A man has been arrested after he was seen playing the guitar while driving a car in the town of Bournemouth.
The man, who is not named, was seen playing the guitar in the town centre of Bournemouth, where he was seen driving a car.
The man was arrested on suspicion of driving

Vulnerable children are being placed in care outside their home county of Kent due to the influx of child asylum seekers, according to council chiefs.

Article: The car was being driven in stop-start traffic on the A27 in West Sussex said Nichola Carr, who took the picture while sitting on a coach.
Ms Carr said she was certain the driver was playing the guitar: "I was very shocked and surprised. I've never seen anything like it in my life."
No formal complaint has been made, a spokesman for Sussex Police said.
"Unfortunately, there is no vehicle registration number, nor is it clear if the person with the guitar is actually the driver," Insp Stewart Goodwin said.
Ms Carr was on a coach, returning from a trip to Portsmouth with her daughter's school, when she took the photograph.
"The traffic was stop-start, and I was looking out of the window, and I noticed this car below and the man playing a guitar," she said.
"I told my daughter and all her friends had a look too.
"As the traffic kept moving backwards and forwards, every time the car came near us the kids would shout out 'Here comes the guitar man'."
Ms Carr said she did not report the incident to the police as she had not taken the car's registration number.
Insp Stewart Goodwin said: "Motorists should never do anything that distracts them from driving while on the move or in traffic."

Summary: A motorist has been photographed apparently playing the guitar while at the wheel of a car.
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Article: "One of these drinks has 20 teaspoons of sugar hiding in the can," says Ms Kellett, who goes on to tell the group why sugar-laden soft drinks are particularly bad for the teeth.
Apparently, it is to do with the way we sip them, which means they stay "high in the palate" and have a greater chance of causing tooth decay.
They have already heard about the dangers of diabetes and obesity, all part of a pitch to harden their resolve to complete the 21-day Gulp (Give Up Loving Pop)Challenge.
But for some of the 12- and 13-year-olds, the days ahead threaten to be quite tough, because these are young people who really enjoy their fizzy drinks.
"I love fizzy pop," says one pupil. "I drink near enough one can per day."
"I have a bottle of pop with my tea," says her friend.
"I usually have one at lunch as well, so I usually have more than I'm supposed to."
That is certainly true, as for most people over the age of 11, the recommended daily amount of sugar is 30g (1oz).
Some of the most popular soft drinks contain at least that amount per can, if not more.
In Blackpool, there is a particular issue, because more than a third of 10- and 11-year-olds in the town are overweight or obese - some of the highest rates in England.
And young people are also the biggest consumers of fizzy drinks.
It's a worry for Blackpool's director of public health, Dr Arif Rajpura.
"There is simply too much sugar in our diet, and this is contributing significantly to our obesity epidemic," Dr Rajpura says.
"So what we are trying to do is reduce the amount of sugar in our diet.
"Sugar in fizzy drinks is empty calories, it just adds calories, unnecessary calories, to our diet and what we're trying to do is cut that out."
Research suggests it takes 21 days to kick a habit or wean yourself off an addiction, which is how many of the group see sugar and fizzy drinks.
"It's like I've drunk it since I was young," says Shae, who drinks two cans a day.
"I don't know if it's going to leave me alone when I'm doing this challenge.
"It's going to be hard, but...

Summary: At Blackpool's St George's School, 15 pupils from Year 8 are sitting in a semi-circle as dental nurse Helen Kellett shows them some popular brands of fizzy drink.
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Article: Kent County Council said the continuing flow of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) from across the English Channel had left it with no choice.
The authority currently has 924 such children in its care, compared with nearly 630 at the start of last August.
Councillor Peter Oakford said it was "not a position we want to be in".
The cabinet member for specialist children's services said Kent County Council had seen a 30% rise in looked-after children in the past seven months.
Other authorities elsewhere in the UK have accepted full responsibility for 56 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
Mr Oakford told the children's social care and health cabinet committee: "This has affected our ability to place citizen children within Kent ourselves.
"We have had to place Kent children outside of Kent due to the influx of UASC, which is not a good position to be in and is not a position we want to be in.
"It's actually costing us more financially because we have had to place, I think, six children into residential care either short-term or longer term, which is far more expensive than normal foster care."
The council's services have been stretched since the start of the migrant crisis last summer as Kent is the closest British county to Calais and Dunkirk.
The number of child asylum seekers coming into its care has slowed to about 15 a week during the winter, but Mr Oakford said if that increased with the arrival of the warmer months the authority would be "in significant difficulties".

Summary:


The world's largest, most powerful and most powerful man is a man who has been around for a long time.
The man is the man who is the world's most powerful man.
The man is the man who is the world's most powerful man.
The man is the man who is the world's

The public is being asked to provide information on the locations of nine fugitives suspected of serious environmental crimes.

Article: Bridge operators Amey said the problem was found during a routine inspection.
A contraflow is in place on the northbound carriageway to allow a single lane of traffic to flow in each direction.
Engineers were due on site at first light on Wednesday morning to do a more detailed assessment of the damage.
Motorists were warned to expect "very long delays" and avoid using the bridge if possible.
Mark Arndt, operating company representative, said: "We've taken the decision to close the southbound carriageway as a safety precaution after one of our engineers spotted a new defect to a piece of steelwork.
"Unfortunately this defect is located in a particularly hard to access area so the full detailed inspection cannot safely be carried out in darkness or during high winds. Our inspectors will however be monitoring the situation overnight and we will be ready to move in as soon as conditions allow.
"We apologise for the short notice to these essential traffic restrictions and are aware that they will result in very long delays, so our advice is to avoid Forth Road Bridge and divert via Kincardine or the A9 and M9, use public transport or travel outwith peak times."
Amey said it would provide further updates when there was new information.
The company said it sympathised with drivers who would be affected by the closure, but that "safety must come first".
A new Â£1.4bn Queensferry Crossing over the Firth of Forth is due to open in December next year.
It was ordered by ministers because of corrosion of the main suspension cable on the Forth Road Bridge.

Summary: The southbound carriageway of the Forth Road Bridge has been closed as a safety precaution after a defect was discovered in the steelwork.
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Article: The glyptodonts roamed South America for millions of years until the last Ice Age, and some grew as big as cars.
Their physical attributes - notably an impenetrable shell - already placed them as likely cousins of armadillos.
Now, researchers say they are not even a sister group, but a subfamily.
"Glyptodonts should probably be considered a subfamily of gigantic armadillos," said Frederic Delsuc, from the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) and Montpellier University in France.
Dr Delsuc and his colleagues used computer predictions to reconstruct some likely DNA sequences of armadillo ancestors, based on the genes of living species.
They then made RNA "bait" based on these sequences and used it to fish for glyptodont DNA in a tiny, mashed-up sample of shell from a fossil in a Buenos Aires museum.
This technique allows scientists to confidently identify real DNA sequences from the ancient target species, without worrying about contaminating genetic material.
Sure enough, the team eventually managed to reconstruct the entire mitochondrial genome - because the computer simulations and bait sequences were mitochondrial DNA - of a glyptodont.
And it was not just any glyptodont; the sample came from Doedicurus, one of the most monstrous members of the family. It stretched up to 4m in length and weighed about 1.5 tonnes.
These fearsome but vegetarian beasts, the researchers say, got progressively bigger over time until their extinction at the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago. That places them in good company, as Pleistocene-epoch South America was also home to elephant-sized ground sloths and giant, sabre-toothed cats.
Most importantly, Dr Delsuc and his colleagues are confident they have resolved the position of the glyptodonts in the tree of life - and they are nestled deep in the "cingulata" order, among myriad branches of armadillos.
"Glyptodonts in fact represent an extinct lineage that likely originated 35 million years ago within the armadillo radiation," said co-author Hendrik Poinar from...

Summary: An extinct group of giant, armoured animals with spiky, club-shaped tails belongs firmly within the family tree of modern armadillos, according to a study of 12,000-year-old DNA.
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Article: The appeal, from Interpol, is part of an effort to track down individuals involved in illegal fishing, logging and wildlife trafficking.
The trade in wildlife crime is said to be worth around $213bn per annum, according to the UN.
This is the first time that individuals have been targeted.
Investigators from 21 countries gathered at Interpol's headquarters in France in October to share information on suspects involved in a range of crimes involving the environment.
Called Operation Infra Terra, the agency is now asking for assistance from the public in tracking down nine key suspects.
"Even the smallest detail, which you might think is insignificant, has the potential to break a case wide open when combined with other evidence the police already have," said Ioannis Kokkinis, from Interpol.
"Sometimes all it takes is a fresh pair of eyes to bring new momentum to an investigation and provide the missing clue which will help locate these wanted individuals, some of whom have been evading justice for years," he added.
One of those named is Feisal Mohammed Ali, alleged to be the leader of an ivory smuggling ring in Kenya.
He is being sought in connection with the seizure of 314 ivory pieces, weighing well over two tonnes in Mombasa in June.
Others on the list include Ahmed Kamran who was charged with an attempt to smuggle over 100 live animals, including giraffes and impalas, to Qatar on a military plane.
Ariel Bustamante Sanchez is alleged to have been involved in illegal tuna fishing in protected waters off Costa Rica.
The move has been welcomed by Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). They are concerned not just with the impact of environmental crime on species but also with the effect on political stability.
"Countries are increasingly treating wildlife crime as a serious offence, and we will leave no stone unturned to locate and arrest these criminals to ensure that they are brought to justice," said Ben Janse van Rensburg from Cites.
"The public can play a crucial role in this...

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The first-ever study of the effects of aspirin on the immune system has found that aspirin can boost the effectiveness of cutting-edge cancer medicines that bolster the immune system.

A man has been remanded after appearing in court in Lapland accused of murdering his Scottish girlfriend.

Article: It revealed index-linked bonds may be launched in the near future "subject to market conditions".
The council has already become the first in Scotland to be given a credit rating, with Moody's Investors Service confirming an Aa2 issuer credit rating.
Aberdeen said the funding would support a £1bn capital programme.
Council leader Jennifer Laing said: "The prospect of a bond issue has the potential to be one of the most significant events in the history of our city.
"Following on from the assignment of the credit rating, it would be another first for a Scottish local authority and we are proud to be leading the way with innovation in public sector finance.
She added: "By being proactive in our approach to capital funding, we are clearly being mindful of our duty to protect the revenue budget which is the bedrock of our service delivery."
The plan has the backing of the Scottish government. It believes other local authorities could go down a similar route.
Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said: "We welcome Aberdeen City Council's innovation in using the capital markets as a route to finance.
"Investment in infrastructure throughout the country is vital to Scotland's future and this bond issue has the potential to support a number of key projects in Aberdeen in the years ahead. It is a funding mechanism which has great potential for wider use in Scotland.
"These key projects planned for Aberdeen in the years ahead will be good for the city, for the North-East and for Scotland as a whole."

Summary: Aberdeen City Council has said it hopes to become the first local authority in Scotland to raise funds through the capital markets.
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Article: Immunotherapy lets the body's own defences fight cancer and has been a source of huge excitement in the field.
And now scientists at the Francis Crick Institute have published a study suggesting aspirin may prevent tumours from hiding from the immune system.
Cancer Research UK said it could be a simple way of improving treatment.
The team showed that skin, breast and bowel cancer cells were producing high levels of a chemical, called prostaglandin E2, that could dampen down the immune response - effectively letting a tumour hide.
However, drugs like aspirin are able to change the chemical pathways inside the cancer cells that lead to prostaglandin E2 being produced.
Experiments in mice, published in the journal Cell, suggest such drugs can boost immunotherapy treatment.
But Prof Caetano Reis e Sousa, one of the researchers, told the BBC News website: "We are very far off patients, all this is preclinical research in mouse models, what we would like to do now is set up a clinical trial to formally demonstrate this could happen in humans."
Immunotherapy is one of the most promising fields in cancer research, with some trials showing terminal cancers can be shrunk and even disappear completely in rare cases.
Prof Reis e Sousa added: "The findings are exciting in the context of renewed interest in immunotherapy, really everyone in oncology and immunology has become extremely excited.
"But what we're finding is not a revolution, it's an evolution [that could help us] try to achieve an even greater rate of remission."
There have been previous suggestions that aspirin can prevent cancers forming in the first place.
And Prof Reis e Sousa said it was possible that aspirin was also preventing cancers forming by acting on the immune system, but that was still untested.
Prof Peter Johnson, from Cancer Research UK, said: "This research was carried out in mice, so there is still some way to go.
"But it's an exciting finding that could offer a simple way to dramatically improve the response to treatment in a range of cancers."

Summary: Aspirin may be able to boost the effectiveness of cutting-edge cancer medicines that bolster the immune system, scientists say.
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Article: The 36-year-old Czech national was arrested on Saturday after the body of Rebecca Johnson, 26, was found in the Finnish village of Kuttanen.
Ms Johnson was a member of the Santa Safari team which works with tour operator Transun Travel to organise Christmas-themed excursions to Lapland.
The couple lived in Scotland before moving to the Arctic for seasonal work.
Ms Johnson was from Burntisland in Fife.
A Finnish police statement said: "Lapland District Court has today imprisoned the suspect of the homicide, according to the claim of the Lapland Police Department.
"A 36-year-old Czech citizen is suspected of killing his 26-year-old long-term partner. The victim is a female citizen of Scotland. The crime is investigated as a murder."
It is understood members of Ms Johnson's family have since travelled to Lapland.
The police statement said: "The suspect has been co-operative but hasn't been able to clarify a specific motive for his suspected act.
"Police will continue the investigations by hearing the witnesses and the suspect, and by conducting technical investigations."
The suspect was arrested on Saturday after fleeing into the Lapland wilderness on a dog sled.
The police operation involved a helicopter and officers on snow scooters in temperatures of -30C.
The man was said to have been suffering from hypothermia when he was found.

Summary:


The Bank of England has cut its key rate to 0.5% despite speculation that it would cut rates.

Barratt Homes has confirmed it is pressing ahead with plans to build 400 new homes in the east of Scotland.

Article: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 8-1 to leave rates unchanged, but minutes of the meeting showed most members expect the Bank will take some action next month.
Sterling rose as high as $1.3480 following the decision before falling back to $1.3312.
Financial markets had priced in an 80% chance of the Bank cutting rates.
The Bank said: "Most members of the committee expect monetary policy to be loosened in August.
"The precise size and nature of any stimulatory measures will be determined during the August forecast and Inflation Report round."
The only member of the MPC to vote for a rate cut this month was Jan Vlieghe. He was a senior economist at Brevan Howard Asset Management before joining the committee last September.
Interest rates have remained on hold since the Bank cut its key rate to the record low of 0.5% in March 2009.
The MPC is dealing with two competing forces. First, a slowdown in economic growth following the referendum vote, which many economists believe could tip the economy into recession.
Second, a possible increase in inflation sparked by the fall in the value of sterling. At the moment, the data on the former is limited.
Read more from Kamal here.
The Bank said that some businesses were starting to delay investment projects and postpone recruitment decisions, while a "significant weakening" in activity in the housing market was expected.
Figures released earlier on Thursday showed interest among UK homebuyers fell to its lowest level since mid-2008.
"Taken together, these indicators suggest economic activity is likely to weaken in the near term," the Bank said.
It also said it expected "sizeable falls" in commercial real estate prices in the short term.
However, the MPC raised its expectation for economic growth in the three months to June to 0.5% from a previous forecast of 0.3%.
Aberdeen Asset Management economist Paul Diggle said the Bank had decided that patience was a virtue.
"The next meeting is only three weeks away, and by then Carney and his colleagues will have a few...

Summary: The Bank of England has held the UK's main interest rate at 0.5% despite speculation that it would cut rates.
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Article: The five-Test series will begin in Brisbane on 26 November, with the day-night match taking place in Adelaide from 2 December.
The third Test will be in Perth - either at the Waca or the new Perth Stadium.
Melbourne and Sydney will host the traditional Boxing Day and New Year Tests respectively.
A five-match one-day international series will follow, starting on 14 January 2018.
A Twenty20 tri-series featuring the two sides and New Zealand begins in February, with three matches in Australia and four in New Zealand, including the final.
"We know how much Adelaide fans love this style of Test cricket," Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland said of the day-night match.
"We're expecting a full house next year in what is sure to be a great contest."
A statement from Cricket Australia explained it is working with the Western Australian Cricket Association and the Western Australia Government "on the possibility of hosting matches at Perth Stadium in 2017-18".
The Perth Stadium is a new 60,000-seater venue which has been planned as a multi-sport arena, also hosting rugby union and league, football and Australian Rules football (AFL). Its official website states that it will be open "for the start of the 2018 AFL season", which is likely to be March 2018.
23-27 Nov 1st Test, Brisbane
2-6 Dec 2nd Test, Adelaide (d/n)
14-18 Dec 3rd Test, Perth (venue TBC)
26-30 Dec 4th Test, Melbourne
4-8 Jan 5th Test, Sydney

Summary: England and Australia will meet in a day-night Test for the first time during the 2017-18 Ashes series.
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Article: The builder said it would construct 139 homes at Duddingston Park South, Duddingston, and 165 at Newcraighall Village.
Barratt Homes will also build a total of 102 affordable homes between the two developments.
Newcraighall Village and Duddingston Park South are both set to launch later this year.
Anne Ross, sales director at Barratt Homes for the East of Scotland, said: "2014 has been buoyant year for new homes sales and we are pleased to be launching these two new developments in the Edinburgh area, to allow us to keep up with demand.
"With a wide selection of modern homes on offer and in sought-after locations, we hope these developments will be extremely popular."

Summary:


The Scottish National Party has said it will not be able to fill all of the relevant shadow posts to the government.

The SNP's attempt to be made the official opposition at Westminster has been rejected by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Article: Keane Wallis-Bennett died in April 2014 when a modesty wall in the PE changing room at Liberton High School fell on top of her.
A police investigation found no-one would face criminal charges.
However, it was decided an inquiry would be held to establish the full circumstances surrounding the incident.
In her opening remarks, Sheriff Principal Mhairi Stephen said the two-week inquiry would focus on why the wall collapsed, why it collapsed when it did and the property maintenance regime at the school.
She said the hearing came at a time of particular poignancy as many of Keane's classmates had recently been taking exams and were preparing to make their way in life.
Sheriff Principal Stephen added: "The whole community was totally shocked by Keane's death. A young woman who attended school on 1 April, 2014, and did not return to her family.
"School should be a safe place for people."
The inquiry heard that pupils had leaned on the wall while changing their shoes when it it collapsed on top of Keane.
In evidence read out to the court, one described fellow pupils' efforts to lift the wall but said it was too heavy.
Another witness, a Det Ch Insp Keith Hardie, was asked if on 1 April - the day of the incident - he could answer why the wall fell.
He replied: "No."
In a statement, one girl told how PE teacher Nicole Christie must have heard the bang as the wall fell and told them to leave.
The teacher then went over to Keane and told her: "It's alright. The ambulance is coming."
Other girls told of pupils pushing or shoving against the wall and one girl said the wall moved forwards or backwards before returning to its original position.
Another told of a "scraping or grinding noise" and how she looked down and saw "a bit of a gap" about a centimetre wide at the bottom.
Another pupil said a girl would put her back against the shower wall and her feet on the modesty wall and try to walk up it, while another tried to climb up the wall two or three times. But she stopped when she saw the wall move as she had "got a...

Summary: A fatal accident inquiry into the death of a 12-year-old girl who died when a school wall collapsed has begun in Edinburgh.
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Article: The inaugural worldwide day of celebration will be held on 11 July.
Culture, Tourism and Foreign Affairs Secretary Fiona Hyslop joined Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy to announced the plans.
The first Edinburgh fringe was in 1947 when groups arrived at the Edinburgh International Festival uninvited.
The performers were undeterred by not being on the official programme and staged their shows on the fringe of the main festival, leading to the movement's name.
Since then, the founding principle of open access has remained key and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has inspired the creation of fringe events worldwide.
Ms McCarthy said: "We are thrilled to reveal the plans for the first-ever World Fringe Day.
"We can't wait to join with our sister fringes across the world to celebrate the wonder and joy of fringe festivals in this auspicious year.
"This is an incredible opportunity for fringe organisers, venues, participants and audiences to take part in a truly international celebration of creativity that will transcend national boundaries, demonstrating the power of arts and culture to bring people together.
"We hope as many people as possible will join us for a very special day of worldwide fringe fun as we celebrate 70 years of fringe and pay homage to Scotland as the birthplace of the fringe movement."
The Scottish government's Edinburgh Festivals Expo70 fund will give Â£100,000 to support World Fringe Day through Creative Scotland.
Ms Hyslop said: "World Fringe Day is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the global connections that Scotland has made through the arts.
"Edinburgh's festivals are world-renowned and it is remarkable to think that the fringe movement, that began here in 1947 with the founding of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, has developed into a worldwide network with fringes now taking place on every continent except Antarctica.
"The Scottish government is proud to support World Fringe Day through our Edinburgh Festivals Expo70 fund, acknowledging Scotland as the...

Summary: More than 200 fringe events across the globe will mark the first-ever World Fringe Day to celebrate 70 years of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
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Article: The Scottish National Party had argued that its Commons leader enjoyed the support of more MPs than Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
There are currently 54 SNP MPs but only 40 of Labour's 229 MPs expressed support for Mr Corbyn on Tuesday.
Speaker John Bercow said he had sought expert advice.
He said Labour "currently constitutes" the official opposition and its leader is recognised by the Speaker "for statutory and parliamentary purposes" as the leader of the opposition.
Mr Bercow was replying to a point of order raised by SNP MP Pete Wishart, who told the Speaker that Labour had lost two-thirds of its shadow cabinet and its leader no longer commanded the majority of his backbench MPs.
The SNP MP said: "It can now longer provide shadows for large departments of State. It is in clearly in no shape to assume power and meet these key responsibilities and obligations as outlined in Erskine May (the parliamentary rulebook)."
The SNP said it would be able to fill all of the relevant shadow posts to the government.
Mr Corbyn has still not appointed a shadow Scottish secretary.
The previous incumbent, Ian Murray, has not been replaced after becoming one of more than 20 members of Labour's shadow cabinet to quit earlier this week in an effort to force Mr Corbyn to resign.
Mr Corbyn subsequently lost a vote of no confidence by 172 votes to 40 but said the ballot had "no constitutional legitimacy" and that he would not "betray" the members who voted for him by resigning.
His allies have challenged Mr Corbyn's critics to trigger a formal leadership contest if they want to replace him.
Earlier, Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell - who has remained loyal to Mr Corbyn - said the SNP would "always play a few stunts and you can't blame them for that".
The SNP won 56 seats at last May's election, but Michelle Thomson and Natalie McGarry have since withdrawn from the party whip amid police investigations.

Summary:


The Maldives is the world's most populous country, with a population of more than 1.5 billion people.
The country is divided into three regions: the north, the south and the east.
The north is home to the capital, the capital city, and the largest city, and the second largest city

Parliament might have to scrutinise up to 15 new bills to deliver Brexit, leaving little time for other legislation, the Institute for Government has warned.

Article: Smaller developers will be able to buy sites in England with planning permission in place - with 40% of the new-builds to be so-called "starter homes" aimed at first-time buyers.
PM David Cameron said it was a "huge shift in government policy".
But Labour said he was using "rhetoric to hide his failure on new homes".
Shadow housing minister John Healey said the announcement did not promise new investment or affordable homes beyond those already announced.
Direct commissioning allows the government to assume responsibility for developing land, instead of large building firms.
Communities Secretary Greg Clark told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the government was "pulling out all the stops to get the country building".
"We know that consistently 90% of people aspire to own their own home, and for many years now home ownership has been in decline," he said.
He added that the eight biggest building firms accounted for 50% of the house-building market, and there was a need to involve smaller and medium-sized companies.
Downing Street said the move marked a "radical new policy shift", with up to 13,000 homes set to be built on five publicly-owned sites in 2016 - with up to 40% being affordable "starter" homes.
In December 2014 former Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander announced a pilot plan for the government to "directly commission, build and even sell homes" at a former RAF base in Northstowe, Cambridgeshire.
BBC home editor Mark Easton said the extent of government involvement marked something of an ideological shift for a Conservative administration, adding that starting 13,000 homes represented a "tiny proportion" of the million the government wants built by 2020.
The government wants to build 200,000 starter homes - to be offered to first-time buyers under 40 at a minimum 20% discount price - by 2020.
The discounts apply to properties worth up to £250,000 outside London, or £450,000 in the capital.
A pilot for the scheme will start on five sites:
Where can I afford to live?
Why 'starter...

Summary: The government is "pulling out all the stops" by directly commissioning the building of up to 13,000 homes on public land, ministers say.
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Article: Mohamed Nasheed obtained 45% but needed more than 50% to avoid a run-off against his rival, Abdulla Yameen, who got 25% of the vote.
After decades of autocratic rule, the Maldives held its first free election in 2008, which was won by Mr Nasheed.
But he was ousted as president 18 months ago in an alleged coup.
Officials said the run-off was due to be held on 28 September.
Mr Nasheed's rival, Abdulla Yameen, is the half-brother of the Maldives' former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom who led the country for 30 years.
Mr Nasheed resigned in February 2012 when army and police personnel joined opposition-led protests over the arrest of a senior judge.
The judge, Abdulla Mohamed, was detained in January 2012 after ordering the release of an opposition politician.
Mr Nasheed said he was stepping down to prevent "bloodshed", but later said he was forced to resign at gunpoint by police and army officers.
He was replaced by President Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, who had also been running in Saturday's election but polled only 5% of the vote.
Mr Waheed has consistently rejected claims of a coup by Nasheed supporters.
The leadership change sparked political unrest, leading to fears that the protests would have an impact on the islands' tourism industry.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said last week that he hoped the elections would be "credible and peaceful".
Key issues for voters included religion, nationalism, education and the economy.
Thoriq Hamid, a representative of poll monitoring group Transparency Maldives, said that the campaigning had been conducted "smoothly and peacefully".
However, there was still "some apprehension and confidence issues about the security forces", he said.

Summary: The presidential elections in the Maldives will go to a second round after frontrunner Mohamed Nasheed failed to win an outright majority.
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Article: The IFG says legislation will be needed to establish new policies on areas such as customs and immigration.
The extra measures will place "a huge burden" on Parliament and government departments, the think tank says.
The attitude of the SNP may also affect the passage of Brexit laws, it adds.
In its report, Legislating Brexit, the IFG says that with the average Queen's Speech announcing only 20 new bills, the introduction of 15 Brexit bills before the UK even exits the EU "will leave very little space for non-Brexit related legislation".
The report comes as Theresa May travels to Swansea with Brexit Secretary David Davis, where she will talk about the "precious union" of the UK.
The prime minister will meet First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones, as well as local businesses, as she tries to show she is including all areas of Britain in negotiations with the EU.
Mrs May will say: "I want every part of the United Kingdom to be able to make the most of the opportunities ahead."
The IFG report anticipates the new bills will be in addition to the Great Repeal Bill, which will scrap the 1972 European Communities Act that paved the way for the UK to enter the then-EEC, ending the legal authority of EU law.
The IFG - an independent charity that aims to increase government effectiveness - says departments will need "ruthlessly to prioritise" other legislation and find non-legislative routes to get the laws through, particularly given the government's narrow Commons majority.
It warns that this will mean ministers having to achieve a fine balance between giving too little parliamentary scrutiny and too prolonged, in-depth examination of Brexit-related legislation.
The IFG also argued that "a lack of clarity" about the role the devolved legislatures will play in legislating for Brexit could pose a problem.
"The attitude that the Scottish National Party (SNP) takes to the passage of Brexit-related legislation in Westminster could affect the smoothness with which that legislation passes through Parliament if they join...

Summary:


Voters in Tunisia have been choosing their first freely elected president in a run-off election seen as a landmark in the country's move to democracy.

Article: Attention has fallen on Seddique Mateen, who runs a Facebook page where he describes himself as the "Provincial Government of Afghanistan", and refers to some sections of the Taliban as "our brothers".
Seddique Mateen has also appeared on his own online Afghan nationalist TV programme. Last year, he declared himself a candidate for the presidency of Afghanistan -  a year after the election took place.
His video posts are something of a laughing stock in Afghanistan, where he's viewed as somewhat odd and incoherent, BBC analysts say.
Mr Mateen's video message addressed to the people of Afghanistan mourns the death of his son, saying "I do not know what caused him [to carry out the attack] last night... I was not informed that he had a grudge. I am deeply saddened about what he has done".
"The issue of homosexuality and punishment for that is up to God alone, this is not in the hands of human beings," he adds.
Changing the subject somewhat, he finishes the message by saying he supports the Afghan armed forces in their recent border clash with Pakistani troops, saying "Death to Pakistan, which supports killing and terrorism".
The video was one of several posted on his Provincial Government of Afghanistan Facebook page, where it provoked a stream of abuse from other Facebook users.
BBC analysis of Mr Mateen's online presence shows him to be a proud Afghan nationalist, whose "Durand Jirga" TV programme calls for the Afghan people to rise up and unite.
Despite being of Pashtun descent, he always addresses the Afghan people in the Dari language rather than Pashto, presumably to reach a larger audience. However, his speeches can come across as incoherent and erratic.
In May 2015, a year after the Afghan presidential election, he took to YouTube to declare himself a presidential candidate. "Given the fact that the territorial integrity of Afghanistan is in danger... I declare myself as presidential candidate and founder of the National Salvation Movement of Afghanistan," he said.
However, his videos aren't taken...

Summary: The father of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen said his son had "a grudge in his heart" when he killed 49 people at the Pulse night club in Orlando.
###
Article: The band kick off their 19-date European tour at Dublin's Slane Castle on 22 May, 2017; and visit the London Stadium on 16 June.
Other dates are scheduled in Paris, Stockholm and Madrid.
Eagle-eyed fans have spotted a gap in the band's schedule during the Glastonbury festival, suggesting they could be the Sunday night headliners.
Guitarist Slash previously played there as a solo artist in 2010.
The original members of Guns N' Roses reformed in January after years of acrimony.
Singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan launched their comeback in April with two well-received performances in Las Vegas; followed by a headline set at the Coachella festival, where Rose had to sing from a "throne" after breaking his foot.
The band spent the rest of 2016 touring North and South America; while Rose also played several shows with AC/DC, whose singer Brian Johnson had to quit touring due to hearing difficulties.
By playing Slane Castle next year, the band will be revisiting one of the most tense shows of their two-year Use Your Illusion Tour.
Twenty-five years ago, Rose skipped a sound check at the venue, and arrived by helicopter long after he was due on stage. While they waited, the rest of the band were sent a crate of Irish whiskey and a barrel of Guinness by U2.
"Axl Rose nearly induced a nervous breakdown," wrote the castle's owner Lord Henry Mountcharles, years later. "However, it was a magic show. It kicked off the 90s."
Despite starting the show more than an hour late, Guns N' Roses appeared to enjoy the show, too.
"Playing in sunshine - it's a new concept," remarked Axl, who played impromptu covers of Black Sabbath's It's Alright and U2's One alongside hits like November Rain, Paradise City and Welcome To The Jungle.
Speaking on Monday, Lord Mountcharles said he was "thrilled" to be welcoming the band into his back garden after 25 years.
Tickets for Guns N' Roses European tour go on sale this week. Full information is available on the band's website.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter...

Summary: The classic line-up of Guns N' Roses have announced their first concerts in the UK and Ireland since 1993.
###
Article: Beji Caid Essebsi, who won the first round with 39% of the vote, is challenging interim leader Moncef Marzouki.
Mr Essebsi represents the secular-leaning Nidaa Tounes party.
Tunisia was the first country to depose its leader in the Arab Spring and inspired other uprisings in the region.
Polls closed at 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT). Voter turnout had reached 36.8% after four and a half hours of voting, Tunisia's election authority said.
Shortly after polls closed, Mr Essebsi's office said that there were "indications" that he had won.
However, a spokesman for Mr Marzouki said the claims were "without foundation".
Mr Essebsi, who turned 88 this week, held office under both deposed President  Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali and Tunisia's first post-independence leader, Habib Bourguiba.
He is popular in the wealthy, coastal regions, and based his appeal to voters on stability and experience.
His opponent, Moncef Marzouki, is a 67-year-old human rights activists forced into exile by the Ben Ali government.
He has been interim president since 2011 and is more popular in the conservative, poorer south.
After casting his ballot, Mr Marzouki said Tusinians "should be proud" of themselves "because the interim period has come to a peaceful end".
Mr Marzouki was thought likely to attract support from the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which has played a key role in Tunisian politics since the Arab Spring but did not field a candidate.
Whoever wins faces restricted powers under a constitution passed earlier this year.
The president will be commander-in-chief of the armed forces but can appoint or sack senior officers only in consultation with the prime minister.
The president will also set foreign policy in consultation with the prime minister, represent the state and ratify treaties.
Tunisia boosted security for the elections and closed border posts with Libya, which has been plagued by unrest.
A group of at least three attackers targeted a polling station near the city of Kairouan on Sunday morning. Security forces say they...

Summary:


The government has announced that it will be cracking down on phishing scams.
The crackdown will be carried out by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the National Information Security Centre (NISC).
The NCSC will be responsible for the investigation of phishing scams and will be able to identify the

The Chinese government is cracking down on home-grown cyber thieves seeking to steal online banking details.

Article: Jockey Andrea Atzeni rode the John Gosden trained three-year-old to victory in the two-mile race, which has been upgraded to Group One status.
Big Orange, ridden by Frankie Dettori, was looking to become the first horse in Goodwood's 205-year history to win the £500,000 race three years in a row.
"Coming in I thought Big Orange was the one to beat," said Atzeni.
It was a third success on Tuesday for the 26-year-old Italian jockey as Stradivarius finished ahead of Big Orange in second and Desert Skyline in third.
"It's a great day," Atzeni, who also rode winners in the Lennox Stakes and the Qatar Vintage Stakes, told ITV.
Trainer Gosden added: "He's not the biggest of horses and it was a bit rough on the first bend. He didn't panic and it opened up for us. He's a lovely little horse."
Double Trigger has come the closest to claiming three Goodwood Cup wins on the bounce, having been successful three times in four years - 1995, 1997 and 1998.
Having already steered Eagle Eye to victory in the Vintage Stakes, Atzeni caused a shock in the Lennox Stakes as 50-1 shot Breton Rock came from last to first to win.
Limato hit the front a furlong out and looked like collecting victory, before fading inside the final 50 yards as David Simcock's seven-year-old swept down the outside.
"I didn't expect this at all. I dropped him out last to pick up the pieces, but he picked them all up," said Atzeni.
"I thought the ground would be too quick for him."
BBC Sport horse racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght
Under the conditions of the race, Big Orange, three years older than Stradivarius, had to concede the winner nearly a stone; that, plus the fact the going was softer than ideal made all the difference.
Having, like everyone else, heard all the hype and the talk of history-making, members of the Big Orange camp were understandably disappointed, but that soon turned to pride in what was another fine effort.
Stradivarius is now aiming to be his very much in-form trainer John Gosden's fifth win - but first since 2011 - in...

Summary: Stradivarius won the Goodwood Cup as favourite Big Orange missed out on a record third successive victory.
###
Article: Two hundred and seventy-six candidates are competing for 108 seats across Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies.
Polling stations opened at 07:00 BST and closed at 22:00 BST in the proportional representation election.
Depending on the constituency, as many as 18 or as few as 12 candidates are contesting the six assembly member posts.
Counting in the election will begin on Friday morning.

Summary: Polling stations have closed across Northern Ireland for the 2016 Assembly election.
###
Article: The crackdown combats phishing by ensuring that the websites of legitimate banks appear at the top of search results.
The move comes as the personal details of more than 45 million Chinese people were stolen in separate attacks.
The government is investigating the thefts and said that the wave of attacks "threatened internet safety".
The 10 biggest search engines in China have signed up to the anti-phishing scheme to ensure that users looking for bank websites go to the right place.
Phishing attacks involve messages that look like they come from a bank or other organisation and direct people to a website that mimics the real thing.
When people visit the fake site and enter their login details these are recorded by cyber criminals who may loot the account soon afterwards.
By ensuring that the websites of banks appear first, the government hopes to limit the numbers of people falling for phishing scams and visiting the fake sites.
Some of the search engines will put a special icon next to the bank links in lists of results to flag them as legitimate.
The anti-phishing initiative comes at the end of a week in which the personal details of almost 10% of China's 485 million web users were stolen.
On Christmas day, the hugely popular Tianya chat site revealed that the login names and passwords from 40 million of its users had been stolen. All risk being plundered by attackers as the information was held in plain text.
Tianya has contacted the affected users and urged them to change their passwords as soon as possible.
Soon after, CDSN, one of China's largest forums for programmers, reported that the details of all its six million users had been stolen. The attackers got away with email addresses, login names and passwords. Again, all the details were stored in plain text.
The scale of the attacks prompted government action and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it would investigate who was behind the attacks.
"The department believes the recent leak of user information is a serious...

Summary:


The government has announced a £1.5m investment in the NHS, including £1.2m in the NHS Foundation Trust, to help it cope with the rise in demand for emergency care.
The announcement comes as the NHS faces a £1.5m budget deficit, with the government saying it will cut

A proposal to introduce life sentences for the offence of careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs does not go far enough, according to the parents of one victim.

Article: Statistics from July show 75.3% of vehicles responding to life threatening "red calls" arrived within eight minutes - exceeding the target of 65%.
It comes as the average number of calls handled by the ambulance service each day went up by 3.4% in a month.
But Health Secretary Vaughan Gething said there was more work to do.
July was the second successive month that the service met its target in all local health boards areas.
The current targets were introduced last October as part of a new clinical response model pilot, which prioritises the most critically-ill patients.
The decision meant ambulance response time targets for all but the most serious calls were scrapped.
Previously the eight-minute target applied to about 40% of the 999 calls the ambulance service received but now applies to only to fewer than 10% - only those judged to be immediately life-threatening.
For all other calls - categorised as amber or green - the ambulance service is given more time to judge the most appropriate response.
Mr Gething said he was "proud" of the work done to ensure the target was met.
"It is very encouraging to see that all LHBs in Wales have surpassed the national target for red calls for the second consecutive month, despite steadily rising demand," he said.
"In July there were over 39,500 emergency calls made to the Welsh Ambulance Service - an average of 1,277 calls per day.
"We have much to be proud of here in Wales, however we will not be resting on our laurels.
"The Welsh Ambulance Service - and the wider health and social care system - is already planning for the coming months and the difficult winter period.

Summary: Ambulances around Wales have met their response times target for the tenth month in row - an achievement hailed as "encouraging" by the health secretary.
###
Article: Troy Hunt reported that a flaw with the electric vehicle's companion app also meant data about drivers' recent journeys could be spied on.
Mr Hunt said he gave the firm a month to fix the issue before he decided to make it public.
Nissan said there was no safety threat.
The problem remains unresolved but Mr Hunt said car owners could protect themselves by disabling their Nissan CarWings account. Those who have never signed up are not at risk.
Mr Hunt acknowledged that the issue was not life-threatening, but said hackers could still exploit the app's vulnerability to cause mischief by running down people's batteries.
"The right thing to do at the moment would be for Nissan to turn it off altogether," Mr Hunt told the BBC.
"They are going to have to let customers know. And to be honest, a fix would not be hard to do.
"It's not that they have done authorisation [on the app] badly, they just haven't done it at all, which is bizarre."
A spokeswoman for Nissan said it was tackling the problem.
"Nissan is aware of a data issue relating to the NissanConnect EV app that impacts the climate control and state of charge functions," she said.
"It has no effect whatsoever on the vehicle's operation or safety.
"Our global technology and product teams are currently working on a permanent and robust solution.
"We are committed to resolving the issue as a matter of priority, ensuring that we deliver the best possible experience for our customers through the app now and in the future."
Mr Hunt said the root of the problem was that the firm's NissanConnect app needed only a car's vehicle identification number (Vin) to take control.
The code is usually stencilled into a car's windscreen, making it relatively easy to copy.
The initial characters of a Vin refer to the brand, make of car, and country of manufacture/location of the firm's headquarters.
So, Mr Hunt said, it would only be the final numbers that varied between different Nissan Leafs based in the same region.
"Normally it's only the last five digits that differ," he...

Summary: Some of Nissan's Leaf cars can be easily hacked, allowing their heating and air-conditioning systems to be hijacked, according to a prominent security researcher.
###
Article: Chris and Sue Moores's son Wayne died when his motorbike was struck by a drink driver in 2010.
The couple spoke out in response to consultation on proposed reform of sentencing for driving offences.
They believe increased sentences should be backed up by manslaughter charges.
Mr Moores, 28, was killed by a Vauxhall Astra driven by Donna Hackett on the M4 near Swindon.
Hackett, then aged 26, fled and was found by police asleep in a ditch. She served half of a six-year jail term after she was found guilty of causing death by careless driving while drunk.
The Ministry of Justice consultation suggests offenders who cause death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs could soon be handed a life sentence - an increase on the current 14-year upper limit.
Source: Crown Prosecution Service
But Mr and Mrs Moores, from Chandlers Ford, Hampshire, also want the offence to be upgraded to a charge of manslaughter.
Mr Moores said: "Somebody can drive drunk and kill my son. Why is that not manslaughter?
"Nothing can prepare a parent for seeing their child in the mortuary. That will stay with me every day, every day that vision comes into my mind.
"Our life is ruined."
Mrs Moores added: "There's nothing careless about drink driving. I don't want anybody else to feel like us."
Ms Hackett, who lived in Radnor Street, Swindon, at the time of the offence, appealed against her sentence in September 2011, but was refused.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "We are determined to make sure those who kill whilst driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs face the full force of the law.
"That is why we are consulting on plans that will see the maximum sentence for a number of offences in this area increase from 14 years to life."
A response to the Ministry of Justice consultation, which closes on 1 February, is due to be published by May.

Summary:


The number of people who have been killed by a car in England and Wales has fallen by more than half since the start of the year, according to a new report.

Wildlife conservators have said they are "extremely concerned" that the number of little terns nesting in the UK's biggest breeding colony dropped by almost half in a year.

Article: The Lower House passed the bill to create the post of "state counsellor", which now requires only presidential approval to become law.
Unelected military representatives holding a quarter of parliamentary seats boycotted the vote, calling the bill unconstitutional.
Ms Suu Kyi's party won elections but she is not allowed to be president.
Clause 59(f) of the Burmese constitution bars candidates with foreign spouses or children, and Ms Suu Kyi's two sons hold British passports.
The clause was widely considered to have been written specifically to prevent Ms Suu Kyi from taking office.
The bill has gone through both the lower and upper houses and now must be approved by President Htin Kyaw.
Htin Kyaw is Myanmar's first elected civilian leader in more than 50 years, and a close aide to Ms Suu Kyi.
At the heart of power: Analysis by Jonah Fisher, BBC News, Naypyidaw
The Burmese parliament in Naypyidaw has not seen a session like this before.
The army representatives refused to vote, stood in protest and complained repeatedly that this new bill is unconstitutional.
But it was all in vain - they are now hopelessly outnumbered by elected MPs from Aung San Suu Kyi's party.
So this - the first bill proposed by the civilian government - passed unchanged.
Having been denied the presidency by a clause in the constitution, this job will formally place Ms Suu Kyi at the heart of Myanmar's new administration.
In addition to state counsellor, Ms Suu Kyi will also be foreign minister and minister in the president's office.
The NLD won 80% of contested seats in the elections last year, ending decades of military rule.
But the army has kept considerable power. In addition to its seats in parliament, it heads three key ministries - defence, home affairs and border affairs.

Summary: Myanmar's parliament has passed a bill that gives Aung San Suu Kyi a role similar to that of prime minister.
###
Article: A Mobile Phone Theft Ratio compiled by the Home Office indicates the iPhone 5, 5C, 5S and 4S were most targeted, followed by the Blackberry 9790.
The findings were based on analysis of crime data in London. Samsung and HTC phones were also on the index.
Apple said it was leading the industry in protecting people's devices.
The research concurred that the introduction of stronger security features in phones is likely to have reduced theft levels.
Women and 14 to 24-year-olds are the two groups most likely to have phones stolen, according to the data.
People are most likely to have their phones stolen directly from their person, through pick-pocketing, or when the handset is briefly left unattended, the research adds.
Home Secretary Theresa May said that while crime had fallen under the coalition government, the level of mobile phone theft remained "a concern" and she hoped the new index would inform consumers about the habits of thieves.
She said: "People are increasingly carrying their lives in their pockets, with bank details, emails and other sensitive personal information easily accessible through mobile phones.
"This is why it is vital that government, police and industry work together to tackle this crime."
She said that the mobile phone industry was also taking action against criminals and had introduced features that enabled phones to be tracked and wiped if they were stolen.
There were 742,000 victims of mobile phone theft in England and Wales during 2012-13 - according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
In London alone, almost 100,000 mobile phones were reported stolen to the Metropolitan Police during 2013.
The Home Office says it recognises the picture may have changed following the "widespread introduction" of security features by manufacturers and intends to publish further analysis next year.
It also notes that Metropolitan Police intelligence indicates there was a reduction in thefts of iPhones after Apple introduced new security measures in its iOS 7 operating system update in...

Summary: Apple's latest iPhone models were the smartphones most likely to be stolen in England and Wales between August 2012 and January 2014, figures suggest.
###
Article: In 2014, the largest colony of the rare seabirds was at Winterton, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk but the birds have since moved north to Sea Palling.
Two years ago there were 300 pairs of the rare seabird. This year there are just 190 pairs at Sea Palling.
The RSPB said the species is declining.
Little terns travel 3,000 miles from west Africa to breed on the UK coast but, according to the RSPB, the numbers returning to the UK have declined by between 30-50% since last year.
It said the site near Sea Palling is still the country's largest colony, despite the significant drop in numbers.
Fabienne Fossez, the Little Tern warden for RSPB East Norfolk, said: "We're extremely concerned, it's a species in decline and they are in real trouble.
"What we don't know is what goes on out in west Africa in the winter but it is something to do with the climate, weather and food.
"Nevertheless, we have a really good success story here near Sea Palling, despite all of the odds."
Ms Fossez said 380 chicks have hatched at the east Norfolk site since mid May.
Her team has been maintaining a 24-hour surveillance of the colony in order to protect the birds.
But she said the breeding birds have not had the same level of success elsewhere.
"The little terns have had a really difficult time this year," she said.
"On the north Norfolk coast they were completely washed out at the beginning of June. We were protected here on the east coast and we are fortunate that there are just little terns nesting here."

Summary:


The government has announced a £1.5 billion investment in the education sector.
But the report says the money will be used to improve the quality of education in England.
The report says the government has made a commitment to invest £1.5 billion in the education sector, but the report says the money will

Teachers in England and Scotland have more teaching hours and bigger primary classes than in most other developed countries, according to an OECD annual education report.

Article: As one of the most influential writers of the 20th Century, George Orwell's impact is still felt decades after his death.
Big Brother, the ominous leader of Oceania in his chilling dystopian novel 1984, is mentioned frequently whenever CCTV or surveillance is on the agenda, while the concept of Room 101 has become a shorthand for people's pet hates and biggest fears.
But Orwell's influence is not restricted to debates about the security state, as a trip to a local pub can show.
On 9 February, 1946, Orwell wrote an article for the Evening Standard warmly describing his favourite pub, the Moon Under Water, a small backstreet establishment with no music, china pots with creamy stout and that crucial ingredient: a welcoming atmosphere.
The Moon Under Water may itself have been a fiction, a composite of Orwell's favourite London pubs, but its importance as a symbol of the friendly local lives on.
DJ Taylor, who has written an acclaimed biography of the author, said the essay shows Orwell's love of the pub as a traditional institution.
"The whole question about Orwell and pubs is very interesting," he said.
"It was a symbol of working class life that he tended to sentimentalise."
What constitutes the perfect pub was the topic of Orwell's last essay for the Evening Standard, with previous articles covering other aspects of typical British life, such as how to make a good cup of tea.
And, despite never existing, Moon Under Water left a sizeable legacy.
Seventy years on the essay's criteria for the perfect pub - which includes old-fashioned Victorian decorations, a snack counter, barmaids who know their customers and a garden - are still cited by ale aficionados looking for the ideal spot for a pint.
And landlords running a new breed of pub say Orwell's rules are key to a revival in real ale drinking in the UK.
The micropub does what it says on the label: it's a small pub, often only one room, and it focuses on providing good beer, a good atmosphere and a quiet, friendly place for people to talk, perhaps while...

Summary: Seventy years after George Orwell published an essay on what makes the perfect pub, BBC News examines how the author's views are influencing the micropub movement.
###
Article: This was the year when 5,650 farmers killed themselves in the country.
So the number of suicides by housewives was about four times those by farmers. They also comprised 47% of the total female victims.
Yet the high number of homemakers killing themselves doesn't make front page news in the way farmer suicides do, year after year.
In fact, more than 20,000 housewives have been killing themselves in India every year since 1997, the earliest year for which we have information compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau based on occupation of the victim. In 2009, the grim statistic peaked at 25,092 deaths.
Forget raw numbers.
The rate of housewives taking their lives - more than 11 per 100,000 people - has been consistently higher than India's overall suicide rate since 1997. It dropped to 9.3 in 2014, yet suicide rate for housewives was more than twice those for farmers that year.
Suicide rates of housewives vary from state to state.
In 2011, for example, their rates - more than 20 per 100,000 people - were higher in states like Maharashtra, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, West Bengal and Gujarat. Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar showed lower suicide rates.
Peter Mayer, who teaches politics at the University of Adelaide and has spent much time studying the sociology of suicide in India, wonders why suicide rates of housewives in India is so high, and why it gets so little attention in the  media.
After all, as Mr Mayer says, research in western societies suggests that "marriage confers protection from suicide to married women".
Therefore, married people are less likely to kill themselves - studies have found suicide rates for married people in the US and Australia, for example, are lower than others in the same age group.
India, clearly, is an outlier.
Nearly 70% of people who took their lives in 2001, for example, were married - 70.6% of the men and 67% of the women.
A study published in the medical journal The Lancet in 2012 found that the suicide rate in...

Summary: More than 20,000 housewives took their lives in India in 2014.
###
Article: The think tank says teachers' pay has declined in real terms.
The report also shows students in public higher education institutions in England pay the highest tuition fees.
But the OECD says high fees are accompanied by the highest levels of student support.
The Education at a Glance report compares the costs and characteristics of education systems in industrialised countries, from early years through to university.
How UK education compares:
It highlights that many countries face a challenge to recruit teachers - particularly when on average a primary school teacher earns 22% less than someone with similar qualifications.
"These uncompetitive salaries will make it harder to attract the best candidates to the teaching profession," says the report.
In England, head teachers have warned of a worsening teacher shortage, with recruitment targets being missed for several years running.
Teachers' unions have complained that an excessive workload is deterring people from staying in teaching - and the OECD's report shows how teachers in the UK compare with their classroom counterparts.
It shows that primary classes are bigger than average. For state schools in the UK - not broken down into devolved administrations - there were 27 pupils per class, compared with an OECD average of 21 pupils per class.
In secondary schools, teachers spent an unusually high proportion of their working days in the classroom, rather than preparing lessons or training.
In secondary schools in England, teachers taught for about 100 hours more than the average for OECD countries per year. In Scotland, the proportion of time spent teaching was even higher, more than 200 hours above average.
The report also shows that teachers' pay in England has had an above-average decline in real terms, between 2005 and 2013.
Despite the recession, countries such as Poland, Germany, the United States and Australia had increased teachers' pay in real terms.
But in England, based on an analysis of secondary school teachers, pay had fallen, with only...

Summary:


The Welsh Government is considering introducing a new tax on sunbed use and take-away food packaging.

An animal rights group is calling for the Skegness mascot, the Jolly Fisherman, to be replaced with a fish.

Article: Many readers wrote to Gwen asking for advice about a friend or family member who is transitioning.
Here Gwen, from Pennsylvania, addresses some questions from BBC website readers.
"There are going to be a lot of people out there who might hate her for who she is, but tell her that she has plenty of people in her life who are going to love her much more than any amount of hate she could receive.
"My personal rule is: Just don't read the comments. If you're going to read any comments people make, don't bother responding. They usually have their minds made up and no amount of arguing is going to make them apologise."
"The best advice is to just listen to what they have to say and try not to make it a big deal.
"When I was starting to transition, all I wanted was for life to feel 'normal' again.
"I didn't really want to talk about transitioning too much, but it was nice to have friends who just listened to me on the days where it was especially hard and told me they loved me anyway."
"The best thing would be to address someone by what it looks like they're going for. If this customer comes in every day in a dress and make-up, I would assume they wanted to be greeted as 'Ms'.
"It's always best to go by what you see and then, if they correct you, just go by what they'd rather be called instead.
"Maybe this person isn't comfortable being called 'Ms' yet, but that's something only they could know."
"I don't tell people until they need to know. I've found that letting people get to know me as everything I am first, aside from my trans status, helps them see me as someone other than a token trans friend after I disclose, if I ever choose to.
"If I'm not going to be having a sexual relationship with someone, they really don't need to know because it's not relevant.
"For jobs, it has to come up when listing former names on applications. But I don't treat it like a big deal and they follow suit.
"A lot of my colleagues still don't know that I'm trans, although my manager does and was really supportive."
"My biggest advice...

Summary: A transgender woman who let people ask her questions about her life on an internet forum was inundated with even more when the BBC reported on her story.
###
Article: The Bevan Foundation said eight new taxes would help make Wales "greener, healthier and better off".
The Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru welcomed the report.
But UKIP said the taxes would make Wales "more miserable" and the Conservatives said the report "smacks of nanny statism".
Under the Wales Act 2014, the Welsh Government has the power to establish new taxes in devolved areas.
The taxes proposed by the think tank are:
Bevan Foundation director Victoria Winckler said the sunbed tax would need to be "fairly substantial" to deter people.
She said: "We think taxes are actually really important. We've got used to talking about taxes as if they're a bad thing.
"But actually taxes pay for all the good things we have."
Cabinet secretary for finance Mark Drakeford said: "The power to introduce new Welsh taxes could be used to improve the lives and wellbeing of people across the country.
"This is a very helpful report and raises awareness of these new powers."
UKIP assembly group leader Neil Hamilton said: "The Bevan Foundation wants to make Wales a more miserable place by taxing the people's pleasures."
He added: "Mark Drakeford's refusal to rule out these killjoy taxes shows the danger of giving tax-raising powers to a Welsh Labour government, as the Tory government in London proposes in the Wales Bill now going through Parliament.
"Wales should be given the referendum on tax-raising powers we were promised before giving Labour the power to tax us out of existence."
Welsh Conservative economy spokesman Russell George said: "The report, while well-intentioned, smacks of nanny statism and will serve only to discourage entrepreneurs, boost the black market economy and create another unnecessary layer of bureaucracy."
He added: "Arbitrary taxes will do nothing but leave the people of Wales worse off at a time when gross disposable income already lags behind the rest of the UK."
The Bevan Foundation's research was funded by a grant from the anti-poverty charity the Joseph Rowntree Trust.
Plaid Cymru's shadow cabinet...

Summary: Charges on sunbed use and take-away food packaging are among a number of taxes the Welsh Government should introduce, according to a think tank.
###
Article: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) wants the mascot to be replaced with a modern animal-friendly version.
The group has suggested a fish with the slogan Skegness - A Happy Plaice.
The mayor of Skegness said all suggestions were welcome but said he did not think there would be much support for Jolly to be axed.
The original Jolly Fisherman poster was commissioned by the Great Northern Railway to encourage visitors to take the train on their seaside breaks to Skegness.
The poster featured the slogan "Skegness is so bracing".
It was commissioned in 1908 for 12 guineas and has became synonymous with the Lincolnshire resort.
However, Dawn Carr, of Peta, said Jolly "evokes images of cruelty to animals".
"Fish being tricked into impaling themselves in the mouth, animals being pulled out of the ocean in giant nets where they are so crushed together the pressure pushes their stomachs out through their mouths and their eyes pop out."
"This is what the Jolly Fisherman represents," she said.
She said Peta's suggestion would give the resort an opportunity to rebrand itself as a progressive holiday destination.
"One where the mutilation and killing of sea animals is not being celebrated."
Skegness's mayor, Carl Macey, said the Jolly Fisherman was loved by adults and children alike.
He said: "Animal cruelty is something we don't want to be portrayed for, but I don't feel Jolly has ever come across in that manner.
"He is just accepted as happy and friendly and he does such a wonderful job for Skegness.
"It [Peta's suggestion] will go before council, but if it isn't broken we won't try and fix it."

Summary:


The Labour Party has been accused of being too soft on the NHS, with the party's health spokesman, Jeremy Corbyn, saying the NHS is "the most important thing in the world".

Any move to close a sports centre would be a "declaration of war" on the local community, a councillor has warned.

Article: There was plenty of talk from the leader and his supporters ahead of the result of "coming together" after a second bruising campaign.
He even provided proof on BBC TV that he was growing a diminutive olive tree outside his office - the presumed purpose of which is to break off a branch and proffer it to his internal opponents.
But some of the MPs who voted for a motion of no confidence in him believe that those around the leader will only sue for peace on their terms.
Jeremy Corbyn - with a strong interest in the politics of the Middle East - will be familiar with the speech of the late PLO leader Yasser Arafaf to the UN general assembly in 1974 when he said he came bearing an olive branch in one hand and a freedom fighter's gun in the other.
Arafat beseeched the UN "don't let the olive branch fall from my hand".
One former frontbencher welcomed Jeremy Corbyn's pledge to "wipe the slate clean" following his re-election but said that if he continued to criticise the leadership then he fully expected them to "unleash the dogs of war".
And he is not the only one expecting to be mauled.
He believes Momentum - the group set up by veteran leftwinger Jon Lansman - is likely to pursue a strategy of deselection of anti-Corbyn MPs.
"Jeremy will stay above it all, of course, adopting his 'see no evil' approach. He will say it's just a matter of local Labour parties taking individual democratic decisions. The boundary changes will unlock the whole process."
Of course, motivated by loyalty to their party - or in some cases by personal ambition - some of the 172 MPs who voted for no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn at the start of the summer will - as the sun sets on Owen Smith's challenge - sue for peace and signal their willingness to serve on the frontbench.
But just how many will do so depends on what decision Labour's ruling national executive comes to on holding elections to the shadow cabinet - discussions were set to resume within hours of the leadership election result.
If MPs were to be permitted to elect most of the...

Summary: So Jeremy Corbyn has been re-elected as Labour's leader with a larger mandate than a year ago.
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Article: Sarah Brennan, 36, from Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan, gave birth to Eryn in September.
She was born seven weeks premature, weighing 3lb 11oz (1.7kg).
Mrs Brennan and her husband Mark have thanked the special care baby unit (SCBU) at Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, where Eryn spent three weeks.
The couple had just been placed on the IVF waiting list when they found out Mrs Brennan was pregnant.
But her waters broke in her 29th week of pregnancy and she spent two weeks being closely monitored in Singleton Hospital, Swansea.
She returned home but had an emergency Caesarean on 30 September at Princess of Wales Hospital as the baby was in a breech position.
Mrs Brennan, who works as a project manager at RAF St Athan, said: "Although Eryn was born nearly two months early she is a right little bouncer now.
"You would never think she was a premature baby."
Mrs Brennan's employer has donated Â£500 to the SCBU.

Summary: A woman who gave birth to a baby girl after suffering 10 miscarriages is preparing to celebrate her child's first birthday.
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Article: Meden Sports Centre in Warsop, Nottinghamshire, has faced ongoing maintenance issues with a temporary closures and Â£500,000 spent on repairs.
Mansfield District Council has said it is "unsustainable" and has launched a consultation on its future.
However, Warsop Parish Council said it was "essential" to the area and it would fight to keep it open.
The centre, which dates from the 1960s, was closed for six months in 2014 after an inspection identified fire safety concerns.
Officials have said renovation or rebuilding costs could cost between Â£1m to Â£8m.
Andrew Tristram, district council portfolio holder for the environment, said: "The council has undergone a review of leisure services at Meden Sports Centre and concluded that the current operating model is not sustainable for the future.
"There are increasing uncertainties about the running costs and capital investment due to the condition of the building".
However, parish council chairman Andy Wetton said: "The centre is essential to the area but this administration seems hell-bent on closing it.
"There was money available to replace it but this has been spent on other things.
"Any attempt to close it would be a declaration of war on Warsop and we would fight it hard."
The district council said no changes would be made before April 2018.

Summary:


The US government has been accused of using a "black market" to sell the government's most advanced weapons systems to the highest bidder.
The US government has been accused of using a "black market" to sell the government's most advanced weapons systems to the highest bidder.
The US government has been accused of using

Samsung's second recall of its Galaxy Note 7 handsets is an unprecedented disaster for the company and the wider mobile phone sector.

Article: The GM Health and Social Care Partnership Board said the move would make 24/7 urgent primary care provision easier for patients to access.
The additional access will revolve around neighbourhood hubs and "clusters" where weekend and evening appointments will be available.
The board said it hopes the plans will reduce pressure on hospital A&E units.
The investment will also provide patients access to a range of other health and social care services such as diagnostics, blood tests and X-rays as well as supporting nursing and residential homes.
Partnership chairman Lord Peter Smith said: "This £41m investment will ensure that our GPs across Greater Manchester are supported to provide high quality care now and in the future.
"Putting primary care back at the heart of our local communities is absolutely the right thing to do and shows how devolution can make gains for patients' right across Greater Manchester."
The plans do not mean that every GP practice in the region will have extra opening hours.
Instead it is envisaged patients having enhanced access at the neighbourhood level through "clusters" of practices working together, supported by a designated hub serving around 50,000 patients.
Dr David Wrigley, a Lancashire GP and BMA Council Deputy Chair, said: "It is good to hear about some new investment into general practice but I am concerned seven-day routine working is being rolled out when GPs struggle to provide a good five-day service, Monday to Friday, due to the years of under investment.
"We are short of thousands of GPs across the country and this new seven-day plan will seek to stretch my colleagues even more thinly across the week."
The board, which took control of the region's £6bn health and social care budget in 2016, was told 2,500 patients who could be treated elsewhere are dealt with every day in A&E units across the region.
The plan will build on some schemes already in operation in Greater Manchester, such as in Bury.
Bury has had full extended GP access in place since January 2015 with...

Summary: A £41m plan to give everyone in Greater Manchester seven-day GP access has been approved.
###
Article: The State Department has released satellite images of the facility which it said was used to hide evidence.
Rights groups say thousands of inmates have been tortured and hanged at the military prison outside of Damascus.
Syria has not responded to the latest claims but it has in the past strongly denied any abuse at the jail.
In February, Amnesty International said that mass hangings had taken place every week at the jail between 2011 and 2015.
The government at that time dismissed Amnesty's claims as "baseless" and "devoid of truth", pointing out that all executions in Syria followed due process.
More allegations of abuse at Saydnaya resurfaced on Monday.
"Credible sources have believed that many of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves," Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones told reporters.
Thousands hanged at Saydnaya prison, Amnesty says
'How I was tortured in a Syrian jail'
"We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Saydnaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees' remains with little evidence," he said.
Evidence of the crematorium hiding or disguising mass murders at the prison will be presented to the international community, Mr Jones said.
He said that newly de-classified documentation "underscore the depths to which the Syrian regime has gone, with the continuing support of its allies, Russia and Iran".
"The facts we're presenting today are based on reporting from international and local non-governmental organisations, press reporting and also intelligence community assessments."
Mr Jones said the Syrian government had modified a building within the Saydnaya complex "to support" the suspected crematorium.
"Although the regime's many atrocities are well documented, we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Saydnaya prison," he said.
According to Amnesty's report in February, which was based on the testimony of witnesses, it was estimated that between 5,000...

Summary: The Syrian government has constructed a crematorium at a military prison to dispose of the remains of thousands of murdered prisoners, the US has alleged.
###
Article: There have been huge battery-related recalls before - Nokia had to ask consumers to send back 46 million batteries in 2007 because of overheating fears, but because they were removable it did not mean a well-reviewed flagship had to be scrapped.
"Stop using your device, back up your data and switch it off," the Samsung told Note 7 owners the day after it confirmed it had shut down its assembly lines following a spate of fires.
A compensation scheme is being put in place - users will be offered the choice of either getting all their money back or swapping the phablet for an older, smaller-screened Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge phone plus a partial refund.
But several questions remain unanswered.
When Samsung instituted the initial recall last month, it pointed to a "battery cell issue" being the cause.
A report sent by the company to regulators was more specific, saying a production fault had caused some of the batteries to be slightly larger than intended, which had put pressure on them when they were fitted inside phones, according to a leak reported by Bloomberg.
The issue was blamed on the components' manufacturer - Samsung SDI  - and was supposed to have been fixed by putting  batteries made by another company, ATL, in the replacements.
Now that several of that second batch of phones have overheated too, it is unclear whether the original problem was misdiagnosed.
According to the New York Times, Samsung's engineers were never able to get the phones to explode when they tried to recreate the fault.
"We are working with relevant regulatory bodies to investigate the recently reported cases involving the Galaxy Note 7," was the only comment a Samsung spokesman was willing to make on the matter.
Samsung has yet to reveal exactly how many Note 7s it made before pulling the plug on Tuesday.
On 2 September, the South Korean company said 2.5 million devices were subject to its initial recall.
On 27 September, it added that more than 60% of the Note 7s that had been sold in South Korea and the US had been replaced with new...

Summary:


A man who was beaten to death in a car park in Salford has been charged with murder.
Paul Croft, 19, was attacked in the car park of the Salford City Centre on Sunday, March 19, 2015.
The victim, who was not identified, was found dead in the car

A German holidaymaker has been fined Â£1,000 after causing a crash which killed a motorcyclist in Conwy county.

Article: Paul Croft, 19, died in hospital in March 2005, a week after being attacked in an alleyway in Pendlebury, Salford.
Greater Manchester Police's Cold Case Unit reopened an investigation into his death in 2015.
Paul O'Neill, 35, of Broomhall Road in Pendlebury, was remanded into custody by Manchester magistrates.
A 28-year-old man from Swinton was charged with Mr Croft's murder in November.

Summary: A cold case investigation into the death of a teenager who was beaten with a baseball bat has led to a second man being charged with his murder.
###
Article: Angus Carpenter, 62, has played the Scottish instrument in Liverpool city centre for more than 30 years, usually dressed in kilt and piper's regalia.
Liverpool Crown Court heard he gave the impression he was collecting for charity three times in 2015.
He denied three charges of fraud and told the court he was busking.
Sgt Chris Gaynor told the court Mr Carpenter was spotted by police on three occasions in 2015, each time giving the impression he was collecting cash for charity.
On one occasion his collecting bucket was adorned with stickers resembling the Help for Heroes logo and the other two with a Hillsborough Justice Campaign banner draped on his bagpipes.
Passers-by would have assumed he was collecting on behalf of those organisations, the court heard.
Mr Carpenter said he has piped for charity in the past but on these occasions he was busking.
The court heard Kenneth Derbyshire, chairman of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, said he had given Mr Carpenter permission to design and display a banner featuring the eternal flame and the word justice.
But he said he had made it clear to Mr Carpenter he was not use it to collect funds for the charity.
Mr Carpenter told the court the banner was a tribute to the victims not an attempt to deceive anyone.
He told the court he was a busker who made money from performing on the streets and he never intended to give the impression he was raising money for charity.
On occasions when he did fundraise, he said, he always insisted that representatives from the relevant charities collected the cash.
The trial continues.

Summary: A bagpiping busker used a Hillsborough charity banner to dupe big-hearted Scousers into handing over money, a court has heard.
###
Article: Hospital radiographer Aidan McNicholl, 36, died following the collision on the A5 at Cerrigydrudion on Sunday.
Andreas Werner, 46, of Leipzig, failed to spot the motorcyclist as he turned his VW Transporter right causing the fatal crash.
The father-of-four pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving at Llandudno Magistrates' Court.
He was fined Â£1,000 and also banned from driving in the UK for two years.
Prosecutor Sarah Marsh told the court the victim's family saw no value in Werner, who was staying in a cottage with his family near Bala, being sent to jail.
She said: "They accept it was a momentary lapse and nothing will bring him back."
Craig Hutchinson, defending, said Werner was remorseful and could offer no explanation for the crash.

Summary:


The first real-world test of a new memory chip technology has been revealed by IBM scientists.

Lakes that have been forming near Mount Everest could threaten settlements downstream if they overflow.

Article: The ambitious plans for the revamp includes demolishing many of the existing buildings on The Kingsway.
They also include a large raised public square bridging Oystermouth Road, linking the city centre to the marina.
The plans will go before Swansea council for approval on 20 January.
If the council gives the proposals the go-ahead, developers would need to be found with the aim of of work starting in 2016.
Part of the plans also include selling off the civic centre on the seafront to help fund the plans.
Council leader Rob Stewart told the South Wales Evening Post the plan was to build something with a "Swansea flavour" rather than just copying developments in other cities.
He said: "The regeneration of the city centre is a key priority not just for the council but for the people of Swansea as a whole.
"A new, vibrant Swansea city centre is of benefit not just to the residents and businesses of Swansea, but to people across the Swansea Bay City Region.
"We want to develop a thriving, vibrant and viable city centre. We don't want to copy from elsewhere but we do want to learn from successful development elsewhere.
"Our new city centre needs to be unique and retain a special Swansea identity and character that is not found anywhere else."

Summary: A proposed redevelopment of Swansea city centre could see the construction of a "business district" and a major shopping, leisure, cinema, office and housing complex.
###
Article: The demonstration involved Racetrack memory - a system which stores information as magnetic patterns on tiny wires.
IBM said the technology promised faster data access speeds than were possible using hard drives or flash disks.
However it faces a challenge from other next-generation memory technologies being explored by other companies.
The team - based in New York, California and Taiwan - has been working on the process since 2008.
The prototype chip consists of 256 Racetrack cells.
Each cell consisted of a single magnetic nanowire, 60-240 nanometres wide and 15-20 nanometres thick. A nanometre is a billionth of a metre.
Electric pulses are applied to the wires creating "domain walls" with "regions" between them.
These regions pass over a magnetic read/write head which faces them in one direction or another, representing the 0s and 1s of computer data.
The small magnetic regions can be "raced" at speed along the wires - giving the technique its name.
Advocates of Racetrack claim it could potentially read and write data hundreds of thousands of times faster than is possible on commercial hard disks.
That would put access speeds at roughly the rate offered by DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) chips. These are already used in current PCs to run programs, but "forget" data as soon as the computers' power supplies are switched off.
"This breakthrough could lead to a new type of data-centric computing that allows massive amounts of stored information to be accessed in less than a billionth of a second," said a statement from IBM.
The scientists noted that the circuitry involved was created using IBM's standard microchip-making technologies, highlighting its potential as a realistic replacement to existing memory storage techniques.
Racetrack may also prove more durable. IBM aims to create a device that can be wiped and rewritten millions of times. By contrast many flash memory drives can become unreliable after any single bit has endured about 100,000 writes.
However, the researchers acknowledge that more work...

Summary: Details of the first real-world test of a new memory chip technology have been revealed by IBM scientists.
###
Article: Ponds on the surface of the Khumbu glacier in the Himalayas have expanded and joined together to form larger bodies of water.
Climbers need to cross the glacier, including the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, to climb the mighty peak.
The accelerated meltdown of glaciers in the region is causing concern against a backdrop of rising global temperatures.
Scientists say the warning is the first of its kind for Khumbu, although other glaciers in the Himalayas have seen an increase in the number of lakes formed.
Such newly formed glacial lakes can overflow causing flooding, and with it loss of life and damage downstream.
This is the first scientific team to visit the region after the devastating earthquake last April.
"A decade or so ago, there were individual ponds on the Khumbu glacier but in the past five years or so they have begun to get larger and join up," said Ann Rowan, who led the field study team from the universities of Sheffield and Leeds.
Dr Rowan's team has been studying the behaviour of debris-covered glaciers, focusing on Khumbu.
"Particularly, on the left hand side of the lower reaches of the glacier, there is a series of about seven or eight large ponds that are now starting to link and form a big chain," she told the BBC.
"There is water flowing from the upper part of the glacier through the series of these ponds and that is going to encourage them to join up.
"At present, the glacier appears to be disintegrating, and may form a few large and potentially hazardous lakes on the glacier surface."
Dr Rowan's team has studied satellite images of the Khumbu glacier dating back 15 years and has also conducted three ground surveys since 2009.
The scientists found that parts of the lower region of the debris-covered glacier have been shrinking because of loss of ice underneath. This has allowed the formation and expansion of water bodies.
The study says measurements for the past 15 years show that the surface of the debris-covered glacier has been declining at the rate of two metres per year.
Unlike the...

Summary: