ዘመኑ ባፈራው የቴክኖሎጂ ግብአት በመጠቀም ለህብረተሰባችን ስራ ለሁሉም በሚል ግብ የተሻለ የስራ አማራጭ፣ ለተሻለ ኑሮ፣ ለተሻለ የገበያ ትስስር ፣ ለተቀናጀ የገበያ ተደራሽነት ገዥን ከደንበኛ የማስተሳሰሪያ የቴክኖሎጂ አማራጭ ይዘን መተናል በሁሉም የስራ መስክ በሁሉም የስራ እርከን ስራ ለሚገኙ ባለሙያዎች እና ድርጅቶች የስራ አጋጣሚን መፍጠር
ዘመኑ ባፈራው የቴክኖሎጂ ግብአት በመጠቀም ለህብረተሰባችን ስራ ለሁሉም በሚል ግብ የተሻለ የስራ አማራጭ፣ ለተሻለ ኑሮ፣ ለተሻለ የገበያ ትስስር ፣ ለተቀናጀ የገበያ ተደራሽነት ገዥን ከደንበኛ የማስተሳሰሪያ የቴክኖሎጂ አማራጭ ይዘን መተናል በሁሉም የስራ መስክ በሁሉም የስራ እርከን ስራ ለሚገኙ ባለሙያዎች እና ድርጅቶች የስራ አጋጣሚን መፍጠር
ዘመኑ ባፈራው የቴክኖሎጂ ግብአት በመጠቀም ለህብረተሰባችን ስራ ለሁሉም በሚል ግብ የተሻለ የስራ አማራጭ፣ ለተሻለ ኑሮ፣ ለተሻለ የገበያ ትስስር ፣ ለተቀናጀ የገበያ ተደራሽነት ገዥን ከደንበኛ የማስተሳሰሪያ የቴክኖሎጂ አማራጭ ይዘን መተናል በሁሉም የስራ መስክ በሁሉም የስራ እርከን ስራ ለሚገኙ ባለሙያዎች እና ድርጅቶች የስራ አጋጣሚን መፍጠር
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ዘመኑ ባፈራው የቴክኖሎጂ ግብአት በመጠቀም ለህብረተሰባችን ስራ ለሁሉም በሚል ግብ የተሻለ የስራ አማራጭ፣ ለተሻለ ኑሮ፣ ለተሻለ የገበያ ትስስር ፣ ለተቀናጀ የገበያ ተደራሽነት ገዥን ከደንበኛ የማስተሳሰሪያ የቴክኖሎጂ አማራጭ ይዘን መተናል በሁሉም የስራ መስክ በሁሉም የስራ እርከን ስራ ለሚገኙ ባለሙያዎች እና ድርጅቶች የስራ አጋጣሚን መፍጠር
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An Israeli citizen has been arrested on suspicion of being involved in a plot by Iran to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials, Israel's security services say.
Israeli police and domestic intelligence said the man was twice smuggled into Iran and received payment to carry out missions.
In a joint statement, they said the suspect was a businessman who had lived in Turkey and had Turkish contacts who had helped get him into Iran.
The announcement comes at a time of soaring tension between Iran and Israel, regional arch-enemies.
The statement said the suspect, who was not identified, was arrested last month. It said his targets were the prime minister, the defence minister and the head of Israel internal security agency Shin Bet.
It said that in April and May, the suspect twice travelled to Samandag in Turkey to meet a wealthy Iranian businessman called Eddie, and was helped by two Turkish citizens.
The statement said Eddie had problems leaving Iran on both occasions, so the Israeli citizen was smuggled from Turkey into Iran instead. It said that the man met both Eddie and "an Iranian security operative" there.
It said Eddie asked the Israeli to "carry out various security missions within Israel for the Iranian regime". According to the statement, these included transferring money or a gun, photographing crowded places in Israel and sending them to "Iranian elements", and threatening other Israeli citizens who had been recruited by Iran but had not completed their tasks.
The UN General Assembly has adopted a Palestinian-drafted, non-binding resolution demanding Israel end "its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory" within 12 months.
There were 124 votes in favour and 14 against, including Israel, along with 43 abstentions. As a non-member observer state, Palestine could not vote.
The resolution is based on a July advisory opinion from the UN's highest court that said Israel was occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip against international law.
The Palestinian ambassador called the vote a turning point “in our struggle for freedom and justice”. But his Israeli counterpart denounced it as “diplomatic terrorism”.
Although the General Assembly’s resolutions are not binding, they carry symbolic and political weight given they reflect the positions of all 193 member states of the UN.
It comes after almost a year of war in Gaza, which began when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others as hostages.
More than 41,110 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
There has also been a spike in violence in the West Bank over the same period, in which the UN says more than 680 Palestinians and 22 Israelis have been killed.
The advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) - which was also not legally binding - said a 15-judge panel had found that "Israel's continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful” and that the country was “under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence... as rapidly as possible”.
The court also said Israel should “evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “make reparation for the damage caused to all the natural or legal persons concerned”.
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967. The court said the settlements “have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”, which Israel has consistently disputed.
Israel's prime minister said at the time that the court had made a "decision of lies" and insisted that “the Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land”.
Wednesday’s General Assembly resolution welcomed the ICJ’s declaration.
It demands that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory... and do so no later than 12 months”, and “comply without delay with all its legal obligations under international law”.
The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry described its passing as a “pivotal and historic moment for the Palestinian cause and international law”.
It emphasised that the support of almost two thirds of UN member states reflected “a global consensus that the occupation must end and its crimes must cease”, and that it “reaffirmed the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination”.
Israel’s foreign ministry called the resolution “a distorted decision that is disconnected from reality, encourages terrorism and harms the chances for peace”, adding: “This is what cynical international politics looks like.”
It said the resolution “bolsters and strengthens the Hamas terrorist organisation” and “sends a message that terrorism pays off and yields international resolutions”. It also accused the Palestinian Authority of “conducting a campaign whose goal is not to resolve the conflict but to harm Israel” and vowed to respond.
The US, which voted against the resolution, warned beforehand that the text was “one-sided” and “selectively interprets the substance of the ICJ’s opinion”.
“There is no path forward or hope offered through this resolution today. Its adoption will not save Palestinian lives, bring the hostages home, end Israeli settlements, or reinvigorate the peace process,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.
The UK’s ambassador, Barbara Woodward, explained that it had abstained “not because we do not support the central findings of the ICJ's advisory opinion, but rather because the resolution does not provide sufficient clarity to effectively advance our shared aim of a peace premised on a negotiated two-state solution”.
When Michael Sheen was trying to find a way into portraying the Duke of York, he came across a photo of Prince Andrew as a returning hero from the Falklands War - with a rose clamped between his teeth.
Grinning, self-satisfied, the apple of his mother’s eye, a slightly ridiculous royal Romeo, this was the actor’s starting point for depicting the prince in his interview with BBC Two's Newsnight programme - and imagining the huge scale of his fall from grace.
Sheen’s remarkable performance dominates this compelling three-part Amazon film, A Very Royal Scandal, as he captures a prince angry and disbelieving at his collapsing status.
“I’m the son of the sovereign - if I want to go on telly and defend myself, I will,” he bellows, but with the addition of multiple strong swear words, in a way few royals have been portrayed before.
It is a no-holds-barred account that makes Netflix's The Crown look like a rather timid costume drama.
Has a royal ever been depicted swearing so much - or palace life as so poisonous?
Sheen is famous for how he inhabits his characters – and his version of Prince Andrew is a volatile mix of vanity, vulnerability and a self-destructive lack of self-awareness, as his gilded royal life crumbles after the disastrous interview.
He is a sweary, pompous and then needy figure, unaware of how much he is being exposed by his TV interrogator, Emily Maitlis, played by Ruth Wilson.
The interview itself is often described as a “car crash” - but in this version, the prince's reputation is more like roadkill.Inevitably, there will be comparisons with the recent Netflix film Scoop, about the same 2019 interview.
Rufus Sewell said his interpretation of the prince owed something to David Brent, the deluded manager from BBC Two's The Office sitcom.
In this Amazon Prime Video version, Sheen's Prince Andrew is a more complex figure, self-seeking, emotionally deaf, ambitious, loyal to his own immediate family, distrustful of palace officials and with a desperate need for approval.
It is a performance where Richard III meets Alan Partridge.
When he hears sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has died in prison, the prince's reaction is to ask: “Is this good for me or bad?”
And there’s a relentless tension between him and his brother, the then Prince of Wales.
“Calls me a mummy’s boy, he’s the mummy’s boy,” Prince Andrew screams, with plenty of very strong swearing added, after an angry phone call.It is not at all flattering to the monarchy.
Prince Andrew is portrayed as casually rude to servants - and palace officials mull over the royals’ lack of empathy: “They’ve never been late for a train - because the train waits for them.”
Although the recreated Newsnight interview is the centrepiece of the film, perhaps the most pivotal moment is a scene in the first episode, where the prince meets Epstein in New York.
It is another excruciating interview, with an embarrassed Prince Andrew needing money and a tough, exploitative Epstein, played by John Hopkins, making him wriggle on his financial hook.
Sheen shows the prince as out of his depth in front of such malevolence.
And this terrible association with Epstein plays out through the film, with Prince Andrew protesting his innocence as the questions and accusations encircle him, until he is hiding from lawyers trying to serve court papers.This is a much more textured and ultimately more engaging account of events than the Netflix film.
It shows the impact on those around Prince Andrew, including his ex-wife, the Duchess of York, and their daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
Their loyalty to him is depicted as being from a real family rather than the Royal Family.
Prince Andrew’s private secretary, Amanda Thirsk, beautifully played by Joanna Scanlan, is still defending him even after she has lost her job in the wake of the Newsnight interview.
And their relationship, a mix of co-dependency and scapegoating, has echoes of Alan Partridge and his assistant, Lynn.The prince's downfall comes with his calamitous TV interview.
And this film suggests some of the most famous moments - such as his lines on not being able to sweat and going to a Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey, nearly ended up being cut in the editing.
But despite the awards and plaudits that follow, Maitlis is seen as having her own self-doubts.
She raises the question of what has happened to Epstein’s victims and points to the lack of resolution in any legal proceedings.
Out-of-court settlement
At the heart of this drama is an ambiguity.
The civil case in the US between Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre ended in an out-of-court settlement, with the prince strongly rejecting any accusations of wrongdoing.
But neither side had their day in court.
And the film shows Prince Andrew wanting to do the Newsnight interview because he thinks it might mean checking his claim the photograph of him and Ms Giuffre might have been faked.
The other big unknown for the viewer is how much is fact and how much fiction.
Did Prince Andrew really call his private secretary “Fatty” and race her across the garden?
Did Elizabeth II’s private secretary, the urbane Sir Edward Young, really say things such as: “We’ll be shovelling more shit than Dyno-Rod.”
The film comes with the disclaimer: “This drama is based on real events and individuals. Some scenes have been fictionalised and adapted for dramatic purposes.”
Publicly brutal
It is not a documentary and the storytelling and pace of a drama means changes to the sequence of events.
For instance, in the film, Prince Andrew is told Covid is to be used as a face-saving excuse for him not to be at the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
In reality, Covid was indeed given as an explanation for why he missed a Jubilee service.
But a month before, the Palace had been quite open in a press briefing that the prince would not be on the Buckingham Palace balcony as he was no longer a working royal.
The suggestion of surreptitiousness works as drama - but in reality, his exclusion was even more publicly brutal.
But such powerful dramas can have a habit of overwriting history - and Sheen’s performance could change forever how Prince Andrew will be remembered.
Five women say they were raped by former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed when they worked at the luxury London department store.
The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted them - including rape.
The documentary and podcast - Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods - gathered evidence that, during Fayed’s ownership, Harrods not only failed to intervene, but helped cover up abuse allegations.
Harrods’ current owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations and that his victims had been failed - for which the store sincerely apologised.
“The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark,” says barrister Bruce Drummond, from a legal team representing a number of the women.
Warning: this story contains details some may find distressing.
The incidents took place in London, Paris, St Tropez and Abu Dhabi.
“I made it obvious that I didn't want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over,” says one of the women, who says Fayed raped her at his Park Lane apartment.
Another woman says she was a teenager when he raped her at the Mayfair address.
“Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass whatsoever,” she says, adding that all the staff at Harrods were his “playthings”.
“We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said ‘jump’ employees would ask ‘how high’.”
Fayed faced sexual assault claims while he was alive, but these allegations are of unprecedented scale and seriousness. The BBC believes many more women may have been assaulted.
'Fayed was vile'
Fayed's entrepreneurial career began on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, where he hawked fizzy drinks to passers-by. But it was his marriage to the sister of a millionaire Saudi arms dealer that helped him forge new connections and build a business empire.
He moved to the UK in 1974 and was already a well-known public figure when he took over Harrods in 1985. In the 1990s and 2000s, he would regularly appear as a guest on prime-time TV chat and entertainment shows.
Meanwhile, Fayed - whose son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 - has become known to a new generation through the two most recent Netflix series of The Crown.
But the women we have spoken to say his portrayal as pleasant and gregarious was far from the truth.
“He was vile,” says one of the women, Sophia, who worked as his personal assistant from 1988 to 1991. She says he tried to rape her more than once.
“That makes me angry, people shouldn't remember him like that. It's not how he was.”
Some of the women waived, or partially waived, their right to anonymity to be filmed - and the BBC agreed not to use surnames. Others chose to remain anonymous. Put together, their testimonies reveal a pattern of predatory behaviour and sexual abuse by Fayed.
The Harrods owner would regularly tour the department store's vast sales floors and identify young female assistants he found attractive, who would then be promoted to work in his offices upstairs - former staff, male and female, told us.
The assaults would be carried out in Harrods’ offices, in Fayed's London apartment, or on foreign trips - often in Paris at the Ritz hotel, which he also owned, or his nearby Villa Windsor property.
At Harrods, other former staff members told us it was clear what was happening.
“We all watched each other walk through that door thinking, ‘you poor girl, it's you today’ and feeling utterly powerless to stop it,” Alice, not her real name, says.
'He raped me'
Rachel, not her real name, worked as a personal assistant in Harrods in the 1990s.
One night after work, she says she was called to his luxury apartment, in a large block on Park Lane overlooking London's Hyde Park. The building was protected by security staff and had an on-site office staffed by Harrods employees.
Rachel says Fayed asked her to sit on his bed and then put his hand on her leg, making it clear what he wanted.
“I remember feeling his body on me, the weight of him. Just hearing him make these noises. And… just going somewhere else in my head.
“He raped me.”
The BBC has spoken to 13 women who say Fayed sexually assaulted them at 60 Park Lane. Four of them, including Rachel, say they were raped.
Sophia, who says she was sexually assaulted, described the whole situation as an inescapable nightmare.
“I couldn't leave. I didn’t have a [family] home to go back to, I had to pay rent,” she says. “I knew I had to go through this and I didn’t want to. It was horrible and my head was scrambled.”Gemma, who worked as one of Fayed’s personal assistants between 2007-09, says his behaviour became more frightening during work trips abroad.
She says it culminated in her being raped at Villa Windsor in Paris's Bois de Boulogne - a former home, post-abdication, of King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson.
Gemma says she woke up startled in her bedroom. Fayed was next to her bed wearing just a silk dressing gown. He then tried to get into bed with her.
“I told him, ‘no, I don't want you to’. And he proceeded to just keep trying to get in the bed, at which point he was kind of on top of me and [I] really couldn't move anywhere.
“I was kind of face down on the bed and he just pressed himself on me.”
She says after Fayed raped her she cried, while he got up and told her aggressively to wash herself with Dettol.
“Obviously he wanted me to erase any trace of him being anywhere near me,” she explains.
Eight other women have also told us they were sexually assaulted by Fayed at his properties in Paris. Five women described the assaults as an attempted rape.'Open secret'
“The abuse of women, I was aware of it when I was on the shop floor," says Tony Leeming, a Harrods department manager from 1994 to 2004. It “wasn't even a secret”, recalls Mr Leeming, who says he did not know about more serious allegations of assault or rape.
"And I think if I knew, everybody knew. Anyone who says they didn't are lying, I'm sorry".
Mr Leeming's testimony is backed up by former members of Fayed's security team.
“We were aware that he had this very strong interest in young girls,” says Eamon Coyle, who joined Harrods in 1979 as a store detective, then became deputy director of security from 1989-95.
Meanwhile Steve, who does not want us to use his surname, worked for the billionaire between 1994-95. He told us that security staff “did know that certain things were happening to certain female employees at Harrods and Park Lane”.
Many of the women told us that when they began working directly for Fayed they underwent medicals - including invasive sexual health tests carried out by doctors.
This was presented as a perk, the women told us, but many did not see their own results - even though they were sent to Fayed.
“There is no benefit to anybody knowing what my sexual health is, unless you're planning to sleep with somebody, which I find quite chilling now,” says Katherine, who was an executive assistant in 2005.
'Culture of fear'
All the women we spoke to described having felt intimidated at work - which had made it difficult for them to speak out.
Sarah, not her real name, explained: “There was most definitely a culture of fear across the whole store - from the lowliest of the low, to the most senior person.”
Others told us they believed the phones in Harrods had been tapped - and that women had been scared of talking to each other about Fayed’s abuse, fearing they were being filmed by hidden cameras.
The ex-deputy director of security, Eamon Coyle, confirmed this - explaining how part of his job was to listen to tapes of recorded calls. Cameras that could record had also been installed throughout the store, he said, including in the executive suites.
“He [Fayed] bugged everybody that he wanted to bug.”
Harrods told the BBC in a statement these had been the actions of an individual “intent on abusing his power” which it condemned in the strongest terms.
It said: “The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010, it is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.”There were a number of attempts to expose Fayed before his death - notably by Vanity Fair in 1995 - with an article alleging racism, staff surveillance and sexual misconduct. This sparked a libel lawsuit.
Mohamed Al Fayed later agreed to drop the case as long as all the further evidence the magazine had gathered of his sexual misconduct in preparation for a trial was locked away. Fayed’s settlement was negotiated by a senior Harrods executive.
In 1997, ITV’s The Big Story reported further serious allegations including sexual harassment and groping - which is classed as sexual assault.
One of the women in the BBC investigation, Ellie, not her real name, was 15 in 2008 when she reported an assault to the police - an allegation that made headlines - but did not result in any charge.
In 2017, Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcast allegations of groping, assault and harassment, with one woman waiving her right to anonymity for the first time. It gave some women the courage to come forward - and was followed by a 2018 investigation on Channel 4 News.
But it is only now, with Mohamed Al Fayed having died last year, that many of the women have felt able to speak publicly about rape and attempted rape.
Cash and NDAs
The BBC documentary reveals that, as part of Gemma's settlement in 2009, she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), a legally-binding contract which ensures information remains confidential.
She says after she was raped, she contacted a lawyer who told Harrods she was leaving her job on the grounds of sexual harassment. Gemma says she did not feel able, at that time, to disclose the full extent and seriousness of Fayed's assaults.
Harrods agreed she could leave and it would pay a sum of money in exchange for her shredding all evidence and signing an NDA. Gemma says a member of Harrods’ HR team was present as the shredding took place.
The BBC has heard that women were threatened and intimidated by Harrods' then-director of security, John Macnamara, to stop them speaking out.
Fourteen of the women we spoke to recently brought civil claims against Harrods for damages. The shop's current owners, who are not asking women to sign NDAs, started settling these in July 2023.
It took Sophia and Harrods five years to reach an agreement. In her case, the store expressed regret but did not admit liability. Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.The barristers representing some of the women we spoke to - Bruce Drummond and Dean Armstrong KC - argue the store was responsible for an unsafe system of work.
“Any place of work has a duty to ensure the safety of its employees. Without question, the company failed these ladies,” says Mr Drummond.
“That’s why we step in. Because they just did nothing to actually prevent this. They did the opposite. They enabled it.”
Mr Armstrong adds: “We say there have been clearly attempts by the senior people at Harrods to sweep this under the carpet.”
Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.
Barrister Maria Mulla - who is also on the legal team representing some of the women - says clients are coming forward now, because previously they have been “absolutely petrified” to speak out.
“They want to be part of this movement of holding people accountable for what has happened to them, and trying to make sure these things don't happen again in the future for their own children and for their children.”
Harrods told the BBC: “Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.
“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”
The Ritz hotel in Paris said it “strongly condemns all forms of behaviour that do not align with the values of the establishment”.
When Fayed died, unconfirmed reports estimated his worth in excess of £1bn. But money is not the motivation for the women to speak out, they say.
“I’ve spent so many years being quiet and silent, not speaking up,” says Gemma, “and I hope talking about it now helps. We can all start feeling better and healing from it.”
Happy new smartphone season to all who celebrate. It’s that time of year again, when the tech giants pull out all the stops to persuade you to upgrade your gadgets.
Recently we’ve seen Google launch the latest Pixel 9 handsets, followed by Apple unveiling the iPhone 16.
In July, Samsung released the latest versions of its foldable phones, the Z Flip6 and Z Fold6, and Huawei has just upped the ante in that department by unveiling a handset called the Mate XT, in China, which contains two folds, folding the screen into thirds.
With smartphone sales slowing worldwide, the marketing messages getting pushed out are increasingly dazzling.
Apple boss Tim Cook promised that the iPhone16 would “redefine what a smartphone would do”, whatever that means. Google product management vice president Brian Rakowski waxed lyrical about the “stunning” design of the “gorgeous” Pixel 9 (whisper it: it still looks a lot like a black rectangle to me).
Huawei now has its own consumer brand song, it says in its press material, which “powerfully expresses the pursuit of dreams, highlighting that every breakthrough and success the company has achieved stems from a belief in dreams”.
Yes, we are still talking about phones.
Both Apple and Google have gone big on baked-in AI features. Google’s new Magic Editor can add AI generated content into existing photos, as well as remove the bits you don’t want (with varying degrees of success, in my experience).
Apple Intelligence on the iPhone16 includes ChatGPT-maker OpenAI’s tech being embedded into the digital assistant Siri – which many argue has long been in need of an update.
But has anyone actually said that they want all of this stuff?Mobile phone expert Ben Wood, from research firm CCS Insight, said that while AI features aim to make digital life easier, they’re not necessarily on top of everybody’s wish list.
“I think that most people now know what they want from a phone, with one of the most important things being the camera,” he says.
The phone designers also know this. The tech spec of every new handset camera is usually an improvement on the previous generation. But even this isn’t a guaranteed sales generator any more.
“What is definitely happening is that people are holding on to their phones for longer. Back in 2013 there were 30 million phones sold annually,” adds Mr Wood. “This year it will be around 13.5 million.”
There is of course an ongoing cost of living crisis affecting people’s spending decisions. And there’s also an environmental price tag attached to every handset, all of which contain rare elements and precious metals.
In addition, there is a growing trend, especially among parents and young people, to try to step away from smartphones entirely.
A number of UK schools are reviewing their smartphone policies, and a few have already opted for an outright ban. Pupils starting at the public school Eton this term were issued feature phones (sometimes, rather unpopularly known as dumb phones), and I have heard of several other institutions, both in the private and state sectors, which are considering following suit.
The mobile phone network EE recommends that children below the age of 11 shouldn’t have smartphones at all.
Nova East leads the north and west London branch of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, which urges parents and schools to collaborate to delay the age at which children are given the devices.
“We are not anti-tech, we are just pro-childhood,” she says. “We would like to see tech companies develop a child friendly phone, offering only essential features such as calls, messaging, music, and maps, without any additional functionalities.”Dr Sasha Luccioni, a research scientist at the AI firm Hugging Face, says that so far, this message does not seem to be getting through.
“There’s increased talk of ‘digital sobriety’ in the way we build and use technology – but it sounds like smartphone designers are going in the exact opposite direction,” she says.
I put this to Apple, Google and Samsung. The latter said: "Samsung users can choose how they use their Galaxy phones that best fits their needs. For example, digital wellbeing features allow users to select what features they use, when they use them and for how long, such as setting a screen time limit on specific apps they want to restrict."
One company that is listening to the growing calls for reduced phone functionality is the Finnish firm HMD – which still makes basic Nokia handsets. Last month it launched a Barbie-themed phone in collaboration with toymaker Mattel, and I tried it out. The two words I would use to describe it are: functional. And pink.
Like most feature phones, it has no apps, no app store, no selfie camera, and only one game. If you want to listen to music there’s an FM radio.
CCS Insight forecasts that around 400,000 feature phones are likely to be sold in the UK this year – nowhere near enough to knock the iPhone off the top of the list of the world’s most-sold handsets any time soon, but not a bad market space.
I just checked my own screentime over the past seven days, and I averaged around five hours per day, This is admittedly a sobering statistic – but it wasn’t all doomscrolling (honest). My phone is a work tool, it’s also what I use for banking, shopping, directions, health tracking and keeping track of family plans, as well as, yes, gaming and social media.
“I think the thing we always forget is that there's a tremendous amount of benefits from using smartphones,” says Pete Etchells, professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa university, who has written extensively about the issue of screen time.
“We tend to focus a lot more on the negatives. It's always worth bearing in mind that these are technologies of convenience. They help us. There are some good aspects to them as well.”
As Hurricane Francine leaves households without basic power in New Orleans, a handful of "community lighthouses" could offer a crucial lifeline.
On a Sunday in the Broadmoor neighbourhood of New Orleans earlier this year, a church full of voices can be heard singing the hymn This Little Light of Mine. But letting it shine has now taken on a whole new meaning for residents in the city. In 2023, the brownstone Broadmoor Church's rooftop was kitted out with a raft of new solar panels, turning that sunlight into energy for local residents.
The church is one of 86 planned "community lighthouses", and part of a wider project to build the nation's largest network of solar and storage resilience hubs at places of worship and community centres. The project is spearheaded by Together Louisiana, a non-profit organisation supported by local and federal funding, to transform these centres into energy-resilient hubs.
As Tropical Storm Francine, which made landfall as a category two hurricane, continues to inundate Louisiana, the need to adapt to such severe storms is growing. (Read more about how hurricanes are becoming more extreme with climate change.)
New Orleans' community lighthouses are in their early days, with 10 currently operational in the city, and are now facing their first major test. As of the early hours of 12 September, the grid was out in five of them. Speaking to the BBC earlier in the 2024 hurricane season, the project's organisers explained their plans for a life-saving model to provide crucial power in the immediate aftermath of a storm.
The community lighthouses function as solar-powered microgrids to provide power during grid failure and outages caused by extreme weather, such as hurricanes. The solar-power network also has back-up battery capacity, meaning the community can stay powered when conventional power sources are overcome by extreme winds and flooding.
"It takes just four of our batteries that store power from our solar panels to stay around 96% full and allow us to run for around a day when the grid goes down," the church's pastor and Broadmoor community lighthouse manager Gregory Manning says.
Manning's church is part of a hub which will eventually serve 200 people from the surrounding area. During extreme weather, their daily electricity needs can be met – everything from small essentials like mobile phone charging to life-saving services, such keeping medicine cool and providing protection from extreme heat.
Louisiana locals say these community hubs can make a substantial difference during a hurricane. With an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season ramping up, it may not be long before the lighthouses are put to their first serious test.
Learning from Ida
Between 1980 and 2023, there were on average of 8.5 billion-dollar extreme weather events across the US. During 2019-2023, that figure more than doubled to 20.4 events a year.
Louisiana is in the top three states for the costliness of extreme weather and climate disasters since 1980 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), behind Texas and Florida. However, Louisiana's smaller population and economy can make those costs especially hard to bear.
Overall, extreme weather has cost Louisiana $290bn (£225bn) since 1980. With these hazards now arriving in quicker succession, there's less time for recovery, Rob Verchick, professor of law at Loyola University, tells the BBC.More than one million people were left without power after 2021's Hurricane Ida. Across the Gulf Coast, the most common cause of death from Ida was excessive heat during extended power outages.
"Hurricane Ida was a pivotal moment for the city," Manning says. "That taught us what we really needed to do, we realised that we have the power ourselves to get together a plan."
Founding member of Together Louisiana's community lighthouse project, Broderick Bagert says the neighbourhood felt "powerless" during Hurricane Ida. As he saw local government battle to try and provide the basics after the disaster, he and the team began to see how they could take matters into their own hands.
"Having been through this in Hurricanes Ida, Isaac, Katrina and Laura, we came to the conclusion that every neighbourhood needs one facility that has resilient power and can keep electricity when the grid goes down," says Bagert.
Energy for everybody
When a hurricane causes grid failure, the Broadmoor Church solar panels and back-up batteries operate off-grid, providing up to 20kW of power – enough to charge phones and run large refrigerators and freezers that can store 10,000lbs (450kg) of food.
But it's not just about these physical hubs, Bagert adds, as it is creating a community who can identify vulnerable individuals – the elderly, those living alone, or those without transport – and ensure they can access the resources they need. The aim is for each hub to be able to contact everyone in the network within 24 hours in the event of an extreme weather emergency.
"This starts from grassroots to try to get a response that becomes systemic, one that checks in on people in their neighbourhoods – we're in the early stages of developing this across our state," says Bagert.Broadmoor Community Lighthouse was one of the first three to be completed in the planned lighthouse network. The Together Louisiana network includes civic centres and places of worship while also incorporating environmental and workers groups. The coalition says it is "deliberate about crossing the lines of race, religion, neighbourhood, and political affiliation" to help communities and build upon the places people already know and use frequently.
Almost one in four people live in poverty in New Orleans, which is twice the national average for America, making evacuation during extreme weather events untenable – many residents simply can't afford to. Manning says the lighthouses will be a "lifeline" for those "we know can't get out".
The financial toll of this extreme weather is heavy. Louisiana's largest power company estimated the damage repairs from hurricanes in 2020 and 2021 would cost more than $4bn (£3.1bn).
Last October, the federal government approved a $259m (£200m) grant to Louisiana to implement the community lighthouse project. It is the largest investment in grid resilience in the state's history and part of President Biden's biggest ever investment in the US electric grid, committing $3.46bn (£2.7bn) for 58 clean energy projects across 44 states.
Each community lighthouse uses four Tesla batteries for power storage, an automatic load control panel – replacing an electricity control panel from the 1950s – and two monitoring systems. They can also store excess solar energy in back-up batteries, and their energy efficiency is expected to reduce the Broadmoor community's utility costs by around $170,000 (£130,000) over the batteries' lifetimes – as well as reducing carbon emissions for the facility.
Life-saving electricity
Fatalities from knock-on effects of hurricanes have made up almost as many deaths as the immediate dangers of storm surge and flooding in the past 10 years in the US. In some storms, indirect effects outweigh direct effects. During Hurricane Ida, there were four direct and 26 indirect deaths in Louisiana, 13 of which were attributed to heat exhaustion due to the lack of air conditioning as the heat index reached 33C (92F).
To keep air conditioners on when the grid fails, conventional generators are often used. However, this can come with its own tragic consequences. Six indirect deaths during Hurricane Ida were due to carbon monoxide poisoning, which is a risk associated with generators.
New Orleans resident Cynthia Coleman lost two family members to carbon monoxide poisoning during the storm.
"The entire state was in darkness and my 54-year-old godmother and her grandchildren purchased a generator because it was so hot and they were just trying to survive," she says. It was their first time using the device, and Coleman's godmother and her godmother's 17-year-old grandson "went to sleep that night and didn't wake up". They had died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by the generator.
Coleman says she believes the community lighthouses, with clean power, could have saved them. "They didn't have what they needed to be comfortable – basic electricity," she says. "I had to see coffins in the church."
She considers the lighthouses "priceless" in the face of extreme storms. "It eliminates the thought that another family member can suffer loss for situations should have been better handled," Coleman says. "I can't get them back but this encourages myself and my family that someone else will not have to experience what we did – it will help someone else."
When all 86 planned community lighthouse facilities are functioning, they will be stationed at no more than a 15-minute walking distance for the 380,000 residents of New Orleans.
When Hurricane Francine arrived, the operational lighthouses were charged and holding up well, with batteries providing much-needed power.
Asked about the state's future, Manning is cautious but hopeful.
"I wouldn't say confident, but I feel good about the steps we're taking and that we're making progress," he says. "More needs to be done and we need to move quickly – we have to catch up from the steps that we did not take over the past two years."
* This story was originally published on 7 August 2024, and updated with details on Hurricane Francine on 12 September 2024
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has reiterated Africa’s demand for permanent representation in the UN Security Council (UNSC).
The South African leader emphasized that it is unacceptable for the continent, home to 1.3 billion people, to remain unrepresented.
Speaking to reporters at the Africa Aerospace and Defense Exhibition Airshow at the Waterkloof Airforce Base in Centurion, South Africa, Ramaphosa argued that Africa deserves not only a permanent seat but also veto right, to avoid being relegated to “second-class” participation.
“It is a real terrible anomaly at the moment that we are not represented, but we have been campaigning and the concept is now being accepted,” Ramaphosa said.
“We have got the capability, we have got the knowhow and Africa needs to be given its rightful place in the UN systems and its various structures,” he added.
This comes after the US last week said it will call for support for two African countries as permanent members of the UNSC without veto power as part of the proposed reforms.
South African president and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last year in August co-chaired a China-Africa leaders’ roundtable dialogue in Johannesburg attended by several African leaders.
The two sides reaffirmed their strong commitment to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and their staunch support for each other in upholding territorial integrity, sovereignty and security and development interests.
“One village, two countries” used to be the tagline for Yinjing on China’s south-western edge.
An old tourist sign boasts of a border with Myanmar made of just “bamboo fences, ditches and earth ridges” - a sign of the easy economic relationship Beijing had sought to build with its neighbour.China’s tough pandemic lockdowns forced the separation initially. But it has since been cemented by the intractable civil war in Myanmar, triggered by a bloody coup in 2021. The military regime is now fighting for control in large swathes of the country, including Shan State along China’s border, where it has suffered some of its biggest losses.
The crisis at its doorstep - a nearly 2,000km (1,240-mile) border - is becoming costly for China, which has invested millions of dollars in Myanmar for a critical trade corridor.
The ambitious plan aims to connect China’s landlocked south-west to the Indian Ocean via Myanmar. But the corridor has become a battleground between Myanmar rebels and the country's army.Beijing has sway over both sides but the ceasefire it brokered in January fell apart. It has now turned to military exercises along the border and stern words. Foreign Minister Wang Yi was the latest diplomat to visit Myanmar’s capital Nay Pyi Taw and is thought to have delivered a warning to the country's ruler Min Aung Hlaing.
Conflict is not new to impoverished Shan State. Myanmar’s biggest state is a major source of the world’s opium and and methamphetamine, and home to ethnic armies long opposed to centralised rule.
But the vibrant economic zones created by Chinese investment managed to thrive - until the civil war.
A loudspeaker now warns people in Ruili not to get too close to the fence - but that doesn’t stop a Chinese tourist from sticking his arm between the bars of a gate to take a selfie.
Two girls in Disney T-shirts shout through the bars - “hey grandpa, hello, look over here!” - as they lick pink scoops of ice cream. The elderly man shuffling barefoot on the other side barely looks up before he turns away.
Refuge in Ruili
“Burmese people live like dogs,” says Li Mianzhen. Her corner stall sells food and drinks from Myanmar - like milk tea - in a small market just steps from the border checkpoint in Ruili city.
Li, who looks to be in her 60s, used to sell Chinese clothes across the border in Muse, a major source of trade with China. But she says almost no-one in her town has enough money any more.
Myanmar’s military junta still controls the town, one of its last remaining holdouts in Shan State. But rebel forces have taken other border crossings and a key trading zone on the road to Muse.
The situation has made people desperate, Li says. She knows of some who have crossed the border to earn as little as 10 yuan - about one pound and not much more than a dollar - so that they can go back to Myanmar and “feed their families”.The war has severely restricted travel in and out of Myanmar, and most accounts now come from those who have fled or have found ways to move across the borders, such as Li.
Unable to get the work passes that would allow them into China, Li’s family is stuck in Mandalay, as rebel forces edge closer to Myanmar’s second-largest city.
“I feel like I am dying from anxiety,” Li says. “This war has brought us so much misfortune. At what point will all of this end?"
Thirty-one-year-old Zin Aung (name changed) is among those who made it out. He works in an industrial park on the outskirts of Ruili, which produces clothes, electronics and vehicle parts that are shipped across the world.
Workers like him are recruited in large numbers from Myanmar and flown here by Chinese government-backed firms eager for cheap labour. Estimates suggest they earn about 2,400 yuan ($450; £340) a month, which is less than their Chinese colleagues.“There is nothing for us to do in Myanmar because of the war,” Zin Aung says. “Everything is expensive. Rice, cooking oil. Intensive fighting is going on everywhere. Everyone has to run.”
His parents are too old to run, so he did. He sends home money whenever he can.
The men live and work on the few square kilometres of the government-run compound in Ruili. Zin Aung says it is a sanctuary, compared with what they left behind: “The situation in Myanmar is not good, so we are taking refuge here.”
He also escaped compulsory conscription, which the Myanmar army has been enforcing to make up for defections and battlefield losses.
As the sky turned scarlet one evening, Zin Aung ran barefoot through the cloying mud onto a monsoon-soaked pitch, ready for a different kind of battle - a fiercely fought game of football.
Burmese, Chinese and the local Yunnan dialect mingled as vocal spectators reacted to every pass, kick and shot. The agony over a missed goal was unmistakable. This is a daily affair in their new, temporary home, a release after a 12-hour shift on the assembly line.
Many of the workers are from Lashio, the largest town in Shan State, and Laukkaing, home to junta-backed crime families - Laukkaing fell to rebel forces in January and Lashio was encircled, in a campaign which has changed the course of the war and China’s stake in it.Beijing’s predicament
Both towns lie along China’s prized trade corridor and the Beijing-brokered ceasefire left Lashio in the hands of the junta. But in recent weeks rebel forces have pushed into the town - their biggest victory to date. The military has responded with bombing raids and drone attacks, restricting internet and mobile phone networks.
“The fall of Lashio is one of the most humiliating defeats in the military’s history,” says Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser to the International Crisis Group.
“The only reason the rebel groups didn’t push into Muse is they likely feared it would upset China,” Mr Horsey says. “Fighting there would have impacted investments China has hoped to restart for months. The regime has lost control of almost all northern Shan state – with the exception of Muse region, which is right next to Ruili.”
Ruili and Muse, both designated as special trade zones, are crucial to the Beijing-funded 1,700km trade route, known as the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. The route also supports Chinese investments in energy, infrastructure and rare earth mining critical for manufacturing electric vehicles.
But at its heart is a railway line that will connect Kunming - the capital of Yunnan province - to Kyaukphyu, a deep sea port the Chinese are building on Myanmar’s western coast.
The port, along the Bay of Bengal, would give industries in and beyond Ruili access to the Indian Ocean and then global markets. The port is also the starting point for oil and gas pipelines that will transport energy via Myanmar to Yunnan.But these plans are now in jeopardy.
President Xi Jinping had spent years cultivating ties with his resource-rich neighbour when the country’s elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was forced from power.
Mr Xi refused to condemn the coup and continued to sell the army weapons. But he also did not recognise Min Aung Hlaing as head of state, nor has he invited him to China.
Three years on, the war has killed thousands and displaced millions, but no end is in sight.
Forced to fight on new fronts, the army has since lost between half and two-thirds of Myanmar to a splintered opposition.
Beijing is at an impasse. It “doesn’t like this situation” and sees Myanmar’s military ruler Min Aung Hlaing as “incompetent”, Mr Horsey says. “They are pushing for elections, not because they necessarily want a return to democratic rule, but more because they think this is a way back.”
Myanmar’s regime suspects Beijing of playing both sides - keeping up the appearance of supporting the junta while continuing to maintain a relationship with ethnic armies in Shan State.
Analysts note that many of the rebel groups are using Chinese weapons. The latest battles are also a resurgence of last year’s campaign launched by three ethnic groups which called themselves the Brotherhood Alliance. It is thought that the alliance would not have made its move without Beijing’s tacit approval.Its gains on the battlefield spelled the end for notorious mafia families whose scam centres had trapped thousands of Chinese workers. Long frustrated over the increasing lawlessness along its border, Beijing welcomed their downfall - and the tens of thousands of suspects who were handed over by the rebel forces.
For Beijing the worst-case scenario is the civil war dragging on for years. But it would also fear a collapse of the military regime, which might herald further chaos.
How China will react to either scenario is not yet clear - what is also unclear is what more Beijing can do beyond pressuring both sides to agree to peace talks.
Paused plans
That predicament is evident in Ruili with its miles of shuttered shops. A city that once benefited from its location along the border is now feeling the fallout from its proximity to Myanmar.
Battered by some of China’s strictest lockdowns, businesses here took another hit when cross-border traffic and trade did not revive.
They also rely on labour from the other side, which has stopped, according to several agents who help Burmese workers find jobs. They say China has tightened its restrictions on hiring workers from across the border, and has also sent back hundreds who were said to be working illegally.The owner of a small factory, who did not want to be identified, told the BBC that the deportations meant “his business isn’t going anywhere… and there’s nothing I can change”.
The square next to the checkpoint is full of young workers, including mothers with their babies, waiting in the shade. They lay out their paperwork to make sure they have what they need to secure a job. The successful ones are given a pass which allows them to work for up to a week, or come and go between the two countries, like Li.
“I hope some good people can tell all sides to stop fighting,” Li says. “If there is no-one in the world speaking up for us, it is really tragic.”
She says she is often assured by those around her that fighting won’t break out too close to China. But she is unconvinced: “No-one can predict the future.”
For now, Ruili is a safer option for her and Zin Aung. They understand that their future is in Chinese hands, as do the Chinese.
“Your country is at war,” a Chinese tourist tells a Myanmar jade seller he is haggling with at the market. “You just take what I give you.”
