North Korea says a US missile strike on Syria "proves a million times over" that it was right to strengthen its nuclear programme, state media report.

Article: Yes, Hillary Clinton's lead in pledged delegates and total votes, as well as her vast advantage among the "superdelegate" party officials and officeholders, means she likely will accrue the necessary support on Tuesday to be the nominee even before polls close in California.
But the Sanders campaign is asserting that a win on the west coast, where surveys show the race is close, will fuel his efforts over the coming weeks, setting the stage for a showdown with Mrs Clinton on the floor of the Democratic convention in July.
At a press conference in Los Angeles on Saturday morning Mr Sanders emphasised this point, urging the reporters in attendance to refrain from calling Mrs Clinton the presumptive nominee.
"I have heard reports that Secretary Clinton has said it's all going to be over on Tuesday night," Sanders said. "I have heard reports that the media, after the New Jersey results come in, are going to declare that it is all over. That simply is not accurate."
The Vermont senator's pitch is that, unencumbered by Mrs Clinton's low approval ratings and controversy surrounding her use of a private email server while at the State Department, he's the better candidate to run against Republican Donald Trump in the autumn general election.
His team points to numerous opinion polls showing that he performs better in hypothetical presidential matchups than Mrs Clinton. (Clinton's team counters that his numbers are inflated because he's largely stayed above the fray on the campaign trail.)
After Tuesday, when all but the District of Columbia will have held their nomination contests, Mr Sanders will no longer be able to make that case to most American voters.
His goal, then, will be to convince enough superdelegates - who are not officially committed to a candidate until they cast their ballots at the Democratic convention - to switch their support to him. A win in California, the nation's most populous state, would feature prominently in his closing arguments.
"At the end of the nominating process no candidate will...

Summary: For Bernie Sanders and his die-hard supporters, California - the Golden State - is his golden ticket.
###
Article: This led to questions about the control of information online and highlighted the declining trust in China's healthcare system.
Baidu is an internet juggernaut that owns search engine and social media services. Its forums are hugely popular, with 1 billion participants taking part in 19 million discussions which allow many Chinese people to converse about the issues that matter to them.
This scandal first came to light when a whistleblower posted about irregularities within a popular forum for people with haemophilia, an inherited and rare condition that affects the blood's ability to clot.
He alleged that the original volunteer moderator had been replaced with another one who paid for the position, and that this new individual was unqualified and posting information about dubious healthcare providers, as well as censoring criticism on the forum.
Baidu later said it would "stop all partnerships with commercial enterprises" when it came to its health forums, and only allow non-profit groups to moderate.
But it left many netizens outraged and condemning the practice as unethical.
With more than 7,000 participants, the forum was seen as an important independent information resource particularly given concerns about China's healthcare system.
Prof Jin Lei, a medical sociologist with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says there is a general lack of trust in China's healthcare system.
This mistrust has been building since the 1980s when market reforms saw a slash in government funding for hospitals. Most hospitals are state-run, but state financing can now account for as little as 10% of costs.
This has led to the issue of hospitals aggressively pushing marked-up drugs and high cost services to patients, as well as more serious problems such as accepting and demanding bribes, taking kickbacks from medical suppliers, and selling counterfeit drugs, says Prof Jin.
Many Chinese patients also prefer going to the top public hospitals for treatment, rather than seeking help at lower-tier providers.
"So the doctors and...

Summary: Last week one of China's biggest community sites, Baidu, sparked an outcry when it admitted it allowed healthcare companies to moderate online health forums.
###
Article: The animal, which was suffering from a rare condition in its belly called balloon syndrome, had swollen to twice its normal size.
Vets in Bude, Cornwall, think the animal swelled up after picking up an infection and gas was produced by bacteria.
The hedgehog is now being fed worms before being released.
Adam Revitt, of Locke and Preston Vets, who looked after the hedgehog when it was brought to them in early May, said: "If it had continued to blow up it could have ruptured.
"More concern to me was that the air was putting pressure on the hedgehog's chest so it couldn't breath or move, therefore there was a danger of it suffocating or starving to death.
"I used a needle and syringe to drain the air. It took about five minutes to drain all the air out."

Summary: An inflated hedgehog has been saved from "rupturing" by vets who pricked it with a needle.
###
Article: The thieves hijacked the website of finance security start-up Enigma and posted messages saying it was about to launch its own currency.
Many people keen to cash in transferred ethereum to the thieves' account.
In response, Enigma shut down its website and adopted stronger security policies to keep hackers out.
In a statement posted to its Twitter account, Enigma said the thieves had carried out the scam after taking over the company's web domain, mailing lists and Slack messaging service account.
By posting a message on the Enigma website and sending notices out via Slack and email, the malicious hackers convinced many people the security company was seeking early investors.
The attackers played on the fact that early next month Enigma plans to run a crypto-cash-based fundraising exercise to bankroll its expansion.
The criminal hackers asked for investments to be paid in ethereum and are believed to have amassed about $500,000 worth before the scam was spotted and shut down.
Enigma said none of its infrastructure had been used for the scam and none of its funds had been stolen by the attackers.
It said it had now regained control of its compromised accounts.
It has also adopted stronger security measures internally to prevent hijacks.
Enigma has also stopped using Slack and moved to the secure messaging program Telegram.
"We've moved up a number of critical security steps and taken additional measures to protect the community going forward," Tor Bair, a spokesman for Enigma, told Wired.
"We're now very well aware of the potential threats and are taking no chances."
Enigma added it was helping to investigate the scam and who was behind it with the help of other crypto-cash and security companies.

Summary: Cyber-thieves are believed to have stolen about $500,000 (Â£390,000) in the Ethereum crypto-currency, with an investment scam.
###
Article: The Republican-controlled Congress is expected to reject it.
The leaders of the House and Senate budget committees jointly announced they would not invite Mr Obama's budget director to testify before them.
Despite the setbacks, the White House has said the budget sticks to a bipartisan agenda reached last autumn.
The budget is for the 2017 fiscal year and would not take effect until 1 October 2016.
The tax on oil would raise $319bn over 10 years. The US Treasury said that the tax would apply to both imported and domestically-produced oil, but would not be collected on US oil shipped overseas.
The plan would also temporarily exempt home-heating oil from the tax.
The White House said the tax "creates a clear incentive for private-sector innovation to reduce America's reliance on oil and invest in clean energy technologies that will power our future".
The tax would be paid by oil companies in order to boost spending on transportation infrastructure, including mass transit and high-speed rail, and autonomous vehicles.
President Obama's budget includes $11bn to fight so-called Islamic State, plus money for early childhood education, and research and development.
It includes $19bn in spending on cyber security that would allow for a overhaul of the federal government's internal computing systems.
Last year, systems at the Office of Personnel Management were hacked, exposing the personal information of government employees and job applicants.
The proposed budget envisions a deficit of $503bn in the 2017 fiscal year after a $616bn budget gap in the current fiscal year, which ends on 30 September.
It seeks to cut deficits by $2.9tn over 10 years, largely through smaller tax breaks for wealthy earners, new savings in Medicare healthcare, and assumptions that adoption of its policies would boost economic growth.
Over 10 years, deficits would average 2.5% of US economic output, compared with about 4% in the Congressional Budget Office's estimate, which is based on current laws.
"That [budget] document... will be...

Summary: President Obama has released the final budget proposal of his presidency, a $4.1tn (Â£2.8tn) programme that includes a $10.25 per barrel tax on oil.
###
Article: They cited an unnamed government spokesman saying Friday's strike was an "intolerable act of aggression against a sovereign state".
The strikes followed Wednesday's suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held Syrian town which killed 89.
North Korea has carried out tests to develop a nuclear missile.
The UN has banned it from missile or nuclear tests.
But it has repeatedly broken those sanctions. It has successfully tested nuclear bombs of increasing power and claims to have been able to make warheads small enough to fit on a missile, but some experts have cast doubt on those claims.
On Friday, US missiles struck a Syrian airbase, killing at least six people. It was the first US attack on a Syrian government facility, although the country had previously targeted the Islamic State group in the region.
"The US missile attack against Syria is a clear and intolerable act of aggression against a sovereign state and we strongly condemn it," a government official in North Korea said, as quoted by the KCNA news agency.
"The reality of today shows that we must stand against power with power and it proves a million times over that our decision to strengthen our nuclear deterrence has been the right choice.
"Only military power of our own will protect us from imperialistic aggression.
"We will keep bolstering our self-defensive military might in various ways in order to cope with the ever-intensifying US acts of aggression."

Summary:


The last two journalists working in Fleet Street are leaving what was once seen as the centre of UK journalism.

