Family plea over teenager's death

7 February 2014 Last updated at 01:15

Dean Geary death: Family make emotional appeal

Dean Geary was found dead beside the A811 near Drymen

The family of a teenager found dead after a night out have pleaded for information four years on.

The body of Dean Geary, 19, was found by a member of the public at 05:30 on 7 February 2010 on the A811 Drymen to Gartocharn road in West Dunbartonshire.

A police investigation concluded that he died of severe head injuries after being hit accidentally by a vehicle.

But detectives say there are unanswered questions and are re-examining how the teenager came to be fatally injured.

Mr Geary's father John, 46, from Alexandria, said: "It's every parent's worst nightmare, losing a child.

Family heartache

"Dean's room is exactly as he left it. We've been stuck in limbo.

"If you have the slightest piece of information, please be brave and come forward. Don't have it on your conscience. Someone must know something."

Mr Geary, whose son worked as an administrator at the Coulport naval base on the Clyde, said of losing him: "It's a huge part of your heart that's missing."

John Geary said losing his son was "every parent's worst nightmare"

Police have released CCTV footage of Mr Geary's last movements in Glasgow city centre.

He and his friend Mark Craig were seen arriving at Queen Street railway station for a night out on the Saturday.

He left the Tattoo nightclub alone at about 02:00 and was seen on CCTV in George Square at about 02:40.

Other sightings put him near a taxi rank on the corner of Renfield Street and Sauchiehall Street at about 03:20.

'Outstanding questions'

At about 03:30, he spoke to a friend and said he was in a taxi.

An hour-and-a-half later, Mr Geary was seen by three motorists walking on the A811 near Gartocharn towards Drymen.

Det Ch Insp Kenny Graham, who is leading the investigation, said: "We believe there are still some outstanding questions regarding Dean's death and even four years on we are determined to try and find the answers.

"So I'm asking people to think back. Was Saturday February 6th 2010 a significant date in your diary? Did you go out to celebrate a birthday or anniversary that night and did you see Dean in the city centre?

"Did you spot him at a taxi rank or getting into a taxi or any other vehicle in the city centre in the early hours of the of February 7th?

"We still don't know exactly why Dean was on the A811 and what his movements were between being seen in the city centre and when his body was discovered.

"I firmly believe there's someone out there with what might turn out to be crucial evidence which will help us find out what happened to Dean. I hope that the release of the footage today will help jog someone's memory and if it does I would urge them to come forward."

Police want to know how Mr Geary travelled from Glasgow to the Gartocharn area and what happened to his Sony Ericsson mobile phone and his wallet, which have never been found.

'Laughing and joking'

Mr Geary said: "Four years ago yesterday Dean was standing in the living room, laughing and joking, trying to decide what shoes to wear for a night out in Glasgow.

"Four years ago this morning he was found dead at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We still don't know how he got to where he was found.

"We really need to find this out. Please give us any information you have so we can try to move on with our lives."

Dean went to the Tattoo nightclub with his friend Mark, 22, who said it was just a "normal night out" until he heard reports of a body being found the next day.

Mark, who met Dean at Vale of Leven Academy, said he did not realise his friend had left the club and went to phone him at the end of the night but his phone was out of battery.

He said: "They said a boy had been found at Drymen. It's quite far away from where we stay, it's not near anything, so I didn't think it would be him. I didn't believe it at first.

"I am gutted. Obviously you've got to live your life the way you would do, but you always think: someone's not there that should be there.

"There's no good reason for it. It's such a waste. Somebody definitely knows something because his phone and wallet are still missing.

"Just come forward, anything could help the police at this stage and get Dean's family some closure."

Scots 'bedroom tax' arrears are £5m

7 February 2014 Last updated at 01:15

Scots 'bedroom tax' arrears amount to £5m

The UK government is ending a spare room subsidy as part of its welfare reforms

Rent arrears of at least £5m are owed to Scottish councils and housing associations as a result of the so-called "bedroom tax".

Figures compiled by the independent Scottish Housing Regulator also suggest the level of arrears is increasing.

Earlier this week the Scottish government announced a fund of a further £15m which would mitigate the impact of the bedroom tax.

However, it requires UK government approval before it can be distributed.

The Housing Regulator looks after the interests of tenants in socially rented accommodation, including council and housing association homes.

It has revealed total arrears of £73m at the end of last September - six months after benefit changes came into effect.

The changes cut housing benefit for people living in homes deemed to have surplus bedrooms.

Tenants' interests

Arrears amounted to 4.43% of total rental income -- up from 3.9% 12 months earlier.

Landlords estimated the value of of arrears arising directly from the benefit changes to be £4.86m.

However, the real figure is likely to be higher as only 80% of social landlords contributed to the survey.

Iain Muirhead, the regulator's director of strategy and communications, said: "Our role is to protect tenants' interests. To be successful and deliver for their tenants, social landlords need to be financially healthy.

"This research helps us to understand the challenges landlords face. The picture is complex, and some of the emerging patterns are subtle rather than stark.

"Arrears fluctuate seasonally, and other evidence suggests an increased use of discretionary housing payments to mitigate arrears.

"Nevertheless, our research indicates that many landlords believe that welfare reform is beginning to have a significant impact on their arrears levels."

An estimated 76,000 Scottish households are affected by what critics have dubbed the "bedroom tax".

It is not in fact a tax but cuts in housing benefit for tenants who are deemed to have one or more spare bedrooms.

Additional funds

The UK government says it is effectively ending a spare room subsidy as part of a wider package of welfare reforms designed to save money.

The Scottish government is against the measures and has promised to abolish it if there was a "Yes" vote in the independence referendum.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was "more than willing" to spend the Scottish government's extra £15m topping up discretionary housing payments (DHP).

But the Scottish budget has already earmarked the maximum allowed under Department of Work and Pension (DWP) rules.

The DWP said it had set aside additional funding but that only a third of Scottish councils had applied.

Ms Sturgeon is writing to the UK welfare minister, Lord Freud, asking him to lift the cap to allow the Scottish government to help more of those who are losing out.

Pacific castaway health worsens

6 February 2014 Last updated at 11:33

Pacific castaway Jose Salvador Alvarenga's health worsens

Jose Salvador Alvarenga made a brief public appearance on Thursday

The health of the castaway who claims he spent more than a year adrift in the Pacific has deteriorated, delaying his repatriation.

Jose Salvador Alvarenga has returned to hospital in the Marshall Islands, where he was found a week ago.

Mr Alvarenga said he left Mexico for a trip in a fibre-glass boat in December 2012 with a friend who died on board.

The family of his younger friend say they want to speak to Mr Alvarenga to find out more about how their son died.

Doctors at Majuro Hospital in the Marshall Islands' capital said Mr Alvarenga was too dehydrated to travel.

"We must consider his health, that he is fit to travel, and get the doctor's recommendation. We're hoping in the next three or four days," said Mexican embassy official Christian Clay Mendoza.

Mr Alvarenga made a brief public appearance on Thursday, and correspondents say he looked weaker than when he made his first media appearance on Monday.

An unnamed official told AP that he looked much less animated.

"He looked exhausted, frankly. Like someone who has run two or three marathons."

He was rescued on Thursday by people living on the island of Ebon Atoll.

Mr Alvarenga apparently survived the 8,000 km (5,000-mile) ordeal by catching fish, birds and turtles with his bare hands.

For fluids, he claimed to have drunk urine, rainwater and the blood of birds.

Alvarenga's fishermen colleagues told AFP that he had always had an unusual diet.

"He wasn't picky. He ate everything" said one.

The brother of Ezequiel, Mr Alverenga's companion, wants to know what happened to his sibling's body

Family seek answers

The family of Mr Alvarenga's companion on the boat have also spoken out, saying they need more answers.

Known as Ezequiel, he is believed to have starved after being unable to eat raw birds and fish.

Romeo Cordova Rios, Ezequiel's brother, said that while the death was an accident, the family still wanted to speak to Mr Alvarenga.

"We want him to come here, for the government to bring him here," he said.

"The only thing we want is to know what was the last thing that he told this man and what he did with my brother's body," he added.

The photomontage shows an undated picture of Mr Alvarenga taken before the trip

Mr Alvarenga's fishermen colleagues have spoken to the media

Mr Alvarenga's boat washed up on Ebon Atoll in the Marshall Islands

Three Mexican fishermen were rescued off the Marshall Islands in August 2006 after what they said was about nine months drifting across the Pacific Ocean.

They survived on rain water, seabirds and fish.

Castaways from Kiribati, to the south, frequently find land in the Marshall Islands after ordeals of weeks or months at sea in small boats.

7 February 2014 Last updated at 00:01

Painting in the skyline above New York's streets

By Victoria Fritz BBC business reporter, New York

Colossal Media's Paul Lindahl explains how they create their billboard art

Continue reading the main story

The ghosts of hand-painted advertisements - victims of the great rush to refresh and renew - punctuate with flavour and authenticity the continuum of consumerism in the city that never sleeps.

Although they fell out of favour with the advertising world decades ago, their simple, upbeat slogans provide a counterpoint to the spray-painted scrawl below.

But these juxtaposed art forms separated by time are now merging, and a hybrid is popping up all over New York City's streets.

In 1965 the hand-painted billboard industry was served with a death warrant. The Highway Beautification Act called for the control of outdoor advertising, including removal of certain types of signs, primarily billboards, along the nation's growing interstate highway system.

The law put generations of commercial painters out of work, and technological advances in large-scale printing ushered the last of the paintbrushes into their box.

In the past six years, however, hundreds of new hand-painted signs have begun appearing throughout the city, among them 19 consecutive frames showcasing the nine steps of the Stella Artois "perfect pour".

Unique perspective

These ads, and others like them, are the handiwork of Colossal Media, a Brooklyn-based company trying to revive the labour-intensive and near-obsolete craft of hand-painted signs.

The company is run by graffiti artist and painter Paul Lindahl and his friend Adrian Moeller, a former media man who handles the business end.

Before moving to New York, Lindahl worked as an itinerant sign painter in cities around the country, picking up trade secrets from "wall dogs" - old men who had spent much of their life suspended above the city, painting larger-than-life images on building walls.

"Before this company, the only people who still knew how to do this were in their 60s," he says.

Sign painting requires a good eye and a steady hand...

...as well as a head for heights

The office is a warehouse space wedged between a construction site, a brewery and the Hudson river. Neat coils of rope and stacks of ladders adorn the walls. Any surface is considered fair game for the apprentices to perfect their art.

The peak years of hand-painted signs in New York ran from the 1920s to the 1940s, but the technology of applying them has remained the same.

Lindahl works alongside a crew of men using a block-and-tackle rigging system of manual pulleys to manoeuvre scaffolding and the painter around on the wall.

The platforms on which they work are just 28in (71cm) wide and can sometimes be 300ft (90m) off the ground.

Their latest project is a 24ft wide black-and-white photo for the footwear retailer Converse.

'It's a privilege'

Fine artist Jason Jarosz specialises in portraiture. He considers the city as a practice canvas for his private work.

"It's a different challenge every week. This mural here is taking about five or six days and then right on to the next one - different client, different artwork and you've just got to hit the ground running," he says.

The work is hard-going, more akin to construction work than fine art. Jarosz wears two coats and steel toe-capped boots.

He holds his brushes and palette through thick, paint-spattered wool gloves. The only skin exposed to the elements is the third of his face left unobscured by a balaclava and hat.

Despite its physical challenges, he says, the work offers a unique perspective on the urban life taking place below.

'Real-estate game'

"I've seen fights. I've seen car crashes. And there's nothing you can do from up there. But there have been good moments too.

"I once watched two falcons circling around me in the rigging on a really high job. I was pretty worried.

"Then I realised they weren't after me but a pigeon on the scaffold. It all happened right in front of me. No-one else gets to see these things. It's a privilege."

Despite technological changes elsewhere, billboards are still hand painted as they were in the 1940s...

