General news

• Cameron wins Merkel boost before facing EU leaders

  16-12-2015 20:28
  
  BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) - David Cameron won encouragement from Europe's powerbroker Angela Merkel as he prepared for a summit on Thursday that could set Britain on course to stay in or quit the European Union.
  
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• Britons sceptical over Cameron's EU reform bid - poll

  16-12-2015 20:14
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Fewer than one in five Britons think Prime Minister David Cameron can secure all the reforms he wants from the European Union, according to an opinion poll on Wednesday.
  
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• Russian strikes against Syrian opposition are helping IS - Hammond

  16-12-2015 17:35
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Wednesday that Russia's continued focus on targeting most of its air strikes in Syria against opposition forces rather than Islamic State was helping the militants advance.
  
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• UK to allow shale gas fracking beneath national parks

  16-12-2015 16:52
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - MPs on Wednesday voted in favour of the use of fracking to extract shale gas under national parks, weakening a decision against fracking in national parks made earlier this year and giving shale gas explorers access to more resources.
  
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• Trump loses bid to stop Scottish wind farm near luxury golf course

  16-12-2015 15:52
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top court threw out a bid by Donald Trump to stop a wind farm being build near his luxury Scottish golf course, prompting the U.S. Republican presidential front runner to rebuke the Scottish nationalist government.
  
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• Eagle gift from Reagan fetches top price in Thatcher sale

  16-12-2015 15:01
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - A gift from former U.S. President Ronald Reagan fetched top price in a sale of ex British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's personal possessions which raised more than 3 million pounds ($4.5 million) overall, auctioneer Christie's said.
  
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• EU migrants feel like scapegoats as Britain seeks benefit curbs

  16-12-2015 13:56
  
  CHAFFORD HUNDRED, England - Ella Vine no longer speaks her native Polish at bus stops and train stations in Britain because there have been times she has been told to "shut up", or worse, by fellow passengers.
  
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• UK should put carbon limit on back-up plants to meet climate goals

  16-12-2015 12:26
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Britain needs to put a carbon emissions limit on power plants bidding for back-up capacity contracts as an auction last week laid bare the contradiction between support for dirty emergency power stations and ambitions to tackle climate change.
  
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• Bristol's drug pricing under fire as UK agency rejects Opdivo

  16-12-2015 12:17
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Bristol-Myers Squibb's closely watched new drug Opdivo, one of the first of a new wave of cancer medicines that boost the immune system, has been rejected as too expensive for treating lung cancer by Britain's cost watchdog.
  
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• New CEO cuts management layer at struggling Rolls-Royce

  16-12-2015 11:23
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Rolls-Royce , the British engineering company which has issued four profit warnings in little over a year, is scrapping a layer of senior management in the first major move by new boss Warren East to try to turn the business around.
  
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• Former PM Major says EU exit would leave Britain in dangerous 'splendid isolation'

  16-12-2015 10:26
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Quitting the European Union would leave Britain in dangerous "splendid isolation" and could lead to the break up of the United Kingdom itself, former Prime Minister John Major said on Wednesday.
  
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• Ministers 'should have been open' about secret documents to Prince Charles

  16-12-2015 09:37
  
  Senior Tory MP Bernard Jenkin criticises Cabinet Office for fighting three-year freedom of information battle to keep its so-called ‘precedent book’ secretMinisters should have been more open about the fact Prince Charles has been receiving confidential cabinet papers for decades, the chair of the Commons constitutional committee has said. Related: Read the Prince Charles 'black spider' memos in fullContinue reading...
  
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• Old people can put things right at Christmas | Stewart Dakers

  16-12-2015 09:30
  
  Our capacity to look back at the impact of past misdemeanours allows us to make amends at upcoming family visits“Peace on earth, goodwill to all men. You have to be joking.” Charlie’s on form.I’m visiting the EPU (elderly persons’ unit) and half a dozen of us are in the common room “looking forward” to the Christmas season. Already it’s clear that for some at least, it is a less than pleasing prospect. Continue reading...
  