Article: Some activists say the market for rugs and ornaments made from the bears is driving them to extinction.
But others argue that the most pressing problem for the species is climate change and the disappearance of polar ice.
The issue will be decided at a UN wildlife conservation meeting in Thailand in March 2013.
The Humane Society International/UK says that polar bears have been brought to a tipping point by climate change but that increased hunting in recent years is pushing the species "beyond the brink".
"The drivers for the increase in recent years in the trade in polar bear parts are the extremely worrying and rapidly increasing prices being paid on international markets for polar bear parts," said Mark Jones, executive director of the Humane Society International/UK.
He points to the fact that in the five years up to 2012 there has been a 375% increase in the number of polar bear skins offered at auction, some selling for as much as $12,000 (Â£7,400).
Every year around 600 bears are legally killed by hunters in Canada and in the decade to 2010 more than 30,000 bear parts were traded as trophies, rugs and ornaments.
Opponents of the trade have now proposed a ban on the international sales of polar bear parts. It will be tabled at the next meeting of the Convention on the trade in endangered species (CITES) taking place in Thailand next March.
The move is being supported by the US and Russian governments. The last time an attempt was made to change the ruling in 2010, it was defeated after the UK and the EU voted against.  Mark Jones believes the UK government's position is very influential and wants them to support the ban.
"We urgently need the British government to step forward and be a champion for polar bears by supporting their maximum protection," he added.
But some prominent campaigners are against changing the protected status of the bears. WWF has had a long association with the iconic species but believes that the threat from international trade is not significant compared to the threat from...

Summary: Wildlife campaigners are at odds over a new attempt to ban the global trade in polar bear parts.
###
Article: Accountants BDO found occupancy fell year-on-year by 1% to 87.3% - higher than the rates recorded for England, Wales and regional UK.
Rooms yield stood at Â£65.90 in Scotland, well ahead of other UK areas.
Edinburgh and Glasgow had the highest occupancy in the UK, including London, at 92.1% and 91.6% respectively.
Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow experienced double-digit falls in revenue, but all three cities remained in the top 10 of anywhere in the UK.
Only Inverness bucked the trend by seeing revenue increase by 8.8% to Â£62.35 per room.
Alastair Rae, from BDO, said: "Aberdeen aside, the drop in revenue in Edinburgh and Glasgow is due to very high numbers last year when Edinburgh was basking in a late festival rush as well as multiple major conferences, while Glasgow was still on a post-Commonwealth Games high.
"The country is becoming an all-year-round destination through a combination of being a fantastic tourist destination coupled with a major conference, concert and business centre.
"So despite these falls in revenue, the hospitality sector must be feeling reasonably confident for the rest of the year.
"Aberdeen is, of course, the exception and is still coming to terms with the fall in oil prices which make the hospitality sector highly vulnerable to price fluctuations.
"I would expect this situation to continue for some time to come."

Summary: Hotel occupancy and revenue fell in Scotland in September but remained higher than any other area of the UK, according to a regular survey.
###
Article: Meet 26-year-old Melanie Biggs who has spent the last 15 years of her life Morris dancing, sometimes wearing black paint on her face.
On occasions the dance groups she has been a part of were labelled "racist", but Melanie has claimed they were not being "disrespectful" because it is an English tradition.
"I never felt bad. I just felt that people were being ignorant," she said.
It is not often Morris dancers are in the news, but that was before a photograph emerged showing the Prime Minister David Cameron standing with his young daughter and a group of blacked-up Morris dancers.
Anti-discrimination campaigners have told Newsbeat that the practice is "out of date" and "deeply hurtful" to the millions of black people living in modern Britain.
Mr Cameron's official spokesman has refused to answer questions about the picture, which was taken at the Banbury Folk Festival on Saturday.
However, people like Melanie insist blacking-up has no racial connotations.
"In the 16th Century, Morris dancing was banned," she explained. "This was a big problem for many poor people who were out of work and used to dance for money.
"The beggars started covering their faces in soot so they could continue dancing without being recognised. Blacking-up is now commonly accepted as a form of disguise."
"I have danced with people from all sorts of cultures including an Arab man who didn't black up because he didn't need to.
"Some teams have chosen not to black-up their faces because of political correctness, but I believe it is a part of English tradition which deserves its place in history."
However, while the charity Show Racism the Red Card has accepted the importance of celebrating traditional events it has said blacking up is no longer "relevant".
A spokesperson said: "The use of blackface is an out-of-date practice demonstrating that public attitudes have moved on and crude caricatures of black people should be considered unacceptable in modern day Britain."
When asked about the Prime Minister's decision to pose for a photo with...

Summary: "If you came from outer space and you saw blacked-up Morris dancers you would think, 'they are mimicking black people', but it is a knee-jerk reaction to call it racist."
###
Article: Outstanding personal debt rose by just £1bn that month, the smallest monthly increase since May 2015, to £193bn.
That left the annual growth rate of the UK's personal debt mountain, which covers credit cards and other non-mortgage loans, steady at 10.6% a year.
The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, recently warned that personal borrowing was rising too fast.
In November he said: "We are going to remain vigilant around the issue, because we have seen this shift [in borrowing]".
The amount of outstanding personal debt, excluding mortgages, rose that month to £192bn, which was the highest level since December 2008.
Of the Bank's latest figures, Martin Beck, senior economic advisor to the Ernst & Young ITEM Club, said: "We think it unlikely that this represents the start of a steep downturn, although demand for unsecured lending is likely to ebb this year, as household finances come under increasing pressure."
Other new Bank data suggests that the UK property market will be steady in the coming months.
The number of new mortgages approved for home buyers, but not yet lent, was steady in December at just under 68,000.
That was the highest monthly figure since March last year.
Meanwhile the recovery of corporate borrowing in the UK appears to have stalled.
The amount of money owed by non-financial businesses to their lenders fell slightly in December, for the second month in a row, to £449bn.
The contraction of this sort of borrowing after the 2008 financial crisis was one factor which prompted the Bank of England to launch its policy of quantitative easing in 2009, to encourage companies to borrow and spend and to help bring the economy out of recession.
With commercial banks forced by the authorities at the same time to restrain their lending and clean up huge bad debts, it took a long time for corporate borrowing in the UK to recover.
The Bank's figures show that the outstanding debt owed by non-financial businesses fell steadily, from £522bn in April 2011 to £428bn just over four years later in June...

Summary: The growth of personal borrowing in the UK stalled slightly in December, the latest Bank of England figures show.
###
Article: The 41-year-old Hightown complex was demolished at the start of 2011 after surveys of the 181 homes in 2009 showed major repairs would be needed.
The proposals for Kingsmill Road by Wales and West Housing would include a new community and medical centre.
Wrexham council has allocated Â£5m of Welsh government social housing grants to support the project.
Wales and West want to build a combination of 127 houses and apartments on the Kingsmill site and the neighbouring Rivulet Road, the site of a former gasworks.
There is also a separate development of 20 apartments in a building on Rivulet Road.
The planning application for the gasworks is being submitted later this week, and the standalone building conversion application will go forward for consideration in early 2012.
If approved, work on the Kingsmill site could start early in the New Year.
The housing association is holding an open day on Thursday 15 December from 15:00 to 20:00 GMT at Hightown Community Centre and is keen to encourage people to come along and see the plans.
Over 100 people came along to a consultation event in the summer, according to the company.
Chief executive Anne Hinchey said: "We are really excited about this development which will provide some very much needed high quality, affordable housing to Wrexham as well as a new community facility for the area."

Summary: Plans for 92 affordable homes on Wrexham's former Hightown flats site are to be considered by the council.
###
Article: Reporters Gavin Sherriff and Darryl Smith worked for the Dundee-based Sunday Post, which closes its London office on Friday.
For decades Fleet Street was synonymous with the nation's biggest newspapers.
Ex-Sunday Express editor Robin Esser said it was once a "very, very important place" through which most of the public received its information.
The first British daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was published in Fleet Street on 11 March 1702.
At its height, "the Street of Shame" - as it was dubbed by some - was the pinnacle of a journalist's career, with nearly every national paper and several provincial newspapers having offices within a half-mile radius.
Mr Smith, 43, worked as a feature writer for the Sunday Post and was based in the street for 25 years.
He is quick to point out that the paper's London address is the same as Sweeney Todd's barber shop, where the fictional character took a razor to his clients' throats.
Although the death of journalism has finally arrived here, he says it was announced too soon by some of London's tour guides.
"I was standing by the window once a few years ago, and a tour bus had stopped outside. I heard the guide tell the passengers that Fleet Street no longer had any journalists working here.
"I stuck my head out and shouted: 'We are still here'."
The street was famous for its many bars and pubs, constantly occupied by journalists both socialising and seeking stories, and Mr Smith tells a tale of once needing to speak to a colleague in the notorious El Vino wine bar - which for many years refused to serve women.
He says he was not allowed in until he squeezed into an ill-fitting jacket, provided by the staff.
"There is so much history here, and to be one of the last ones, I feel unworthy of the torch that I'm carrying."
Mr Sherriff, 54, has worked on Fleet Street for 32 years, and rose to become the Post's London chief reporter. He says on his first ever day he walked into a smoke-filled newsroom to the sound of typewriters being bashed about.
"The phones didn't even...

Summary:

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Turkey has lifted a ban on policewomen wearing the Islamic headscarf.

