, which was compiled with help from US government agencies and departments. Mr Trump said other countries must take measures to cut their emissions. "You're going to have to have China and Japan and all of Asia and all these other countries, you know, it [the report] addresses our country," he said. "Right now we're at the cleanest we've ever been and that's very important to me. "But if we're clean, but every other place on Earth is dirty, that's not so good. "So I want clean air, I want clean water, very important." Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accused the Trump administration of trying to hide the report. The Fourth National Climate Assessment outlines the potential impacts of climate change across every sector of American society. "With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century - more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states," the report says. "Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century." The report notes that the effects of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country, including more frequent and intense extreme weather and climate-related events. But it says that projections of future catastrophe could change if society works to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and "to adapt to the changes that will occur". In October, President Trump accused climate change scientists of having a "political agenda", telling Fox News he was unconvinced that humans were responsible for the earth's rising temperatures. After taking office he announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, which commits another 187 other countries to keeping rising global temperatures "well below" 2C above pre-industrial levels. At the time, Mr Trump said he wanted to negotiate a new "fair" deal that would not disadvantage US businesses and workers. During his election campaign in 2016 Mr Trump said climate change was "a hoax". However he has since rowed back on that statement saying in a recent interview: "I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference." A report released in October by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the leading international body evaluating climate change - said it could be stopped only if the world made major, and costly, changes. That means reducing global emissions of CO2 by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, and reducing coal use to almost zero and using up to seven million sq km (2.7 million square miles) for land energy crops. If the world fails to act, the researchers warned, there would be some significant and dangerous changes to our world, including rising sea levels, significant impacts on ocean temperatures and acidity, and the ability to grow crops such as rice, maize and wheat. | What has President Trump previously said on climate change? | 2,314 | In October, President Trump accused climate change scientists of having a "political agenda", telling Fox News he was unconvinced that humans were responsible for the earth's rising temperatures. After taking office he announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, which commits another 187 other countries to keeping rising global temperatures "well below" 2C above pre-industrial levels. At the time, Mr Trump said he wanted to negotiate a new "fair" deal that would not disadvantage US businesses and workers. During his election campaign in 2016 Mr Trump said climate change was "a hoax". However he has since rowed back on that statement saying in a recent interview: "I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference." | 0.697964 | 0.787668 | 0.742816 |
1109_0 | "Storm of a lifetime" hurricane Florence is predicted to bring deadly disaster to large parts of the eastern US coast when it makes landfall on Thursday. But as millions are under order to flee, some are being told they have to stay put. On Monday, South Carolina officials announced they would not remove inmates from at least two prisons inside mandatory evacuation zones. "In the past, it's been safer to leave them there," a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections said. One of those facilities is no longer in those zones but remains in Florence's path. In Virginia and and North Carolina, some prisons have already been evacuated. Many on social media are drawing parallels with the devastating hurricane Katrina, in 2005, when thousands of inmates endured terrible conditions in a facility that had not been evacuated. "Almost 1,000 inmates were left to die in Orleans Parish Prison during hurricane Katrina," said PhD student Bedour Alagraa in a widely shared tweet, which was also popular on Facebook. "The [prison officers] evacuated themselves and inmates spent five days in chest-high water, with no food or water. "The generator had blown leaving them in pitch blackness - 517 were never found." Hurricane Katrina was the third deadliest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in the US, causing more than 2,000 deaths and catastrophic flooding and wind damage. New Orleans was particularly badly hit but prisoners locked in cells in the city's jail were not moved to another facility. A third of the inmates had been awaiting trial - not convicted of any crime. Power cuts and broken generators caused ventilation and lights to fail and electric cell doors to remain shut. One guard reported that officials had fled as the waters had risen. Prisoners were abandoned in cells without food or water for days as [toxic] floodwaters rose towards the ceiling, according to reports by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch based on more than 1000 eyewitness accounts. Orleans Parish Prison was eventually evacuated four days after the storm hit. Some inmates say they saw dead bodies and Human Rights Watch claimed that 517 prisoners had gone missing. In 2006, Sheriff Marlin Gusman maintained no prisoners had died and none had escaped. Later, it emerged that arrest warrants had been issued for 14 escaped inmates. South Carolina has not evacuated prisons in response to hurricanes since 1999, according to local media. A prison official told the Post and Courier last year: "In most cases, it is safer for the public, officers, and inmates for a facility to hold in place rather than transfer and hold in a secondary location." Evacuation can also be expensive and resource-intensive at a time when supplies are stretched or running out. Instead, extra staff can sometimes be deployed to manage conditions within the prison. "These aren't tiny facilities. It's an operation to get buses and make sure you have the staff there to transport offenders from one facility to another," a North Carolina prison communications officer told Vice News. During a prison evacuation in Puerto Rico, when hurricane Maria hit last year, 13 inmates escaped. Last year during hurricane Irma, 4,500 people were left in a correctional institution in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Guards later described cells covered in mould, urine and faeces, as well as leaking cells and power cuts during the storm. In Texas, four county jails were evacuated before hurricane Harvey made landfall last year. Built to withstand the most severe hurricanes, they were evacuated as a precaution and sustained some structural damage. But in Houston, which was severely flooded, inmates left in prisons and jails reported minimal drinking water and food and poor access to medicine, as well as stifling heat. In 1992, hurricane Andrew slammed Florida, causing huge damage to one prison in Miami, after which about 4,000 prisoners were moved out. By Georgina Rannard, UGC and social news | What did happen to inmates in Katrina? | 1,228 | Hurricane Katrina was the third deadliest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in the US, causing more than 2,000 deaths and catastrophic flooding and wind damage. New Orleans was particularly badly hit but prisoners locked in cells in the city's jail were not moved to another facility. A third of the inmates had been awaiting trial - not convicted of any crime. Power cuts and broken generators caused ventilation and lights to fail and electric cell doors to remain shut. One guard reported that officials had fled as the waters had risen. Prisoners were abandoned in cells without food or water for days as [toxic] floodwaters rose towards the ceiling, according to reports by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch based on more than 1000 eyewitness accounts. Orleans Parish Prison was eventually evacuated four days after the storm hit. Some inmates say they saw dead bodies and Human Rights Watch claimed that 517 prisoners had gone missing. In 2006, Sheriff Marlin Gusman maintained no prisoners had died and none had escaped. Later, it emerged that arrest warrants had been issued for 14 escaped inmates. | 0.684898 | 0.800226 | 0.742562 |
6002_1 | Did President Donald Trump withhold military aid from ally Ukraine for his own political reasons? That is the big question at the heart of the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry. Ukraine is not in Nato and it has struggled with years of corruption. But its future direction is of geopolitical importance. For much of its 28-year independent history it has been unclear whether Ukraine would end up aligned with Russia or the West. In 2014, that uncertainty appeared to come to an end. After a bloody street revolution, Ukraine's new leaders asserted that the country's future lay with closer association with Europe and the West. Russia was now seen as the enemy and it responded by seizing Crimea and supporting an armed uprising in eastern Ukraine that has so far cost more than 13,000 lives. Under the US Obama administration, Ukrainians' right to decide their own future, and to resist Russian aggression, was defended as an important ideological principle. That changed when President Trump took office, and Ukraine's government has not been able to rely on America's active support in the same way since. The US has a longstanding relationship with the Ukrainian military and has committed about $1.5bn (PS1.2bn; EUR1.4bn) in aid since 2014. Much of that has been spent training soldiers and in efforts to modernise the dated way the Ukrainian army is organised and operates. The latest tranche of assistance, which was held up and then released by the Trump administration, is worth $391m and includes a range of weapons and technical assistance. It is important on both a military and symbolic level. Where once the Ukrainian military knew that the US had their backs, this can no longer be taken for granted. The wavering over assistance, and President Trump's frequent derogatory words