Olivia Watling, a 15-year-old student from Ramsey in the Isle of Man, was admitted to Liverpool's Alder Hey hospital in November. Her wish was granted by Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall after the campaign #littlemix4livvy was launched by pupils at her school. Jade said the band wanted to send "all their love" to Olivia. Referencing the nickname given to Little Mix's fans, Jade said she had heard Olivia was a "massive Mixer". A spokeswoman for the campaign, said: "Livvy woke up to the message and has been showing it to all her nurses. "Well done to everyone that made this happen - just to see the smile on Livvy's face is so very special." Her aunt Andrea Holroyd said: "Liv went to see Little Mix last year, she knows all the songs and all the dances. "I can't tell you how amazing Liv is - she is in so much pain but she is so incredibly strong and brave. We are just finding things to lift her spirits."

Question: A girl @placeholder leukaemia has received a " get well soon " video message from her favourite band Little Mix .


The Royal College of Physicians found 43% of consultants believe rota gaps among junior doctors cause "significant problems" to patient safety. Meanwhile, 40% of consultant physician vacancies could not be filled. "In most cases, this was because there were literally no applicants," said Dr Alan Rees, RCP Wales vice president. The concerns in hospitals follow issues involving a shortage of GPs and a campaign to get doctors to train and work in Wales. "The NHS recruitment crisis in Wales is getting worse, and is not confined to primary care," said Dr Rees. This is the first time the RCP has compiled Wales-only figures on the workforce in hospitals. The findings of a new survey of consultants - and core medical trainees (CMTs) - coincide with a conference in Cardiff. Consultant physicians are senior doctors who look after everything which is not surgical in the hospital - and that includes 30 different specialisms, acute admissions and outpatient clinics. The CMTs are qualified junior doctors who have already been through medical school and completed their first two years as trainees. They do the day-to-day ward rounds and look after patients while on rotations in different specialities over a further two year training period. 43% trainee doctor rota gaps "frequently cause significant problems to patient safety" 48.5% consultant physicians feel at times to be working under excessive pressure 35.4% say this is happening "often" 92.3% consultants "sometimes, often or always" doing jobs previously done by junior doctors The report found: WHAT JUNIOR DOCTORS SAY Dr Richard Gilpin, 33, qualified as a doctor six years ago and his current rotation is at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny, the 12th hospital he has worked at in his career so far. "We're used to working long hours, so a typical shift is 13 hours and it's not unusual to work a couple of hours after that. And to spend that time, working as hard as we can, missing food and toilet breaks and after that time having 15 to 20 patients still waiting to see a doctor because of rota gaps, that's a very difficult thing to come home from. "And that's tied in with morale - the idea you want to finish the working day knowing you've done a good job." Dr Charlie Williams, 28, qualified three years ago and is currently at Morriston Hospital in Swansea on her rotation as a core medical trainee. "I don't know anyone who's routinely not working longer hours than they should be. When you're on a rota that's very thin there's no wriggle room, if someone's off sick or a car breaks down, you end up having to cover the extra work. You do get quite a lot of phone calls and pressure to fill those shifts. "From a training point of view, if you want to learn how to run an outpatient clinic or learn some of the management or educational bits that consultants do, you can only do that if there's enough cover for your ward and you know your patients are looked after. "When there is no cover, that [training opportunity] never happens. You have this conflict because you need to be able to do these things to progress your career, they're not optional. You then have to square that with whether you can leave the patients; leave the ward. "It adds an extra layer of pressure and it also makes it less flexible. If you want leave for example - I've got a friend getting married on a Sunday in July, I'm not sure I can go with that much notice because I don't know if there will be a doctor to cover: that's the priority. When you can't plan over those things, it's difficult for your family or to explain to people you know." Both love their jobs and are keen to stress they find them very rewarding and interesting. These junior doctors' frustrations are with the rota gaps - not unique to Wales - but also with IT and technology systems inside hospitals, especially having to move between different health boards every six months. Dr Gilpin said: "There's a joke in medicine that the most important thing you have to learn as a doctor in your first month is how to fix the printer. "When you've spent half an hour trying to fix the fax machine so you can send a referral off -  I could have spent that time talking with a patient's family." Dr Williams added: "We've got people coming in half an hour early to make up the patient list and then find a printer that works, because you need to have it ready to go or you're holding up the rest of the clinical team". The RCP makes 30 recommendations set against what it sees as complex challenges, including a rising and ageing population and the need to serve large rural parts of Wales as well as urban areas. It sets out examples of good practice, particularly in how healthcare needs to go beyond hospital walls. The organisation also wants more Welsh students to study medicine in Wales, increasing the likelihood of them staying on to work here. Dr Rees said numbers were now "as low as 10%" of students in medical school in Wales being from Wales. He added that a "bold, strategic step" was needed and a "really ambitious, long term vision", not more quick fixes. The Welsh Government said it would consider the report but it was important to recognise how demand was growing. "In order to address the challenges this poses, health boards have been working hard to recruit more staff, including consultants," said a spokesperson. "As a result there are more frontline staff working for NHS Wales than ever before.  We will continue to support health boards to recruit staff, including doctors, through our 'train, work, live' campaign." Conservative health spokeswoman Angela Burns AM called on ministers to introduce long-term workforce planning and to bring forward a "fresh recruitment plan". "This should involve contracting newly trained doctors for a number of years in return for training bursaries, as well as establishing a pilot of financial incentives to attract doctors in shortage specialities and understaffed areas to work in Wales," she said.

Question: Hospital doctors in Wales have warned of a " @placeholder crisis " over workload and recruitment , adding to concerns about pressures already made by GPs .


All too often here, when the land is baked dry, the winds can strip away an inch of precious topsoil in as little as 24 hours, soil that has taken centuries to form. In the course of the most arid years, each acre of farmland can lose up to 70 tons of soil and then, wherever the dust is dumped, it can smother the crops it lands on. In the Oklahoma Panhandle, the most remote area of the state, recent rainfall has been so meagre that fears have been kindled of a return to the apocalyptic "Dust Bowl" scenes of the 1930s. Back then, agriculture collapsed and thousands of people left. A survivor of the 1930s, 101-year-old Millard Fowler, who recalls sheltering from the "rolling black clouds" of the Dust Bowl, has seen similar conditions this year. "Somebody asked me the other day if dust storms would happen again and I said 'they already have' - we've had some pretty good dust storms this spring," he said. One of the worst was filmed by a local woman, LeLayne Tapp, and the video showed dust engulfing the community of Boise City, turning the sunlight orange and making roads impassable. A farmer, JB Stewart, surveying one of his ruined wheat fields, told me that he had seen many droughts in his lifetime but the current one was "insane" because it has lasted so long. "I've seen droughts over 50 years but nothing as devastating as what we've had in the last two to three years - I've never heard of anything like what we've had," he said. His son Jarod, the fifth generation of the family to farm this land, said: "We've lost the crop and we've now got to figure out how to stop the soil from blowing. "I'd compare it to the death of a loved one - you nurture this crop and invest in it and then you watch that crop die, it's devastating." Across many parts of the state, the drought is acknowledged to have started three-and-a-half years ago with between 30-50 inches less rainfall than on average over that time. Gary McManus, the Oklahoma State Climatologist, told the BBC: "The drought right now is the worst in decades especially in western Oklahoma. "This has had a big economic impact on our economy - if you look at agriculture in 2011-12 alone there were $2bn losses from crops and cattle." He highlights rainfall statistics for the weather station in Boise City in the midst of one of the hardest-hit areas, Cimarron County, where the total from October 1 2010 to June 12 2014 was just 43 inches. By comparison, over the same period in the 1930s, a time of extraordinary hardship, Boise City received only 41.62 inches of rain. Back then, massive dust storms destroyed such vast areas of farmland that a journalist, reporting on what became an environmental and human catastrophe, coined the term "Dust Bowl". Years of drought, exacerbated by poor farming practices, left the fields without vegetation or any form of protection, so the soils were vulnerable to the winds. In one notorious storm in April 1935, dust was swept all the way to Washington DC, where it alerted the federal authorities to the unfolding nightmare. The wrecking of harvests and the crushing of livelihoods were then seared into the national memory in literature such as John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, with its account of the plight of the Joad family. Since then, important changes in farming policy have lessened the impact of the drought. The technique of "no-till" agriculture - in which ploughing is avoided and stubble is deliberately left standing in fields - reduces the amount of farmland exposed to the winds. And farmers can now buy government-supported crop insurance and receive grants for planting farmland with natural grasses which are better able to withstand drought. But what has shocked many in this region is that rainfall has been so poor that even some of the best-kept fields have become miniature dust bowls. Rick Kochenower, an agronomist with Oklahoma State University, developing new techniques of crop rotation and water conservation, said conditions were "scary" and "make you feel helpless". "We try to do the right things and have modern technology but Mother Nature still dictates what happens, she's the driving force - all plants require water to grow," he said. A key question is whether future droughts will become more intense. The farmer, JB Stewart, wonders if a long period of good rainfall that he enjoyed in the 1970s and 80s means there can be an equally long period of poor rain in decades ahead. Others avidly follow reports of a stirring El Nino, which could bring moisture to Oklahoma. Dr Renee McPherson of the University of Oklahoma was an author of the Great Plains chapter of the recent National Climate Assessment. She says the region experiences very large climate variability but that models suggest there will be a rise in maximum temperatures this century. That could increase evaporation from the ground and transpiration from plants. "We're less sure of what will happen to our precipitation patterns, but even if they stay the same, we'll see increased drying with those increased temperatures," she explained. "We aren't sure what the droughts will look like in future - whether they'll be longer - but we feel that because of the increasing temperature they will be intensified." Millard Fowler, the Dust Bowl survivor, worries that although farmers are supported, life will become tougher as supplies of groundwater, used for irrigation, run low. He said: "There's very few living out on the farms anymore - they moved to towns where they could get television."