Article: Mr Murphy has pledged that a UK-wide "mansion tax" would allow a future Labour government to create 1,000 new nursing posts in Scotland.
He said most of the money raised would come from London and the south east.
Labour MP Diane Abbott accused him of "unscrupulous" behaviour, but Mr Murphy insisted his plan was "sensible".
Mr Murphy compared the plan to spend money levied on English homes on Scottish nurses with the way the oil wealth from the North Sea was shared around the UK.
"It's part of pooling and sharing your resources across these islands, it's pretty sensible," he told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, and pointed out the property tax was Labour Party policy.
Labour has pledged to impose what it calls a "mansion tax" - a levy on homes worth more than Â£2m across the UK to fund the NHS - if leader Ed Miliband wins the general election.
In his first major policy announcement, Mr Murphy said he would use Scotland's share of the money, allocated under the Barnett formula, to pay for extra nursing staff, if Labour wins May's UK General Election and then the Scottish Labour Party wins the Holyrood election in 2016.
But Ms Abbott, the Labour MP for Hackney who hopes to run for London mayor, told the World at One she was very surprised that Mr Murphy was "making these boasts".
With phrases like "fiscally vindictive" and "highly unscrupulous" being hurled around, it's clear that a political row is playing out which is as bitter as it is old.
It is being contested on familiar turf: does the rest of the UK, and particularly wealthy London, subsidise Scotland?
The front pages of the London editions of The Times and The Daily Telegraph both concentrate on a "pledge" from the Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, made as he kicked off his campaign for the general election.
"Mansion tax to fund nursing in Scotland" is The Times' headline. "Labour tax on 'wealthy English' to fund nurses in Scotland" is the Telegraph's take.
Believe it or not, those headlines will suit Mr Murphy. The new leader of the Scottish...

Summary: Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has rejected claims he is trying to "buy" Scottish votes with money "expropriated" from London.
###
Article: It estimates that Greek government debt will now reach a peak of close to 200% of GDP or national income over the next two years - which it regards as impossibly and unsustainably high.
It says that Greece's debt can now only be made bearable through "debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far".
And it makes three other savage criticisms of the reforms forced on Greece by the rest of the eurozone, and whose main elements are being rushed through the Athens parliament today.
It does not believe Greece will be able to achieve continuous budget surpluses of 3.5% of GDP or national income over several decades, as demanded by eurozone creditors.
It regards forecast rates of growth for Greece as unrealistically high.
And it believes that the governance of Greek banks is lamentable, at the heart of so many of Greece's economic woes, and not remotely being solved.
So why does this intervention by the IMF, in a statement issued tonight matter?
Well for two very big reasons.
First is that it will make it much harder for the government of Alexis Tsipras to persuade the Athens parliament to back painful austerity measures in votes today demanded by eurozone creditors as the sine qua non of keeping Greece in the eurozone.
But why on earth should Greek MPs vote for a painful economic reform package which the IMF - the supposed global arbiter of these things - does not believe will put the country back on the path to prosperity?
Second the eurozone creditors, and Germany in particular, forced Alexis Tsipras - against his strong preference - to accept IMF participation in the next formal bailout package to be negotiated if Greek MPs pass the initial reform measures tonight.
They told him, in effect, he would be turfed out of the eurozone and into national ruin unless he took more of the IMF's money and fiscal bossiness.
Which also look tragically comic tonight - with the IMF saying that if it's all the same to Mrs Merkel, it would rather not touch Greece with a barge pole.
Or to...

Summary: Just when it looked as though there could be a pause in the eurozone's Greek crisis, the International Monetary Fund has launched a blistering attack on the bailout deal forced on Athens by Germany and other eurozone governments.
###
Article: In the letter, sent two years before To Kill A Mockingbird came out in 1960, she listed six ideas that she thought would occupy her for the next 15 years.
But she has not written a full novel since To Kill A Mockingbird's success.
However a manuscript she wrote before that book, Go Set A Watchman, has been found and will be published next week.
Lee wrote Go Set a Watchman in the mid-1950s - but her editor persuaded her to turn some of the story's flashback sequences into a separate novel.
That novel became To Kill A Mockingbird, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and is regarded as one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century.
In 1958, she wrote to her friend Joy Brown who, along with her husband Michael, had given her money to leave her job and focus on writing.
Lee told them she was trying to finish "My Novel". She described it as "the hardest damn thing to write I've ever attempted" and added: "I'm about six weeks' gone with another one."
Lee then went on to list ideas for future books. "I have my work cut out for me for the next fifteen years:
"Can you feed and lodge me so long?" Lee then asked.
The first idea "Race Novel" was in keeping with the themes of both To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set A Watchman, which document racial tension in the southern US.
Mrs Brown said the author was interested in the Victorian era, and the third idea refers to Graham Greene's nickname for his less serious works.
The fourth signals her intention to write about her home town of Monroeville, Alabama.
Of the final idea, she wrote that her agent Annie Laurie Williams would "sell this to the movies".
"The heroine will be named Portulaca Brown, an Anglo-Indian," she wrote. "She will have all her teeth, and they will gleam beautifully in Technicolor on a Stethoscopic Screen. There will be a Plot."
Lee and Brown had and still enjoy a close friendship, and the author went on to provide what may have been a light-hearted outline.
"Portulaca Brown, an Anglo-Indian, is dissatisfied with her lot," she wrote. "She wants...

Summary: Author Harper Lee had plans to write a string of novels after To Kill A Mockingbird, according to a letter she wrote before the book was published.
###
Article: Some estimates say that up to 200,000 pensioners - some of whom are unwell - could typically receive £2,000 each.
Prudential and Standard Life have agreed to review hundreds of thousands of policies, which go back to July 2008.
Standard Life has set aside £175m to cover the compensation programme.
Analysts have said that Prudential is likely to have to pay at least £200m.
It follows an investigation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which concluded that between 39 and 48% of those sold annuities by both companies were provided with "insufficient information".
Many of those people may have qualified for so-called enhanced annuities.
Enhanced annuities pay consumers a higher income, on the basis that they are in ill health and are likely to live for a shorter period than average.
Those who bought standard annuities instead would have lost up to £240 a year in pension income, according to FCA estimates.
In October 2016, the FCA estimated that 90,000 may have been sold the wrong annuities, but industry experts believe the final figure will now be higher.
Some of those sold the policies are likely to be in their 70s and not in good health.
Nevertheless, Prudential said it would take two years for them to go through all the cases. Standard Life said that most cases should be settled by the end of 2018.
"It is deeply disappointing that it has taken this long," said Tom McPhail, head of retirement at Hargreaves Lansdown.
The policies in question were "non-advised", meaning the customers took no independent advice and did not shop around for an alternative provider.
Earlier this week, the FCA said that 58% of those who buy an annuity - or income for life - did so from their existing provider.
"The way to avoid this situation arising in the future is for customers to shop around on the open market," said Mr McPhail.
"Worryingly, FCA data published only yesterday shows that over half of investors retiring today are still buying their retirement income arrangement from their existing pension provider, which...

Summary: Tens of thousands of pensioners who were sold the wrong type of annuity with two of the UK's biggest insurance companies are to receive compensation.
###
Article: The sparks are flying as metal is cut, rather loudly, in the Port of Ramsgate.
This is a town on the east Kent coast, 80 miles from Westminster, which has a proud maritime heritage.
"We dragged it out of the water, it has been painted, washed off, all of the repairs have been made to the steel work," says Jim Barratt, as he works on the maintenance of a 320 tonne dredger, which is going through a boat's equivalent of an MOT.
So what springs to mind to Jim, who has devoted his life to ships, when the name of Nigel Farage is mentioned?
"Well, interesting! That's all I'm saying!" he says of the UKIP leader, his words cryptic, his tone sceptic.
This is the spot, the constituency of Thanet South, that Nigel Farage hopes will finally propel him to Westminster as an MP.
In May, 24 UKIP MEPs were elected to the European Parliament, more than for any other British party.
But that turned out to be just the start of a momentous year for the party. In October came a moment UKIP had ached to see, but had never before managed. Douglas Carswell became UKIP's first elected MP, having left the Conservatives.
"2014, for me, is certainly the year UKIP started to come of age," Mr Carswell told the BBC.
"In a few months' time we are going to go into an election where we are going to field 650 candidates. And it is my absolute determination, my absolute number one ambition for the year, that in all 650 constituencies we offer a credible, sensible, respectable alternative to the established parties," he said.
So, what, realistically, are UKIP's prospects at the general election and beyond?
"If UKIP holds together and maintains their support, the following election - which may be 2020 or maybe sooner - if there is a really messy parliament, UKIP will stand a real chance of a breakthrough," Peter Kellner, president of the pollsters YouGov, says.
"So if I were UKIP I would be having a two election strategy, and I think at the election after next it is possible UKIP will suddenly have 20 or 30 MPs."
Half a mile up the road from the...

Summary: It was the year the UK Independence Party made its long-awaited breakthrough in Westminster, but the party continues to divide opinion, even in its leader Nigel Farage's own backyard.
###
Article: Female officers will be able to wear a headscarf under their caps or berets, provided it is plain and is the same colour as the uniform.
Headscarf bans on university campuses and state institutions - except for the judiciary, military and police - have also been lifted in recent years.
The garment has been controversial in Turkey for years. Secularists regard it as a symbol of religious conservatism.
Since the 1920s, Turkey has had a secular constitution with no state religion.
The opposition have accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) of trying to reinterpret secularism.
However, public debate has also evolved to accept the hijab as an expression of individual liberties, correspondents say.
No strong opposition has been voiced against this latest move.
President Erdogan has long embraced Turks' right to express their religious beliefs openly, but he says he is committed to secularism.
In 2010, the country's universities abandoned an official ban on Muslim headscarves.
Three years later, women were allowed to wear headscarves in state institutions - with the exception of the judiciary, military and police. That year, four MPs wore headscarves in parliament.
Most people in Turkey are Sunni Muslims.