about Ukraine, will almost certainly have strengthened Moscow's hand in peace negotiations. The impeachment inquiry touches on the 2016 US presidential election campaign and also President Trump's possible opponent in 2020 - Joe Biden. Ukraine is involved in both. So far no Ukrainian has been called to testify. The inquiry is instead focusing on the official and "irregular" US channels of communication between Washington and Kyiv. President Trump's lukewarm attitude towards Ukraine dates back to the election campaign of 2016. At the time, Mr Trump's campaign manager - Paul Manafort - was forced to resign after documents emerged in Ukraine that suggested he had received off-the-books payments from a pro-Russian political party. President Trump and his supporters say that by releasing the documents, Ukrainian officials unfairly interfered to support his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton. Despite the best efforts of President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the evidence to support the claims remains extremely thin. Meanwhile, Mr Manafort has been jailed for financial crimes. This has turned into the central part of the impeachment inquiry with both parties approaching from a different angle. It concerns a period in 2014-15 when Vice-President Biden was the Obama administration's point-man on Ukraine. At the same time his son, Hunter, had a lucrative directorship with a Ukrainian gas company. Democrats are seeking to prove that President Trump leveraged US military assistance and a White House visit in return for Ukraine's president launching an investigation into the Bidens. Republicans are trying to make this about the Bidens. They want to know why Hunter was paid so much, and whether the vice-president used his political clout to help his son's company. Ukraine's initial response through President Volodymyr Zelensky was to say that he had felt "no pressure" from the White House to launch an investigation into the Bidens. It has become part of President Trump's mantra when he riffs about his "perfect" 25 July phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart. Since then, testimony and text messages released by US diplomats have made it clear that Ukrainian officials were confused and worried about the hold-up in US assistance. And that they were being told the way out was to announce investigations into both the 2016 election and the Bidens. We now know, for example, that the Ukrainians were actively considering capitulating and doing a TV interview that would announce the investigations that President Trump clearly wanted. Mindful of getting further sucked into partisan US politics the Ukrainian officials involved are declining to give their side of the story. For the most part they've moved on. Ukrainians are more preoccupied by their new president's efforts to bring peace in the east than his phone call with Trump. President Zelensky has recently made a series of concessions in the hope of getting Russia to the negotiating table. His critics are accusing him of naivety and capitulating to President Vladimir Putin. | How important is US military aid and support to Ukraine? | 1,552 | It is important on both a military and symbolic level. Where once the Ukrainian military knew that the US had their backs, this can no longer be taken for granted. The wavering over assistance, and President Trump's frequent derogatory words about Ukraine, will almost certainly have strengthened Moscow's hand in peace negotiations. | 0.701533 | 0.783116 | 0.742325 |
3011_0 | Italy has declared a state of emergency in Venice after the Italian city was engulfed by 1.87m (6ft) high water levels, flooding its historic basilica and cutting power to homes. More than 80% of the city, a Unesco world heritage site, was under water when tides were at their highest. Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte described the flooding as "a blow to the heart of our country". He said the government would now act quickly to provide funds and resources. "It hurts to see the city so damaged, its artistic heritage compromised, its commercial activities on its knees," Mr Conte, who visited the region late on Wednesday, wrote in a Facebook post (in Italian). He said the government would "accelerate" the building of structural defences for the lagoon city, referring specifically to the so-called Mose project - a hydraulic barrier system to shut off the lagoon in the event of rising sea levels and winter storms. The prime minister said he was declaring emergency measures on Thursday, adding that individuals could claim up to EUR5,000 (PS4,300; $5,500), and businesses up to EUR20,000, in compensation. Many museums remained shut on Thursday, AFP reports. It comes as Venetians woke to sirens indicating that the tide would "remain high" in the coming days. The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, blamed climate change for the highest water levels in more than 50 years this week, saying the impact was "huge" and would leave "a permanent mark". St Mark's Square - one of the lowest parts of the city - was one of the worst hit areas. Mr Brugnaro said the famous St Mark's Basilica had suffered "grave damage". The crypt at the historic landmark was completely flooded on Tuesday and there are fears that the basilica's columns may have been structurally damaged. "The damage will run into hundreds of millions of euros," Mr Brugnaro warned. On Wednesday, pumps were deployed to drain water from the church and its 12th Century crypt. Small business owners and vendors in the city were appealing to tourists, many of whom had left the city after the water levels rose, to return. One merchant told the mayor that his business relied on tourism, but that his kiosk was swept away by the tide. The city of Venice is made up of more than 100 islands inside a lagoon off the north-east coast of Italy. It suffers flooding on a yearly basis. Only once since official records began in 1923, however, has the tide been higher than it reached this week - hitting 1.94m in 1966. On the island of Pellestrina, two people died as a result of the flooding on a thin strip of land that separates the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. A resident was electrocuted as he tried to start a pump in his home and a second person was found dead elsewhere on the island. The flooding in Venice was caused by a combination of high spring tides and a meteorological storm surge driven by strong winds blowing north-eastwards across the Adriatic Sea. The winds were so strong that an empty vaporetto - or public water bus - ended up grounded in Venice's Arsenale complex. Mr Conte said the Mose flood defence project, part of which was successfully tested in 2013, was not expected to be operational until the end of 2021. Work on the project began back in 2003 and has already cost billions of euros. It has been plagued by corruption and bribery allegations. In 2014, the former mayor of Venice, Giorgio Orsoni, stepped down after he was accused of involvement in the embezzling of around EUR20m ($27m; PS16m) in public funds earmarked for flood defences. By BBC meteorologist Nikki Berry This latest Acqua Alta (high water) occurrence in Venice is the second highest tide the city has experienced in recorded history. However, if we look at the top 10 tides, five have occurred in the past 20 years and the most recent was only last year. While we should try to avoid attributing a single event to climate change, the increased frequency of these exceptional tides is obviously a big concern. In our changing climate, sea levels are rising and a city such as Venice, which is also sinking, is particularly susceptible to such changes. The weather patterns that have caused the Adriatic storm surge have been driven by a strong meridional (waving) jet stream across the northern hemisphere and this has fed a conveyor belt of low pressure systems into the central Mediterranean. One of the possible effects of a changing climate is that the jet stream will be more frequently meridional and blocked weather patterns such as these will also become more frequent. If this happens, there is a greater likelihood that these events will combine with astronomical spring tides and hence increase the chance of flooding in Venice. Furthermore, the meridional jet stream can be linked back to stronger typhoons in the north-west Pacific resulting in more frequent cold outbreaks in North America and an unsettled Mediterranean is another one of the downstream effects. All images are subject to copyright. | Is climate change behind Venice flooding? | 3,543 | By BBC meteorologist Nikki Berry This latest Acqua Alta (high water) occurrence in Venice is the second highest tide the city has experienced in recorded history. However, if we look at the top 10 tides, five have occurred in the past 20 years and the most recent was only last year. While we should try to avoid attributing a single event to climate change, the increased frequency of these exceptional tides is obviously a big concern. In our changing climate, sea levels are rising and a city such as Venice, which is also sinking, is particularly susceptible to such changes. The weather patterns that have caused the Adriatic storm surge have been driven by a strong meridional (waving) jet stream across the northern hemisphere and this has fed a conveyor belt of low pressure systems into the central Mediterranean. One of the possible effects of a changing climate is that the jet stream will be more frequently meridional and blocked weather patterns such as these will also become more frequent. If this happens, there is a greater likelihood that these events will combine with astronomical spring tides and hence increase the chance of flooding in Venice. Furthermore, the meridional jet stream can be linked back to stronger typhoons in the north-west Pacific resulting in more frequent cold outbreaks in North America and an unsettled Mediterranean is another one of the downstream effects. All images are subject to copyright. | 0.667606 | 0.815628 | 0.741617 |