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• An autistic person's Christmas: not bah humbug, just bald incomprehension

  16-12-2015 09:30
  
  The festive season can be a minefield of social expectations – for people with autism, being allowed time out might be the greatest gift of all Sometime around the beginning of December my colleagues start to speak a foreign language – Christmasese. I can’t help thinking that for those of us who are autistic it should come with a phrase book of ready-made questions and answers. But it doesn’t, so we get through as best we can.At work it’s the social side of Christma
  
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• UK premiere of The Force Awakens vies to outdo Hollywood as it smashes presales records

  16-12-2015 09:10
  
  London’s Leicester Square transformed into a Star Wars extravaganza as European premiere prepares to take place across three cinemas, with a red carpet snaking around the entire pedestrianised areaThe new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, has obliterated records for advance ticket sales on both sides of the Atlantic ahead of the European premiere of JJ Abrams’ film in London’s Leicester Square tonight. Related: Star Wars: The Force Awakens review – a spectacular ho
  
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• From Beyoncé to Gary Neville: what are celebrities doing for their home cities?

  16-12-2015 09:02
  
  From Beyoncé funding housing in Houston to Gary Neville hosting the homeless in Manchester, celebrities are trying to do good in their home towns. But is this really a new model for making our cities better?With Madonna, it’s youth programmes in Detroit. Beyoncé has funded housing in Houston. This year alone, basketball star LeBron James announced a vast scholarship programme at the University of Akron; Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville agreed to lend the former Manchester stock ex
  
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• Star Wars: The Force Awakens review – a spectacular homecoming

  16-12-2015 09:00
  
  JJ Abrams banishes memories of George Lucas’s prequels with this outrageously exciting and romantic return to a world you hadn’t realised you’d missed so much• This review is spoiler free Related: Star Wars: The Force Awakens – initial verdicts suggest 'overwhelming experience' It’s here — the real Episode Four! From the first few minutes, or even the first few frames, JJ Abrams’s exciting, spectacular and seductively innocent Star Wars: The Force A
  
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• Jonathan Jones's top 10 art shows of 2015

  16-12-2015 09:00
  
  Jackson Pollock’s dark years, Mat Collishaw’s monstrous animations, Bridget Riley’s debt to Seurat and Goya’s terrifying imaginings: all were wonderful but topping the list is a brilliant portal on the prehistoric imagination – Celts• More on the best culture of 2015
  I loved this exhibition. It’s the first show that has made perfect use of the British Museum’s huge new exhibition space (although Defining Beauty, the blockbuster about Greek art, was
  
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• Cat calendar featuring Russian orthodox priests goes viral

  16-12-2015 09:00
  
  Bearded clerics make rare foray into pop culture to pose with their pets for a glossy 2016 calendar. Global Voices reportsA calendar featuring Russian Orthodox priests posing at home with their feline pets has gone viral in Russia. Priest + Cat is published by an association of Christian artists, who commissioned a photographer to capture 12 smiling clerics in traditional robes. Continue reading...
  
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• Markets await Fed US interest rate decision – business live

  16-12-2015 08:59
  
  All eyes on the Federal Reserve as investors wait to see if Janet Yellen announces the hike in borrowing costs since 2006 Introduction: It’s Fed Day7.59am GMTCentral bank decision rooms are rarely places of peace and tranquility (as regular observers of the European Central Bank know well!). And the members of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) are unlikely to be united at today’s meeting.Given the Fed’s ability to surprise and the current uncertain enviro
  
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• Luther – review: still an incredibly stupid programme – but that’s always been its appeal

  16-12-2015 08:30
  
  Idris Elba is back and as good as he’s ever been in a two-part special Luther … this time it’s slow, deliberate, and camper than everLuther (BBC1) was last seen in 2013, standing on Southwark Bridge and contemplating an uncertain future. And that seemed like a fitting place to leave him, really; especially since Idris Elba had bigger things on his horizon, such as a future of relentlessly denying that he ever wanted to be James Bond.However, he’s back. And since his wife
  
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• How the moors changed my mind about the Brontës | Lucy Mangan

  16-12-2015 08:30
  
  Charlotte and Emily were the fantasists, Anne was the realist. That’s how I staunchly believed things to be – until a recent trip to HaworthI’ve just got back from a week’s filming in Haworth and its environs – its bleak, freezing, inhospitable, endlessly compelling environs – for a documentary about … yes, you guessed it: the Brontës. There were three of us presenting, each going in to bat for a different member of the family.The novelis
  
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• Families doubt plans to close NHS long-stay units will improve care