Summary:


Early agreement has been reached on North Sea fishing quotas for next year, with an increase in key stocks for Scottish fishermen.

Article: William Hague set out some of the UK's ideas on reforming the EU at a policy conference outside Berlin.
He said a "crisis of legitimacy" is undermining EU institutions.
National parliaments can currently raise a "yellow card" to make the European Commission reconsider laws.
Mr Hague proposed extending this principle by creating a "red card" system
This would "give national parliaments the right to block legislation that need not be agreed at the European level", Mr Hague said.
As with the yellow card system, this proposal would require a minimum number of national parliaments to agree in order to take effect, so a single government would not be able to ignore directives it disagreed with.
Mats Persson, of the Open Europe think-tank, welcomed the move.
Mr Persson said: "Allowing national parliaments to block unwanted EU law would go a long way to bring back democratic accountability over EU decisions."
"However, whilst it's encouraging that the UK government is looking at this, it must press ahead with this reform now to avoid the impression that it has no immediate strategy in Europe - a charge that's becoming more frequent."
Mr Hague was addressing the Koenigswinter Conference, a think-tank which aims to improve British-German relations.
He called on Britain and Germany to co-operate to "build a more competitive, flexible, democratically accountable European Union."
Mr Hague argued some British people were concerned that they had little say about how the European Union affected their lives.
He said: "Too often, the British people feel that Europe is something that happens to them, not something they have enough of a say over. That the EU is happy speaking but does not seem interested in listening. That the EU is sometimes part of the problem, not the solution."
He added: "Trust in the institutions is at an all time low.  The EU is facing a crisis of legitimacy."
The foreign secretary claimed the solution to this crisis was to give national parliaments more power, because "they are the democratic levers...

Summary: The EU needs a "red card" system for national parliaments to block laws passed in Brussels if they think EU officials are going too far, the UK foreign secretary has said in a speech.
###
Article: The Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) was "not a safe, effective or responsive service", said the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The report said there were also concerns about a lack of beds and "urgent action" was needed.
The trust said it would improve services and put patients first.
The CQC report found:
The report recommends leadership "must be more visible and accessible to staff".
But the report also said: "Staff were kind, caring and responsive to people and were skilled in the delivery of care."
Dr Paul Lelliott, CQC's deputy chief Inspector of hospitals, said: "We found a number of serious problems when we inspected the services run by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust.
"We were concerned about the safety and quality of care provided by some of the trust's services," he added.
"We were also struck by the low morale of many of the staff that we interviewed who told us that their voices were not heard by those managing the trust."
Trust chief executive Michael Scott said: "Our priority is to make sure we work with staff to improve the services we provide across Norfolk and Suffolk.
"We are under new management, the new team is bedding in, and there is no complacency on our part about the need to continue to deliver improvements.
"I would like to assure our patients, staff and our partners that this is a turning point for the trust and we will continue to do everything possible to address all of the recommendations the CQC has made."
A spokesman for the Campaign to Save Mental Health in Norfolk and Suffolk said: "The regulator confirms what our campaign has consistently said for more than a year."

Summary: The mental health trust for Norfolk and Suffolk is being recommended to be placed in special measures after being rated inadequate.
###
Article: Curtis Fields in Weymouth, Dorset, and Clayton Fields in West Yorkshire were both taken off the village green list after the court found problems with the way they were registered.
The ruling presents no immediate threat to the traditional English greens of popular imagination - many with cricket pitches, oak trees and country pubs.
Most of these classic and quintessentially English spaces were registered long before 1970 when the rules changed.
However, the judgement might affect those greens added more recently.
Many wouldn't fit the traditional image of a town green at all. Some are open fields at the back of housing estates, others are scrappy bits of land on the side of railway tracks.
But if local people can show that they have been using this land continuously over the past 20 years, then they have the opportunity to register the land as an official "green". This offers the highest protection against development.
House builders say some campaign groups have been using the process simply to thwart builders.
"It's not an epidemic but there have been a significant number of groups abusing the legislation merely to stop development on that site," said Andrew Whitaker, of the Home Builders Federation.
After intensive lobbying by the house-building industry, the law was changed last year.
The regulations were significantly tightened so that an attempt to register a green cannot be considered when somebody has made a planning application, or a local development plan is being produced.
That was a setback for the Open Spaces Society, which has been trying to protect greens for almost 150 years.
"We are now being squeezed on both sides," said Kate Ashbrook, who runs the society.
"The government is squeezing us by saying land under planning threat cannot be registered. But the Supreme Court is also saying that you might be able to de-register a green that's already on the list."
The battle over Curtis Fields in Weymouth has been going on for several years.
It was registered as a town green in 2001, and then...

Summary: Campaigners fear some town and village greens could be under threat, after a Supreme Court ruling last month stripped two open spaces of their official status.
###
Article: Marine Le Pen's FN is leading in six of 13 regions in mainland France.
But opinion polls indicate that the centre-right Republican opposition of Nicolas Sarkozy has gained ground since then.
The Republicans pushed the ruling Socialists into third place in the first round.
The Socialists have removed losing candidates from vulnerable seats to avoid splitting the anti-FN vote. However, the Republicans have refused to do the same.
The second round of France's elections have traditionally acted as a brake on the FN, the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Paris reports.
But in some areas the results of Sunday's vote are expected to be close, and these elections are being watched for signs of what position the FN now occupies in French politics, our correspondent says.
The far right's charm offensive
Marine Le Pen: Taking French National Front to new highs and lows
The FN won 27.73% of the vote in the first round, followed by Mr Sarkozy's Republicans on 26.65% and President Francois Hollande's Socialists with 23.12%.
FN leader Marine Le Pen, who stood in the northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, and her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen, who stood in Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur in the south, both looked to have won more than 40% of the vote.
Marine Le Pen later told her supporters it was a "magnificent result" which proved the FN was "without contest the first party of France".
As well as those two regions, the vote in Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine is being closely watched. There, the Socialist candidate rejected his party's call to pull out.
French regions have wide powers over local transport, education and economic development.
The far right has been steadily gaining votes over the past few years from both left- and right-wing sympathisers through a mix of nationalist and pro-welfare policies, correspondents say.
In the lead-up to the first round, opinion polls suggested that the popularity of the anti-immigration, anti-EU FN had increased since the deadly attacks in Paris on 13 November.
Who were Paris...

Summary: France is holding the second round of regional elections in which the far-right National Front (FN) is seeking to consolidate its gains from a week ago.
###
Article: A resolution passed by a committee of the UN cultural agency also put them on a list of sites considered "in danger".
The Tomb of the Patriarchs - also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque - is revered by Jews, Muslim and Christians as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's burial place.
It is the second holiest site in Judaism and the fourth in Islam.
It has been a flashpoint for decades, with several hundred Jewish settlers living in enclaves nearby, surrounded by some 200,000 Palestinians.
Palestinian diplomats had urged Unesco to fast track Hebron's inscription onto the List of World Heritage in Danger, accusing Israel of an "alarming" number of violations that included vandalism, property damage, and other attacks that had an impact on its authenticity and integrity.
Inscription would place the site under international standards of conservation, and would oblige Unesco to review its situation every year, they said.
Israel had rejected the Palestinian allegations and complained that the resolution, which refers to Hebron's "Islamic history", denied a Jewish connection to the city.
The US had argued that the Tomb of the Patriarchs was "under no immediate threat" and that adding it to the list of sites in danger "risked undermining the seriousness such an assessment by Unesco should have".
It had also warned that the resolution might undermine efforts by US President Donald Trump to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Unesco's World Heritage Committee held a secret ballot on the Hebron resolution on Friday at its 41st annual summit in Krakow, Poland. The unusual step was requested by three member states.
Twelve ended up voting in favour, while three opposed it. Six abstained.
"Today, Palestine and the world, through Unesco, celebrate Hebron as part of world heritage, a value that transcends geography, religion, politics, and ideology," a Palestinian foreign ministry statement said.
"This vote celebrated facts and rejected the shameless high-profile political bullying and attempts at extortion."
Israeli Education...

