The Living Archives

A theatre in west London is hoping to offer a "lifeline" for freelancers struggling because of the precarious nature of creative industries.Actor Adrian Lester CBE, is patron of SCRUM theatre, a cooperative of actors and writers which opens in Hammersmith on Thursday.The venue is based in the council’s old archives building on Talgarth Road.Co-leads Lucie Dawkins and Dom Applewhite said they hope the centre will fill a resource gap, support artists and "foster the next generation".They added: "In a crisis for the arts, we want to create a space where creatives can find their heat and light, helping safeguard the next generation of makers and audiences in UK theatre."The co-leads said: “The vast majority of the UK theatre industry is made up of freelancers, and this can be a brutal environment.They said the UK's freelance nature within the cultural industries and low government spending on them mean they can "often overlook basic needs".The venue features three rehearsal rooms, a script library, a self-tape studio, a workroom for scenic designers and prop makers and a large performance space.Artist Will Dawkins has decorated the theatre with custom murals celebrating key figures in theatre history, including the renowned actress Sarah Bernhardt, trailblazing black actor Ira Aldridge, and queer poet Federico García Lorca.

A seven-year-old cat who lives at a safe house for women has been recognised nationally for his "incredible gift of empathy".Black and white Marley beat thousands of other entries to be named Cats Protection's National Cat of the Year 2024.Caritas Bakhita House in central London, which adopted the pet four years ago, offers a safe place for those who have been enslaved, exploited and trafficked."I'm so proud Marley has won National Cat of the Year - he's a wonderful example of the power of love," said Karen Anstiss, head of Caritas Bakhita House."Often Marley placing a paw on our guests' legs is the first kindness they've experienced in years."He has this incredible gift of empathy and has assisted many, many women along the road to recovery."Marley was adopted by the safe house in Westminster - currently home to 11 women from 11 countries - after he was living in a rescue shelter. He had previously lived with a family whose other cat bullied him."Before he went into rescue, I think he had a hard time. So, he recognises our guests' trauma because he has suffered too," Ms Anstiss said."Initially he sits really close, to see how the women respond. Then he gently puts a paw on their leg letting them know they're not alone."We had one guest who was so traumatised she didn't speak to us - only to Marley - and because she trusted him, over time we were able to reach her."

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. Another 10 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians in Israel.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”.

Just as crowds had gathered to mourn some of those killed in Tuesday’s wave of pager-bomb attacks, an explosion sparked chaos in Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut.A video captured the blast, showing a man lying on the ground and panicked people, some screaming, running away.All this, moments before funerals were due to start for an 11-year-old boy and three Hezbollah members killed the previous day.In the surrounding area there was bedlam as the sound of the explosion echoed through the streets. The chants stopped. Those gathered looked at each other, some incredulous.As reports spread that this was part of a second wave of explosions now targeting walkie-talkies, no electronic equipment was considered safe.Hezbollah supporters stopped our team several times, demanding we did not use our phones or our camera.One of our producers received a message from a friend, who said she had changed her Lebanese SIM card to an international number, concerned that her phone could explode, too.The confusion was made worse by rumours that spread on social media; one of them suggested that even solar panels were blowing up.Lebanese officials said at least 20 people were killed and 450 others wounded across the country, with fires said to have broken out in dozens of homes, shops, and vehicles.Already, the latest attacks are being seen as another humiliation for the Iranian-backed group, and a possible indication that its entire communication network may have been infiltrated by Israel.

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.