8019_0 | Financial markets in Turkey have been volatile in the run-up to local elections on Sunday. The currency, the lira, dropped 5% in the course of a single day, while the stock market lost 10% of its value in just over a week. The economy is going through a very difficult patch, with a recession accompanied by high inflation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested the West is behind the financial turbulence. It has certainly taken a marked turn for the worse, after a long period of mostly strong growth under President Erdogan. He took office in 2003 (as prime minister in the first instance, then later as president) in the aftermath of a major financial crisis that led to a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. The economy subsequently saw healthy growth, apart from 2009, when there was a global recession. In the 15 years from when he took power, the economy more than doubled in size, at an average annual rate of 5.6%. Now, however, the economy has shrunk in both the third and fourth quarters of last year. That is a recession as the term is most often defined. Economic activity in the final three months of 2018 was 3% lower than a year earlier. Unemployment is also a persistent and worsening problem. By December last year, 4.3 million people wanted a job and didn't have one, giving an unemployment rate of 13.5%. There may well be a recovery of sorts, but it would be quite a surprise if it's as strong as the country's recent performance. For the next four years, the International Monetary Fund is predicting a return to growth. But it's not expecting much more than 2.5%, and less in some years. For an emerging economy where the potential for growth should be relatively good, that's not particularly impressive. Turkey also has a serious inflation problem. Consumer prices in February were very nearly 20% higher than a year earlier. The figure was more than 25% in October. Central banks generally deal with an inflation problem by raising interest rates, which makes it more expensive for firms and households to borrow, so they spend less, reducing the pressures that tend to push prices up. The Turkish central bank did raise rates very sharply last year, with its main rate ending up at an eye-watering 24%. But Mr Erdogan did not approve. Mr Erdogan's views could hardly be more unorthodox - and that is seen as a problem in the financial markets. He has called repeatedly for lower interest rates and has restated that view in the last few days. He noted that inflation had come down from its highs (which is true). But he said the main problem was the level of interest rates. He said: "Inflation will further decrease with the lowering of interest rates." That is exactly the opposite of the view held in central banks, financial markets and among academic economists. It leaves doubts in the minds of investors about whether the central bank is really independent, although so far, it has not responded to the president's calls for lower rates. Turkey has a related problem of bouts of sharp currency decline, an issue that has resurfaced in the last few week. It aggravates an inflation problem by making imported goods more expensive. Higher interest rates can help stabilise a currency. Such a move means that investors can earn better returns in the country's currency, so they are more inclined to buy it, thus pushing its value up - or least dissipating some of the pressure for the currency to drop. For one thing, he has blamed outsiders: "All these are attempts by the West, particularly America, to corner Turkey." The banking regulator has launched an investigation into the US firm JP Morgan over a report which was seen as undermining the currency. "We should discipline all market speculators," Mr Erdogan was quoted as saying. There was also a surge in the cost of borrowing lira in the financial markets. Some reports said that Turkish banks had been told to withhold lira funds, which could have been used to speculate against the currency. The government has also been operating markets that offer a limited range of foods at lower prices. The food markets may help some hard-pressed families, but it is not going to yield a durable solution to Turkey's inflation problem. As for the steps to stabilise the currency, there is a great deal of scepticism. Dennis Shen of the credit rating group Scope said: "Such tactics to force lira stability and restrict selling of the lira may reduce speculative pressures to an extent in the short run, but will make lira less attractive longer-term, cutting foreign direct investment and external portfolio and debt flows into Turkey." | How bad is Turkey's economic situation? | 422 | It has certainly taken a marked turn for the worse, after a long period of mostly strong growth under President Erdogan. He took office in 2003 (as prime minister in the first instance, then later as president) in the aftermath of a major financial crisis that led to a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. The economy subsequently saw healthy growth, apart from 2009, when there was a global recession. In the 15 years from when he took power, the economy more than doubled in size, at an average annual rate of 5.6%. Now, however, the economy has shrunk in both the third and fourth quarters of last year. That is a recession as the term is most often defined. Economic activity in the final three months of 2018 was 3% lower than a year earlier. Unemployment is also a persistent and worsening problem. By December last year, 4.3 million people wanted a job and didn't have one, giving an unemployment rate of 13.5%. | 0.759766 | 0.723364 | 0.741565 |
5000_0 | Ethiopia has banned the adoption of children by foreigners amid concerns they face abuse and neglect abroad. Ethiopia is one of the biggest source countries for international adoptions by US citizens, accounting for about 20% of the total. Celebrities Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are among those who have adopted children from Ethiopia. However, in 2013, a US couple were convicted of killing an adopted Ethiopian girl. That case triggered a debate about foreign adoption, the BBC's Emmanuel Igunza in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa says. The adoption process in Ethiopia has also faced serious questions with rights groups saying that it was prone to abuse by human traffickers who saw it as lucrative market. Two years ago, Denmark stopped the adoption of children from Ethiopia. Lawmakers now say orphans and other vulnerable children should be cared for under locally available support mechanisms in order to protect them. But some MPs said that the country has insufficient local services to cater for vulnerable children. More than 15,000 Ethiopian children have been adopted in the US since 1999. Many are also taken to European countries such as Spain, France and Italy. Emmanuel Igunza, BBC Africa, Addis Ababa Debate over foreign adoptions in Ethiopia has been rife since the 2013, so the country's ban didn't come as a major surprise. The question now is what will happen to the thousands of orphans and vulnerable children who can no longer be adopted? Parliament says the country's social services should be able to handle the numbers and more importantly local adoptions are still permitted. However, adoption is not a big part of Ethiopia's culture and many orphans find themselves shuttled between relatives or on the streets. Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but millions of people live in poverty. Although there is a fast growing safety net programme to cushion the poorest from the ravages of droughts, critics say the country simply doesn't have the capacity to deal with the huge number of orphans. The coordinator of a children's orphanage in Addis Ababa, who asked not to be named, said that they would find a way to look after the children in the country. "These are our children. We are already seeing many Ethiopians choosing to sponsor one child or two through their education and other needs." "For now things are just up in the air," she added. "But who knows, it might be reversed and these needy children will find families, here or abroad." | What next for Ethiopia's orphans? | 1,180 | Emmanuel Igunza, BBC Africa, Addis Ababa Debate over foreign adoptions in Ethiopia has been rife since the 2013, so the country's ban didn't come as a major surprise. The question now is what will happen to the thousands of orphans and vulnerable children who can no longer be adopted? Parliament says the country's social services should be able to handle the numbers and more importantly local adoptions are still permitted. However, adoption is not a big part of Ethiopia's culture and many orphans find themselves shuttled between relatives or on the streets. Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but millions of people live in poverty. Although there is a fast growing safety net programme to cushion the poorest from the ravages of droughts, critics say the country simply doesn't have the capacity to deal with the huge number of orphans. The coordinator of a children's orphanage in Addis Ababa, who asked not to be named, said that they would find a way to look after the children in the country. "These are our children. We are already seeing many Ethiopians choosing to sponsor one child or two through their education and other needs." "For now things are just up in the air," she added. "But who knows, it might be reversed and these needy children will find families, here or abroad." | 0.709471 | 0.773492 | 0.741482 |
1953_2 | As New Zealand mourns the victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings, traditional Maori haka dances are reverberating around the country. It's a type of ceremonial dance many might associate with the famous New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. But what does a haka actually signify, and why have so many been performed across New Zealand this week? Haka means "dance" in the language of New Zealand's Maori people. It's a group performance involving synchronised movements, lots of stomping, shouting, and eye-rolling. In fact, there isn't just one haka - there are hundreds and new ones continue to be composed. Each region and each tribe has its own versions, depending on the occasion and who taught dance to the community. Matthew Tukaki, executive director of the Maori Council of New Zealand, told the BBC that while it's often thought of as a war dance, "the central theme is actually one of respect". "Traditionally it was a war dance to basically threaten or warn the enemy," explains Mr Tukaki. "But its meaning has changed." You'll have seen the All Blacks doing a haka on going into competition, but you might also remember another haka being performed whenever the British royals pay a visit to New Zealand. Today, different haka are performed at all kinds of ceremonial occasions - from receiving dignitaries to birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, or the funerals of chiefs and people of high standing. The words used can change with the purpose. There have been countless spontaneous instances where New Zealanders have performed a haka in recent days. "I am not all surprised to see this," says Donna Hall, a fellow member of the Maori council. "It's a spiritual response to what has happened and it really is intended to tap the spiritual depth of people." She points out that it's very important for the country to have this "unifying response" right now, at a time when everyone is still shocked by what happened last Friday. Pretty much. Traditionally, the practice had been limited to Maori communities, but it has long spread far beyond that. "Let's be honest, the All Blacks can take most of the credit for this," says Ms Hall. Today, most children learn different haka in school from early on, regardless of whether they are Maori or not. Is it ok for non-Maori New Zealanders to perform a haka? "Yes," Mr Tukaki says emphatically. "This is a special time. We are at a special moment in New Zealand history, but also one that will be important for our future." Cultural appropriation would only be an issue when cultural elements are adopted outside the communities, he says, without any Maori involvement. This is not the case in the current situation. Mr Tukaki believes the many haka videos going viral are a powerful statement in themselves, countering the online hatred that allegedly fed the shooting suspect's thinking. "Let's overwhelm them with love," he says. "I've seen haka from New Zealand, but also from Chicago, New York, London and Sydney. I have seen boys from a Muslim school in Auckland doing it - and it makes me very proud." The New Zealand Maori Council had called for a nationwide haka on 22 March, the day that commemorations marked one week since the shooting. In many places across the country, people came out to mark the day with the ceremonial dance. A special haka planned to take place at the Al-Noor mosque did not go ahead, however - overtaken by the main commemorations at the site where most of last week's victims died. "While there will be many different haka on Friday, there will be one common theme," Ms Hall explained ahead of the day. "We will be taking a stand against hatred, showing love and compassion for our Muslim community." Here are the words to the haka specially commissioned by the Maori Council to commemorate the victims of the Christchurch shooting. Haka Koiora - Haka for life Paiahaha, Paiahaha (Attention! Attention!) He aha ra ka tapaea nga mahi kikino (Why do we wait for something bad to happen) Ki te kukutia tatou katoa e? (To eventually come together?) Ia ha ha! E oho, kia tika ra (Wake up, be true!) Unuhia nga here o te kino, (Strip away bad things like) Whakatake, whakaparahako e (Negativity and belittling others) Ko te putake o te whakaaro, he kaikir (because the underlining factor is racism) Takatakahia Hi (Stomp on it) Wherawherahia Hi (Get rid of it) Kia tu te tangata koia anake (So all that remains is your true person) Ko au, Ko koe, ko koe, ko au, ko taua e (I am you, you are me, this is us) Ko te mea nui o te ao (The greatest thing in this world) He tangata, He Tangata, He Tangata e ('Tis people, 'Tis people, 'Tis people) Hi! Composed by Dr Ken Kennedy, Koro Tini and Jamus Webster | Why are haka performed for the Christchurch victims? | 1,461 | There have been countless spontaneous instances where New Zealanders have performed a haka in recent days. "I am not all surprised to see this," says Donna Hall, a fellow member of the Maori council. "It's a spiritual response to what has happened and it really is intended to tap the spiritual depth of people." She points out that it's very important for the country to have this "unifying response" right now, at a time when everyone is still shocked by what happened last Friday. | 0.755314 | 0.726182 | 0.740748 |
2907_2 | Several protesters have been arrested while trying to run from a Hong Kong university campus surrounded by police. Around 100 people tried to leave the Polytechnic University, but were met with tear gas and rubber bullets. In the past week, the campus has turned into a battleground as long-running anti-government protests become more violent. A small number managed to successfully leave the campus using rope ladders before being picked up by motorcycles. Hong Kong's Hospital Authority says 116 people have been injured and taken to hospital. The violence is some of the worst seen during months of unrest in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. The protests started over a controversial extradition bill, and have now evolved into broader anti-government demonstrations. China has warned that "no-one should underestimate [its] will to safeguard its sovereignty and Hong Kong's stability", and its ambassador to the UK said the central government would not sit back and watch if the situation became "uncontrollable". Hong Kong is a part of China, and the protests are, in part, about the fear that the special freedoms the territory enjoys as a former British colony are being eroded. Earlier, Hong Kong's High Court ruled that a ban on protesters wearing face masks was unconstitutional. The colonial-era emergency law was invoked in October, but protesters largely defied it. Hong Kong's government said the weekend's events had "reduced the chance" of district elections being held on Sunday as planned, public broadcaster RTHK reports. Postponing or cancelling the vote could further inflame the protests. The UK has urged an "end to the violence and for all sides to engage in meaningful political dialogue" ahead of the elections. Police are still besieging the university where several hundred protesters are thought to be trapped. Officers have ordered those inside to drop their weapons and surrender. A protester inside the university told the BBC supplies, including first aid equipment, were running low. Meanwhile, a fire broke out on campus and loud explosions were heard, according to the South China Morning Post. PolyU has been occupied by protesters for several days. On Sunday night, police warned protesters they had until 22:00 (14:00 GMT) to leave the campus, saying they could use live ammunition if the attacks continued. On Sunday, the university said it had been "severely and extensively vandalised". A number of protesters left inside in the university have identified themselves as current students in media interviews but it is unclear exactly how many of them are, in fact, university students. By Grace Tsoi, BBC News, Hong Kong Worried parents whose children were trapped inside the Polytechnic University were among the 200 protesters who joined a peaceful rally on Monday night in eastern Tsim Sha Tsui, a tourist area which is only 300 metres away from the besieged campus. Ms Ng - who only wanted to be identified by her last name - found out on Sunday night her son was among those trapped inside. "He's frightened because he has not faced any emergency situation on his own. She has been on the streets near the university since then. The teary-eyed mother is proud of her 18-year-old son despite the circumstances. "My son didn't cry. He's strong and likes to help others," she said. "I told my son that you did nothing wrong and you are an outstanding kid. I wouldn't blame you." She told him to stay inside the campus and wait for her to pick him up. Ms Ng said the government should bear the responsibility for the chaos in Hong Kong. "Our government is more and more reckless. It ignores the very lowly demands from the citizens!" she said. "I wasn't born in Hong Kong but I love Hong Kong so much! Hong Kong is a wonderful place but it has turned into such a state. It breaks my heart!" Campuses remained relatively free of violence during the Hong Kong protests but, last week, the Chinese University of Hong Kong became a battleground. Police say protesters threw petrol bombs on a major road near the university in an effort to stop traffic. Officers attempted to reclaim the road, leading to major clashes. The university then cancelled all classes for the rest of the term. Days later, protesters at PolyU also tried to block access to a key tunnel near the university. Protests have also been held at other locations in Hong Kong. Hong Kong - a British colony until 1997 - is part of China under a model known as "one country, two systems". Under this model, it has a high degree of autonomy and people have freedoms unseen in mainland China. The protests started in June after the government planned to pass a bill that would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China. Many feared this would undermine the city's freedoms and judicial independence. The bill was eventually withdrawn, but the demonstrations continued, having evolved into a broader protest movement against alleged police brutality, and the way Hong Kong is administered by Beijing. | Why are there protests in Hong Kong? | 4,390 | Hong Kong - a British colony until 1997 - is part of China under a model known as "one country, two systems". Under this model, it has a high degree of autonomy and people have freedoms unseen in mainland China. The protests started in June after the government planned to pass a bill that would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China. Many feared this would undermine the city's freedoms and judicial independence. The bill was eventually withdrawn, but the demonstrations continued, having evolved into a broader protest movement against alleged police brutality, and the way Hong Kong is administered by Beijing. | 0.701859 | 0.779374 | 0.740617 |
6891_1 | Thousands of migrants determined to reach the UK live in camps near the port of Calais. In 2015, UK Prime Minister David Cameron described the sight of hundreds trying to board lorries approaching the port as "unacceptable". He said Britain and France were working together to tackle the issue - but what security is in place at Calais and what more can be done? If a lorry driver suspects illegal migrants are on board - which can result in the UK imposing a PS2,000 fine per stowaway - they can pull over at the port entrance, where riot police wait. Lorry driver Euan Fleming, from County Down, said the officers have guns, batons and body armour - and are therefore equipped to clear out migrants. The first official port barrier is a French security checkpoint where passports are scanned. Mr Fleming told the BBC lorries then move on to be either X-rayed or tested with a monitor which detects any heartbeats on board. He says all lorries are checked at quiet times, but it becomes a "lottery" when the port is busy because staff cannot process vehicles fast enough. Lorries then have documents checked by UK border staff and must also pass a customs checkpoint before driving on to a ferry. The port also has roving patrols of security guards with dogs and carbon dioxide detectors - which can detect raised levels caused by people breathing in the lorries. The port is protected by 16ft (5m) fences topped with coils of razor wire and CCTV, with the gates and exterior guarded by heavily armed French riot police. Inside, there is a "comprehensive network of surveillance cameras", according to the port's website, and security guards patrol with dogs. In 2014, Britain committed PS12m over three years to tackle the problems at Calais, and part of this is being used to build a 15ft fence along the motorway leading to the port. As well as the three-year Calais investment, the UK announced PS2m extra for detection technology such as the heartbeat and carbon dioxide detectors, and PS1m for more dog searches. In August 2015, the UK and France a fresh agreement on new measures in Calais, including a "control and command centre" and the deployment of 500 extra British and French police. The UK agreed to pay PS7m over two years towards the new measures, in addition to money previously pledged. In January 2016 scores of migrants managed to storm a P&O ferry in the port after breaking away from a demonstration in the town. Following the incident, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said extra forces, including riot police, gendarmes and border units, had been mobilised for several months. French police have been widely criticised for taking migrants off lorries, driving them a few miles away then releasing them - free to walk back to Calais. But many undocumented migrants are arrested - reportedly more than 18,000 in the first half of 2015. The problem, police say, is that there are simply too many to arrest and deal with. They also say their focus on the motorway is safety, so getting people off the road is the priority. The French authorities are also struggling to stop illegal migrants crossing into France from Italy, where tens of thousands of people are thought to have arrived by boat from Africa. Passengers arriving at Dover from Calais - by far the busiest ferry route between Britain and France - have already passed UK border controls under the juxtaposed borders system. However, border staff carry out random checks on vehicles before they leave the port. Mr Fleming said all lorries have to drive through an X-ray scanner which checks for stowaways. Mr Cameron has warned against either the UK or France "trying to point the finger of blame", saying the two countries must continue to co-operate. Mr Cameron said the migration problem must be tackled "at source" by stopping trafficking operations across the Mediterranean, and by making Britain a "less easy place" for illegal migrants to work. But Damian Collins, Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, has said French authorities allow migrants to cross France "in the hope that they illegally gain entry to the UK". Mr Hanson, a Labour MP, said there must be a "joint agreement" on what happens to migrants at Calais - so they are either accepted as asylum seekers, detained or deported from France. The French government says it is speeding up the processing of asylum applications and looking to deport those who have no right to be in France. Home Secretary Theresa May told the House of Commons in 2015 that French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was "as grateful as I was for the strong co-operation" between the two countries during problems at Calais. But Mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart has said the town is a "hostage to the British" because migrants expect better lives in the UK. She called the situation "barely manageable" and called for the UK border to be moved back to Britain. CCTV and electrified fences protect the tracks and tunnel entrance at Coquelles near Calais - though striking ferry workers got on to the track and started a fire in June 2015. It was also announced by the British government that the National Barrier Asset - a 9ft police barrier - had been deployed to the lorry terminal at Coquelles. The barrier was still there in March 2016. As with ferries from Calais, the UK and France operate juxtaposed controls on Channel Tunnel trains - so passengers must pass UK border checks before travelling. UK border staff can also travel on trains to carry out extra checks. Security in Calais has become an argument between opposing campaigns ahead of the UK's referendum on EU membership, which will be held on 23 June. French economy minister Emmanuel Macron told the Financial Times the country could end the so-called Le Touquet agreement - which lets UK border guards check passports on the French side of the border - if Britain left the EU. However, Leave campaigners dismissed the comments as "scaremongering". It comes after another row, which followed comments from Mr Cameron that migrant camps like the "Jungle" in Calais could move to England if the UK left the EU. UKIP said the PM's claim was "based on fear, negativity and falsehood". French government said it had "no plans" to change the agreement . | How strong is security at Calais port? | 1,365 | The port is protected by 16ft (5m) fences topped with coils of razor wire and CCTV, with the gates and exterior guarded by heavily armed French riot police. Inside, there is a "comprehensive network of surveillance cameras", according to the port's website, and security guards patrol with dogs. In 2014, Britain committed PS12m over three years to tackle the problems at Calais, and part of this is being used to build a 15ft fence along the motorway leading to the port. As well as the three-year Calais investment, the UK announced PS2m extra for detection technology such as the heartbeat and carbon dioxide detectors, and PS1m for more dog searches. In August 2015, the UK and France a fresh agreement on new measures in Calais, including a "control and command centre" and the deployment of 500 extra British and French police. The UK agreed to pay PS7m over two years towards the new measures, in addition to money previously pledged. In January 2016 scores of migrants managed to storm a P&O ferry in the port after breaking away from a demonstration in the town. Following the incident, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said extra forces, including riot police, gendarmes and border units, had been mobilised for several months. | 0.742936 | 0.738176 | 0.740556 |
7304_1 | Voters in Switzerland have backed a tightening of gun laws to conform with European Union regulations. Almost 64% of voters in Sunday's referendum supported tougher restrictions on semi-automatic and automatic weapons, final results show. Switzerland is not an EU member, but risked removal from the open-border Schengen Area if it had voted "no". Nearly 48% of Swiss households own a gun - among the highest rates of private ownership in Europe. The EU had urged the country to tighten its laws in line with rules adopted by the bloc following the 2015 Paris terror attacks. The rules restrict semi-automatic and automatic rifles and make it easier to track weapons in national databases. The EU's initial proposal sparked criticism in Switzerland, because it meant a ban on the tradition of ex-soldiers keeping their assault rifles. Swiss officials negotiated concessions, but some gun activists argued that the rules still encroached on citizens' rights. Analysis by Imogen Foulkes, BBC News, Geneva Opponents of the new gun laws described them as a diktat from Brussels, being forced on non-EU member Switzerland against its will. The Swiss national identity, with its long tradition of gun ownership, was, they argued, being undermined. But Sunday's nationwide referendum shows voters think differently: they have overwhelmingly backed the new gun laws, following their government's advice. The Swiss seem keen to co-operate in the EU's attempts to prevent terror attacks, and to keep their often tricky relations with Brussels as smooth as possible. After the 2015 Paris attacks, the EU issued Schengen members with new restrictions on automatic and semi-automatic weapons. The rules called for: - A ban on weapons capable of rapidly firing multiple rounds - Automatic and semi-automatic weapons to either be banned or heavily restricted - Each owner of such a weapon, and the weapon itself, to be known to police across Europe - All essential weapon components to be clearly labelled and registered electronically The EU hoped the rules would help to protect people across Europe, and prevent a repeat of the 2015 attacks. Failure to adopt the changes could have forced Switzerland to leave the Schengen zone and the Dublin joint system for handling asylum requests. The Swiss government urged voters to back the changes. It said gun enthusiasts would not notice the new rules, while adopting them would allow Switzerland to retain its Schengen membership. Officials said membership of the zone had been beneficial to the economy and to fighting crime. | Why is the EU concerned about Swiss gun laws? | 1,556 | After the 2015 Paris attacks, the EU issued Schengen members with new restrictions on automatic and semi-automatic weapons. The rules called for: - A ban on weapons capable of rapidly firing multiple rounds - Automatic and semi-automatic weapons to either be banned or heavily restricted - Each owner of such a weapon, and the weapon itself, to be known to police across Europe - All essential weapon components to be clearly labelled and registered electronically The EU hoped the rules would help to protect people across Europe, and prevent a repeat of the 2015 attacks. Failure to adopt the changes could have forced Switzerland to leave the Schengen zone and the Dublin joint system for handling asylum requests. | 0.786492 | 0.691945 | 0.739219 |
108_3 | The chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee has vowed to investigate allegations that top FBI and justice department officials discussed ways to remove President Trump from office. Senator Lindsey Graham said the claims were an "attempted bureaucratic coup". Ex-acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had talks in 2017 about a constitutional clause that allows the removal of a president if deemed unfit. Mr Rosenstein has previously denied it. The pledge by Mr Graham, a Republican who has become one of the president's biggest defenders, comes after Mr McCabe appeared on US broadcaster CBS saying Mr Rosenstein discussed the numbers needed to invoke the clause, known as the 25th Amendment to the US constitution. In the 60 Minutes interview aired on Sunday, Mr McCabe also said that: - The FBI "had reason to investigate" the president's links with Russia, based on Mr Trump's actions - Mr Rosenstein had been "absolutely serious" when he discussed secretly wearing a wire to record Mr Trump - Mr Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him North Korea did not have the capability to hit the US with ballistic missiles - and, when US intelligence officials contradicted this assessment, responded with: "I don't care. I believe Putin" The White House said Mr McCabe, who was fired last year for allegedly lying to government investigators, had "no credibility". President Trump has posted several tweets on Monday morning in response to the interview, and what he described as "many lies" by the "now disgraced" Mr McCabe. He also said that it looked like him and Mr Rosenstein were attempting to carry out a "very illegal act" and a "coup attempt" against his leadership. The allegations that Mr Rosenstein discussed invoking the amendment were first reported last year by the New York Times, which cited anonymous sources. However, Mr McCabe's quotes are the first to be made on the record from someone present at the meeting where the alleged comments were reportedly made - in May 2017, after Mr Trump fired FBI director James Comey, according to Mr McCabe. "The discussion of the 25th Amendment was simply [that] Rod raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," he said. Mr McCabe also said Mr Rosenstein was openly "counting votes, or possible votes" and that he was "very concerned" about the president "his capacity and about his intent at that point in time." "To be fair, it was an unbelievably stressful time... it was really something that he kind of threw out in a very frenzied chaotic conversation about where we were and what we needed to do next." Mr Rosenstein has previously strongly denied having such discussions, saying there was "no basis" to invoking the amendment. Reacting to the interview, Senator Graham described it as "stunning" and pledged to hold a hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee to determine "who's telling the truth" and that he could issue subpoenas - a court order forcing a witness to appear to give testimony - "if that's what it takes". The powerful committee he chairs oversees the US judiciary. "I think everybody in the country needs to know if it happened. I'm going to do everything I can to get to the bottom of Department of Justice [and] FBI behaviour toward President Trump and his campaign," he told CBS. It provides for the removal of a president if he is deemed unfit for office. Duties are transferred to the vice-president. Activating the relevant section of the 25th Amendment would require the approval of eight of the 15 members of Mr Trump's cabinet, the vice-president and two-thirds majorities in Congress. Ronald Reagan and George W Bush used the amendment to temporarily transfer power when they were medically anaesthetised. Mr Rosenstein is also alleged to have offered to secretly record Mr Trump, amid concerns about possible obstruction of justice relating to the investigation into alleged collusion between the president's campaign team and Russia. When the allegations first emerged in the New York Times, Mr Rosenstein said the report was "inaccurate and factually incorrect". A source told the BBC at the time that Mr Rosenstein's comment "was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president". However, Mr McCabe said that Mr Rosenstein "was not joking. He was absolutely serious". "It was incredibly turbulent, incredibly stressful. And it was clear to me that that stress was - was impacting the deputy attorney general. "We talked about why the president had insisted on firing [Mr Comey] and whether or not he was thinking about the Russia investigation. And in the context of that conversation, the deputy attorney general offered to wear a wire into the White House. "I never actually considered taking him up on the offer," he added. Mr McCabe said the FBI was right to investigate Mr Trump's ties to Russia. When Mr Trump had told journalists and Russian diplomats that the Russia inquiry was among the reasons he had fired Mr Comey, his comments indicated that "a crime may have been committed", he said. Mr McCabe said he was "very concerned" about the Russia case, and wanted to ensure that "were I removed quickly and reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace". The justice department says Mr McCabe's account is "inaccurate and factually incorrect". It also denied Mr Rosenstein authorised any recording or considered invoking the Amendment. Meanwhile, the White House said: "Andrew McCabe was fired in disgrace from the FBI for lying, and he opened a completely baseless investigation into the president - everyone knows he has no credibility." Mr McCabe, who took over the FBI in 2017, was himself fired as deputy director in March last year just two days before he was due to retire. He was sacked by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who said an internal review found he leaked information and misled investigators. Mr McCabe denied the claims and said he was being targeted because of his involvement in the inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He has now written a book on his time in the post. | What did McCabe say about the Russia inquiry? | 4,928 | Mr McCabe said the FBI was right to investigate Mr Trump's ties to Russia. When Mr Trump had told journalists and Russian diplomats that the Russia inquiry was among the reasons he had fired Mr Comey, his comments indicated that "a crime may have been committed", he said. Mr McCabe said he was "very concerned" about the Russia case, and wanted to ensure that "were I removed quickly and reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace". | 0.667662 | 0.810488 | 0.739075 |
8888_2 | Unchecked climate change will cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars and damage human health and quality of life, a US government report warns. "Future risks from climate change depend... on decisions made today," the 4th National Climate Assessment says. The report says climate change is "presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth". The warning is at odds with the Trump administration's fossil fuels agenda. By James Cook, Los Angeles correspondent, BBC News During a blast of icy weather in Washington this week, Donald Trump tweeted, "whatever happened to global warming?" Now, without mentioning the president, his own scientists have answered their boss' question in comprehensive detail. Global warming is here in the US, they say - now. It is already deadly serious and without urgent, dramatic change, it will be catastrophic. This report is striking for two reasons. First, it is not abstract. It gives many specific examples - overwhelmed dams in South Carolina; failing crops in the parched Great Plains; a rise in insect-borne disease in Florida. And, secondly, it majors on the economic impact, in effect challenging the White House's insistence on prioritising economic growth over environmental regulation. With warnings about the effects on crumbling infrastructure, falling crop yields and decreasing labour productivity, the report sounds an alarm that climate change will soon cascade into every corner of American life. The White House said the report - compiled with help from numerous US government agencies and departments - was inaccurate. Spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said it was "largely based on the most extreme scenario, which contradicts long-established trends by assuming that... there would be limited technology and innovation, and a rapidly expanding population". The world's leading scientists agree that climate change is human-induced and warn that natural fluctuations in temperature are being exacerbated by human activity. The US climate assessment outlines the prospective impacts of climate change across every sector of American society. "With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century - more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states," the report says. "Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century." The report notes that the effects of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country, including more frequent and intense extreme weather and climate-related events. But it says that projections of future catastrophe could change if society works to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and "to adapt to the changes that will occur". Environmental groups said the report underlined their demands for action. Brenda Ekwurzel, director of climate science at the Union of Concerned Scientists and one of the report's authors, said the report made it clear that climate change was not "some problem in the distant future". "It's happening right now in every part of the country," she said. That view was echoed by Abigail Dillen, president of environmental group Earthjustice. "While President Trump continues to ignore the threat of climate change, his own administration is sounding the alarm," she said. Former US Vice-President Al Gore, a prominent climate change campaigner, accused the White House of trying to bury the report by releasing it on Black Friday - the unofficial start of America's Christmas shopping season. "Unbelievably deadly and tragic wildfires rage in the west, hurricanes batter our coasts - and the Trump administration chooses the Friday after Thanksgiving to try and bury this critical US assessment of the climate crisis," Mr Gore said. "The president may try to hide the truth, but his own scientists and experts have made it as stark and clear as possible." In October, President Trump accused climate change scientists of having a "political agenda", telling Fox News he was unconvinced that humans were responsible for the earth's rising temperatures. After taking office he announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, which commits another 187 other countries to keeping rising global temperatures "well below" 2C above pre-industrial levels. At the time, Mr Trump said he wanted to negotiate a new "fair" deal that would not disadvantage US businesses and workers. During his election campaign in 2016 Mr Trump said climate change was "a hoax". However he has since rowed back on that statement saying in a recent interview: "I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference." A report released in October by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the leading international body evaluating climate change - said it could only be stopped if the world made major, and costly, changes. That means reducing global emissions of CO2 by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, and reducing coal use to almost zero and using up to seven million sq km (2.7 million square miles) for land energy crops. If the world fails to act, the researchers warned, there would be some significant and dangerous changes to our world, including rising sea levels, significant impacts on ocean temperatures and acidity, and the ability to grow crops such as rice, maize and wheat. | What does President Trump say about climate change? | 4,160 | In October, President Trump accused climate change scientists of having a "political agenda", telling Fox News he was unconvinced that humans were responsible for the earth's rising temperatures. After taking office he announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, which commits another 187 other countries to keeping rising global temperatures "well below" 2C above pre-industrial levels. At the time, Mr Trump said he wanted to negotiate a new "fair" deal that would not disadvantage US businesses and workers. During his election campaign in 2016 Mr Trump said climate change was "a hoax". However he has since rowed back on that statement saying in a recent interview: "I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference." | 0.675603 | 0.802306 | 0.738954 |
2862_0 | Facebook has delayed the launch of its new dating feature in Europe, after a last-minute visit by officers from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). The DPC said it had been told about the feature just 10 days ahead of the planned launch and "no information or documentation was provided to us". "We were very concerned that this was the first that we'd heard," it said. Officers had gathered documents during Monday's inspection of Facebook's EU headquarters, in Dublin, the DPC said. The move also affects the UK market, which is bound to EU rules during the post-Brexit transition period this year. Facebook, however, said it had completed the necessary paperwork and shared it when asked. "It's really important that we get the launch of Facebook Dating right, so we are taking a bit more time to make sure the product is ready for the European market," a representative said. "We worked carefully to create strong privacy safeguards and complete the data-processing impact assessment ahead of the proposed launch in Europe, which we shared with the [regulator] when it was requested." No new date has been set for the roll-out. Facebook Dating launched in the US in September as part of the existing Facebook phone app. The feature, a potential competitor to dating giant Tinder, uses Facebook's data on a person to show common friends and interests on their dating profile. It can also pull in posts from Instagram - a Facebook-owned company. Other dating apps - such as Tinder and Bumble - can also use Facebook login features to build the user's profile. Because Facebook already had a lot of information about people's lives, the company said, it had made special efforts to ensure safety, security and privacy. Unlike Facebook Messenger, photos, videos, and links cannot be sent through the dating messaging service. It is also available to over-18s only and does not - unless requested - try to match users with their existing Facebook friends. The app has been available in selected countries for less than half a year, attempting to wrest some of the market share from leaders Tinder and Bumble, each of which has tens of millions of users. | What is Facebook Dating? | 1,140 | Facebook Dating launched in the US in September as part of the existing Facebook phone app. The feature, a potential competitor to dating giant Tinder, uses Facebook's data on a person to show common friends and interests on their dating profile. It can also pull in posts from Instagram - a Facebook-owned company. Other dating apps - such as Tinder and Bumble - can also use Facebook login features to build the user's profile. Because Facebook already had a lot of information about people's lives, the company said, it had made special efforts to ensure safety, security and privacy. Unlike Facebook Messenger, photos, videos, and links cannot be sent through the dating messaging service. It is also available to over-18s only and does not - unless requested - try to match users with their existing Facebook friends. The app has been available in selected countries for less than half a year, attempting to wrest some of the market share from leaders Tinder and Bumble, each of which has tens of millions of users. | 0.6818 | 0.795258 | 0.738529 |
6978_0 | The UK government has published a "future partnership paper" as it works towards ending the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in the United Kingdom after Brexit. So what does the ECJ do, and why is it so important to the Brexit process? The Court of Justice of the European Union - to give it its full name - is the EU's highest legal authority. It is based in Luxembourg. It is actually composed of two separate courts - the Court of Justice and the General Court. From 2004 to 2016 there was a third court, the Civil Service Tribunal, but its work is now done by the General Court. To avoid confusion this article will refer to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to describe the work of the entire institution. If you want to know more detail, or look up a specific case, you can do so here. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which is a separate institution. The ECtHR is based in a different city, Strasbourg, and is not part of the European Union. It is the ECtHR not the ECJ that has often upset British politicians by making it harder, for example, to deport terrorist suspects. The ECJ has tended to support British efforts to extend the remit of the single market. - It decides whether the institutions of the EU are acting legally, and it settles disputes between them. - It ensures that the member states of the EU are complying with their legal obligations as set out in the EU treaties; and it allows member states to challenge EU legislation. - It interprets EU law at the request of national courts. Taken all together, this means that the ECJ interprets and enforces the rules of the single market, and pretty much everything else that the EU does. It all comes back to that Brexit referendum slogan "Take Back Control". At the Conservative Party conference in October 2016, Theresa May, as the new prime minister, declared: "We are not leaving (the EU) only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. That is not going to happen." Vague promises to take back control of our laws suddenly became a very specific promise to end the jurisdiction of the ECJ in the UK. It became a government red line. Yes, we can. That's because trade deals usually have their own inbuilt dispute procedures. But any company from the US or Japan or anywhere else that wants to sell its product in the European single market has to comply with all EU regulations, and with all ECJ rulings about any of those regulations. If foreign companies don't comply, they can't operate in the EU. The same applies in reverse, of course, to European companies that want to sell their products elsewhere. Not if they want to operate in the single market, no. They are not immune from EU law. Quite the opposite, in fact. Take Google for example, which was fined a record 2.4bn euro by the European Commission in June for abusing its dominance of the search engine market. If Google wanted to appeal, it would have to make its case before the European Court of Justice. In that sense, no, not directly, because companies can choose whether they want to trade abroad or not. But the really difficult issue for any country that wants to "leave" ECJ jurisdiction entirely is that the European Court is the ultimate arbiter for all the rules and regulations that make the EU tick. So if the UK wants to stay in the European Air Safety Agency, or the European Arrest Warrant, or the European Medicines Agency or any number of other bodies that regulate various aspects of our lives, it will have to accept that the ECJ will have a role to play in UK affairs. Here's one illustration of how thin this red line can be. Since the referendum, the government has confirmed that it still intends to join a new Unified Patent Court that is being set up by EU member states, even though the new court will regard ECJ decisions as legally binding and refer its own legal questions to the ECJ. Yes, that's right. Every time you dig beneath the surface of Brexit you stumble across the European Court of Justice. To get rid of it entirely would mean cutting all the ties we have, setting up dozens of regulatory bodies of our own, and starting many things from scratch. Also, don't forget, if the UK wants to negotiate a period of transition, to smooth the path towards full exit from the EU, it will have to accept that the writ of the ECJ will continue to run for quite some time after Brexit. That's another policy area in which the role of the ECJ will have to be negotiated. The EU insists that its citizens in the UK should continue to enjoy the legal protection of the ECJ even after Brexit. UK negotiators say that is not acceptable, partly because it is a commitment that would have to last for many decades in some cases. People on both sides of the Channel hope it is, at least in some respects. On the citizens' rights issue, for example, there are suggestions that some kind of independent tribunal, involving both EU and UK judges, could be set up. There are some precedents for this. Similarly when it comes to the single market there are parallel structures such as the EFTA Court (which governs the affairs of Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, the three non-EU members of the European Economic Area) that are nominally independent of the ECJ. But in practice, the EFTA Court follows ECJ rulings extremely closely. The UK could in theory set up something similar. The EU may be ready to live with that, but ardent Brexiteers will raise objections. That's one of the reasons why David Davis has spoken of a 'new and unique solution' - he has to try to keep everyone happy! The trouble is that legal issues such as jurisdiction are extremely difficult to fudge, and there does appear to be a substantial gap in perception between the two sides. David Davis has made the sporting argument that if you're Manchester United and you go to play Real Madrid, you don't let Madrid nominate the referee. But the EU sees the footballing metaphor rather differently: the UK is choosing to leave a league of 28 teams. If it wants to come back to play the odd friendly, the EU would argue, it has to accept that the panel of referees will remain the same. Read more from Reality Check Follow us on Twitter | What is the European Court of Justice? | 256 | The Court of Justice of the European Union - to give it its full name - is the EU's highest legal authority. It is based in Luxembourg. It is actually composed of two separate courts - the Court of Justice and the General Court. From 2004 to 2016 there was a third court, the Civil Service Tribunal, but its work is now done by the General Court. To avoid confusion this article will refer to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to describe the work of the entire institution. If you want to know more detail, or look up a specific case, you can do so here. | 0.675274 | 0.801728 | 0.738501 |