Summary: Unesco has designated Hebron's Old City and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the occupied West Bank a Palestinian World Heritage site despite Israeli protests.
###
Article: Total catches of cod, haddock and plaice have been increased, the Scottish government said.
Catches of saithe, whiting and herring will be decreased in line with long-term management plans.
Talks between the EU and Norway agreed the total allowable catch for cod would be 29,189 tonnes, 5% up on 2014.
The increase will give UK fishermen an additional 542 tonnes and Scottish fishermen around 343 tonnes.
A 6% increase in the haddock catch to 40,711 tonnes gives the UK an additional 3,468 tonnes and Scottish fishermen more than 2,500 extra tonnes.
Scottish Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead said: "I am pleased there has been an increase in the quota of these key stocks for next year which is in line with the recent scientific advice that the stocks are in good shape.
"It is welcome the agreement has been reached quickly this year compared to the protracted talks last year and will provide certainty for the industry about opportunities in 2015 and avoids any delays to the commencement of fishing in the new year.
"There is much to be done to prepare for the discard ban which starts to come into force for white fish from 2016. This outcome will help these stocks continue to rebuild next year while also helping to minimise discards, and should provide a sound launchpad for establishing the following year's quota under the ban.
"We now look ahead to the crucial December EU fisheries council when we will be highlighting again that our vessels need to retain the number of days they can go to sea as any cut would simply be counterproductive."
UK Fisheries Minister George Eustice said the agreements were an "excellent result for the UK".
He said: "It sees UK fishermen getting a 5% increase in their quota for cod - the second successive rise in annual cod quota in two years. The increase is an encouraging sign that we are achieving our goals; a thriving fishing industry with sustainable fish stocks.
"The deal also saw a 7% rise in North Sea haddock and 15% rise in plaice quotas. This is great news for our fisheries ahead...

Summary:


Flooding across parts of the UK last winter was the most extreme on record, experts have said.

Article: The novel technique boosts the data about height changes that are gathered by radar instruments on satellites.
Known as swath altimetry, it permits researchers to see broader regions of the ice sheets in any one pass overhead, and at a much finer scale.
Areas of melting or accumulation can now be investigated with 100 times more information.
The new approach has so far been applied only to a small set of data acquired by the Cryosat spacecraft.
But the intention eventually is to go back and reprocess the entire six-year archive of observations made by this European Space Agency (Esa) mission.
Swath altimetry will totally change the way scientists are able to study some phenomena, says Dr Noel Gourmelen from Edinburgh University, UK.
"The temporal and spatial improvements mean that if we have a surge in a glacier, it now makes it much easier to look at where that event initiated. Did the whole glacier start moving at once? Or did the change start at the ocean, meaning the ocean was having an impact on the glacier? Or perhaps it was further back, meaning different processes were involved. Now, we're better able to trace the history and the causes of the surge," he told BBC News.
To be clear, swath altimetry changes nothing about how Cryosat operates - only in the way its data is processed.
The spacecraft already has a special radar designed to meet the peculiar challenges of observing ice sheets.
With its twin antennas, the instrument can work in an interferometric mode, detecting not just the distance to a spot below it on the ice but also the angle to that location.
Without this ability, it would struggle to map effectively the steep slopes and ridges found at the edges of the ice sheets - the very locations where recent melting and thinning have been most pronounced.
But even in this improved mode, standard data processing concentrates on the nearest radar echo return point and ignores much of the energy in the rest of the signal. Swath processing, on the other hand, unpacks it all, revealing a line of...

Summary: European scientists have found a way to super-charge their study of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.
###
Article: The average cost of services including probate, headstones, flowers and the burial or cremation fee is now £8,427, according to insurer SunLife.
The average cost of a funeral has increased by 87% since the survey was first conducted in 2004.
SunLife described a 39% jump in estate administration fees as a "significant" factor in this year's increase.
The figures are set out in SunLife Direct's annual Cost of Dying report, which said that hiring a professional such as a solicitor now accounts for more than a third of expenditure associated with a person's death.
The report found that saving money was a key motivation for the increased number of people who choose to manage their loved ones' affairs without professional help.
Responding to the survey's findings, a Law Society spokesperson said that enlisting a solicitor "may save time and money in the future by ensuring things are done right the first time".
Another factor influencing how much people spent was the type of funeral, since cremation tends to be less expensive than burial.
The average burial cost is now £3,982, a rise of 2% since last year and 89% since the survey began in 2004.
Dr Kate Woodthorpe, a sociologist from the University of Bath and author of the SunLife report, said the costs of funerals were rising "on numerous fronts".
Funeral directors' fees reflect the costs of "staff salaries, the expense of running a business, but also the costs recovered by local authorities", she explained.
"Local authorities are trying to preserve land by removing subsidies for burial, and in the case of cremation trying to recover the costs of meeting mercury emissions targets," she said.
A spokesman for the Local Government Association responded that local government funding had been "slashed" over the past three years which meant "councils have been forced to examine all their services carefully".
"Where services have been subsidised by council tax payers previously, as has been the case with some cemeteries and crematoriums, councils have had no choice but to...

Summary: The "cost of dying" is more than 10% higher than it was this time last year, according to a report.
###
Article: The Eurogroup agreed to a series of measures, which include waiving an interest rate increase which was due to take place next year.
Other measures will also lighten the burden, without cutting the overall debt pile.
But ministers did not sign-off a second review of Greece's bailout programme, which could unlock further debt relief.
Greece has needed three bailouts since 2010 and relies on credit from international bodies to avoid bankruptcy.
Monday's measures to ease the debt burden are being seen as a reward for the progress that Greece has made in cutting spending and reforming its economy.
"This will start helping the Greek economy all at once," said Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos.
It's not the first time Greece has received debt relief from the eurozone. It probably won't be the last either.
It is not a reduction in the value of the outstanding debt - a "haircut" for the lenders.
That has been ruled out many times by the eurozone. It would be politically toxic back home for the likes of Germany.
The relief comes instead in the shape of lower interest rates and longer repayment periods.
That is still worth having. If you take this kind of thing far enough it gradually takes a loan closer to being a grant.
All the same, the pressure on the eurozone to do more for its biggest bailout customer will surely come back.
But eurozone ministers said there were still questions to be answered over reform efforts, which is why the latest review of the bailout process has still not been approved.
Differences also remain over Greece's 2018 budget plan.
A successful review would trigger further talks over debt relief.
They could even result in Greek bonds being approved for purchase by the European Central Bank, which would be an important breakthrough.
Talks over the bailout programme have been complicated by disagreement between the International Monetary Fund and European officials.
The IMF wants a reduction in the face value of Greek debt, but that is opposed by European ministers and, in particular, Germany.

Summary: Greece has won some relief from its debt burden following the latest talks with eurozone finance ministers.
###
Article: British European Airways was the first operator to fly from Terminal 1 when it was opened by the Queen in May 1968.
The final departure is also due to be a British Airways flight, this time to Hanover.
Its closure will allow Terminal 2 to be expanded and comes in the week the Airport Commission decides whether to permit a third runway at Heathrow.
A spokesman for Heathrow Airport said the industry expected Sir Howard Davies's report on airport expansion to be published later this week.
At its peak, more than nine million passengers a year passed through Terminal 1, which was the largest short-haul terminal in Western Europe.
In recent weeks, flights have been transferred to Terminal 2 and passengers numbers have fallen to just 1,700 and 17 flights a day.
Terminal 2 will be expanded to take the place of Terminal 1 and if the government supports a third runway at Heathrow then Terminal 2 will be extended further still.
Heathrow chief executive John Holland Kaye said; "The closure of Terminal 1 marks another important milestone in the transformation of Heathrow.
"Terminal 1 has served Britain well for nearly 50 years, but will soon make way for the expansion of Terminal 2, giving Britain a world class airport that we can all be proud of."

Summary: After 47 years Heathrow Airport's Terminal 1 will close its doors to passengers for the last time tonight.
###
Article: Sands Heritage announced earlier this month it was seeking a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) to stop it going into administration.
The seaside attraction reopened in June but its Scenic Railway, thought to be Britain's oldest rollercoaster, did not open until 15 October.
Creditors voted to accept the arrangement in Canterbury on Wednesday.
The deal will allow the theme park, which features vintage rides, to remain open while Sands Heritage pays back a proportion of the money it owes over the next five years.
Following the decision, the operator said it was delighted to announce it was "business as usual for Dreamland Margate".
"A 98% majority voted in favour of the proposed CVA. The CVA allows Sands Heritage Limited to pay back its debt in full, over the next five years.
"We would like to thank everyone for their faithful support in Dreamland's first year and look forward to their continued custom and a successful 2016," it said in a statement.
Thanet District Council, which owns the entire site, has already paid an additional £1m of taxpayers' money to the park.
Council leader Chris Wells said it had "done everything possible" to support the regeneration of Dreamland and wanted to see it succeed.
"It is disappointing that operators Sands Heritage Limited are in financial difficulties.
"We hope today's decision will help to resolve this and believe this is in the best interests of local contractors who are owed money by SHL."
However, the MP for North Thanet said he believed the council was partly to blame for the park's current financial situation.
Sir Roger Gale said: "Thanet District Council has let down the operators by not providing the Scenic Railway on time, by not providing the rides that were promised, so they had to be hired in, by adding costs - which is why I believe that Sands Heritage found themselves in the unfortunate position they were in."
In response the council said it "took a bold step to compulsory purchase the site", and it was the operators decision to open on 19 June "against the...