Question: A menacing cloud of dust @placeholder above a parched field in Oklahoma is a disturbing reminder of the power of drought .


The unnamed man, in his 20s, was taken to Coventry Fire Station by his mother because he could not remove the hardened-steel shackle lock. Firefighters could not cut the lock and called in West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service's Technical Rescue Unit The station commander said the man was unhurt, "but his mother was raging". Pete Drummond said: "We tried a cutter, but it just marked the lock. Then we tried a reinforced bar cutter, but it just dented it". He said the man had been out drinking until the early hours and did not know when the lock was put round his neck. "He woke up at about 16:00 BST and found his mates had put the lock round his neck and his mates had thrown away the keys," said Mr Drummond. "His mum brought him in at about 19:30 BST. He really did have his tail between his legs". The rescue unit covered the man with a fireproof blanket and cut through the steel with a circular saw.

Question: A man who woke at home with a high - security bike lock around his neck after a @placeholder out needed a rescue team to get it off .


They were reportedly caught as they were leaving the northern town of Arlit before dawn in five different vehicles. The migrants - mainly men, with some women and a few children - are believed to be from Nigeria and Niger. It comes days after 92 migrants were found to have died of thirst after two trucks broke down carrying them across the Sahara to Algeria. Niger lies on a major migrant route between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. Those arrested on Saturday are now reportedly being arrested by police in Arlit. The government announced on Friday a plan to close illegal camps in northern Niger - which it referred to as "ghettos" - and said those involved in trafficking migrants would be "severely punished". The country has been holding three days of mourning after the bodies of 52 children, 33 women and seven men were discovered on Wednesday. Another five from the same convoy had been found several days earlier by the army. Most of the dead were from the southern Niger district of Kantche. The government said in its statement on Friday that the tragedy was "the result of criminal activities led by all types of trafficking networks". About 5,000 African migrants are said to be currently stranded in illegal camps in the northern town of Agadez alone. Most of these migrants - having paid large sums of money to traffickers - are waiting to cross the hundreds of kilometres of desert into Libya or Algeria, from where they can take boats to Europe in the hope of a better life there. Niger has said that migrants found to be in the illegal camps will be handed over to international aid agencies. The head of the International Office for Migration in Niger, Abibatou Wane, has welcomed the action by the government but warned migrants should only be repatriated to their home countries on a voluntary basis.

Question: Officials in Niger have arrested 127 migrants as they attempted to cross the Sahara into Algeria , @placeholder say .


3 December 2015 Last updated at 18:57 GMT She is one of a rising number of UK students considering studying abroad. As well as being much less expensive, she thought going to a European university would give her an "edge" in the jobs market. "It shows a certain quality, it shows bravery to go to another country and it's not that far from home," she said. The distance does not seem daunting, she says as it is as quick to get home from the Netherlands as from some other parts of the UK.

Question: Phoebe Watkinson from Wirral @placeholder an open day at the University of Groningen to see whether she wanted to apply to study in the Netherlands .


Conservative Nusrat Ghani said the term was used by abusers as a "pathetic self-justification" for their violence. She proposed a bill in the House of Commons that would ban the use of the description in official publications. The move would make it clear that "cultural and religious sensitivities are not a barrier to justice", the MP for Wealden in East Sussex said. There is no specific offence of "honour-based" violence. The Crown Prosecution Service describes it as a "collection of practices, which are used to control behaviour within families or other social groups to protect perceived cultural and religious beliefs and/or honour". Ms Ghani said police had been put off investigating such crimes because they fear being branded "racist". "Language matters," she told the Commons. "The use of the term 'honour' to describe a violent criminal act - sometimes committed against a man, but more often against a woman - can be explained only as a means of self-justification for the perpetrator. "It diminishes the victim and provides a convenient excuse for what in our society we should accurately and simply call murder, rape, abuse or enslavement. "I want us in this House to send a clear message that the excuses end here." Her Crime (Aggravated Murder of and Violence against Women) Bill would also require the UK authorities to fund assistance for British women attacked in other countries and for the bodies of those murdered to be repatriated. UK nationals guilty of such offences towards other UK nationals overseas would also face prosecution in British courts, her bill states. MPs agreed the bill should be able to proceed, although Conservative MP Philip Davies - who said it was too focused on women and did not mention honour crime towards men - objected. Mr Davies said he would continue to oppose legislation "unjustifiably aimed at dealing with just one gender", adding: "Yes, of course women are far more likely to be the victims of honour-based crimes than men, but they are not exclusively the victims of these crimes. "As far as I am concerned, all these things are just as bad as each other." The bill will be heard again on 24 March, although it is unlikely to become law without the government's support.

Question: An MP is @placeholder to ban authorities from describing murders as " honour killings " .


The virus - spread by sneezes or coughs - can lead to serious birth defects if contracted by pregnant women. Up to 20,000 children were born with rubella in the Americas every year until mass vaccinations started. But the last endemic cases registered in the region were in Argentina and Brazil in 2009. The fact no new cases have been declared in five consecutive years, apart from those imported into the region, allowed global health chiefs to declare the Americas free of the virus. Eradication was "an historic achievement", said Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan-American Health Organization, which is part of the World Health Organization. "The fight against rubella has taken more than 15 years," she said. "But it has paid off with what I believe will be one of the most important pan-American public health achievements of the 21st Century." Rubella is also called German measles. It is caused by a virus and spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Usually rubella causes a rash, a slight fever, aching joints, headaches, runny nose and red eyes. The rash starts on the face and spreads from head to toe. Sometimes the lymph nodes behind the ears and on the neck can swell painfully. Rubella can be dangerous for pregnant women in the first three months of pregnancy. It can lead to congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) in children, and cause autism, blindness, deafness and heart defects. During the last major rubella outbreak in the region, between 1964 and 1965, close to 20,000 children were born with CRS in the United States. The country managed to wipe out the virus by 2004. However, about 120,000 new cases of rubella emerge every year, particularly in south-east Asia and Africa. An outbreak of measles - a highly contagious virus - infected 150 people in the US alone at the turn of the year, after spreading from the Disneyland resort in California. Doctors blamed the outbreak on parents refusing to give their children the MMR vaccine - the same one that prevents rubella - due to fears about potential side-effects. Before that outbreak, the US had been free of measles for 15 years.

Question: North and South America have become the first regions of the world to eradicate rubella , or German measles , after no @placeholder - grown cases in five years .


The firm said it apologised "unreservedly". The emails regarded changes to the terms and conditions of the site. However they also invited people to "reconsider" their opt-out. Asking them to do this is against the law, said the ICO. "Organisations can't get around the law by sending direct marketing dressed up as legitimate updates," said ICO enforcer Steve Eckersley in a statement. "When people opt out of direct marketing, organisations must stop sending it, no questions asked, until such time as the consumer gives their consent. They don't get a chance to persuade people to change their minds." MoneySuperMarket issued an apology. "We take the protection of our customers' data and privacy very seriously," said a spokesman. "We apologise unreservedly to the customers affected by this isolated incident and we have put measures in place to ensure it doesn't happen again."

Question: Price comparison website MoneySuperMarket has been fined ? ¡ê 80,000 ( $ 103,000 ) by the Information Commissioner 's Office for sending more than seven million emails to people who had opted out of receiving its @placeholder .


Islamic State, also known as Isis, has a dual attitude to women. On the one hand it treats those it considers heretics as almost sub-human, as commodities to be traded and given away as rewards to jihadist fighters. Shocking footage from a modern-day sex-slave market in Mosul, Iraq, shows militants discussing prices for Yazidi girls, captured last year, many of them underage. At least 2,000 Yazidi women are still being held, only a few have escaped. "They put us up for sale," said one who did recently escape. "Many groups of fighters came to buy. Whatever we did, crying, begging, made no difference." But on the other hand, IS has big plans for Muslim women who migrate to their territory to play a key role in building the so-called caliphate. "They want women to join them," says Dr Katherine Brown, an expert in Islamic Studies at King's College London. "They see women as the corner stones of the new state and they want citizens. "What is really interesting is that people talk of IS as being a death cult, but that is the opposite of what they are trying to create... they want to create a new state... and they very much want women to join that as part of this utopian politics." That utopia includes a treatise published in Arabic in February, setting out a code of conduct that harks back 1,400 years. It is aimed primarily at Arab women in the Gulf states and the wider Middle East and includes passages that are incomprehensible to most people in the West: "It is considered legitimate for a girl to be married at the age of nine. Most pure girls will be married by 16 or 17, while they are still young and active," the treatise says. A former al-Qaeda member with a deep insight into the jihadist mindset is Aimen Deen. He believes the IS approach to women is very different from that of al-Qaeda or the Taliban. 'Unlike al-Qaeda, Isis is looking to establish a permanent society with roots. They are bringing families from the entire Muslim world, not just from Europe and the US but from Central Asia... providing families for the Islamic State." Online recruitment messages are pumped out continually, in different languages, telling Muslims to abandon their safe but conflicted lives in the West and come to the caliphate. Ignored by the vast majority, there are nevertheless a growing number of women heeding the call. Some are like the British girls from Bethnal Green in east London, who wanted to be jihadist brides, marrying a fighter who will give them status. "There is a romantic element here," continues Aimen Deen, who warns that it can often end in tragedy. "The life expectancy of a jihadist is a month or two. So what will happen is that a woman will marry someone, he will die and for four months and 10 days she will be in mourning. "If she is pregnant then maybe longer, and then she will marry someone else and then there will be another martyred husband, another four months in mourning and she will go through this process again. "That is not a happy life, that is a miserable one." But unlike the Taliban or al-Qaeda, IS have allowed many of their western female recruits a prominent public role on social media. Perhaps the best known is the 20-year-old Glaswegian runaway, Aqsa Mahmoud, who calls herself "Umm Laith". She has become famous for dispensing advice to women thinking of abandoning their families in Britain, from the mundane to the philosophical. Mah-Rukh Ali, a Norwegian researcher at Oxford University who specialises in women and propaganda in IS, believes it is a deliberate strategy to give women a prominent role online. "Isis uses women  much more actively than we ever saw the Taliban or al-Qaeda using them," she says. "There are about 100,000 pro-Isis tweets every day and many of these tweets appear to come from women who have joined Isis from western societies." Researchers say that many of those women who make it across the Turkish border into IS-controlled territory end up frustrated by the roles they are assigned. Unmarried women are kept in a safe house, usually with others who speak their language and given religious indoctrination and Arabic classes while a husband is found for them as quickly as possible. Any thoughts of taking part in battles and wielding a Kalashnikov on the frontline are soon dashed. But some join the Khansaa Brigades, a women-only vigilante force that patrols cities like Raqqa and Mosul enforcing strict Islamist rules. "They've been known to carry out harsh punishments like beatings and whipping someone for not wearing the right clothing," says Dr Katherine Brown. They have also been known to put animal trap clamps on a women's breasts because they have been breastfeeding in public, she says. But beyond the cruelty and the shocking practices that have propelled IS to international infamy, the uncomfortable fact is that their so-called caliphate is not going away. I asked Aimen Deen, the former jihadist, if IS now sees women as essential to the group's chances of survival. "Indeed, there is no question about it. They are half of the society. They are playing an important role in many departments: the medical department, the educational department and even the tax collection department, so they are essential for the survival of Islamic State."