...and painters still need to mix their own paints

Colossal Media is not just engaged in painting. The company has a scouting and acquisitions department that actively seeks out buildings as potential advertising locations.

If a landlord agrees to using their building as a blank canvas, Colossal Media takes out a long lease for continual access to that building wall. It then becomes immediately available to prospective clients to adorn with advertising as they see fit.

"It's a real-estate game, really," says Lindahl. "Typically there aren't content control issues with landlords."

'Here to stay'

Like any property developer, Colossal Media has to be mindful of city zoning regulations as well as historical preservation orders.

These restrictions can extend to the type of products that can be advertised in certain neighbourhoods.

"It's very important to pitch and sell locations that are appropriate," says Lindahl.

Securing a slice of New York's prime real estate is as challenging as persuading clients to use hand-painted methods over the more common vinyl, which can cost half as much and reproduce images with pin-sharp clarity.

This is one profession that is not ready to fade away

Yet an increasing number of companies will pay a premium to showcase human endeavour in building their brand," says Lindahl.

"All advertising is expensive. What makes us stand out is that our work is almost like a performance art.

"The people below get to see the painting unfold over the days that we are out there. They appreciate the creative element in the execution."

Outside in the New York winter, Mr Jarosz agrees.

"When I'm working at ground level, I have so many people coming up to me to pat me on the back telling me what a great job I'm doing," he says.

"When you get that five days a week it's hard to think that this could be a disappearing job. No, I think its here to stay."

Violent clashes at Rio fares protest

7 February 2014 Last updated at 01:39

Brazil: Rio protest over transport far rise ends in violence

Riot police fired tear gas in attempts to regain control of the situation at Central Station

Hundreds of people in Brazil have clashed with police during a protest against increased fares for public transport.

Commuters were caught up in the violence at Rio de Janeiro's Central Station during rush hour.

Riot police fired tear gas and tried to disperse the crowd, while activists hurled stones and petrol bombs.

A cameraman is in a serious condition in hospital after suffering a head injury.

Last year, similar protests grew into a nationwide movement against corruption and excessive spending ahead of the football World Cup, which Brazil will host in June and July.

Those protests began at the end of May 2013 in Sao Paulo, when the local authorities announced tickets would rise.

The fare rise had to be revoked after weeks of protests, with the federal government helping the state and municipal authorities to foot the bill.

Commuter panic

Last week, Rio's Mayor Eduardo Paes announced a 9% increase in transport fares, coming into effect on Friday.

The single bus fare goes up from 2.75 reais ($1.20; £0.70) to 3 reais ($1.30; £0.80).

"There will be no pay rise," reads the banner held by protesters at the ticket gates

The violence spread to the bus terminal outside the station and nearby streets

The authorities have blamed activists connected to the Black Bloc group for the violence

A demonstration was called against the rise. It began peacefully, with hundreds of protesters gathering outside the Candelaria cathedral, in Rio's city centre.

They marched towards the Central Station, a major underground, train and bus hub.

"We won't pay three reais," chanted the demonstrators.

"We want Fifa-standard hospitals too," they shouted, making reference to the high standards demanded by the World Cup organisers for the event's venues.

Some activists jumped the gates and vandalised ticketing machines.

Police charged against the crowd and fired tear gas. The activists hurled petrol bombs.

The clashes took place around 18:00 local time (20:00 GMT), during the busy Rio rush hour.

There was panic inside and outside the station. Shops were vandalised, several commuters were hurt.

A cameraman covering the event for Band TV was hit in the head by an explosive device.

The moment when he was injured was caught on camera by a television crew, but it was not clear whether the device was thrown by police or the activists.

The man was taken to one of Rio's main hospitals, Souza Aguiar, near the station, in a serious condition.

He suffered skull concussion and was undergoing brain surgery, according to O Globo newspaper. He also lost part of his left ear.

The violent clashes have increased concerns about security during the World Cup, which will kick off in Sao Paulo on 12 June and will end in Rio on 13 July.

Rio will also host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Mr Peabody 'respectful' to original

7 February 2014 Last updated at 01:36

Mr Peabody & Sherman 'respectful' to original series

By Kev Geoghegan Entertainment reporter, BBC News

Ty Burrell voices Mr Peabody (right) while Sherman is voiced by Max Charles

Travel back in time 55 years to 1959 and the first series of the American animated show Rocky and his Friends, later to be called The Rocky & Bullwinkle show, and it included a short segment called Peabody's Improbable History, starring a super-intelligent dog and his pet boy Sherman travelling through time.

Fast forward again to 2014 and the characters have been revived for the big screen by DreamWorks in Mr Peabody and Sherman. This time, in the hands of The Lion King director Rob Minkoff.

Modern Family star Ty Burrell provides the voice of Peabody - a talking dog, business titan, inventor, scientist, Nobel laureate, gourmand, and two-time Olympic medallist.

The cast also included the voices of Burrell's on-screen Modern Family daughter Ariel Winter, Stanley Tucci and comedy stars Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann and Mel Brooks.

"It was important to us from the beginning to be as authentic as possible to capture the spirit of the original but for a new audience," says director Minkoff.

It was originally created by US television-animation legend Jay Ward, who also came up with characters like George of the Jungle and Dudley Do-Right.

Each short segment saw Peabody and Sherman use his WABAC (or Wayback) machine to travel through time to visit historical figures such as Napoleon, Lord Nelson and Leonardo Da Vinci.

"I think Rob and DreamWorks have done a very good job in being very respectful to the original series," says Burrell. "We've been working with Jay Ward's estate and his daughter Tiffany and they gave us the thumbs up after seeing it which was a big relief."

Burrell, 46, is best known to TV audiences as the well meaning but clumsy "cool, dad" Phil Dunphy in the hit US series Modern Family - a role for which he has won one Emmy and been nominated for three more.

"I had done some TV voice work and I've done some commercial voice work but this is my first feature film and I tried to enter into it with my ears and eyes opening in terms of learning," he explains.

The film sees Peabody and Sherman travel to ancient Egypt, and Italy and Troy

"I wanted to be respectful of Bill Scott who was the original voice and pay homage to him but also it's important that I create my own voice.