Summary: Creditors have given the operator of Margate's Dreamland theme park five years to repay nearly £3m of debts.
###
Article: Gales and heavy rain swept across large parts of the UK, causing devastating flooding in Cumbria and Lancashire, as well as parts of southern Scotland.
On the first anniversary of Storm Desmond, experts say November to January were the wettest three months since UK records began in 1910.
Review author Terry Marsh said flooding was "extensive and repetitive".
Storm Desmond began battering parts of the UK on 5 December, depositing a record month's worth of rain on Cumbria in just one day.
About 5,200 homes were flooded in Cumbria and Lancashire, while tens of thousands more lost power after an electricity sub-station in Lancaster was flooded.
The storm caused an estimated insurance bill of more than Â£1.3bn.
Major storms "Abigail", "Frank" and "Gertrude" also hit the UK last winter.
A study by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), in collaboration with the British Hydrological Society, found many rivers across northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland saw record peak flows during the three-month period.
It found the rivers Eden, Tyne and Lune in England saw record peaks of around 1,700 cubic metres per second. Experts say such levels could fill London's Royal Albert Hall in less than a minute.
Although last winter's floods were more extreme in scale, flooding in 1947 had a greater impact in terms of homes flooded and crops destroyed, the appraisal found.
However, lead author Terry Marsh from CEH said the national scale of last winter's floods were "the most extreme on record".
"The associated flooding was both extensive and repetitive, and total river outflows from Great Britain following the passage of Storm Desmond in December exceeded the previous maximum by a substantial margin," he said.

Summary:


Conor McGregor says he is back on the card for UFC 200, but event organisers claim no new talks have taken place.

Article: The probe passed within 500km of the pockmarked surface on Monday - its fifth such encounter in the spacecraft's 11-year tour of the ringed planet.
Cassini is now engaged in a series of observational "lasts".
And in 2017 it will put itself on a destructive dive into Saturn's atmosphere.
"I am moved, as I know everyone else is, looking at these exquisite images of Dione's surface and crescent, and knowing that they are the last we will see of this far-off world for a very long time to come," said Carolyn Porco, who leads the imaging team on the mission.
"Right down to the last, Cassini has faithfully delivered another extraordinary set of riches. How lucky we have been."
The closest ever approach to Dione was in 2011, when the US, European and Italian space agency mission swept just 100km above the moon.
Dione has a diameter of 1,122km, making it the fourth largest of Saturn's 62 moons. It has an icy exterior and a rocky interior.
Cassini has detected a wispy oxygen atmosphere at the world, and has also seen signs that it may still be active, with what appear to be regions on its surface that have been altered by internal processes.
Next year, Cassini will begin a series of manoeuvres to put itself in orbits that take it high above, and through, Saturn's rings.
Then, in 2017, once the probe's fuel has all but run out, ground controllers will command the spacecraft to plunge into the planet's atmosphere, where it will be destroyed.
As Cassini hurtles towards Saturn, it will become incredibly hot, will melt and ultimately will be crushed by huge pressures.
The mission is being disposed of in this way to be sure there is no possibility that debris from Cassini can one day land on Enceladus and Titan. These moons have been talked of as candidates for extraterrestrial life, and scientists would not want them contaminated by any Earth microbes that might still be on the probe - however unlikely that might be.
The coming months will see Cassini make final, farewell passes of a number of moons.
Referring to Monday's...

Summary: The Cassini mission to Saturn has returned its final close-up images of the gas giant's Dione moon.
###
Article: But one system invented some 200 years ago lives on.
In the mountains of western Switzerland, one company still makes automatic music boxes for enthusiasts around the world.
Reuge is considered the last major manufacturer of a traditional device that once rivalled watches as one of Switzerland's greatest exports.
Founded in 1865 by watchmaker Charles Reuge, the company has survived the advent of the phonograph - as well as more recent inventions - to continue making music boxes in a small factory in Sainte-Croix.
The village once specialised in the industry and had dozens of cylinder music box manufacturers, but they have all but disappeared.
"It's a musical medium out of its time," says Jean-Claude Piguet, author of the book The Music Box Makers, The History of the Music Box in Sainte-Croix.
"I think it's interesting that an ancient art is capable of adapting and renewing itself to suit modern tendencies."
The Reuge factory in Sainte-Croix, which is the subject of a new short documentary by UK film-maker Florence Kennard, has been celebrating its 150th anniversary.
Inside, a team of fewer than 40 workers use specially-made machinery to produce rotating barrels with pins that will pluck finely-tuned steel combs to play melodies.
It is a skill that is not taught at college but instead passed down through the generations in Sainte-Croix.
Powered by springs, some music boxes can have tens of thousands of pins and play a variety of 'airs' - from Mozart to the Star Wars theme.
Hearing the comb play its first notes can be "spectacular", says music box maker Didier Cote, "because each and every musical box comb is unique".
Cylinder music boxes reached the height of their popularity in the second half of the 19th Century when they were a principal form of entertainment.
More common nowadays are the novelty musical jewellery boxes, perhaps with a pirouetting ballerina inside, given to children.
But enthusiasm for the traditionally crafted machine endures.
"Music boxes are somehow quite captivating," says Alison Biden,...

Summary: Devices for playing music come and go - cassette tapes, MP3 players and CDs have all had their time as digital downloads take over.
###
Article: Det Supt Steve Fulcher did not caution Christopher Halliwell before the former taxi driver led him to the body of Becky Godden in 2011.
As a result, Halliwell was never charged over her death.
In October 2012, Halliwell was jailed for life for the murder of 22-year-old Sian O'Callaghan.
Mr Fulcher was brought before the formal misconduct hearing after an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
The IPCC found Mr Fulcher had breached the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace) and it recommended Wiltshire Police should consider a charge of gross misconduct against Mr Fulcher.
The hearing is due to continue tomorrow.
Miss Godden was last seen alive by a police officer in Swindon in December 2002.
Halliwell led police to her body in a shallow grave in Eastleach, near Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in 2011, shortly after he confessed to killing 22-year-old Miss O'Callaghan, from Swindon.
In October 2012 the former taxi driver was jailed for life for Miss O'Callaghan's murder.
However, a High Court judge ruled his confessions over Miss Godden were inadmissible, as there had been "wholesale and irretrievable breaches" of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace) guidelines.
Under Pace rules, which govern the questioning of suspects, Halliwell should have been cautioned several times during cross-examination.
But during a court hearing in 2012, Mr Fulcher, who advised officers across the country on how to conduct murder investigations, admitted he had not "considered it".
He added: "I believed that again, the right thing to do was take the information he was prepared to give, but I accept he was not cautioned at that time."
Mr Fulcher also admitted during cross-examination that he had become "frustrated" that Halliwell had refused to answer any more questions, having finally spoken to a solicitor.
"I thought it was utterly ridiculous that someone would take me, 12 other people and a surveillance helicopter to the deposition site of two bodies and then seek to find some loophole or quirk in...

Summary: A detective who did not follow arrest guidelines in a double murder case has been found guilty of gross misconduct, the BBC has learned.
###
Article: The figure is the lowest recorded since the early days of North Sea production.
Corporation tax from offshore drilling raised £538m but that was offset by rebates on Petroleum Revenue Tax, totalling £503m.
The latest figure compares with £2bn of tax revenue in the 2014-15 financial year.
Four years ago, the Treasury raised £11bn from the two sources of tax on offshore production profits.
Much of last year's fall reflects lower profits from oil and gas, after the oil price slumped, as well as tax deductions for a high level of investment.
Tax rates were cut by Chancellor George Osborne during the most recent recorded year.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast negative tax returns for the next few years.
Responding to the tax figures, industry body Oil and Gas UK's economics director, Mike Tholen, said: "At around $40 per barrel, oil is still more than 60% lower than it has been over the last three years.
"In these conditions, the UK North Sea industry will continue to struggle to sustain its current scale.
"More than £330bn in 2014 money has been paid to date on UK oil and gas production, however, HM Treasury has noted that tax take on production will fall in 2015-16 and fall further by 2021.
"Despite the projected fall in production taxes which is a consequence of the current low oil prices, industry will remain a significant employer, provider of energy security, hub of innovation and leader in the export of goods and services to overseas markets."
He added: "Although the sector has seen success recently in reducing its cost to produce a barrel of oil or gas by a third, unfortunately the indications suggest that the oil price will remain lower for longer, so it's crucial the pace of these efforts doesn't abate."
Conservation charity WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said: "The problems currently affecting tax receipts and jobs in the North Sea should act as a wake-up call to government of the urgent need to prepare for a future where we are all less dependent on oil and gas.
"While it's true that...

Summary: Tax receipts from offshore oil and gas slumped to just £35m in the last financial year, according to figures from HM Revenue and Customs.
###
Article: She was 12 at the time and living with her parents and two siblings in northern Peru.
On that night, two officials came to their home and took away her father.
Mr Katsura, who owned a small general store, was arrested because he was part of Peru's prosperous Japanese community.
"My father told them he hadn't done anything wrong, but they didn't listen to him," she recalls.
Japanese people began migrating to Peru in considerable numbers at the end of the 19th Century, drawn by opportunities to work in the mines and on sugar plantations.
By the 1940s, an estimated 25,000 people of Japanese descent lived in Peru. Many had become lawyers and doctors, or owned small businesses.
Their prosperity, further fuelled by racism, soon triggered anti-Japanese sentiment in Peru, Stephanie Moore explains.
Ms Moore, a scholar at the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, says after the outbreak of World War Two, the Japanese community in Peru became a target, and their assets were confiscated.
"In May 1940, as many as 600 houses, schools and businesses belonging to citizens of Japanese descent were burned down," she says.
Following Japan's 1941 attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the US government asked a dozen Latin American countries, among them Peru, to arrest its Japanese residents.
Records from the time suggest the US authorities wanted to take them to the US and use them as bargaining chips for its nationals captured by Japanese forces in Asia.
Mr Katsura was among the 2,200 Latin Americans of Japanese descent who were forcibly deported to internment camps in the US.
Blanca Katsura, who is now 83 and lives in Northern California, remembers how she learned of his fate.
"A month after my father was detained, he sent me a letter because it was my birthday," she recalls.
"He had been taken to Panama from where they were planning to send him to the US," she adds.
Six months later, Blanca Katsura's mother decided to take her three small children to the US to search for her husband.
"When we arrived in New...