I am in a high-end coffee shop in a tech-heavy area of San Francisco, staring suspiciously into a cup of espresso. This is no conventional coffee: it is made without using a single coffee bean.It comes from Atomo, one of a band of alt-coffee start-ups hoping to revolutionise the world of brewed coffee.“We take great offence when someone says that we're a coffee substitute,” says Andy Kleitsch, the chief executive of Seattle based start-up Atomo, from whose pure, beanless ground product my espresso has been made.Traditional coffee substitutes have a reputation for not tasting much like coffee and are usually caffeine-free.However, the newcomers intend to replicate one of the world’s most popular beverages from taste, to caffeine punch, to drinking experience – and the first of this nascent industry’s beanless concoctions have begun to appear.They say there's a strong environmental argument for their beanless brews.According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, coffee cultivation is currently the sixth largest cause of deforestation.That impact is expected to widen as demand increases: consumption is fast rising in traditional tea drinking countries like India and China.Meanwhile, climate change is pushing plantations to higher altitudes to escape the heat.So, beanless coffee is potentially a less environmentally damaging alternative.The newcomers also argue that, if scaled up, beanless coffee could be cheaper than its conventional competition.And, with coffee prices reaching record levels on the international markets this year, that point is timely.Also, in December, a new EU regulation is set to come into effect that outlaws the sale of products, coffee included, that can’t prove they are not linked to deforestation.“A lot of big coffee companies are watching this field,” says Chahan Yeretzian, a professor of analytical chemistry, who heads the Coffee Excellence Centre at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland.Niels Haak, director of sustainable coffee partnerships at Conservation International, an environmental non-profit, welcomes the innovative approaches to tackling coffee’s deforestation problem, but he also doubts if beanless coffee will be able to make much dent.Coffee growing provides livelihoods and income to many smallholder farming families globally, he further notes. The conundrum is if they move away from growing coffee, they will likely instead turn to growing more coca – the plant cocaine derives from – which has similar deforestation issues. “There are no silver bullets,” he says.He notes there is work ongoing – from coffee certification schemes, to efforts aimed at strengthening so-called shade coffee farming where coffee is grown under a canopy of other trees – to make coffee growing more sustainable and support communities. “[The coffee sector] is on a journey to transform,” he says.Yet the beanless companies counter that transformation isn’t wide enough or quick enough. Coffee is causing massive deforestation and coffee farmers live in poverty.If alt-coffee could offset even just the extra projected coffee demand it would be a win for the planet that wouldn’t put anyone out of business.And, as the climate changes, there are plenty of crops beyond illicit ones that coffee farmers could switch to that don’t require slashing more forest.

Brazil's capital, Brasília, is grappling with an unprecedented environmental crisis as the city faces a severe drought that has lasted for 145 days. The prolonged dry spell has led to an alarming increase in wildfires, threatening the city and its surrounding areas. Firefighters and emergency services are on high alert, battling blazes that have encroached on the city’s doorstep.The lack of rainfall has dried up vegetation, turning the once lush landscape into a tinderbox. With relative humidity levels plummeting and temperatures soaring, the risk of wildfires has reached critical levels. The situation has stretched the resources of local fire brigades, who have been working around the clock to contain and extinguish the flames.

Somalia has been torn apart by more than 30 years of overlapping conflicts - including an Islamist insurgency, a civil war, and a series of regional and clan confrontations. Yet Abdihakim Ainte, the Somali prime minister’s climate advisor, still regards his country as “as story of potential - of promise”. What makes his optimism all the more surprising is the fact climate change is amplifying virtually all the challenges his country faces. The most obvious effects of climate change here have been in agriculture. Somalia is still overwhelmingly an agricultural economy, with about two thirds of the population depending on farming and animal herding for most of their income. In 2022 the country experienced its worst drought for 40 years – an event scientists estimate was made 100 times more likely by human-caused climate change. And drought isn't the only problem here. Last year Somalia experienced terrible floods as a result of rains scientists say were made twice as intense by human-caused global warming. The floodwater washed away precious soils killing hundreds of people and displacing one million others. The UN estimates more than 1.5m children under the age of five are acutely malnourished in Somalia. The UN calculates Somalia needs at least $1.6bn to meet the basic humanitarian needs of the people this year, but so far just $600 million has been pledged by donor governments.

Elon Musk's X social network carried out an automatic update overnight on phone applications that allowed it to bypass a ban in Brazil, an association of internet providers said Wednesday.Some Brazilian users were surprised to have access again to the platform, formerly Twitter, from their phones after a Supreme Court judge last month ordered its shutdown in a legal standoff with Musk.The Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers (ABRINT) explained that the return of X was due to an update of the app to Cloudflare software that uses constantly changing IP addresses.The previous system used specific IPs, which act like a home address for servers or computers and could more easily be blocked.The changes "make blocking the app much more complicated," said ABRINT.Many of the dynamic IPs "are shared with other legitimate services, such as banks and large internet platforms, making it impossible to block an IP without affecting other services," the group said."Internet providers are in a delicate position," and awaiting technical analysis and instructions from Brazil's telecommunications agency, said ABRINT.Brazil's shutdown of X infuriated Musk and has fueled a fierce debate on freedom of expression and the limits of social networks, both inside and outside the country.The social media platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.Judge Alexandre de Moraes last month ordered X to be banned after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered.Moraes has repeatedly clashed with the South African-born billionaire after making it his mission to crack down on disinformation.Last week he ordered the transfer of some $3 million from Musk's companies to pay fines incurred by X.Moraes also froze the assets of X and Starlink, which has been operating in Brazil since 2022 -- especially in remote communities in the Amazon -- to ensure payment of fines imposed on X for its failure to follow court orders.Musk reacted angrily to the suspension, calling Moraes a "dictator."Moraes also ordered that those using "technological subterfuges" such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the blocked site could be fined up to $9,000.