"The first voice was essentially me imitating Bill which is completely unsustainable because he is in such a higher register than me, I have a very deep voice, so that was ill-advised and then slowly it worked back down, still erudite but maybe less glib."

Burrell was not the first choice for Peabody, he took over from Robert Downey Jr - who was announced back in 2011. But Minkoff has nothing but praise for his new leading man.

"It was the balance of his intellect and rationality but we also wanted to show his heart and warmth, even though it's central to his character that he has trouble expressing his emotions," he says.

At the core of the story is the relationship between a father and his adopted son, albeit in this case a role reversal of the relationship between a boy and his dog.

A key scene shows Sherman, upon being told that, as the son of a dog he must himself be a canine, reacting by biting one of his school classmates.

Burrell says the story has resonance personally as the father to two adopted daughters.

"I have two young girls, I have an adoptive relationship which was another meaningful part of taking this job," he says.

"Their love for each other as father and son becomes the most important thing to both of them. Peabody wants to be a good dad and Sherman ultimately loves his dad and wants to be a good son."

3D technology

For his part, Mr Peabody and Sherman is Minkoff's first full-length animated feature since 1994's The Lion King - still the second biggest grossing animated movie of all time, with takings of more than $422m.

The huge box office success of recent animations like Despicable Me 2 and Frozen, agrees Minkoff, is why we are in a "golden age" of animation.

Burrell won best male actor in a comedy series at the Screen Actors Guild awards earlier this month

"I think because the technology has raced ahead and made so many things possible," he explains. "But for audiences, animation is going through this era of being accepted. People are enjoying animated films in numbers that are unprecedented.

"As long as the audiences are there, more will be made," he adds.

In 2011, The Lion King was retro-fitted in 3D and re-released in cinemas. Mr Peabody and Sherman will be available to audiences in both 2D and 3D.

With recent evidence suggesting that 3D audiences in Britain are dropping off, Minkoff insists that animation in particular is almost always improved by the new technology.

"I really enjoy 3D, which is to say that it is a wonderful medium and certain films are fantastic to watch in 3D.

"I don't necessarily think all films should be watched in 3D but I do think that it can be a fun more experiential kind of thing.

"I think the animation works well because it's fantasy, it's abstract. We look at it and we know it's not the real world but we want to be a part of it and 3D puts you in that world."

The film, which opens in the UK on 7 February, marks the beginning of a busy year for Burrell.

Modern Family

Soon to be seen opposite the Muppets in their new film Muppets Most Wanted, and in Finding Dory, the sequel to Finding Nemo, Burrell also returns to the Modern Family fold, now in its fifth season.

Since it began in 2009, the show has made household names of Burrell and his co-stars. But despite their boosted profiles and star salaries, he insists that no-one is looking to jump ship to chase that big Hollywood payday.

"Every year, you come back and everybody is still hungry, I think that's the main thing and it's such a pleasant surprise. Not a surprise but a great feeling to come back to work and still have people so excited to be there."

Prior to Modern Family, Burrell was himself a jobbing actor, whose biggest roles were opposite Nicole Kidman in Fur and Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of zombie classic Dawn of the Dead.

He says most of the cast, barring Ed O'Neill who starred in the US TV classic Married... With Children, were in the same boat.

"Everybody was working but we hadn't experienced anything like Modern Family so we don't have anybody on the show who is chomping at the bit to get on to something else, because we'd all been around for a long time and we know what it's like out there.

"If you're the cast of Friends and you have a level of success then there must be a part of you that would be like, 'Is this holding me back?' But there's none of that on this show, everybody is just lucky enough to do projects in our off-season, films and stuff but we would do this show for 20 years if they let us."

Mr Peabody & Sherman opens in cinemas in the UK on 7 February.

7 February 2014 Last updated at 01:02

The Jewish fear of intermarriage

By Erica Chernofsky BBC News Jerusalem

Benjamin Netanyahu with sons Yair (left) and Avner

Continue reading the main story

Intermarriage - when Jews wed non-Jews - has been called a threat to the future survival of Israel. So what happened when there were reports that the prime minister's son was dating a Norwegian?

The Norwegian daily Dagen last week reported that Norwegian Sandra Leikanger and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son Yair are a couple, to which the office of Mr Netanyahu has responded by insisting they are only college classmates. But the damage has already been done.

Leikanger is not Jewish, a fact that has sparked outrage in Israel, a Jewish country which since its inception has fought to have its Jewish character recognised throughout the world. While Judaism is not a proselytising religion, Leikanger, like any non-Jew, does have the option of converting should she wish to become Jewish.

Intermarriage and assimilation are quintessential Jewish fears and have been called a threat to the future survival of the relatively small Jewish nation. According to Jewish law, the religion is passed down through the mother, so if a Jewish man marries a non-Jewish woman, their children would not be considered Jews.

The chance that children of a mixed couple would keep or pass along any Jewish traditions to future generations is radically diminished. As today's rate of intermarriage among Diaspora Jews stands above 50%, many are worried that the nation that survived persecution, pogroms and the Holocaust could eventually die out of its own undoing.

The anxiety was expressed in an open letter to Yair Netanyahu by the Israeli organisation Lehava, which works to prevent assimilation, in a post on its Facebook page, which warned him that his grandparents "are turning over in their graves… they did not dream that their grandchildren would not be Jews".

The issue of intermarriage has largely been one for Diaspora Jews - the Jews who live outside Israel. Inside Israel, Jews (75% of the population) and Arabs (21%)rarely marry, but with an influx of foreign workers and globalisation of the Israeli community, in recent years the phenomenon has come to light.

"God forbid, if it's true, woe is me," says Aryeh Deri, leader of the Ultra-Orthodox Shas party, to a local radio station, lamenting the news that the prime minister's son was dating a non-Jew. "I don't like talking about private issues… but if it's true God forbid, then it's no longer a personal matter - it's the symbol of the Jewish people."

Over the weekend, Eretz Nehederet, the popular Israeli satirical television show, aired a parody showcasing infamous historical oppressors of the Jews including the biblical Pharaoh and the Spanish inquisitor. The show culminated with Yair Netanyahu's non-Jewish girlfriend, whom they called the "newest existential threat". She sang about a shikse, a derogatory term for a non-Jewish woman, sarcastically crooning that she is "worse than Hitler".

But jokes aside, even the prime minister's brother-in-law, Hagai Ben-Artzi, spoke out strongly on their affair, warning his nephew that if he doesn't end his relationship with Leikanger, it is as if he is spitting on the graves of his grandparents.

"From my point of view, if he does such a thing, I personally won't allow him to get near their graves," he told an Ultra-Orthodox website. "This is the most awful thing that is threatening and was a threat throughout the history of the Jewish people. More awful than leaving Israel is marriage with a gentile. If this happens, God forbid, I'll bury myself I don't know where. I'll walk in the streets and tear off my hair - and here this is happening."

Anyone who's watched Fiddler on the Roof, where Tevya says his daughter is dead to him for marrying a non-Jew, knows the issue has always been a sensitive one among Jews.

Chava asks her father Tevye to allow her to wed Fyedka

But Dr Daniel Gordis, an author and expert commentator on Israel and Judaism, says that has changed in the past few decades, especially in the Diaspora Jewish community.

Whereas once it was greatly frowned upon for a Jew of any stream to marry a non-Jew, today, among unaffiliated (no synagogue), non-denominational (those who don't identify with any movement), conservative or reform Jews, it is not the taboo it once was. The intermarriage rates of non-denominational Jews approach 80%, he says.

But among Orthodox Jews and in Israel, it is still much more controversial.

"It's not a racial issue, it's not a superiority issue, it's not a xenophobia issue," he says, explaining that there are two reasons for the opposition to intermarriage, one of which is that it is simply forbidden in Halacha, or Jewish law.

"The other thing is that Jews have come to see that the only real way to transmit powerful Jewish identity to their children is for them to be raised by two Jewish parents. Kids raised by one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish parent have more tepid, more fragile, thinner Jewish identities than their Jewish parents did.

"They are statistically more likely to marry non-Jews. There's no guarantee, but statistically it's almost impossible to create a child with the same sense of Jewish passion that the older generation has if he's raised by someone who doesn't share that story."

The result, he adds, is that in America, "there's a rapidly eroding sense of Jewish commitment, a complete collapsing of Jewish literacy, and a thinning of Jewish identity".

So Israelis are petrified, says Rabbi Dr Donniel Hartman, head of the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jewish studies, because since intermarriage is so rare there, when an Israeli marries a non-Jew they view it as if he is leaving Judaism.

"When you're a small people and you lose your constituents it makes you quite nervous. We are 14 million Jews in the world, that's it," he explains. "What's changed in contemporary Jewish life outside of Israel is that a Jew marrying a non-Jew doesn't necessarily mean leaving Jewish life anymore."

This is a new phenomenon in Judaism, and Hartman says Jews must rise to the challenge.

"The battle against intermarriage is a lost battle. We are a people who are intermarried - the issue is not how to stop it, but how to reach out to non-Jewish spouses and welcome them into our community," he says.

"Our outreach has to be better, our institutions have to be better, our Jewish experiences have to be more compelling, we have to start working much harder.

"Living in the modern world requires you to be nimble. Things are changing, I don't know if it's for the worse or not, that will depend on what we do. But the world is evolving, and we have to evolve with it."

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7 February 2014 Last updated at 01:00

Man travels 1,056 miles to claim bogus prize

By Geeta Pandey BBC News, Delhi

Ratan Kumar Malbisoi travelled more than a thousand miles to claim a bogus prize

Continue reading the main story

An Indian villager recently travelled more than a thousand miles to the BBC office in Delhi in an unusual quest - to claim millions of rupees he believed he had won in a "BBC lottery".

Ratan Kumar Malbisoi, a 41-year-old unemployed Indian villager, fell for a message he received on his mobile phone nearly two years ago.

"The message said I had won the BBC's national lottery for 20 or 30 million rupees ($319,000-$478,000; £194,000-£292,000). I was asked to send my details so that they could send me the money," he says.

A poor man, with little formal education, he was unable to fathom that this was a phishing message and that he was being "scammed".

Around the same time, I and several of my colleagues also received similar messages. The texts evoked much mirth, but we all deleted them and forgot about them.

But Malbisoi got in touch with the scammers, emailed them his bank details and account statement, and spoke to them several times over the past two years, beseeching them to send him the promised funds.

Last month, he travelled more than 1,700km (1,056 miles) from his remote village in the eastern state of Orissa to the BBC office in Delhi with a lot of hope.

He had borrowed money from some friends and arrived in the city while it was in the grip of a cold snap, dressed in just a shirt and a pair of trousers.

His train had arrived the evening before and he says he spent the night on the platform before reaching the BBC office in the morning.

He was referred to me because when he presented himself at the reception desk, he asked to see a Geeta or Smita - he said in one of the calls he had received from the "BBC office", the caller had identified herself by one of the two names.

What he told me was that when he received the first text message in April 2012, he lost no time in responding with his name and address. Within a few hours, the scammers called him back.

"The caller said he was the BBC's chancellor. He spoke really well. He promised me a large sum of money but said I would have to first send 12,000 rupees ($191; £117) so that he can transfer the money into an RBI account." RBI or the Reserve Bank of India is the country's central bank.

"I told them I was a very poor man and that I didn't have any money to give them. He said then they couldn't pay me any money, but over a period of time, we kept negotiating and they finally asked me for 4,000 rupees," he says.

A letter Malbisoi wrote to his scammers

Malbisoi said he was unable to pay even that amount. At one point, he says, he suggested to them to "just deduct 4,000 rupees from my winnings and send me the rest". They told him that would not be possible.

So, he sent them a letter, informing them about his poor family.

"I told them about my wife and our three daughters. I said I lived in a village on the edge of the jungle, and that I had no home and requested them to help me." He also enclosed a family photo.

He says the "BBC chancellor" was always sympathetic, he said he would come to India and visit him. The last time Malbisoi spoke to him was in November last year.

"I told him I had lost my mother and he asked me if I had received the cheque they'd sent for me. When he spoke about the cheque, I decided to come to the BBC office to find out if a cheque had arrived here for me," he says.

Malbisoi is convinced that the call came to him from Britain. On the face of it, it does look like a UK number but experts say it is very difficult to establish that it really is located there.

Cyber law expert Pavan Duggal says these are known as "mask numbers" - they usually don't emanate from a mobile phone but come from a website and one can get a number to make it look like it's originated from London or New York or Paris or, for that matter, Delhi.

Duggal describes it as an "old Nigerian 419 scam" - so called after the section of the Nigerian law which deals with cheating and fraud.

India has 890 million cell phone users

The BBC has offered guidance to people receiving these messages, which Delhi-based technology writer Prasanto K Roy says are "rampant" and "dangerous". The scammers use names like the BBC or Coca Cola because these sound credible and they are names likely to be known to the target, he says.

"And obviously there are enough [people], mostly in small towns or villages, who are not much educated and not internet or tech savvy."

In India, Roy says scammers use more text messages than emails, to target their victims because the reach of the mobile phone is much wider than computers. I receive two or three every day.

India is one of the world's fastest growing mobile phone markets with 890 million cell phone users and according to the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India, Indians send some 890 million messages every day.

Even though there is no definitive statistics available, experts say millions of these messages are spam. Add to that millions of scamming messages sent from internet-based services and the numbers become mind-boggling.

The mobile number Malbisoi gave me was answered by a man who spoke in an accent that sounded more like African than British.

He introduced himself as Scott Smith, said he was based in the UK, but refused to tell me his job title. Once I told him I was calling from the BBC office, he became increasingly aggressive.

"I am very busy and I cannot speak to you. I will report you to the police and get you investigated. I don't believe you are from the BBC and I would get you arrested if I could see you," he said before hanging up.

I'm not sure I was able to convince Malbisoi that the "BBC chancellor" he had been speaking to was in reality a scammer.

"I never felt he was trying to cheat me. I liked speaking with him, he was always very nice," he said adding that he never complained to the police.

"If they don't want to give me the money, I can't force them. It's their money."

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Health experts back car smoking ban

7 February 2014 Last updated at 01:19

Health experts urge MPs to back car smoking ban

Smoking was banned in most enclosed public spaces in England in 2007

More than 700 doctors and other health experts have put their names to a letter urging MPs to back a ban on smoking in cars with children present in England.

The issue is due to be voted on in Parliament on Monday.

The signatories to the letter in the British Medical Journal say the move is needed "to protect the well-being of children now and in the future".

They include nurses, doctors and surgeons working across the NHS.

The letter argues that second-hand smoke exposure is a "major cause of ill-health in children", particularly among the most disadvantaged groups.

It says smoking in cars exposes children to particularly "high amounts of tobacco smoke" and there is now a consensus that children should be protected from such unnecessary hazards.

It also says there are precedents to a ban, including laws to require people to wear seatbelts and, more recently, the ban on mobile phones while driving.

The signatories have been co-ordinated by Dr Nicholas Hopkinson, from Imperial College London, who is chairman of the British Thoracic Society's chronic obstructive pulmonary disease specialist advisory group.

He said: "This letter issues a powerful statement from the medical professionals of this country - the people who, every day, are treating illnesses brought on by second-hand smoke in children - about the rights of children to breathe clean air that won't make them sick.

"Next week, MPs have a chance to help protect children from the proven dangers of second-hand smoke.

"If they vote in favour, it could help protect the health of literally hundreds of thousands of children nationwide. If they vote against, it will go down in history as a huge missed opportunity."

Nurse Rebecca Sherrington, chairwoman of the Association of Respiratory Nurse Specialists, said: "Many people don't realise quite how serious second-hand smoke can be for children, especially in the concentrations that can build up in the car.

"Parents are often surprised that it can lead to illnesses such as ear infections, meningitis and cot death."

Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, added: "Bans on smoking in cars carrying children already exist and are being enforced in countries such as Australia, Canada, South Africa and the USA. It's about time that we started protecting children in this country too."

'Unnecessary intrusion'

But Simon Clark, director of smokers' lobby group Forest, said: "Smoking in cars with children is inconsiderate but there is a line the state shouldn't cross when it comes to dictating how people behave in private places.

"Very few adults smoke in a car with children these days. We urge MPs to reject this unnecessary intrusion into people's private lives and trust parents to make the right decision for their children without the need for heavy-handed state intervention."

The vote by MPs comes after the House of Lords last week backed a Labour amendment to the Children and Families Bill.

The amendment empowers, but does not compel, the government to make it a criminal offence for drivers to fail to prevent smoking in their vehicles when children are present.

The government has now told its MPs they can have a free vote on the issue.

Labour has said that if the measure does not become law before the next election, it will be included in its manifesto.

Calls to prohibit smoking in private vehicles when children are present have been raised in Parliament on several occasions since the 2007 ban on smoking in public places came into effect.

The Welsh government has said it would consider a ban should an awareness campaign not lead to a drop in children's exposure to second-hand smoke.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, Lib Dem MSP Jim Hume has indicated he will be presenting a bill this year to bring in a ban, while Northern Ireland's health minister has announced plans for a consultation on the issue.

News Corp profits beat estimates

7 February 2014 Last updated at 00:23

News Corp profits beat estimates despite advertising fall

Rupert Murdoch still controls most of News Corp

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has posted better-than-expected profits, even as advertising revenues continue to fall at its newspaper businesses.

Net income was $151m (£93m) in the quarter ending in December, which was higher than analyst estimates.

Revenue fell by 4% to $2.24bn, largely due to falling sales at the media company's Australian newspapers.

News Corp's chief executive Robert Thompson described the advertising market as "challenging".

"We are continuing to be disciplined on costs, while making opportunistic investments that will extend our revenue reach," he said in a statement.

"The digital transformation is certainly underway, as the acquisition of Storyful and the robust growth in digital sales at HarperCollins attest."

The media company, which owns a stable of newspaper titles such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, has been trying to monetise its online offerings, which draw lower advertising rates than its print publications.

Media empire

News Corp is one of the world's biggest media conglomerates

News Corp split its publishing and entertainment divisions into two separate companies in June last year.

Aside from book publisher HarperCollins, the company also owns the Times and the Sun newspapers in the UK and several titles in Australia.

Last December, it bought Dublin-based social media news agency Storyful for $25m.

Under its entertainment arm, News Corp owns the 21st Century Fox film studio and television channels.

However, news publishing comprises more than 70% of the company's revenue.

Shares of News Corp rose by 1.4% in after-hours US trading following its earnings announcement.

7 February 2014 Last updated at 01:03

Power lines: No child leukaemia risk

By Caroline Parkinson Health editor, BBC News website

Children who live near overhead power lines do not have an increased risk of developing leukaemia, a study has said.

Data on 16,500 children who developed leukaemia in Britain between 1962 and 2008 was analysed.

The paper found no increased leukaemia risk for those living near power lines from the 1980s onwards - but a higher risk did exist in the 1960s and 70s.

The researchers said the findings were "reassuring" but work was being done to understand the historical patterns.

Leukaemia accounts for around a third of all cancers diagnosed in children.

Around 460 new cases of leukaemia are diagnosed in children under the age of 15 each year in Britain.

Historic risk

This research, by the Childhood Cancer Research Group at the University of Oxford, used cancer information drawn from the National Registry of Childhood Tumours.

The study, funded by Children with Cancer UK, included nearly 16,500 children born in Britain who were diagnosed with leukaemia between 1962 and 2008.

They were compared with around 20,000 children who were born in the same area who did not develop cancer.

When the data for the whole period was analysed it showed no increased risk from living near power lines. However, when the analysis was broken down into decades, an historic increased risk was seen for those born in the 1960s and 70s, who lived within about one-third of a mile (600m) of a power line.

Those born from the 1980s onwards did not have an increased risk.

The researchers say this "strongly suggests" there is no direct biological effect of power lines on leukaemia risk.

Kathryn Bunch, who led the study, said: "It's very encouraging to see that in recent decades there has been no increased risk of leukaemia among children born near overhead power lines.

"More research is needed to determine precisely why previous evidence suggested a risk prior to 1980, but parents can be reassured from the findings of this study that overhead power lines don't increase their child's risk of leukaemia."

'Could be risk'

She told the BBC: " I would like to stress it's very encouraging that this study gives such reassuring information to parents.

"But I have to be honest, until we can explain what caused the increased risk in the earlier decades, we can't rule out the possibility that in some circumstances there could be a risk."

Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK's head of health information, said: "There has been a lot of concern that overhead power lines could increase the risk of cancer, particularly leukaemia, in children.

"This study is reassuring for anxious parents, as it indicates that overhead power lines don't cause leukaemia or other cancers in children."

The researchers say they do not know for certain why the historic increased risk existed.

They are carrying out further research looking at whether there has been a change in the pollutants emitted: if the spike was in some way connected to the construction of the power lines and has since diminished - or if there has been a shift in the characteristics of the people who live near power lines, as increased leukaemia risk has been linked to higher economic status.

Man on GBH charge over baby injuries

7 February 2014 Last updated at 00:59

Man on GBH charge over baby injuries in Twinbrook

Police investigating injuries sustained by a baby have charged a man with grievous bodily harm.

The baby, who was brought to the Royal Victoria Hospital on Wednesday from a house in Twinbrook, on the outskirts of west Belfast, is in a critical condition.

Forensic officers have been examining a property at Glasvey Park.

The 23-year-old man is due to appear at Craigavon Magistrates Court on Friday.

Keeping a Colossal secret

7 February 2014 Last updated at 00:49

Lifting the lid on a Colossal secret

By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

A re-enactment of an attack by Colossus on the German Lorenz cipher machine at Bletchley Park

As the code-cracking Colossus celebrates its 70th anniversary, John Cane, a former Post Office engineer who helped maintain it, reminisces for the first time about working on the pioneering machine. His testimony gives a glimpse into the early days of GCHQ's efforts to employ technology in its spying efforts.

When history came calling for John Cane, he thought it meant he was in big trouble.

At the time, in 1943, Mr Cane was a 19-year-old engineer maintaining telephone exchanges for the Post Office.

He had just finished a night shift at an exchange in Battersea and was asked to hang on in the morning as the regional inspector wanted a word.

"I thought, 'What have I done now?'" says Mr Cane.

Nothing, as it turned out. Well, nothing bad. His skill with a soldering iron and toolkit had got him earmarked for a very special project - one that would save countless lives and shorten the war by years.

Park life

Mr Cane was one of a small band of skilled telephone engineers selected to help create Colossus - the world's first electronic, digital computer. The Allies were building the machine to help unscramble the messages passing between Hitler and his generals.

The inspector told Mr Cane he was off nights and should report, complete with tool bag, the next day to Dollis Hill - the Post Office's research station.

"The following morning up I went to Dollis Hill and was shown in to a room there in which were half a dozen people like me in a state of mystification," Mr Cane says.

For the first two days, Mr Cane and his fellow engineers were put to work stripping circuitry off some old iron switching racks.

"Then came the big moment when we were shown in to an office and had a meeting chaired by the then director of Dollis Hill and he told us what we were destined for," says Mr Cane. "We were to build this equipment called Colossus on these racks and that it was really the top secret project of them all, not to be ever mentioned outside to anybody.

Wiring up the machine was a colossal job in itself

"From then on we kept our eyes down on Colossus and when we finished the wiring on the racks the whole thing was moved to Bletchley Park and we followed it there," he says. "At Bletchley we assembled the racks together, cabled it up and testing began."

The design for Colossus that Mr Cane and his colleagues were working to was drawn up by Tommy Flowers, a senior Post Office engineer who had been helping code crackers at Bletchley with their work. Perhaps unsurprisingly his design was based on equipment found in telephone exchanges and made liberal use of relays, valves and auto-selectors.

Colossus was designed to tackle messages enciphered with what was known as a Lorenz machine that had, unbeknownst to the German generals who used it, a fatal flaw. Bletchley mathematician Bill Tutte discovered a pattern in the encrypted messages that, with the help of Colossus, could be used to unscramble them. It let the Allies read exactly what the Germans were planning and gave them key insights that helped defeat the Nazi war machine.

Secret war

Mr Cane's war was spent at Bletchley maintaining the 10 Colossus machines, known as Colossi, built to crack those messages. All Mr Cane and his 20 colleagues knew was that the machines were cracking codes. The intricacies of how was left to the mathematicians.

Margaret Bullen recalls her time working on the Colossus machine

Talking for the first time to the BBC, Mr Cane says he kept the secret of his involvement with Colossus quiet for decades. He has only spoken about his experiences now as the story of Colossus is slowly being uncovered.

"I'm glad that it has been declassified," he says. "Before then you could not say a word." And he didn't. For decades he "kept his mouth shut" and said nothing of what he worked on to his family.

Mr Cane's testimony also sheds light on what happened to the machines after World War Two. On the orders of Churchill the plans were burned and most of them were destroyed. Most of them.

Two, says Mr Cane, were moved to Eastcote, the initial home of the UK spying effort that would eventually become GCHQ. He took up the offer of a job helping re-house the two machines and kept them running, largely because they were still useful in helping British spies read messages sent by the Russians.

Sadly, says Mr Cane, the veil of secrecy that kept it hidden during the war was not maintained at Eastcote.

"One of the blocks we installed this marvellous top secret equipment in had a 3ft (1m) wide hole in the wall," says Mr Cane. "And the children used to climb through that hole and pinch our tools."

After the usefulness of Colossus waned, Mr Cane stayed on at GCHQ, which by then had moved to its current home in Cheltenham. All he can say of that work is that his interest was taken up with "other equipments".

But if little can be said about his later work, more is now being said about the key role he, and those other engineers, played in the Allied war effort. Despite this, he is modest about the significance of that task.

"The way I looked at it was that we'd done a job, enjoyed ourselves doing it and been quite safe," he says. "No-one was dropping bombs on us or doing anything like that."

"There's pride mixed in with that naturally, but it was also a period of technical development and interest that I wouldn't have missed for anything."

7 February 2014 Last updated at 00:35

Michael Gove's favourite history book

Magazine Monitor A collection of cultural artefacts

Continue reading the main story

In a speech to the London Academy of Excellence, Education Secretary Michael Gove mentioned one of his favourite history books - George Dangerfield's The Strange Death of Liberal England. Sean Walsh looks at this classic.

It might seem an eccentric choice - why would Michael Gove pick a poised, sceptical 1935 volume about Irish home rule, suffragism, trade union radicalism and the collapse of Asquith's Liberal government?

Well, most obviously, it's a masterpiece of sorts - like Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians, it's full of acerbic biographical portraits, keenly observed ironies and lovely, polished sentences. Eric Hobsbawm, the great Marxist historian, said it was "wrong on most details, but still the most exciting way to start looking at the nation's history during this period".

And maybe some of its Gove appeal is there in "wrong on most details". It's the sort of book a lot of professional historians feel uncomfortable with, and as the pitched battles of history syllabus reform make clear, they aren't Gove's natural constituency. The Strange Death has big ideas, fine narrative style and biographical curiosity - it's closer to Gove's old trade, journalism.

It could have a lesson for the Conservatives, too. Every now and again, Dangerfield looks for a straight answer - why a rise in union violence, why do suffragettes start breaking windows - but then just shrugs and suggests it's a "bewildering mystery". The British people have their own temper, and that temper was turning away from respectability.

Optimistically, the Conservatives can see themselves as the force that exploited another of these turns - when the prosperous millennial Blairite consensus fell apart, they stepped in. Reading The Strange Death should remind them that seeming-small movements fronted by eccentrics can suddenly swell and overturn governments.

There's, of course, one more reason it's an immortal - that title. And Gove couldn't resist. He said that someone should write about "the strange death of the sink school". It's a great tradition. Many, many things have suffered strange deaths after Dangerfield - Marxism, Labour Scotland, the British motorcycle industry, Tory England, architectural criticism and neo-liberalism (though that's apparently a "strange non-death").

Finally, there's a little party trolling in there too. It's a name perfect for teasing the coalition partners, with its reminder of former glories and abject failure - and that titular death began with a Conservative revolt over constitutional reform…

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VIDEO: Bletchley code-breaking re-enacted

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Code-breaking feat re-enacted at Bletchley

6 February 2014 Last updated at 19:13 GMT

The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, has staged a re-enactment of an attack by a Colossus computer on a German Lorenz cipher machine using a rebuilt Colossus computer.

The re-enactment comes 70 years after Colossus, Britain's first electronic computer, went into operation to help decrypt the messages of German High Command.

Andy Clark, a trustee of the museum, talked BBC News through the many complex processes involved in breaking the code, which included using the Tunny cipher machine, a British copy of the Lorenz machine which was built without ever seeing an actual Lorenz cipher.

Video journalist: Neil Bowdler

Vidic to leave Manchester United

7 February 2014 Last updated at 00:22

Nemanja Vidic to leave Manchester United at end of season

Manchester United captain Nemanja Vidic will leave at the end of this season.

The 32-year-old Serbia defender made his United debut in 2006, but his contract expires in the summer.

He told United's website:  "I'm not considering staying in England as the only club I ever wanted to play for here is Manchester United.

"I never could have imagined winning 15 trophies. However, I have decided I will move on at the end of this season. I want to challenge myself again."

Vidic, whose £7m move to Old Trafford from Spartak Moscow was announced on Christmas Day 2005, captained United to the their historic 20th top-flight title last season - his fifth and the last under Sir Alex Ferguson.

"I have had eight wonderful years here," he added.

"My time at this great club will always rank as the best years of my career.

"I will certainly never forget that fantastic night in Moscow [when United beat Chelsea to win the 2008 Champions League], memories that will live with me and the fans for ever."

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