  16-12-2015 08:30
  
  People with learning disabilities need to be able to challenge inpatient admissions and discrimination, say campaignersIt is a year since Claire Dyer’s family successfully campaigned for her release from a medium secure hospital unit in Brighton, a 500 mile, 10-hour round trip from her Swansea home. After a 96,000-signature petition, the local health board reversed its decision and the autistic 21-year-old was granted bespoke, home-based support. Related: ‘We must stop learning disab
  
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• The 50 best films of 2015 in the UK – No 3: A Syrian Love Story

  16-12-2015 08:25
  
  Continuing our countdown of the best movies released in the UK this year, we applaud the heartbreaking story of a couple whose relationship disintegrates as they flee the horrors of SyriaThe tragic urgency of Sean McAllister’s superlative documentary A Syrian Love Story has been renewed by events, now that the British Parliament has given the go-ahead for RAF Tornadoes to join bombing raids on Isis positions in Syria. How many refugees will be created by this? Will the UK be liable to take
  
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• Republican debate: Rubio and Cruz vie to eclipse 'chaos candidate' Trump

  16-12-2015 08:17
  
  Candidates go head to head on immigration, surveillance and foreign policyJeb Bush calls Trump ‘chaos candidate’ who would be ‘chaos president’Republican presidential debate – as it happenedThe Republican party’s next-generation candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz went head-to-head on immigration reform, surveillance and US foreign policy in the final presidential debate of the year, battling to claim the mantle as the most viable alternative to the bombastic
  
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• End of year anxiety? Here are five steps to getting what you want in 2016

  16-12-2015 08:17
  
  Ditch perfectionism, be clear about what you want and take a bigger risk next year – try these five ways to cultivate successIt’s the end of the year and we start assessing what we have and haven’t achieved in the past 12 months. If you started 2015 filled with big plans that haven’t materialised, now is the time to work out why. Below I explain the five mindsets and excuses that stop us living our dreams and how to overcome them in 2016. Recognise yourself in any of them
  
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• The Hateful Eight review: Agatha Christie with gags, guns and Samuel L Jackson

  16-12-2015 08:08
  
  A blood-splattered murder mystery in 19th-century Wyoming is the notional plot for Tarantino’s swaggering off-message and old-fashioned three-hour masterpieceThe brilliant and pitiless Quentin Tarantino now gives us a vast American epic set mostly in just one room. In fact, the various sections and corners of that room start to feel as distant as cities or deserts. At one stage, a character suggests dividing this space to represent the Unionist North and Confederate South, and it’s n
  
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• You'd better not cry: kids weeping on Santa's knee – in pictures

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  For years, excited children have been queuing up at malls and fairs to catch a glimpse of Father Christmas. But sometimes it all gets a bit much – and photographers have been on hand to capture the consequences Continue reading...
  
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• Why is ‘yellowface’ wrong yet pantomime dames are OK? | Helen Lewis

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  The casting of a Japanese character in the new Ab Fab movie has caused offence –but are we being selective in the caricatures we choose to attack?How can I put this? Wee Jimmy Krankie in yellowface is not the hill I want to die on. But let’s rewind: on Monday the American comedian Margaret Cho tweeted a magnificent denunciation of the news that Janette Tough, the Scottish schoolboy-impersonator, is to appear in the new Absolutely Fabulous film as a Japanese fashion designer called Hu
  
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• Trafficked into slavery on a Thai fishing boat: 'I thought I’d die there'

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Higher wages lure as many as 1 million Cambodians to Thailand each year, but without documentation they are easy targets for forced labour and exploitationThree years ago, worried that his earnings as a builder were barely enough to feed his family, Seuy San began to contemplate his prospects over the border in Thailand.
  Like the hundreds of thousands of his fellow Cambodians who migrate in search of work each year, he had a simple but powerful motivation: “I heard there were better jobs i
  
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• Tory co-chairman claimed Obama sent pollster to UK to stop Miliband, book says

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Lord Feldman made claim about pollster Jim Messina in election night victory speech, say authors Philip Cowley and Dennis KavanaghBarack Obama sent his pollster Jim Messina to the UK in 2014 with his blessing and a message to stop Ed Miliband wining the general election, it was claimed in a victory speech given by a Conservative Party co-chairman the night of the election.Lord Feldman’s remarks are described in a new book on the 2015 election by two academics, Philip Cowley and Dennis Kava
  
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• Think about it: why budding philosophers shouldn't sit exams

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Formal tests can’t measure complex ideas and creative thinking – so the University of Essex has ditched them altogetherUntil recently, philosophy students at the University of Essex – as in most other British universities – took written exams in the summer, after completing coursework during the year. But we have just scrapped all formal exams in philosophy for second- and final-year students. Related: Philosophy is for posh, white boys with trust funds' – why are t
  
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• The top 10 classical concerts and operas of 2015

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Andris Nelsons and Simon Rattle led masterful surveys of Beethoven and Sibelius, the Proms made it great to stay up late, and opera brought moments both comic and surreal. Our combined critics list classical music’s highlights of the yearMore on the best culture of 2015The highpoint of Andris Nelsons’ final season as the CBSO’s music director – a concert performance of Wagner’s final music drama of almost alarming maturity, unswerving dramatic intensity and ravishin
  
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• Rooftop cities: the transformation of Delhi's once affordable 'barsati' homes

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Top-floor living in India’s capital has long been associated with the simple ‘barsati’ home but, as construction booms and property prices rise, these rooftop rooms are disappearing, or turning into boutique expat residencesIn 1924, New York publisher Condé Nast built a duplex apartment on a rooftop on 1040 Park Avenue. Decorated by interior designer and socialite Elsie de Wolfe, the grand space, with its 75ft conservatory and multiple entertaining spaces, became famous
  
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• 'Listen closely with both eyes': the spellbinding theatre of Joël Pommerat

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Peter Brook calls him a ‘superb artisan’ and his classic Cet Enfant has been celebrated for its uncompromising look at family life. Now, Joël Pommerat is reviving a Pinocchio that startles adults and childrenSeconds after it starts, Joël Pommerat’s version of Pinocchio plunges the audience into darkness. This is not uncommon in Pommerat’s shows, which are punctuated with blackouts and are dimly lit at the best of times. Pinocchio’s narrator – or, mor
  
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• Homes with Santa-friendly fireplaces – in pictures

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Coming down the chimney will be a doddle for Father Christmas as these properties all feature multiple fireplaces Continue reading...
  
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• Hallelujah! History of King's College chapel finally published

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Manuscript tracing 500 years of the celebrated Cambridge building sees the light of day – 41 years after its author’s deathIn what must be one of the most monumental examples of an academic’s dedication to their subject – a history of King’s College chapel, Cambridge, that ran to more than 20 times its commissioned length and was incomplete when its author died – has finally been published.King’s College fellow, historian and archivist John Saltmarsh, wh
  
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• David Cameron urged to reconsider solar subsidy cuts following Paris climate deal

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Critics say the PM should make no move to cut subsidies until he knows how it would affect the UK’s ability to meet its Paris accord obligationsThe prime minister has been urged to intervene in planned cuts to solar power subsidies as a response to the signing of the Paris agreement on climate change at the weekend.The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) is expected to announce a slashing of the subsidies for solar panels, potentially by nearly 90%, in line with a concerted push
  
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• Beyond Monopoly: the board games to play this Christmas

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  Leave the old property game in the cupboard where it belongs, with options from a lighthearted matching game to saving humanity from a deadly pandemicChristmas is here! And so too is the time of year when families across the nation drag out their one dusty copy of Monopoly, play it for half an hour before realising Monopoly is a bit crap, and then watch as the game drags on for another three hours before a drunk uncle storms off in outrage after losing their final property to a precocious five-y
  
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• Army urged to stop using armed teenagers to guard barracks

  16-12-2015 08:00
  
  ForcesWatch report calls on UK military to stop recruiting minors altogether, as armed forces bill due for third reading
  Britain’s military should stop using armed under-18s to guard soldiers’ barracks, a report into Ministry of Defence recruitment practices is set to say.The release of the report later on Wednesday by the pressure group ForcesWatch, timed to coincide with the third reading of the armed forces bill in the House of Commons, calls on the UK to stop recruiting juveniles
  
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• Justin Bieber, Joan Didion and the unicorn emoji: the style stars of 2015

  16-12-2015 07:45
  
  Who set the fashion agenda in 2015? It’s not who you think. Our fashion team pick the wardrobes we loved to look at this year (and there’s barely a red-carpet gown in sight)Having style is about using how you look to say something about yourself. Being a style leader, however – that’s more than that. When the way you look not only says something about you, but also engages with or captures something about the world around you: boom. You’re in. Our style stars of 201
  
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• Edith Piaf’s Paris: exploring the Little Sparrow’s city

  16-12-2015 07:30
  
  Paris is celebrating the anniversary of the singer’s birth, on 19 December, with a series of events, but from cafes to cabaret venues, it’s possible to tour the old haunts of her Belleville neighbourhood and beyond all year roundAs the legend goes, Edith Piaf was born in a doorway at 72 rue de Belleville in the 20th arrondissement on 19 December 1915, the daughter of a busker and a cafe singer. Above the cracked marble doorstep is a plaque that says her voice would go on to touch the
  
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• Los Angeles public schools to reopen after hoax terror threat

  16-12-2015 07:13
  
  FBI and local police deem it safe to re-open schools after inspecting more than 1,500 sites and concluding there was no credible threat of violenceAuthorities in Los Angeles have ordered schools to reopen on Wednesday after concluding that a threat of violence which triggered mass school closures was not credible.The Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police inspected more than 1,500 sites on Tuesday and deemed them safe, prompting relief but also renewed scrutiny of the Los Angeles Unifi
  
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• Dormcore: 10 of the best winter pyjamas – in pictures

  16-12-2015 07:05
  
  Dormcore is fast becoming a movement: luxury pyjamas (at mostly non-luxury prices) that are nice enough to wear for an early-morning milk run. Here are our top 10 Continue reading...
  
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• Death penalty rates plunge to lowest level in the US since 1970s

  16-12-2015 07:00
  
  Even in the states most enthusiastic about capital punishment – Texas, Missouri and Georgia – executions and death sentences are dramatically downThe painfully slow death of the death penalty in the United States continued to play itself out in 2015, reducing the ultimate punishment to levels not seen for the past 40 years, according to two new reports.According to the annual report of the Death Penalty Information Center, capital punishment showed a sharp decline nationwide on all o
  
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• Can we define ‘progressive’ in a way that doesn’t mean ‘hates Tories’? | Rafael Behr

  16-12-2015 07:00
  
  Tribalism is a strength and a weakness on the left. But now efforts are under way to harness and temper itWhy don’t they just go and join the Tories? Most Labour MPs who have expressed discontent with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership have faced the question at some point. Few bother to respond, usually because the tone of inquiry is abusive. But refusal to accept the premise of a spiteful question doesn’t mean there is no answer. Related: How can we have a more balanced debate about
  
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• Are we entering the age of crowdsourced organ donations?

  16-12-2015 07:00
  
  Now the ability to make a splash on social media could determine whether patients live or dieOne day last January, Eugene Melnyk summoned his private pilot to his home in Barbados. The loquacious 56-year-old owner of the Ottawa Senators ice hockey team had been feeling listless – he was fighting the urge to drift off whenever he sat down, and he found himself cold, shivering even as a warm Caribbean breeze drifted through the house. Now he wanted a second opinion. “I&n
  
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• A cycling return home: exploring the lost lanes of Wales

  16-12-2015 07:00
  
  A new guidebook to meandering rural bike rides helps reintroduce Emily Chappell to the countryside of her mid-Wales childhood“Oh, I don’t know …” says my father, shaking his head and sucking his teeth, as if I’d asked him to make a much more serious decision than coming out for a ride with me on the only sunny day of the week.“It’ll be fun!” I attempt to convince him. “We haven’t cycled together for – well, it’s got to be y
  
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• China's Xi Jinping says internet users must be free to speak their minds

  16-12-2015 06:52
  
  Even as prominent free speech advocate is put on trial for online posts, president says governments must respect citizens’ right to exchange ideasChinese citizens should have the right to speak their minds on the internet, president Xi Jinping has claimed, just two days after a prominent free speech advocate was put on trial for sending seven tweets.Related: Scuffles outside Beijing court as human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang goes on trialContinue reading...
  
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• Republican debate: Cruz and Rubio vie to eclipse 'chaos candidate' Trump

  16-12-2015 06:07
  
  Candidates go head to head on immigration, surveillance and foreign policyJeb Bush calls Trump ‘chaos candidate’ who would be ‘chaos president’Republican presidential debate – as it happenedThe Republican Party’s next-generation candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz went head-to-head on immigration reform, surveillance and US foreign policy in the final presidential debate of the year, battling to claim the mantle as the most viable alternative to the bombastic
  
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