8937_1 | Every 75 minutes, someone in London is admitted to hospital with traumatic injuries, according to the capital's ambulance service. In a week-long diary for the BBC, the London Trauma System's clinical director describes the moment he held a stabbed man's heart in his hands and how rising knife crime is "taking its toll" on the healthcare system. Prof Karim Brohi is the clinical director of the London Trauma System, which oversees trauma care at 30 hospitals across the capital. He clocks in at the Royal London Hospital Major Trauma Centre - run by Barts Health NHS Trust - at 08:00 BST and is now its on-call trauma surgeon with overall responsibility for patients until the same time the following Monday. There are 42 patients on the trauma ward when he arrives, including an injured 15-year-old boy, eight stabbings and four gunshot wounds. Despite this, it's a relatively quiet day and he clocks off two hours late at 19:00. But within a couple of hours, he is called back to treat a teenager who has been stabbed multiple times. "A CT scan reveals severe injuries," Prof Brohi says. "We take him to surgery and open his abdomen. He has life-threatening injuries to his lung and spleen and has lost a significant amount of blood. "We have to resuscitate him as we proceed with surgery, before removing his spleen. Finally he stabilises and we are able to fix his other injuries." The teenager from the previous evening is now "stable and doing well", despite losing his spleen. But overnight there are six new trauma patients, including two stabbing victims. During morning rounds a Code Red comes in - a man has has been hit by a car and has a severe pelvic fracture and bleeding. Specialist radiologists are called into perform a procedure known as an embolisation - where blood vessels are clogged with medical glue or tiny beads - to stop the bleeding. "The patient is taken to intensive care for further stabilisation, where specialist pelvic surgeons will take care of the next stage of his care," Prof Brohi explains. "Luckily he has no brain injury, but it's going to be a long rehabilitation process and I would expect there's only a 50/50 chance he ever returns to work." A Code Red is called in by paramedics when a patient may have only minutes to live. A team of specialists from around the hospital assemble in the major trauma unit and key staff are put on stand-by. An emergency operating theatre is put on hold and a CT scanner is held empty for the patient. Different types of blood are thawed and special components to help with procedures like embolisation are delivered. The patient arrives and a team of doctors and nurses have seconds to diagnose the problem and begin treatment. It's a quiet night, with only two new admissions. Monday's teenage stabbing victim is improving, despite being in a "fair bit of pain". Another teenager on the ward who was stabbed a week ago still has a large blood clot in his chest, which requires treatment. "I take him to surgery and we collapse his lung down and remove the clot using a keyhole surgery approach," says Prof Brohi. "About half a litre of blood and a clot is removed. He'll be sore tomorrow from the new drains we have placed but hopefully will now make a good recovery - physically anyway." The key facts about rising knife crime A patient with very bad head injuries from an accident comes in overnight and the critical care team is brought in to support the "distraught" family. The prognosis is poor and "the next 24-hours will be critical," according to Prof Brohi. Elsewhere on the ward, four stabbing victims cannot be discharged because they are at risk of further violence if they return home. "Sometimes, despite our combined best efforts, people come back having been attacked again," the surgeon says. "Even for those who do go home, we know the level of post-traumatic stress for these people is extraordinarily high - many confine themselves to their own home, too afraid to go out. "They stop socialising or attending school or college. They have flashbacks and panic attacks. The stress on the family is immense." The hospital's trauma service works with St Giles Trust, which helps to steer people away from violent crime. Since joining forces with the charity, the hospital says it has seen a "substantial reduction in the proportion of people under 25 returning to hospital with further violent injuries", with fewer than 1% of cases returning to the trauma unit. But Prof Brohi believes the trust needs more support. "It is excellent in providing support for young people after they leave hospital, but their resources and reach is limited. We work hard to try to find a safe environment for these patients, but it can take time." The system encompasses four networks, each led by a major trauma centre at St Mary's, St George's, King's College, and Royal London hospitals. Between them they provide major trauma care to some 30 hospitals and health units across London and their resources are combined to ensure they provide care 24 hours a day. Since it was established in 2010, the London Trauma System says it has improved access to specialist trauma treatments and improved quality of care. It was the first system of its kind in the country and research by the Queen Mary Centre for Trauma Sciences shows death rates in the most critical patients have halved in 10 years. Sadly, the prognosis of Thursday's head injury patient was accurate and she rapidly deteriorates and dies. She has no other medical problems and could be a potential organ donor, which "may be the only good that ever comes of such cases," Prof Brohi says. He spends the afternoon with the research team, which is conducting studies into improving survival rates from major trauma. Later, a Code Red brings the surgeon back to the hospital at 22:00 BST - a young man has been stabbed in the chest, and his vital signs are deteriorating. "The patient's blood pressure is falling rapidly. The trauma team has already started to resuscitate him and put him to sleep and my surgical registrar has started to open his chest, while I quickly gown up. "There is a massive blood clot around the heart stopping it beating which we rapidly remove, revealing a large laceration to the heart itself. "We control this with our hands while the team continue to resuscitate him and together we get his heart beating strongly again. My registrar then sews up the hole in his heart and we take him up to the operating room to complete the operation, closing his chest. "Just after midnight we go to speak to his family. I'm hopeful he will do well. But whatever the outcome, these conversations with a family in the relative's room in the middle of the night mark the beginning of a horrendous chapter in all their lives - from which some may never recover." A young girl comes into the trauma ward losing a dangerous amount of blood after falling and cutting through the main artery in her arm. By the time she reaches hospital, paramedics have the bleeding temporarily controlled with a pressure bandage. "We whisk her up to the operating room to take a look while she is asleep under anaesthetic," says Prof Brohi. "Her artery is repaired and then our plastic surgeons do a great job of turning a horrible wound into a neat scar. She's transferred to the paediatric ward and her arm should hopefully be fine." A busy Saturday night sees nine further trauma patients admitted - four of which are stabbings. Two have injuries to their lungs, one to the liver. Luckily, none are serious enough to be operated on by Prof Brohi. Their acute injuries are managed and they are admitted for observation. Prof Brohi is at home playing Lego with his daughter when he gets a call that a man has been stabbed in the chest, back and legs. Although initially declared a Code Red, a CT scan reveals no major injuries and the surgeon is stood down and the registrar takes over. Later that evening there's another stabbing. This time, Prof Brohi is called straight to theatre. "We open his abdomen to find the knife has gone completely through his stomach and cut his pancreas in half. "We repair his stomach but need to remove half of his pancreas. He should have enough pancreas left so he is not rendered diabetic, but as always, time will tell. "He is at very high risk of infections and abscesses and it's possible he will need several more procedures after this." Prof Brohi says some of the violence he sees is "hard to even begin to comprehend". "There is no doubt that seeing these cases takes its toll on healthcare staff. But it can be nothing compared to being a teenager who is exposed to, and in fear of, this level of violence on a day-to-day basis. "The level of stress and anxiety on these kids, and their family, is unfathomable." The surgeon believes violence is increasing not just on London's streets, but across the country. "We do our best to save lives. But to really save a life - and make one that's worth living - takes a whole community. "We need to look again at our society, our culture and our values if we are to live in a world where children can be children, and mothers can be mothers, without ever having to sit in a hospital waiting room." The rest of the night is, thankfully, quiet. At 08.00 BST on Monday, Prof Brohi hands the service over to a colleague, and a new week on the trauma ward begins. Why are more and more adults wearing braces? The homeless teen who studied by candlelight 'I call my stem cell donor my sister' | What is the London Trauma System? | 4,733 | The system encompasses four networks, each led by a major trauma centre at St Mary's, St George's, King's College, and Royal London hospitals. Between them they provide major trauma care to some 30 hospitals and health units across London and their resources are combined to ensure they provide care 24 hours a day. Since it was established in 2010, the London Trauma System says it has improved access to specialist trauma treatments and improved quality of care. It was the first system of its kind in the country and research by the Queen Mary Centre for Trauma Sciences shows death rates in the most critical patients have halved in 10 years. | 0.680131 | 0.79641 | 0.738271 |
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