Summary: Blanca Katsura will never forget the night of 6 January 1943.
###
Article: The 27-year-old had been set for a rematch with Nate Diaz, who beat him in their welterweight fight in March, at the Las Vegas event in July.
After a dispute over promotional duties, UFC president Dana White said organisers were looking for a replacement for the Irishman.
But McGregor said on Sunday: "Happy to announce that I am back on UFC 200."
Writing on social media, he added: "Shout out to Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta on getting this one done for the fans. Respect."
But US media, including the Los Angeles Times, quoted White as saying: "We haven't talked to Conor or his manager since the press conference. I don't know why he would tweet that."
And McGregor's manager John Kavanagh later added: "I'm 51% optimistic and 49% pessimistic, if you want to know my feelings on it."
McGregor started speculation he was quitting last week when he tweeted: "I have decided to retire young. Thanks for the cheese."
But in a statement two days later, he said: "I am not retired."
White claimed McGregor was withdrawn from the card for refusing to fly to Las Vegas for a news conference and promotional photographs.
In his statement, the fighter claimed he was being asked to do too much promotional work by the UFC and was not able to concentrate on his training.

Summary:


Parliamentary candidates for Newcastle-under-Lyme all called for a "joined-up policy" on health and social care in north Staffordshire at a public debate.

Article: It said attackers could exploit this by requesting users to preview or open a specially crafted email or web content.
Microsoft said it was "aware of targeted attacks" and was investigating.
The issue affects Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2003 - 2010, and Microsoft Lync.
Recent versions of Microsoft Windows and Office are not affected by the issue - which centres on a graphics component. Details of which products are at risk are listed on the firm's site.
Microsoft said it would take appropriate action to address the issue, which "may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs".
In the meantime, it has advised customers to apply workarounds - a setting or configuration change that "does not correct the underlying issue but would help block known attack vectors before a security update is available".
According to Microsoft, the flaw lies in the handling of the Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) image files by a graphics processing component in the affected software versions.
In a blog post on the Microsoft Security Response Centre, Dustin Childs a communications manager, said any move by hackers "requires user interaction".
He said that the attacks are disguised as an email requesting potential targets to open a specially crafted Word attachment.
If the attachment is opened or previewed, it attempts to exploit the issue using a malformed graphics image embedded in the document.
"An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged on user," Mr Childs said.
Microsoft added that hackers could also exploit the issue via a web-based attack.
"An attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit this vulnerability and then convince a user to view the website," it said.
However, it added that an attacker would have "no way to force users to view the attacker-controlled content".
"Instead, an attacker would have...

Summary: Microsoft has warned that hackers could exploit a "vulnerability" in its operating system to gain user rights to the affected computers.
###
Article: The council started to provide portable urinals two years ago following complaints by local businesses.
The move was welcomed by many traders in Wind Street, which is popular with drinkers, but the problem has not gone away.
From Friday, police will start handing out fixed penalty notices.
"Urinating in public is a major irritation to authorities and businesses who are left to clean up their own doorways and streets after people under the influence of alcohol feel it is acceptable to treat the city centre like a toilet," Ch Insp Dean Thomas said.
"It is certainly not acceptable and I am pleased the police are able to work with the council in enforcing fixed penalty notices against those caught in the act."
The pilot operation between the council and police is aimed at ensuring the public knows urinating in the street will not be tolerated.
The council deploys portable urinals every weekend in the city centre at known problem areas and says they are well used.
But not everyone chooses to use them, prompting the latest move follow a warning two years ago that  anyone caught would be fined or arrested.
Bruno Nunes, owner of Peppermint bar and Bambu Beach bar, welcomed the action.
"The impact of this action will be felt not only by those hit in the pocket, but the many others who will hear about the tough stance being taken," he said.
Council cabinet member June Burtonshaw said: "Public urination is a contentious issue that has been troubling authorities, organisations and businesses working together to create a cleaner, healthier and safer city centre.
"We've tried the soft approach, which has had some effect, but now it is time to get tough. Urinating in shop doorways, alleys, lanes or bushes is not acceptable.
"There are toilets provided in every night-time venue, as well as the additional portable urinals on the streets. If people still can't control their bladders, they could find themselves with a hefty fine."
Similar toilets are used in other UK cities including Manchester, Bristol, Cambridge and...

Summary: Revellers will receive £75 fines if they are caught urinating in streets and doorways instead of using open-air urinals in Swansea city centre.
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Article: The quarterly house price index compiled by the Ulster University suggests prices dropped 6.5% between the end of 2015 and this March.
Its report said there was "a mini-correction" in the market.
It said uncertainty at the outcome of the 23 June EU vote "will undoubtedly have impacted negatively on the market."
Last week, official government figures showed Northern Ireland property prices fell for the first time in three years.
The university's research suggests the average house price in the first quarter of 2016 was Â£146,472.
Over the quarter, all property types, with the exception of semi-detached bungalows, suffered reduced price levels.
Professor Stanley McGreal from Ulster University said: "The research statistics are reflective of mixed feelings by the sector across Northern Ireland.
"Some estate agents attribute the apparent slowing in first quarter simply to a seasonal fluctuation, others attribute it to house buyers' concerns of economic uncertainty."

Summary: Another report on the Northern Ireland housing market shows price falls, with a claim that the upcoming EU referendum was a contributing factor.
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Article: The Grade II-listed City Pool and Turkish Baths in Newcastle shut in 2013 as part of Â£100m council cuts.
Fusion Lifestyle Ltd plans to renovate the building and restore the baths which are set to reopen in 2018.
The charity leisure operator found the photos which include one of the construction of the entrance pillars before it opened for use in 1928.
Peter Kay, chief executive of Fusion Lifestyle, said: "We're so lucky to have rediscovered the amazing past of the baths and we're proud to give this historic building a proper future.
"The history of baths on this site goes back even further, to when famous [North East architect] John Dobson initially built private baths in 1838 at a cost of Â£9,500."
The facility, which opened on Northumberland Road in 1928, will be one of about a dozen left in operation.
Fusion has also taken over Newcastle City Hall, which was under threat of closure as part of a consultation into multimillion-pound budget cuts in the city.
It will be sub-leased it to the Newcastle Theatre Royal Trust, which will continue to operate it as a concert and entertainment venue.

Summary: Historical photos of Turkish baths which have recently been saved from closure have been found.
###
Article: Accountants BDO found occupancy fell year-on-year by 1% to 87.3% - higher than the rates recorded for England, Wales and regional UK.
Rooms yield stood at Â£65.90 in Scotland, well ahead of other UK areas.
Edinburgh and Glasgow had the highest occupancy in the UK, including London, at 92.1% and 91.6% respectively.
Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow experienced double-digit falls in revenue, but all three cities remained in the top 10 of anywhere in the UK.
Only Inverness bucked the trend by seeing revenue increase by 8.8% to Â£62.35 per room.
Alastair Rae, from BDO, said: "Aberdeen aside, the drop in revenue in Edinburgh and Glasgow is due to very high numbers last year when Edinburgh was basking in a late festival rush as well as multiple major conferences, while Glasgow was still on a post-Commonwealth Games high.
"The country is becoming an all-year-round destination through a combination of being a fantastic tourist destination coupled with a major conference, concert and business centre.
"So despite these falls in revenue, the hospitality sector must be feeling reasonably confident for the rest of the year.
"Aberdeen is, of course, the exception and is still coming to terms with the fall in oil prices which make the hospitality sector highly vulnerable to price fluctuations.
"I would expect this situation to continue for some time to come."

Summary: Hotel occupancy and revenue fell in Scotland in September but remained higher than any other area of the UK, according to a regular survey.
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Article: The candidates were responding to a question about proposed changes to health care in Staffordshire at a debate run by BBC Radio Stoke.
They were asked about a consultation by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) which buy health services in the area.
The consultation is looking at reducing bed-blocking and improving efficiency.
Ian Wilkes, for the Liberal Democrats, told the debate, at St George's Centre in Newcastle, health care and care in the home were not "joined-up".
"When you come out of hospital there should be care ready and waiting," he said.
Phil Wood for UKIP, said at the moment too many people in the NHS were "trying to protect their own budgets and let someone else have the problem".
He said his party would put £3bn a year in to stop "[its] creeping privatisation".
Replying, Sam Gibbons, the Green Party's candidate, claimed UKIP leader Nigel Farage had said he would like a private-style health care system.
Mr Gibbons said cuts had meant managers at hospitals, including his mother who was a nurse and ward manager, still provided clinical care alongside "heavy workloads".
Labour's Paul Farrelly said the first question should be "what does the individual need?" and not "whose budget is it coming from?".
Questioned on Labour's objection to plans for the tendering of NHS cancer and end-of-life contracts across Staffordshire, he claimed the area was being used as "a guinea pig for further creeping privatisation".
Tony Cox, parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party, said his party recognised "there needs to be better integration" between health and social care but the move had been hampered by "some reluctance" from councils and some NHS departments.
"But locally this year Staffordshire County Council have this year invested another £20m into social care which is where we've realised the pressures are actually happening," he said.
David Nixon is standing as an independent a parliamentary candidate for Newcastle-under-Lyme.
The candidates for this constituency are
Conservative, Tony Cox
Labour,...