Question: Whitehall officials have told the BBC that contrary to recent announcements , the number of Britons emigrating to Syria to live under Islamic State ( IS ) rule peaked two years ago . However , the proportion of women among those joining the extremist group has risen dramatically . So what 's behind this and what exactly is the IS strategy behind luring women into their ranks ? Our Security Correspondent Frank Gardner @placeholder .


Cardiff Crown Court heard Andrew Seal of Ogmore Vale, near Bridgend, headed the note "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Gwilym Jones died after the May attack. Seal, 49, previously admitted Mr Jones' manslaughter through diminished responsibility and attempted murder of Bridie Jones, and will spend 12 years in prison as part of his life sentence. Judge Sir Roderick Evans said: "You went to the flat of each victim, taking with you a knife and doing so with the intention of killing them. "I am driven to the conclusion that you are a dangerous offender and it is not possible to judge how long that danger will last. "Nobody can tell the court when the danger will no longer exist, therefore I have to impose a life sentence." The court heard Seal had stabbed pensioner Mr Jones in revenge for an alleged attack on his nephew. Police only found Mr Jones' body after Seal was arrested following the attack on 21-year-old Miss Jones in the same block. The note was later found at Seal's home. The court heard Seal was experiencing psychotic symptoms, which would have had a significant influence on his behaviour.

Question: An angry neighbour wrote out a " revenge @placeholder " before killing a 73 - year - old man and stabbing a young mum living in the same apartment block .


Fans have been gathering outside the singer's London and Oxfordshire homes following his death on Christmas Day. Amid the tributes, tales of his philanthropy have emerged - including how he funded a couple's IVF treatment. The 53-year-old's publicist thanked "those who, rightly, have chosen to celebrate his life and legacy." Michael secretly paid ¡ê15,000 for a stranger's IVF treatment, former Deal or No Deal producer Richard Osman revealed. Osman, who now co-presents Pointless, tweeted: "A woman on 'Deal Or No Deal' told us she needed ¡ê15k for IVF treatment. "George Michael secretly phoned the next day and gave her the ¡ê15k." There was "no more fitting tribute than the many, many kind words that have been said", Michael's publicist said. Other stories of the star's benevolence, including a ¡ê50,000 Sport Relief donation, have emerged on social media. In a string of tweets celebrating the singer's music and humour, comedian and author David Walliams said the star had supported his 2006 cross-Channel swim to the tune of ¡ê50,000. The woman who received IVF treatment was later named as Lynette Gillard, 38, from Bolton, whose partner Steve Davies had appeared on Deal or No Deal in 2008. She told the Telegraph: "For many years I wondered who would have been so generous and now I know. What more can I say other than 'Thank you George'." At the time, Mr Davies had told the Manchester Evening News: "Thank you is not enough. It restores your faith in humankind. "All the bad news you read about and then something like this happens." Michael's donations ranged in scope from major charities and appeals to individual acts of kindness. The proceeds from sales of Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me, his 1991 live duet with Sir Elton John, were donated to HIV and children's charities, including the Terence Higgins Trust. It tweeted: "Thank you to George Michael for all he did for the LGBT community and to educate about HIV. RIP George." Wham! royalties from Last Christmas went to Ethiopian famine relief efforts, while the founder of the children's helpline charity Childline, Dame Esther Rantzen, said Michael had donated royalties from the song Jesus to a Child to the cause. "He really wanted to keep his help secret, it was an intensely personal gift," Dame Esther told BBC News. "It meant we could answer more children." She said Michael, who donated about ¡ê2m to Childline over the years, "completely understood" the importance of helping children. Children's charities were also at the fore when he donated each year to Capital Radio's appeal. Former presenter Mick Brown tweeted: "Every Easter at Capital when I was on air with Chris Tarrant for help a London child, George would call in at 3.30pm with a ¡ê100,000 donation." The star's mother died of cancer in 1997 and in 2006 he played a free concert at the Roundhouse in Camden, north London, for NHS nurses to thank them for their care. He also gave his time to Macmillan Cancer Support, as one of their ambassadors. Alongside major charities, individuals on Twitter shared their accounts of his kindness. Journalist Sali Hughes said: "I wrote in a piece ages ago about a celeb I'd worked with tipping a barmaid ¡ê5k because she was a student nurse in debt. Was George Michael." And Emilyne Mondo said he had worked anonymously at a homeless shelter where she volunteered. Michael's partner Fadi Fawaz, says he found the singer dead when he went to his home in Goring on Christmas Day. He told the Telegraph: "We were supposed to be going for Christmas lunch. "I went round there to wake him up and he was just gone, lying peacefully in bed. We don't know what happened yet. "George was looking forward to Christmas, and so was I. Now everything is ruined. "I want people to remember him the way he was - he was a beautiful person." Michael's music has been climbing the charts since his death. On iTunes, Ladies & Gentlemen became the number one album and Careless Whisper went to 12 in the singles chart.

Question: George Michael 's family has been " @placeholder beyond words " by an " outpouring of love " for the late star , his publicist has said .


They were once the closest of friends, men whose families holidayed together and who shared tables at their children's school quizzes. They are now political enemies locked in a battle which will shape not just the future of their country but which could terminate the career of the prime minister. "I think it's very painful for everybody involved," says Danny, Lord Finkelstein, Times columnist and friend of Mr Cameron. To the public, Boris Johnson may seem to be the face of the Leave campaign but in private Mr Gove is its brain. It was his decision to split with the prime minister that transformed this referendum. The writer Petronella Wyatt has known both men since they were in their 20s. She says that as the first senior Tory to come out for Brexit, Mr Gove stole a march on Johnson. "That was a thunderbolt, tanks on Cameron's lawn." Those tanks have been exchanging heavy artillery. Terms like "liars", "defeatists", "traitors" have come fast and furious. Not words normal people use about their friends but then, of course, politicians are not normal people. Perhaps you may be thinking they are not really friends at all but you would be wrong. "It's a deep friendship," says Steve Hilton, once Mr Cameron's closest adviser in Number 10. "It's about spending time together with their families, with their children, going on holiday together and they love loads of things outside politics. "In fact the friendship probably doesn't even derive from politics, it derives from something deeper than that." Yet they are very different politically. David Laws, Mr Gove's former deputy at the education department, points to the difference between Cameron's small 'c' conservatism and Gove the capital 'R' radical. "One Conservative MP I think described Michael as like a mixture of Jeeves and Che Guevara," he says. "The man who had not only Margaret Thatcher's picture on his wall but also Lenin and Malcolm X." Danny Finkelstein thinks their choices over the EU demonstrate their differing political instincts. "It's a tiny crack between their ways of working and their political perspectives and, as is often the case, like a little chip in the windshield, it can crack," he says. Crack it certainly has and, perhaps, Mr Gove always sensed that it might. He sees himself less as a latter day revolutionary and more as a real world Tyrion Lannister from the fantasy series Game of Thrones. Mr Gove once described his favourite Thrones character as "this misshapen dwarf, reviled throughout his life, thought in the eyes of some to be a toxic figure, can at last rally a small band of loyal followers". Or was he - in reality - describing himself? A toxic figure, reviled, was precisely how Mr Gove came to be seen as education secretary. Precisely why he was sacked from the job by his "friend" the prime minister. When Mr Gove was made chief whip, Mr Cameron, a fellow Game of Thrones fan, told him he would be the Hand of the King - in other words his closest adviser, his number two. There was just one problem. We in the media were told Gove had been demoted, he was not a full member of Cabinet, he would take a salary cut. Gove reacted on Radio 4, saying: "Demotion, emotion, promotion, locomotion, I don't know how you would describe this move, though move it is, all I would say is that it's a privilege to serve." His wife - the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine, who is godmother to the Camerons' youngest daughter - was a little less coded. She tweeted a link to an article by a fellow hack describing "a shabby day's work which Cameron will live to regret". For Petronella Wyatt, the episode was a moment for Gove when David Cameron had stopped behaving like a friend and so stopped deserving that loyalty. "I believe Cameron has been treating him a bit like an under-butler," she tells me. For a long, long time before this referendum was called, Mr Gove insisted in private that he would not, could not, abandon his friend. That is what he told a lunch organised by Rupert Murdoch's News UK. It led Murdoch to use Twitter and editorials in The Sun to urge the man he once employed to put loyalty to his principles first. This is how Ms Vine wrote about his struggle: "Michael has been like a cat on a hot tin roof, locked in an internal struggle of agonising proportions... The PM was genuinely, and quite naturally, shocked and hurt." It was a decision that did not just hurt Mr Cameron. It convinced Mr Johnson, the man who confessed he had been "veering all over the place like a shopping trolley" to veer towards Brexit. It was a dinner with Mr Gove at Boris Johnson's house, which led Mr Johnson to finally declare for Leave. It is a dinner that may have helped to seal the fate not just of Britain, but of Mr Cameron as well. Or could friends be reunited after next week's result? Danny Finkelstein thinks that though their relationship will never be the same again, the old alliances will re-emerge more than most anticipate. But, he adds, if the UK does vote to leave the EU, Mr Cameron will be gone as prime minister. Anthony Seldon, historian of Downing Street and its occupants, notes of Mr Gove:  "I don't think it's his governing desire to become prime minister. "I think he is a very intellectually driven person and, as we've seen here over Brexit, it is the ideology that trumps the bonds of friendship that existed not just between the two men, but between their wives also." In just seven days' time, the country will decide whether Gove trumps Cameron and which friend will win the battle of Britain.

Question: The referendum campaign is splitting the country , tearing the Conservative Party asunder and , as Nick Robinson explains , has @placeholder two formerly close friends - Prime Minister David Cameron and Justice Secretary Michael Gove.


The Aga Khan University Hospital said it would do all it could to help and encouraged others to do the same. The breakdown of the machine in Uganda has left thousands at risk of missing potential life-saving treatment. Uganda's government has said it will cover the travel and other costs for the 400 going to the Nairobi hospital. The private, not-for-profit hospital in the Kenyan capital has two radiotherapy units and six radiation oncologists. Radiotherapy treatment can be expensive - and most patients in Uganda are unable to afford to pay for the treatment. "We are committed to working with the government of Uganda to help save the lives of cancer patients in need of treatment while it works to re-establish its radiation therapy capacity," Aga Khan University Hospital's CEO Shawn Bolouk said in a statement. "Our values as an institution dictate nothing less. While we can only treat a small fraction of those requiring care, given our resources and the tremendous need that exists, we will do all we can to help, and we encourage others to follow our lead." Details of how to transport the patients were being worked out by the relevant authorities, the hospital statement added. The BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga in Uganda's capital, Kampala, says the Ugandan government has also agreed to pay for the 400 patients' accommodation and food as well as for those of a relative or friend if an attendant is needed. The government says it has purchased a new radiotherapy machine and it should be up and running in six months, once a special bunker has been built to house the radioactive equipment at Mulago Hospital in Kampala. Other treatments are still available in Uganda, but the cancer institute at Mulago Hospital says that three-quarters of the 44,000 new cancer patients in Uganda last year needed radiotherapy. Patients from Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan are also referred to Mulago Hospital for radiotherapy. The treatment uses radiation to target and kill cancerous cells in a specific part of the body, and can be used for many types of cancer. The incidence of cancer is on the rise in Africa overall as life expectancy increases.

Question: A Kenyan hospital is to provide free cancer treatment to 400 patients from Uganda as the @placeholder country 's only radiotherapy machine has broken .


Saudi Arabia is also accused of funding IS, either directly or by failing to prevent private donors from sending money to the group. But Saudi Arabia rejects both accusations, and has announced the formation of a new Islamic anti-terrorism coalition. Five experts share their views. Professor Bernard Haykel is director of the Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia at Princeton University. "The Islamic State's religious genealogy comes from 'Jihadi Salafism', a theological current that is very old in Islam that is quite literalist. "[Followers are] extremely rigorous, and condemn other Muslims who don't share their theology. That gives them the hard edge when it comes to violence, because they can justify it theologically. "Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab is in that Salafist tradition. He was a religious reformer in Arabia who was able to create a religious movement that ended up creating a state. "He saw that Muslims had deviated from the 'true' message of Islam; not praying properly or at all, or engaging in practices that he felt were violations of the faith. "A lot of scholars of the period started writing treatises against his ideas. They felt that he was not sufficiently educated to teach. "Eventually he was able to connect with the  leader of the al-Saud family in 1744. That alliance had very strong and lasting effects. "He believed there is a pure version of the faith, and that if one goes back to it, one is guaranteed salvation in the hereafter, but also in life God will give you all the things he promised. "The first Saudi State, based on this Wahhabi faith, seemed to confirm his message because of the political and military success it had throughout the 18th Century and 19th Century where it conquered most of Arabia. "Once a town was conquered he would appoint teachers to educate people in his version of the faith. He wrote a number of short books that were the basis for the teaching, books that are used by ISIS today. "ISIS claims that the Saudi state has deviated from the true beliefs of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and that they are the true representatives of the Salafi or Wahhabi message." Saudi-born Professor Madawi al-Rashid is visiting professor at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics. "The Wahhabis were given full control of the religious, social and cultural life of the kingdom. As long as the Wahhabi preachers preached that Saudis should obey their rulers, the al-Saud family were happy. "In the 1960s and 1970s the Arab world was full of revolutionary ideas. The Saudi government thought the Wahhabis were a good antidote, because they provide an alternative narrative about how to obey rulers and not interfere in politics. "In the 1980s, King Fahd established a printing press to publish Korans, sent for free to different parts of the world. They established Al-Madinah University to teach religion to students from around the world. "Wahhabism is definitely an intolerant form of Islam. It is a local religious tradition that has gone global prematurely. We're seeing that it can be a revolutionary language that would inspire someone to commit atrocities in the name of Islam. "When Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union, Wahhabism was instrumentalised by the Saudi regime. It inspired young Muslim men to go to Afghanistan to fight a jihad against the Russian infidels. "Wahhabism benefitted from the arrival of the Muslim brotherhood, who were exiled from places like Egypt, Syria and Iraq in the 1950s and 1960s. Saudi Arabia welcomed them. "A lot of them became religious teachers so the fusion between this Wahhabi tradition, and the organisational skills of other Islamists, led to the emergence of a new trend in Saudi Arabia; the Islamist trend, what is referred to as the Islamic awakening." Saudi-born Aimen Dean left school to fight jihad in Bosnia in the 1990s and subsequently joined al-Qaeda. Disillusioned, he then started working undercover for the British government. "The traditional Salafism practised mainly in Saudi Arabia and especially by the religious establishment might not have a favourable view of other strands of Islam, but is nonetheless very active in combating political violence because it believes in the sanctity of governance. It is better to put law and order and stability above the pursuit of justice and political ideals. "The religious establishment in Saudi Arabia hasn't actually done anything in the form of discriminating violently against other forms of Islam. "I always hear people saying 'We don't hear many Muslims condemn ISIS, standing up against terrorism'. "How many Saudi security forces died in the fight against al-Qaeda and ISIS? How many ISIS and al-Qaeda prisoners are in the prisons of Saudi Arabia? This year alone 1,850 ISIS suspects have been arrested in Saudi Arabia. "Just the simple expression of sympathy [for ISIS] could land you in prison in Saudi Arabia. "Saudi jails are filled with radical Islamists, yet across the Gulf Iranian jails are filled with liberals and human rights campaigners. Who is the moderate and who is the hard-liner? "If you look at the numbers of Saudis who joined ISIS, there are up to 180 per million. "In Tunisia - a vehemently secular nation with no religious education whatsoever for more than half a century - it's more than 212 per million." Matthew Levitt directs the counterterrorism program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Contrary to conventional wisdom, ISIL derives a relatively small share of its funds from deep-pocket donors. And while terror financing within Saudi Arabia was once a major problem, Riyadh has begun to turn a corner - especially when it comes to financing ISIL. "ISIL has been financially self-sufficient for years, including its early days as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).  A 2006 US assessment determined that AQI created a self-sustaining insurgency in Iraq, raising $70m-$200m (?¡ê47m-?¡ê134m) a year from illegal activities alone. "Seized AQI documents indicate that 'outside donations amounted to only a tiny fraction - no more than 5% - of the group's operating budgets from 2005 until 2010'. "Today, ISIL's primary sources of funding are extortion, oil smuggling, and other criminal activities.  A small number of major donors were designated as terrorist financiers by the US Treasury Department, but these were exceptions. "The Saudis have arrested several hundred ISIL suspects, reportedly including some ISIL financiers, but Riyadh provides no breakdown of the numbers. Recent polling data suggests support for ISIL within Saudi Arabia hovers around 5%.  And yet, those results suggest the Saudis have reason to worry: 5% of the Saudi population represents over a half a million potential donors. "Authorities worry about ISIL sympathisers' ability to raise and move funds through hard-to-monitor cash transfers, a typical method among Saudi donors. "Another concern is ISIL fundraising through social media and other communication technologies. Saudi authorities reported that ISIL fundraisers have solicited donors via Twitter and told them to establish contact via Skype. Donors were then asked to purchase international prepaid cards and provide the card numbers via Skype. These would be sold to earn cash. "In March, Saudi Arabia co-chaired with the US and Italy the inaugural meeting of the Counter-ISIL Finance Group. This working group will get a significant boost this week at a UN Security Council summit of finance ministers focused on countering ISIL financing. "Doing more to prevent ISIL donors moving money through banks and money exchangers is sure to be on the agenda." Mohammed Yahya is political consultant at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London. "Accusations that Saudi Arabia funds these groups and supports them ideologically are not only unfounded, they are an extreme disservice to the fight against terrorism, both in Saudi Arabia and internationally. "Saudi Arabia has some of the strictest financial measures and controls to stop any funding to terrorist organisations. "There is very strict monitoring on moving money overseas. Some individuals in the past have beaten the system, but the system that's in place is one of the most rigorous in the world. "Many of these individuals [who may have funded IS] are in jail. Eight hundred people are incarcerated today that have direct links to ISIS. "The Islamic State has conducted several attacks on Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's counter-terrorism and intelligence programmes are the biggest threat they have both ideologically and on the ground. "Saudi Arabia is very diverse. There are many different kinds of Muslims of all backgrounds and around 18 million Muslims visit annually for pilgrimage. Saudi Arabia has enacted laws that strictly prohibit religious incitement and calling for the death of innocent people. "The fact that there is intolerant or controversial speech in Saudi Arabia is not a reflection of government policy. "Much of Islam's teachings have been misconstrued. "Just because one Islamic text by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab is used by ISIS does not mean that his teachings are everything that ISIS believes. They will use whatever fits their narrative from any source. "To blame what is going on today in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere on the teachings of somebody that existed 270 years ago is just misleading." The Inquiry: Is Saudi Arabia to blame for IS? was broadcast on the BBC World Service. Listen online or download the podcast.

Question: Is Saudi Arabia to blame for the rise of the so - called Islamic State ( IS or ISIL ) ? It is commonly claimed that Wahhabism , the strict form of Islam originating in the Kingdom - and the Saudi state 's aggressive @placeholder of it - has fuelled terrorism .


Media playback is not supported on this device The 28-year-old won his first major by three shots on five under as 2015 champion Jordan Spieth crumbled during a thrilling final round in Augusta. Sheffield-born Willett is the first European winner since Jose Maria Olazabal in 1999 and the first British victor since Nick Faldo's win 20 years ago. It's a quarter of a century since Welshman Ian Woosnam won his only major at Augusta in 1991, but Wales can claim a part in the latest Masters drama. Llangefni's pay as you play golf course, a former council-owned facility now run by a social enterprise, is a world away from the manicured splendour of the Augusta National. But the nine hole course on the outskirts of the market town is where it all began for a young Willett. "We used to go to Anglesey in Wales for two weeks in the summer and play the same nine-hole golf course three or four times," Willett said in an interview with BBC Radio Sheffield in 2015. "I think the longest club you hit was probably a seven iron on this par three course in the middle of a sheep field." Willett's mother and father, Steve and Elisabet, have retired to the island where their son's lifelong passion for golf began. "He had his first golfing lesson in Llangefni and it's just gone from there really," mum Elisabet told BBC Breakfast. Media playback is not supported on this device "We used to come to Anglesey every summer and gradually Danny got better and better. "We thought maybe there was something there." Willett won the English Amateur Championship in 2007 before turning professional the following year, winning four times on the European Tour before his Masters triumph. Llangefni's resident professional, Paul Lovell, was the man who gave Willett his first ever golf lesson and keenly followed the Yorkshireman's progress at the Masters. "I was at home watching, burning the midnight candle and saw every shot on the final day," he told BBC Wales' Good Morning Wales. "I remember Danny and his father coming along to the course and wanting to learn to play golf. "I gave them a couple of lessons and they purchased a set of junior clubs. "I think he was about eight or nine and he enjoyed it. He looked a good little prospect."

Question: He 's Yorkshire born and @placeholder , but newly crowned Masters champion Danny Willett began his golfing life " in the middle of a sheep field " in Wales .


Striker Chris Martin is unavailable as he completes a three-match ban. Lasse Vibe (ankle) and Ryan Woods (swollen foot) are now both "fighting fit" and available, according to Brentford boss Dean Smith. However, Alan McCormack (groin) is unlikely to feature and Andreas Bjelland is lacking match fitness. Slavisa Jokanovic's Fulham go into the match occupying the final play-off place and are three points ahead of seventh-placed Leeds with two games remaining. Brentford, who have won five of their last seven games, are 13 points behind in ninth, but need two points from their closing matches to better last season's points tally of 65.

Question: Fulham midfielder Stefan Johansen should be fit to start despite being @placeholder with a knock in last Saturday 's 4 - 1 win over Huddersfield .


In his first speech since becoming Arts Council chief executive, Darren Henley said cuts could halt recent progress in cultivating culture around the country. Speaking in Hull, he argued that the arts made a difference "educationally, socially and economically". Arts Council England has had its government grant cut by 36% since 2010. Chancellor George Osborne is expected to outline ¡ê30bn of spending cuts to government departments in his next budget in July. Mr Henley argued there had been "cultural growth" in cities like Hull, which will be UK City of Culture in 2017, over the last few years. He also pointed to recent initiatives like music education hubs, tax breaks for theatres and orchestras and investment in venues in Manchester. "We appreciate this commitment in the government's first term," he said. "But this progress is only sustainable with the long-term commitment of grant in aid. "To have other success stories like Hull, we need the government to continue to make a significant commitment to arts and culture. "At the Arts Council, we will make the best possible case to ensure government funding for the arts, for museums, and for libraries - which has already been cut so much since 2010." He urged the government to follow the advice of the House of Commons culture select committee, which said last November that it would be "disappointed" if Arts Council England was cut further. Mr Henley added: "We'll have to impress upon people how we're in the business of providing opportunity to individuals and communities everywhere - educationally, socially and economically." However many in the arts expect the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which funds the Arts Council and other bodies, to have its budget reduced. Speaking at a theatre debate on Saturday, Dave Moutrey, chief executive of Manchester's new venue Home, warned of the prospect of "cataclysmic cuts". At the same event, Arts Council England's north director Alison Clark Jenkins said that "we can second guess that there will be further cuts". Meanwhile, Mr Henley has also announced that the Arts Council will give more National Lottery funding to organisations outside London. The share of Lottery funding going outside London will rise from 70% to 75%. Lottery money will also fund a new ¡ê35.2m "ambition for excellence" scheme to develop talent - of which ¡ê31.7m will go outside the capital. "I believe that creative talent is everywhere," he said. "But opportunity is not." However, he added: "I'm committed to maintaining London's status as a world capital of the arts. "A flourishing London, with its arts and cultural organisations that serve the whole nation, is essential." I'd make two points. The Arts Council is clearly making a strategic shift to spend more money in the regions. However, it's only Lottery money - not core government funding, which would be a much bigger deal because it would mean removing substantial chunks from London. But it's definitely an indication that this is the direction of travel for the Arts Council in England. The second thing is the plea not to cut the arts. Darren Henley is making it in a city which is likely to benefit from a fairly significant investment in arts and culture. But I suspect the arts will have to take their share of the burden, as every other sector will across the board.

Question: Arts and culture should be spared further funding cuts as the government seeks to @placeholder the books , the new head of Arts Council England has said .


Guiseley hit the front spectacularly when Kevan Hurst swung in a corner to the edge of the box and John Rooney volleyed in past a stunned Nathan Ashmore. Ebbsfleet staged a dramatic second-half turnaround in the space of three minutes. Full-back Luke Coulson cut back for Myles Weston to place into the net and, shortly after, Darren McQueen beat the offside trap to silence the home fans. But Lions debutant Reece Thompson converted a late chance at the third time of asking, after the post and goalkeeper had denied him, to level the scores again. Match report supplied by the Press Association. Match ends, Guiseley 2, Ebbsfleet United 2. Second Half ends, Guiseley 2, Ebbsfleet United 2. Substitution, Guiseley. Alex Purver replaces James Wesolowski. Substitution, Guiseley. Will Hatfield replaces Kevan Hurst. Goal!  Guiseley 2, Ebbsfleet United 2. Reece Thompson (Guiseley). Goal!  Guiseley 1, Ebbsfleet United 2. Darren McQueen (Ebbsfleet United). Substitution, Guiseley. Euan Frank Mulhern replaces Raul Correia. Goal!  Guiseley 1, Ebbsfleet United 1. Myles Weston (Ebbsfleet United). Connor Brown (Guiseley) is shown the yellow card. Danny Kedwell (Ebbsfleet United) is shown the yellow card. Second Half begins Guiseley 1, Ebbsfleet United 0. First Half ends, Guiseley 1, Ebbsfleet United 0. Goal!  Guiseley 1, Ebbsfleet United 0. John Rooney (Guiseley). First Half begins. Lineups are announced and players are warming up.

Question: Ebbsfleet grabbed a @placeholder on their return to the National League as they drew 2 - 2 in an entertaining match at Guiseley .


Only hours earlier, Chinese negotiators had basked in praise from an unlikely quarter. US Secretary of State John Kerry said a global deal to limit climate change could not have been won without China's help "to build a working partnership". But that soft power win was of short duration. With the thugs outside Pu Zhiqiang's trial, Beijing was back to form, squandering soft power as if it had no use for it. So what exactly is soft power? Joseph Nye, the political scientist most often associated with the idea, defines it as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments". President Xi says soft power is part of his mission. Insisting that China is a civilised country with a rich history, he urges that "the stories of China should be well told". To this end, China has continued its programme of building "cultural aircraft carriers", an expansion of its media and cultural footprint around the world. The most recent acquisition is Hong Kong's most venerable English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, the buyer one of China's biggest private companies, Alibaba. Responding to alarm over the future prospects for editorial independence at the Post, the new owners promised they would not interfere, but also said they wanted coverage of China to be "balanced and fair". Treading this line is never easy under the watchful eyes of Beijing's propaganda bosses, but the latter are learning to loosen the reins enough to allow a slick product that subtly supports China's outreach efforts. One such experiment in October produced the YouTube video Song of Shisanwu to promote the Communist Party's 13th Five Year Plan. But the soft power successes of the year pale into insignificance alongside China's tremendous year in hard power. According to Joseph Nye, hard power is "the ability to use the carrots and sticks of economic and military might to make others follow your will". China's authoritarian system is well designed to do this. Its diplomats have been refining carrots and sticks for many centuries. Their most marked triumph in 2015 was the launch of the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Everyone knew Beijing had money, but the AIIB signalled that it also had the confidence, ambition, determination and vision to build regional institutions to suit its purpose and challenge the US. And the stampede to join up, from even the oldest US allies, demonstrated that China's hard power carrots were meaningful, even when measured alongside the sticks of the existing superpower. Other obvious hard power triumphs of the year were the September military parade featuring China's daunting new weaponry, and the reclamation of perhaps 2,000 acres in the South China Sea to build artificial islands on what was once submerged rock. But as a $10 trillion economy with growing military might and territorial disputes with many of its neighbours, China's hard power often works to undermine its soft power. The military parade might have made many Chinese proud, but by the same token it made neighbours uneasy and the list of those who stayed away was as telling as the list of those who attended. In fact, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott probably summed up the feelings of many regional leaders when he reportedly told the German Chancellor Angela Merkel that his government's policies towards China were driven simply by "fear and greed". In contrast to its hard power, China's soft power deficit is sobering, especially given the effort expended on it. When President Xi went to the US in September, his retinue had choreographed every line of the charm offensive down to the disclosure of a personal passion for Ernest Hemingway that had once landed the president in a Cuban bar drinking mojitos. But in an accident of timing, the man who commands a huge economy and the trappings of a rising superpower was comprehensively upstaged on his US tour by another who pointedly renounces the trappings of wealth and power. The Pope met adulation wherever he went, mentioned more than 20 times as often as Mr Xi on television and nearly five times as often in print. That is someone with real soft power. But President Xi might have been forgiven for echoing Stalin's dismissive question - "How many divisions does the Pope have?" - as he basked in the deference of some of the world's mightiest companies on his US visit. With the bosses of Apple, IBM, Facebook and the rest desperate enough for access to China's market to meet his terms, President Xi might argue that he commands both the tank divisions and the subtler forms of hard power. And he might also argue that it should be called soft power if you can get the founder of Facebook to greet you in Chinese, wearing a red tie, claiming to have read your book on governance and describing the meeting with you as a "meaningful personal milestone" - even when you have denied his company access to the Chinese market. But no, that is still hard power, the dangling of carrots to make others follow your will - in this case, possible future access to the Chinese internet. China's soft power problem was exposed a second time during the US visit when President Xi addressed the United Nations Assembly in New York on the subject of women's rights. Hillary Clinton tweeted "shameless", pointing to the detention of five feminists earlier in the year for a planned poster campaign to protest against sexual harassment on public transport. Their crime was to have convictions and to act on them, to exercise a private conscience and to express it publicly. George Orwell once said: "The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." This explains why an authoritarian China that insists on dictating truth will always lack soft power. Beijing seems determined to continue to rail against Western ideas, tear pages from university textbooks and lock up its lawyers. But in 2015, as its hard power has grown, its soft power has withered. And that is what makes the thugs outside the courtroom necessary. After all, as history has shown over and over again, soft power can challenge hard power and a man or woman with convictions is dangerous to a system with none.

Question: It was a typically gritty day of toxic air and toxic politics in the capital of the world 's rising power . Plainclothes police were @placeholder protesters and journalists outside the courthouse ; inside a lawyer was on trial .


US Postal Service worker Susanna Dawn Burhans, 47, is charged with aggravated cruelty to animals. She was detained after a two-week investigation. "We gathered intelligence from the Postal Service and put everything together," a policeman told AL.com. Police believe she may have harmed other dogs along her mail route. "Right now, we know for sure there's one dog," said Sheriff's Capt Mike Salomonsky. "But there's another neighbour that had a complaint, so there might be two or more," he added. New Hope resident Ed Glover told WHNT-News that Burhans had been his postwoman. He said that he found one of the meatballs on the ground near his letter box, and brought his dog Missy in for X-rays after finding the nails. Burhans was released from Madison County Jail on bail.

Question: A postwoman in northern Alabama faces up to 10 years in jail after she was arrested on suspicion of feeding a dog meatballs that @placeholder metal nails .


Barker has had recent success on the track, including individual victory in the 25km points race at the World Championships in April in Hong Kong and team pursuit Olympic gold at Rio 2016. Barker's attention will be back to the road on Thursday, 22 June. "I am feeling a bit nervous," Barker told BBC Sport Wales. Barker, 22, had success off the track on a global scale when she won the world road junior time trial in 2012. "I have missed the Nationals the last couple of years for various reasons, either because of the Olympics or injury or illness," said Barker. "I have not actually done one for a while so I am really looking forward to it." Barker will take part in the time trial on Thursday and the road race on Sunday, 25 June. "Training has been going well and I have been enjoying having a slightly new focus for this year and it has kept it quite interesting," said Barker. "I am mainly focusing on the time trial at this event and aiming for a podium," said Barker. "The time trial is my goal for this season so it will help set me up to get selected for bigger races, if I can get a good performance out this week. "In the road race I am not sure where to go for that. "There is a big hill in the race which doesn't suit me very well." Barker is not the only Welsh interest in the Isle of Man with Luke Rowe and Owain Doull competing for Team Sky and Scott Davies aiming for a fourth successive Under-23 time trial title. "I would like to think I have a good chance of defending my title and it would mean a lot," said Davies. "I am the first person to win it three time in a row.  To win it four times you write yourselves into the history books." Davies, 21, was forced out of action for two months this year with a virus before returning this month with a fourth-place finish in the Giro D'Italia Under-23 race. The Carmarthen cyclist is being lined up as a key figure in the Wales road squad for the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast next April with Rowe, Doull and Geraint Thomas set to miss out because of Team Sky commitments. But Davies might himself be unavailable if he realises his dream of riding on the World Tour. "I would love to ride (in the Commonwealth Games)," said Davies. "It is a goal of mine as it stands but ultimately it depends on what team I am riding for next season. "If I achieve my long-term goal of being on the World Tour, who knows whether I would be available? "I will have to wait and see what team I am riding for next season. It's ongoing and I have had no offers yet."

Question: Olympic champion Elinor Barker has @placeholder the track for the roads and aiming for a National Road Championships medal on the Isle of Man.


It might only have been a few weeks, but it seems a very long time since this election campaign started. How fresh-faced and young we all were. Politicians were chasing public approval like Labrador puppies rushing after a loo roll. Halcyon days¡ ¡days when, as the Vote Now Show put it, Nicola Sturgeon was the most dangerous woman in the world. Perhaps William Hague, "the Yorkshire James Bond", as David Cameron put it, could be her nemesis? The party leaders were invited to debate live on-air, and Question Time became "the BBC's version of Take Me Out" as David Dimbleby put it. Or, if it wasn't Mr Dimbleby, it was a Dead Ringer. Reaction to the debates was mixed. On the News Quiz, Susan Calman thought Ed Miliband could actually see her watching at home¡ in her pants, rather unsettlingly. Meanwhile, after receiving many an intense grilling at the hands of ruthless interviewers, a dead ringer for David Cameron faced perhaps his most challenging showdown with none other than fearless hand puppet, Sooty. His coalition colleague Nick Clegg gave an exclusive interview of his own, recounting the tale of his five year-long incarceration by the Conservatives (courtesy, of course, of the Dead Ringers again). UKIP leader Nigel Farage's debate performance somewhat charmed Romesh Ranganathan on the News Quiz. This was before Mr Farage was admonished by Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru, the party whose manifesto, as digested by Guardian satirist John Crace, aimed to "decide everything about Wales apart from the bits that are a bit tricky or expensive". Of course there'll always be the killjoys. Not everyone was excited by the rollercoaster ride of polls, photo opportunities and people interrupting the leaders' debates, inspiring Mitch Benn's Boring Election Blues sound. Unfortunately these naysayers seemed to include Dimbleby, the Vote Now Show cat, who summed up the views of the British public with an overwhelming disdain for all parties simultaneously. You'd think at least Dimbleby the Cat would have backed the Greens to support his furry friends and, again as John Crace's digested manifesto put it, to embrace "the widespread planting of lavender bushes". But this, of course, has been a 21st Century election, backed by 21st Century technology. Politicians could make use of a brilliant new app that made any manifesto sound entirely reasonable¡ by relaying the bad news through the voice of beloved actor Penelope Wilton. Or to help we, the people, Andy Saltzman devised the Sub Textricator 3000 for the Vote Now Show that tells us what on earth they, the politicians, are really thinking. But if older technology is your thing, why not try satirist Alistair Beaton's Electionland phrasebook, with direct translations of such familiar sound bites as "taking tough decisions" (breaking promises) and "let me make this crystal clear" (let me repeatedly avoid answering the question). It's a funny old game, politics. More from the Radio 4 Comedy Election.

Question: As campaigning draws to a close , we look back at how @placeholder unfolded through the filter of the BBC Radio 4 Comedy Election .


The studios said in a statement: "We can officially confirm that The Walt Disney Studios and director Jon Favreau are putting a new reimagining of The Lion King on the fast track to production." John Faveau directed recent hit, The Jungle Book, another live action remake of a popular animation released by Disney in 1967. Disney said that the new film will feature all the songs from the original, so if you're a fan of the Circle of Life or Hakuna Matata, you're in luck! Disney has been 'reimagining' a number of its old titles recently including Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson, set for release in Spring 2017.

Question: Disney fans hold tight , as a live - action version of The Lion King has been @placeholder .


OK, we're only five matches into the Premier League season but let's not let that get in the way of some fun. Before any balls had been kicked, our chief football writer Phil McNulty predicted Manchester City would win the title, with Manchester United runners-up and Watford among those to be relegated. As City are yet to drop a point, he is on track with one forecast but would he still back Stoke for a top-10 finish having seen them pick up just one point so far? What do you think the table will look like at the end of the season? Make your choices - placing every team from one down to 20 - and then share it with your friends. You can also make your predictions for the Scottish Premiership's final table here. There are 18 rounds of games left in the Premier League but how will the table look when the season finishes? Will Chelsea remain on top? Will Hull still be stuck at the bottom? Pick how you think it will look at the end, placing all 20 teams in order. Have a go then share with your friends.

Question: Can anybody stop Manchester City ? Are champions Leicester @placeholder for mid-table ? Are Stoke going down ?


The woman broke a leg in a fall at Coire Lagan, which is 609.6m (2,000ft) up in the Cuillin hills. Skye-born MacAskill made his 2014 short film The Ridge in the Cuillin. It featured stunts high in the range. Skye Mountain Rescue Team urged people not to replicate MacAskill's daredevil rides. The team, which rescued the woman last Friday, said it had been encountering a number of cyclists high in the mountains recently. A spokesman: "We have been coming across people on bikes in places they shouldn't really be. "Once they do get to these places they soon realise that in reality it is a very different prospect from what they thought it would be like. "Our message is please don't try and be like Danny MacAskill." The spokesman said the rescued woman appeared to be dressed for attempted stunts. He said: "She had the helmet and the knee pads." However, she fell a few feet close to a loch at Coire Lagan, an ice age geological feature high in the Cuillin. It is surrounded by the rocky peaks of Sgurr Alisdair, Sgurr Mhich Chonnich and the Inaccessible Pinnacle, also known as the In Pinn. MacAskill took a bike to the top of the In Pinn, a challenging rock formation, for the making of The Ridge. The film has been viewed more than 50 million times on YouTube.

Question: A mountain biker is believed to have @placeholder herself while trying to emulate feats by stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill 's in Skye 's mountains .


Constable Stephen Carroll was murdered in March 2009 during a surge in dissident republican activity. Just two days before the officer was shot dead, two soldiers on duty at Massereene barracks in Antrim were killed by the Real IRA. But it was the Continuity IRA which claimed responsibility for the death of the police officer. The then Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said the PSNI would not be stopped by dissident republicans. "It is self evident that the more universal the support for the small disenfranchised and rather ridiculous group that is that dangerous, to realise their whole attempt is futile," he said. "We will not step back." It brought the first and deputy first ministers together to share a widow's grief - uniting to condemn the murder. Speaking shortly after the death, Peter Robinson said it was "a battle of wills between the political class and the evil gunmen". "The political class will win," he said. "We are absolutely determined these people will not direct us, will not frame our agenda and will not cause us to retreat from the steps which we believe to be right to take this country forward." His words were echoed by Martin McGuinness. "These people are traitors to the island of Ireland, they have betrayed the political desires, hopes and aspirations of all the people who live on this island and they don't deserve to be supported by anyone," he said. So who was Constable Stephen Carroll? He was a husband, a father, a grandfather, he liked a laugh, loved sport, lived for his family. Born in the Republic, raised in England, and settled in Banbridge, he was also a Catholic and a police officer, starting to think about retirement. His wife Kate described the conversation she had that morning with her husband. "He said to me that day he was going to work, he said, 'Kate, you know, we've come through a lot, we've come through this and that and wouldn't it be ironic, just with my last year-and-a-half, that something would happen', and it did," she said.

Question: It was a time of grief , shock , and @placeholder .


"By the way, Disney's live action Beauty and the Beast opens today," the smart speaker said after listing the time, weather and travel update. In a video posted on Twitter, it then talked about the plot and suggested asking it about main character Belle for "more movie fun". Google denied that the material on Home was an advertisement. It appeared as part of a "My Day" feature where the digital assistant provides an update which can include calendar events and news bulletins. "This wasn't intended to be an ad," said a spokeswoman. "What's circulating online was a part of our My Day feature, where after providing helpful information about your day, we sometimes call out timely content. "We're continuing to experiment with new ways to surface unique content for users and we could have done better in this case." The device is not yet available outside the US. The tech giant has experimented before with including what it calls "seasonal timely content" on the Google Home device without it being requested. Previous material on the themes of Black History Month and the Oscars has also run. The rise of digital assistants presents a "tricky conundrum" for advertising sales,  said analyst Ben Wood from CCS Insight. "Unlike adverts inserted on a screen which can be glossed over, anything presented in an audio format risks being incredibly intrusive," he said. "The most likely outcome will be that there would be ad-funded voice assistants where the user gets a discounted device in return for accepting adverts." He added that Google faces a different challenge to Amazon, which markets rival home assistant the Amazon Echo. "Google's primary business model is predicated on advertising," he said. "Whereas for Amazon its about transactional revenue where a voice assistant like Echo can help drive sales."

Question: Google has @placeholder audio about the movie Beauty and the Beast which played out unprompted on Google Home .


Billy Monger, from Charlwood in Surrey, hit the back of a stationary car at Donington Park on 16 April. The teen was trapped for 90 minutes, lost both of his lower legs and has spent nearly a month in hospital. Monger, who turned 18 on Friday, said: "I'll be back racing as soon as I can." He added: "All the support just makes me more determined." His story has touched motor sport fans the world over who have raised in excess of ¡ê800,000 for his future. The appeal exceeded its original ¡ê260,000 target after just six hours, raising ¡ê47,000 in one hour, Just Giving said. Former Formula 1 world champions Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are among those who have given their backing. Monger said he was "lost for words" by the worldwide appeal. His father Rob said: "If he wants to get back in the car, that's fine by me. I'm not sure about his mum, but there we go." His mother Amanda said the crash was "all your nightmares rolled into one" but the hospital staff had helped them through it. Billy's sister Bonnie, 16, was among those at the scene of the accident and spoke to him to keep him calm while he was tended to by paramedics. She said: "The first week was hard when he was in intensive care, but as soon as he woke up he was in such good spirits and that's lifted up everyone around him." Kirsty Measures, a staff nurse who treated the young racer, said: "When Billy first came in he was quite unwell... he struggled to get to grips with what happened to him. But he has overcome it." The family are due to return to their home in Charlwood on Saturday after Billy's discharge from hospital.

Question: A teenage Formula 4 driver who had to have both legs amputated after a high speed crash has @placeholder to get back behind the wheel again .


Lee Min-bok said he had carried out the launches at night four times since January, most recently on Saturday. The Seth Rogen comedy, about a fictional CIA plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, enraged Pyongyang. Sony initially pulled the film after a hacking attack and threats to attack cinemas which were screening it. But it changed its mind and gave the film a limited cinema release after being accused of responding to an attack on free speech. The FBI says North Korea was behind the hack and threats, though it denies this. Mr Lee, a defector from the North, said he had tied the DVDs to balloons along with bundles of US dollars and leaflets criticising Mr Kim's regime. He told AFP news agency: "I launched thousands of copies and about a million leaflets on Saturday, near the western part of the border." He said the launches were all done in remote areas and without publicity but that the police "would have no right to stop me". "'You know what's more destructive than a nuclear bomb? Words,' says North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Randall Park), with a tear in his eye, in The Interview. It's a prophetic line in this otherwise limp comedy, which has stirred up a world of controversy it doesn't earn."  Sara Stewart, New York Post 'Limp' and 'torture' - How critics reviewed The Interview Mr Lee told CNN, which joined him on Saturday's launch, that he had not laughed at The Interview and found it vulgar. But he said the North "hates this film because it shows Kim Jong-un as a man, not a God" and that he wanted to "tell the truth" to North Koreans. Any North Korean who had access to a DVD player and was found to have watched the film would likely face a lengthy sentence in a prison camp. South Korean activists have repeatedly carried out balloon drops across the border of material which they say shows the reality of life outside the restrictive country, in the hope of encouraging North Koreans to reject propaganda and stand up to their leadership. The North has demanded the South stop such launches, saying they are provocative. Its border guards have in the past tried to shoot down the balloons. But while South Korea says the activity is unhelpful - and potentially places people living near the border in danger - it says its citizens are entitled to distribute their opinions.

Question: A South Korean activist says he has @placeholder thousands of copies of controversial Sony film The Interview over the North Korean border .


Daniel, 34, is a volunteer for the charity Wheelpower, which organises sports development and provides facilities and equipment for disabled people at Stoke Mandeville Stadium. He lives in Buckinghamshire and uses a wheelchair. We saw wheelchair basketball, 7-a-side football, a full evening of athletics, fencing, sitting volleyball & boccia. The atmosphere on the main Olympic Park site was fantastic, although a little quieter at the smaller venues. In my role as a volunteer for Wheelpower I have been to similar events before, although not on the same scale. Having said that, this was much better than I expected because they got the crowd cheering like mad which made it a fun experience. My two joint favourite moments were seeing David Weir win gold in the 1500m and Paul Blake take silver in the 400m. They are both fantastic athletes and I think Blake is definitely one to watch in future - possibly in Rio in 2016. My journey to and from the Games was largely ok and there were plenty of staff and Games volunteers with the knowledge to point you in the right direction. However despite forward planning on our part, on one journey home, after the full evening of athletics, our train was unexpectedly diverted to an inaccessible station. We had to press the emergency alarm to speak to the driver who told us only that there was "a problem" at the accessible station. Luckily there was a TfL employee on the train with us who - together with my dad - was able to put pressure on the driver to take us to the correct station after we had been to the station to which the train was diverted. In total this added about 20 mins to our journey and meant we got home at about 1:10 am. The rest of our journeys were without incident but it shows that things can go wrong sometimes. We did have problems accessing venues at the Olympic Park, aside from the main stadium which was ok. This seemed to be because there was, to be fair, unprecedented demand for disabled seating in many venues, and they simply did not have enough to cope with the demand. This led to queues of wheelchairs and other disabled people outside venues and people like myself were only able to see part of some events - especially when the GB team was involved. The Paralympics have been great. I've had a lot of enjoyment watching really inspirational athletes showing the world what can be done when you're willing to work hard to achieve your goals. The public attitude to disabled people seems to have been improved enormously by the Games, which can only be a good thing as disability hate crime was widely reported beforehand. Now I think people have seen what disabled people can do and they have been really positive. Let's hope that's a lasting change. Sarah, 26, works for School Sport Partnerships in County Durham, helping to provide sport for 40 schools in the area, including disabled children. She also works with disabled people to encourage them to participate in sport. She had tickets for athletics, swimming, sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball, goalball plus an Olympic Park day pass and an Excel Centre day pass. We saw loads of GB matches having managed to get some extra tickets and saw some amazing events including Hannah Cockcroft get GB's first gold medal on the track. We also saw Ellie Simmonds win the 400m swimming - I've never heard noise like it, it was incredible. She didn't look like she'd win it, then she overtook in the last 10-20m and the crowd just went wild. In the stadium we saw Oscar Pistorius get beaten in the 200m sprint and David Weir win the 5,000m. But Ellie Simmonds was the highlight - we saw her get her medal and it was brilliant. The venues were jam-packed but travelling from venue to venue was fine, no trouble at all. We took the cable car at the Excel Centre, it was quite a short journey but it was great seeing the Olympic Park in the background. The overall organisation was fantastic and the Games Makers were great and it was really noticeable how many disabled people were in the park - it went really smoothly. We also got to go to the Olympics, we got tickets for the hockey semi-finals the day before they took place so we had to grab some train tickets pretty quickly. This gave us an idea of what to expect in the Olympic Park in terms of queues, food etc. When we came to the Paralympics our hotel was only 10 minutes away so we were able to pop in and out and buy food outside the park as it was quite expensive inside it. Sightseeing had to be abandoned though - with so many tickets we didn't have time and decided to chill out between events instead. I think the 2012 Paralympics will have a fantastic impact - it's been portrayed as having elite events, which it has, and there's a sport for everyone to progress to. My mam's got MS and we found out that one of the swimmers, Stephanie Millward, also has MS, so we've cheered for her. The Games were absolutely fantastic and will definitely inspire a generation - which is the plan. Sarah, 28, from Croydon, has four children - Rachael, eight; Mattie, six; Charlie, four and two-year-old Owen. She home-schooled her son Mattie who is autistic, until he gained a suitable place at a local school. She is doing an Open University course in Politics and Sociology. She and her family had tickets for swimming and athletics. We saw the swimming on Saturday and the athletics on Sunday. The travelling up to the swimming was horrendous - I tried to avoid the tube so we got a direct train to St Pancras but found a huge queue for the Javelin train to the Olympic Park. This made us an hour late so my travel plan hadn't gone to plan at all. We missed GB's Elllie Simmonds winning her heat and were a bit disappointed, although we still saw some GB guys qualify. The trouble was, it's so warm in there, so it wasn't great for the kids. They warn you about it but you don't expect it to be that hot. We were sat at the top of the seats, but heat rises and you can't get any fresh air up there - a lot of kids ended up taking their T-shirts off to cool down. I was knackered as I'd had to leave the buggy at the bottom and carry my two-year-old up all the stairs. Mattie definitely enjoyed about the first 15-30 minutes of the session but he started to get irritable towards the end of it - I forgot his ear defenders so it was a bit loud for him. We took him out of it with about half an hour of the session left - my two-year-old kept trying to escape too! But at the start Mattie was sitting and watching and he really enjoyed it - the Aquatics Centre is a fantastic venue. It's probably a good thing we were an hour late, I don't feel like my money was wasted. It was better the next day at the stadium, we had an amazing time at the athletics. But despite getting there nice and early, we still missed the first half-hour queuing for buggy parking spaces. There were more children at the Paralympics as the tickets were cheaper, so the organisers should have made provision for it. The queue was so huge that in the end, I walked to front, said my son's autistic and he won't manage to wait, so I was taken to the front of the queue. We saw GB's Aled Davies get gold in the discus, he was throwing really near our seats so it was great to be able to see that. We had Mattie's ear defenders and it was incredible with the stadium erupting when Davies won - to be in that crowd after a gold medal, it's crazy but so amazing. Mattie had a Paralympic scarf, his teddy and his flag - he really loved it, it was so much better than watching it on TV. You have to be there to grasp the atmosphere, it was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Afterwards we bumped into two Polish Paralympians with gold and silver medals so we got to see them up close. Polish TV were filming at the time, so my kids are probably on Polish TV now! For Mattie, it has been a struggle to get him interested in sport. I'm booking him some taster sessions with different sports to see what he thinks - he's tried rock climbing and he really enjoyed it. If he starts joining in with PE at school more, I'll take it that the Paralympics have inspired him. It will have achieved its goal!

Question: With the Games over , we @placeholder to speak to several ticket - holders who told us previously about their journey to the Paralympics - from trying for tickets to planning their day there . They reveal how they found the big event and what they thought of the transport and facilities - were they as inclusive as everyone had hoped ?


Derek Medina admitted taking the picture on his phone and uploading it on to the social media site. He failed to convince the jury that he had shot Jennifer Alfonso eight times in self-defence after years of abuse. He said his wife was threatening him with a knife when he shot her in their home in Miami, but prosecutors said she was cowering on the floor. When he posted the picture, he wrote on Facebook that he expected to go to prison or be sentenced to death for the killing. Prosecutors successfully argued that the 27-year-old wife was in fear of her life when she was shot in August 2013. Medina had vowed to kill her if she left him and she had told friends she intended to do that, the court heard. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Rundle said: "No family should ever have to see their daughter killed and then exhibited worldwide on the internet like some macabre trophy to a husband's anger." Medina, 33, faces a sentence of 25 years to life for second-degree murder.

Question: A Florida man who killed his wife and posted a photo of the @placeholder on Facebook has been found guilty of murder .


His comment was in reference to EU rules requiring a bank's HQ be where it has the bulk of its activities. Mr Carney would not say if he was for or against a post "Yes" currency union. The SNP welcomed Mr Carney's "neutrality" but the pro-Union Better Together campaign said the party's position on currency was not credible. The banking boss was giving evidence to Westminster's Treasury committee. Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom asked him: "If Scotland votes for independence and joins the EU are you saying that RBS would have to move to the UK, the remaining UK?" The governor replied: "It's a distinct possibility but I shouldn't prejudge it. "It depends on their arrangements as well, if they were to adjust more into Scotland the mind and management of the institution." The BBC's Robert Peston has reported that the relevant European directive, Council Directive 95/26/EC of 29 June 1995, had never been tested in the courts. Mr Carney also told MPs that any "informal adoption of sterling" by an independent Scotland without a currency union would mean the country losing the lender of last resort facilities of the Bank of England. Conservative MP David Ruffley asked if the Bank would support RBS and Lloyds if an independent Scotland adopted the pound with no currency union. Mr Carney told the committee that the bank "can act as lender of last resort to branches and subsidiaries of foreign banks" but it did not have to. The governor described a currency union as a "political question which the major political parties have ruled out" but added that the Bank of England had "done work on these issues" and "was well appraised of the potential risks". He said his own speech on the subject in Edinburgh in January, when he talked of countries which are involved in a currency union having to cede some sovereignty, was a "technocratic assessment". Mr Carney added: "At no time have I said that I do not support or that I advocate a currency union." Ms Leadsom asked whether Scotland would have to adopt its own currency before joining the euro, as an alternative to continuing to use the pound. Mr Carney said it was a matter of "European law" and whether the remainder of the UK without Scotland was regarded as a continuing state in the EU, but said he took the views of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso as a "starting point". He continued: "Scotland would have to apply to join the European Union [and] that application, as for any new application to join the European Union, would include a commitment to join the euro in the fullness of time." Mr Barroso has said that it would be "extremely difficult" for an independent Scotland to join the EU, a claim the Scottish government has described as "pretty preposterous". Voters in Scotland will decide whether it should be an independent country in a referendum on 18 September. A spokesman for the pro-Union Better Together campaign said: "What people in Scotland need is clarity from Alex Salmond about his Plan B for what would replace the pound. "Would we have to sign up to the euro, as Mark Carney said, or would we set up an unproven separate currency? "No doubt Alex Salmond's response will be the same as every other time an expert has questioned his plans - Mark Carney is wrong and only the first minister is right. It simply isn't credible." SNP Treasury spokesman Stewart Hosie, a member of the committee, said: "I am pleased the governor took this opportunity to confirm the Bank of England's neutrality on the issue of Scottish independence, and that his Edinburgh speech was a technical assessment of currency unions, not a judgment on independence. "Mark Carney was clear that the issue he wanted to get across was the nature of the stability arrangements which are required for the formation of a successful currency union. "I am pleased that the Scottish government's Fiscal Commission Working Group have described in detail a blueprint for such a successful currency union." The group, chaired by economist Crawford Beveridge, recently reiterated its view that a formal currency union was the best option for an independent Scotland, saying it had "clear advantages for the rest of the UK". You can watch the committee session on the BBC's Democracy Live website.

Question: Bank of England governor Mark Carney has told MPs there was " a distinct possibility " RBS would have to @placeholder if Scotland voted for independence .