Summary:


Nationwide has reported a sharp fall in mortgage lending, mainly due to making fewer buy-to-let loans.

Article: Ujjal Singh, 63, who was visiting from Ipswich, died from a knife wound to the neck after he was found in Lidiard Street, Crumpsall, on 1 December.
He had argued with Naunihal Singh, 54, who was visiting from India, about their respective son and daughter's ability to conceive, police said.
At Manchester Crown Court Naunihal Singh was jailed for 21 years.
He was told he must serve at least 17 years.
Police said on 30 November the pair had a "heated discussion, which was fuelled by alcohol" and Ujjal Singh accused Naunihal Singh's son of "firing blanks".
During a series of arguments, Naunihal's son punched a glass photo frame, injuring his hand.
Ujjal Singh was put to bed while the remaining family members, with the exception of Naunihal Singh, went to hospital to get the hand treated.
While Ujjal Singh was sleeping, Naunihal Singh went into his room and stabbed him in the neck.
Police said he then fled, leaving the family to discover the "horrific scene" when they returned.
He handed himself into police two days later.
Senior investigating officer Bob Tonge, said it was a "heinous crime" that "ended in absolute tragedy".
"The one saving grace is that he has not subjected them to further torment by making them endure a trial and has faced up to his crime and subsequent, inevitable punishment."

Summary: A man has been jailed for life after pleading guilty to stabbing his son's father-in-law to death as he slept.
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Article: The free-flow Dart Charge replaced toll booths on the Kent side a year ago.
Figures showed that out of nearly 42 million chargeable journeys, UK drivers had about 1.5 million penalty notices and foreign drivers more than 340,000.
The AA said the system still had faults, but Highways England said there was still more work to do.
Edmund King, from the AA motoring organisation, said: "We still think it could be even better if they scrap the tolls altogether.
"You get some other drivers who hesitate around the crossing because they're a little unsure about how they pay, when they should pay, what hours apply, and even the signs aren't clear."
The Freedom of Information request submitted by the BBC showed that 41,367,973 chargeable journeys were recorded, 1,519,162 penalty charge notices were issued to UK drivers and 340,861 to overseas drivers.
Under the Dart Charge, the penalty fine is Â£70, which is reduced to Â£35 if paid within 14 days, but increased to Â£105 if a driver does not pay.
Dart Charge project director Nigel Gray said the scheme had successfully sped up journeys, with peak-time return trips now 15 minutes shorter, and hundreds of thousands of drivers had also benefitted from discounts of up to a third.
He said more work had to be done on improving traffic flow on the Kent side, but the Dart Charge was a medium-term solution to congestion at Dartford, while the long-term answer was a third Lower Thames Crossing.
He said: "Figures show that the vast majority of people are paying their Dart Charge on time and non-payment is being followed up appropriately.
"The first penalty issued for any vehicle includes an offer to pay any outstanding crossing charges within 14 days and have the penalty or penalties cancelled. This approach has been very successful and we have no plans to end it."

Summary: More than 1.8 million penalty charge notices have been issued to drivers failing to pay the new cashless payment system on the Dartford crossing.
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Article: Combined Parking Solutions took Edward Wales to court for parking in a SkyPark car park in Glasgow, used by McDonald's customers, on 33 occasions last year.
Mr Wales and the company reached a settlement before a civil hearing.
The company warned there was a misconception that drivers could park in private car parks.
There are a number of red signs at the car park site on Houldsworth Street in the west of Glasgow warning of the maximum stay conditions for customers of the nearby McDonalds restaurant.
If they stay more than two hours they receive a fixed parking charge of £100 which is reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days. It increases to £150 per ticket to cover costs if it remains unpaid.
The company claimed that on each occasion Mr Wales was issued with a ticket he did not appeal, and that he later said he had been told and read online that charges for private parking were not enforceable in Scotland.
Mike Perkins, operations manager of Combined Parking Solutions, said: "Yet again this is another case of someone logging onto the internet forums or listing to unqualified people that parking charges are not enforceable and yet again the courts agree they are fully enforceable and they continue to do so.
"If Mr Wales had consulted a real solicitor from the outset he would have only received one charge at £60 and not almost £3,000."

Summary: A man who repeatedly parked in a private car park for longer than the two-hour limit has had to pay almost £3,000 in unpaid parking fees.
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Article: A regional breakdown of installations published by the Stephen Nolan Show on Radio Ulster shows the biggest cluster is around Dungannon, County Tyrone.
There are 342 boilers there - about one-in-six of the total.
The statistics show the total of 2,128 recipients are split roughly between commercial and farming interests.
Around Ballymena and Ballymoney there are 276 boilers.
Poultry farmers are heavily represented, accounting for 871 of the installations.
The two main clusters are close to Moy Park's processing plants in Northern Ireland, in Ballymena and Dungannon.
Poultry farmers use the boilers to heat chicken houses where the birds are reared.
Many switched from LPG gas to biomass in recent years.
Other areas where there are significant numbers of boilers by postcode include Armagh which has 112 and Omagh which has 82.
Last week, Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir said a Moy Park briefing with his officials had raised "issues" about the operation of the RHI scheme.
Moy Park later issued a statement but made no reference to those issues.
On Monday, the former DETI minister Jonathan Bell claimed under assembly privilege that he had been told DUP special advisers Timothy Johnston and John Robinson had extensive interests in the poultry industry, and that he would not be allowed to reduce the RHI tariff as a result.
The DUP later issued a statement of categorical denial on behalf of both men.
John Robinson said he had "no personal interest" in the poultry industry. He said two of his brothers were poultry farmers but were not in the RHI.
Timothy Johnston said he had "no family connections to the poultry industry". He said he had two brothers in law in the poultry industry but neither had any connection with the RHI.
On Tuesday, Mr Bell said he was prepared to repeat allegations he made about the role played by special advisers in the RHI scheme, to a judge-led inquiry.
He was speaking during an an opposition debate in the Assembly calling for a public inquiry into the controversial scheme.
He also made...

Summary: Most companies on the lucrative RHI scheme are based in mid-Ulster and north Antrim, according to information passed to the BBC.
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Article: The marriage allowance, unveiled by David Cameron in 2013, could reduce a couple's annual tax bill by up to ??212.
It only applies to couples with one basic rate taxpayer and the other earning less than the personal allowance.
David Cameron said marriage should be recognised in the tax system, because families are the "bedrock" of society.
He also said the measure would help families with the cost of living.
Tax breaks for married couples were promised by Mr Cameron when he ran for the leadership of his party in 2005, and it also featured in the Conservatives' 2010 election manifesto.
Labour has pledged to scrap the allowance, which it says will not apply to most married couples, and use the money to introduce a 10p starting rate of tax.
The allowance - which will enable one spouse or civil partner to transfer some of their tax-free personal allowance to the other - will come into effect on 6 April 2015.
The Conservatives have said stay-at-home parents and people who worked part-time would be the main winners from the move.
Under the policy, if a spouse or civil partner's income is less than ??10,600 - including pensions, savings and investments - they will be able to share up to ??1,060 of their personal allowance with their partner, provided the recipient does not earn more than ??42,385 a year.
Couples born on or after 6 April 1935 can register online to receive their interest to receive the allowance.
From April, HM Revenue & Customs will contact those who have registered their interest, and invite them to apply.
The idea of a marriage tax break has been opposed by the Conservatives' coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, who say it will penalise unmarried couples.

Summary: A scheme to offer tax breaks to some married couples and civil partners has opened for registration.
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Article: Net mortgage lending fell to £2.4bn in the April-to-June quarter, down from £3.5bn a year earlier.
The building society also said more people opened a current account with it during the three-month period than with any other provider.
Nationwide's profits for the quarter fell 20% to £322m, after last year's results were helped by a one-off gain.
A year earlier, the building society had received a £100m boost to its profits from the sale of its investment in Visa Europe.
Announcing the latest results, chief executive Joe Garner said "Profit performance in the first quarter remained comfortably within our strategic target range and, after allowing for one-off items, was broadly consistent with the prior period."
Nationwide had a 13% share of the mortgage market in the quarter, down from 15% in the same time last year.
A spokesman for the building society said it expected its buy-to-let lending to remain "broadly flat".
Nationwide had "raised the bar for landlord's affordability before most other lenders with the aim of helping ensure our borrowers can meet future repayments", he added.
"This, together with a softening of lending due to Stamp Duty and tax changes, led to a decline in buy-to-let."
In the first quarter Nationwide opened 202,000 new current accounts, a rise of 17% on the same time last year.
The company also said that more than a fifth (22.4%) of all people switching current accounts had moved to Nationwide.

Summary: