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A US soldier searches for his Vietnamese son
Thousands of children were fathered by American servicemen during the Vietnam war. Now in their 60s and 70s, some veterans are desperate to find the sons and daughters they have never known.A tall, thin American wearing a straw hat wanders through the narrow streets of Ho Chi Minh City, clutching a photo album. At his side is a Vietnamese interpreter and fixer, Hung Phan, who has helped dozens of former American soldiers locate their long-lost children over the last 20 years. His latest client, the American under the straw hat, is Jerry Quinn. He has come to Vietnam to find his son.
"I know we lived at number 40," says Quinn, looking down the street for the house he used to share with his Vietnamese girlfriend. But there is no number 40.
A small crowd gathers. An elderly man, emerging from his house, explains that when the Vietcong entered Saigon in 1975, they didn't stop at changing the name of the city to Ho Chi Minh City - they also changed all the street names, and even the numbers.
Jerry Quinn is one of two million American soldiers sent to support the South Vietnamese army in the war against the North. During that conflict, it's thought about 100,000 children were born from relationships between local women and American soldiers. Those soldiers are now getting old, and some are guilt-ridden, or just curious to find out what happened to their children."But some fathers just don't want to know," says Brian Hjort. Together with Hung Phan, he runs Fathers Founded, a not-for-profit organisation that puts fathers together with their "Amerasian" children. Hjort, a Dane, was just another European backpacker travelling through Vietnam in the 1980s when he came across the Amerasian children. "They were in the street, begging for food and for help," he recalls. "The Vietnamese treated them cruelly - they were the children of the enemy."
Some had photos and knew the names of their fathers. Since the US Government keeps meticulous records of soldiers and veterans, Hjort was soon able to link dozens of children with their fathers - but he was sometimes horrified by the response he received.
Jerry and his girlfriend, Brandy, before they were parted "They would yell at me: 'Why are you calling? What do you want? Why are you talking about Vietnam? I don't want to have anything to do with that bastard. He's not my son. She's not my daughter. Stop calling me!'"
But Jerry Quinn, a missionary who lives and works in Taiwan, is anxious to find his son. He says that when he was sent to work in the Far East, he thought it was God's way of telling him to make amends for the past. "I suppose I am here out of guilt," he says. "And to try and do my duty as a father."
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1954: Vietnam is split into North and South at Geneva conference1957: Beginning of Communist insurgency in the South1962: Number of US military advisors in South Vietnam rises to 12,0001963: Diem overthrown and killed in US-backed military coup1964: US Congress approves military action in region.1968: Tet Offensive - combined assault by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army on US positions - begins1970: Talks between US and Vietnam begin in Paris1973: Ceasefire agreement in Paris, US troop pull-out completed by March1975: North Vietnamese troops invade South Vietnam and take control of the whole country In 1973, his Vietnamese girlfriend, Brandy, was pregnant and they were negotiating their way through the bureaucracy required to get married. But at the same time, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was negotiating a "peace with honour" with the North Vietnamese leaders. The final agreement demanded that US troops leave immediately and Jerry Quinn found himself on a plane home."I tried to keep in touch," he says. "I sent her a hundred bucks every month for a year. I never knew whether she got it." Brandy sent him three photos which, 40 years later, he shows to everyone he meets in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. There are three pictures. A portrait of Brandy, a tall, beautiful Vietnamese girl in her 20s; a picture of her with their baby boy; and a picture of her standing next to a woman in a white coat.
By his third day in the city, Jerry is getting desperate. He and Hung Phan ask for help from the owner of a noodle bar close to the house where Jerry and Brandy once lived together. The owner sits on a stool, turning the pages of the photo album, and when she gets to the picture of Brandy and the woman in the white coat, she stops. "She was the midwife around here," she says. "She now lives in America but they haven't forgotten us and they sometimes come back to visit. In fact her daughter popped in for a bowl of noodles yesterday." Jerry begs the owner to get in touch with the woman, and she obliges.
Kim arrives the next day. An elegant middle-aged woman, she is staying in a smart hotel in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City with her Californian doctor husband. She takes the album, points a perfectly manicured finger at the photo of Brandy and calls out in excitement: "I remember her! We were good friends and I helped deliver your baby."
Kim identifies Brandy's Vietnamese name on the back of one of the photos - Bui. But she can't help Jerry discover his son's first name. When the Vietcong entered the city, she explains, they threatened to kill all those who had had any association with the enemy. "My mother made a huge bonfire and burned everything that might associate us with America." All the carefully kept records of the births were destroyed.
Jerry and Kim Choking back tears, Jerry asks Kim if he can hold her hands "because these hands held my baby and this is as close as I may ever get to my son". And there the story might have ended - in a little noodle bar in Vietnam with the customers looking on in amazement, chopsticks suspended in mid-air at the sight of a middle-aged, weeping American holding hands with the woman they know as the midwife's daughter.
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More than 30 years after being stripped, bound and paraded through countless Vietnamese villages, Pete Peterson returned to the country as America's ambassador.
While there, he shook the hands of his captors - and began a mission to save the lives of young swimmers.
But Jerry posts the photos of Brandy and the baby to Facebook, and says he is looking for a 40-year-old called Bui, and 8,500 miles away, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a 40-year-old man called Gary Bui recognises the photos.Jerry flies to Albuquerque. In the taxi to Gary's house he is shaking with nerves and last-minute doubts. "Will he accept me?" he wonders. "It's been 40 years that he has been waiting for a father. Will he let me hold him? He told me on the phone that he has taught himself not to show emotion."
The taxi pulls up at the house and the family is already outside, waiting for Jerry. "If you looked more like me, you would be me!" he says as he stumbles out of the taxi and grabs his son. They hang on to each other for an age, slapping each other's backs and crying. Looking on are Jerry's two newly-discovered grandchildren.
Slowly, Gary's story emerges. Brandy, like so many mothers of the children of American GIs, abandoned her baby son and fled for her life as Vietcong troops hunted down the women and children of the enemy. The baby was entrusted to friends who took him out of Saigon to hide until the witch-hunt calmed down.
"We lived in the jungle, in clay huts," Gary says. "There was never enough to eat." He was bullied by the other kids, who called his mother a whore. When he was four, he was taken to an orphanage, and four years later he found himself on board a flight to New York as part of a programme launched by the US Government to airlift thousands of Amerasian children to America. Brought up by foster parents, Gary kept copies of the same photos that Brandy had sent Jerry.
Watch Sue Lloyd Roberts' Newsnight film in fullJerry is wracked by guilt. "I didn't know you were an orphan," he says. "I always thought you would have been with your mother. There is so much I need to learn about you."
Gary's wife and children watch this scene warily. What is there to say to this sudden father-in-law and grandfather, so desperate to know them and love them?
"I know it is late, but I want to be there for you," says Jerry. "I want to be in your life."
Sue Lloyd Roberts' report was broadcast on Newsnight, BBC Two at 22:30 BST on 28 April, and will be broadcast on Our World on BBC News Channel on 3 May at 21:30 - or catch up on BBC iPlayerFollow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook
Army dog given posthumous medal
Sasha is the 65th animal to be awarded the PDSA's Dickin Medal since 1943 A British Army dog killed alongside her handler in Afghanistan is to be honoured with what is called the highest military award for an animal. Sasha, a four-year-old yellow Labrador who was trained to hunt out explosives, is credited with saving the lives of scores of soldiers and civilians.
She will be awarded the PDSA Dickin Medal, which the charity says is the animal version of the Victoria Cross.
She died alongside L/Cpl Kenneth Rowe in a Taliban attack in 2008.
Sasha was deployed with handlers from the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, attached to the 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.
Alongside her handler, she was tasked with carrying out advance patrols to find safe routes for soldiers and sniffing out weapons and IEDs.
The PDSA said: "Sasha's determination to search and push forward - despite gruelling conditions and relentless Taliban attacks - was a morale boost to the soldiers who entrusted their lives to her weapon-finding capability.
"On one occasion recalled by regimental colleagues, Sasha was searching a building in Garmsir when she detected two mortars and a large quantity of weaponry, including explosives and mines.
"This find alone undoubtedly saved the lives of many soldiers and civilians."
In 2008 she was assigned to 24-year-old L/Cpl Rowe and the pair were considered the best in the Kandahar region.
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Lance Corporal Kenneth Rowe died alongside Sasha when the pair were ambushed during a routine patrol 
L/Cpl Rowe and Sasha working together in Afghanistan before their deaths They died together on 24 July 2008 when their routine patrol was ambushed by a rocket-propelled grenade attack.
Continue reading the main story White Vision, a pigeon, was the first animal to receive the award in December 1943 for contributing to the rescue of an RAF crew in World War Two.Princess, a pigeon, was honoured in May 1946 for "one of the finest performances in the war record of the Pigeon Service"Upstart, a police horse, was awarded the medal in 1947 for remaining on duty in Bethnal Green, London, despite a flying bomb showering her with glass Simon, a cat, was posthumously awarded the medal for his work catching rats on board HMS Amethyst in 1949, despite being wounded by shell blastApollo, a German Shepherd with the New York Police Department, was granted the honour on behalf of all search and rescue dogs who worked tirelessly in the aftermath of the September 11 attacksLucky ,a German Shepherd and RAF Police anti-terrorist tracker dog, received the award in 2007 for her exceptional talent in locating the enemy during the Malaya campaign L/Cpl Rowe, from West Moor near Newcastle, had been due to return home the day before he died but wanted to stay on to complete a planned operation because he was concerned about a lack of cover for comrades.
Sasha had 15 confirmed finds of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), mortars and hidden weaponry.
Col Neil Smith QHVS, director of the Army Veterinary and Remount Services, said: "This prestigious award recognises how her devotion and skills undoubtedly saved the lives of many troops in Afghanistan, and acknowledges the excellent work our military working dogs and their handlers do.
"Sadly, this award is posthumous as both Sasha and her handler, Lance Corporal Ken Rowe, were killed in enemy action in Afghanistan in 2008.
"Our thoughts remain with L/Cpl Rowe's family and this award will give us the opportunity to once more celebrate his and Sasha's immeasurable contributions to military operations."
Sasha is the 65th animal to be awarded the medal since it was launched in 1943.
A news report from 2008 when L/Cpl Rowe and Sasha were killed in Afghanistan
Other winners of the Dickin Medal - named after the charity's founder Maria Dickin - include 32 World War Two messenger pigeons, three horses and a cat.
PDSA director general Jan McLoughlin said: "The award is even more poignant as we approach the centenary of World War One and are reminded of the huge debt we owe the animals who serve in times of conflict.
"This medal, recognised worldwide as the animals' Victoria Cross, honours both Sasha's unwavering service and her ultimate sacrifice.
"Her story exemplifies the dedication of man's best friend and reminds us all of the amazing contribution they make to our lives."
View the original article here
VIDEO: Syria conflict: No side able to win
President Bashar al-Assad has announced his candidacy for presidential elections in June, confirming his intention to stay in office despite years of civil war.
With President Assad determined to remain in power, will the regime or the rebels ever be capable of gaining the upper hand?
BBC Diplomatic correspondent James Robbins explains.
Putin hugs German ex-chancellor
Mr Schroeder stands next to Mr Putin (centre), who has his back to the camera Germany's former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has hugged Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg, despite the imposition of more Western sanctions on Russia.Mr Schroeder has long had close ties to Mr Putin and runs a pipeline venture bringing Russian gas to Germany.
Their embrace was photographed as Mr Schroeder celebrated his 70th birthday.
He held his Russian party as Nato states accused Russia of helping pro-Putin militias in eastern Ukraine.
Russia's state monopoly Gazprom pumps gas to Germany via the Nordstream pipeline under the Baltic Sea, and Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller was reportedly among Mr Schroeder's guests at the Yusupov Palace in St Petersburg.
Three German officers are among seven military observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) currently held captive by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. The German government has demanded their release.
The OSCE sent in unarmed observers after the rebels seized Ukrainian official buildings.
CriticismGerman media commentators criticised Mr Schroeder on Tuesday for his closeness to Mr Putin.
The Russian leader speaks fluent German, having served as a KGB secret service officer in communist East Germany during the Cold War.
Mr Schroeder was chancellor from 1998 to 2005. He used to lead the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who are now in coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).
Roland Nelles of Spiegel Online said the former chancellor "apparently forgets that one must still act responsibly for one's country as a former government leader".
"It would help if the ex-chancellor could use his influence to bring some sense to his friend Putin. Perhaps he is doing that too, but unfortunately you don't get any sense of that whatsoever. Pity," he wrote.
In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung another commentator, Thomas Holl, said "the pictures of a laughing Schroeder, being hugged and cuddled by his friend Vladimir in the former tsarist palace, while German army soldiers are held hostage by fanatical Putin admirers, look macabre".
A senior German government official quoted by Reuters news agency said Mr Schroeder "does not represent the German government" and he "left active politics some time ago".
VIDEO: The flying robotic pop band
A team of US robotics experts have put together a pop group of flying drones, who will play a string of live dates this weekend.
Daniel Mellinger, a former student of Pennsylvania University and co-founder of KMel Robotics, talked to the BBC about how the band was formed.
The robots will be performing at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC, in a bid to recreate before a live audience what they previously achieved in the recording studio.
Video Journalist: Dougal Shaw
Drone footage courtesy of KMel Robotics; Visual and musical direction by Kurtis Sensenig and Dan Paul respectively
Algarve golf courses' growing thirst
Southern Portugal's courses are a draw for both professional and amateur golfers The Algarve has some of the best and most popular golf courses in Europe, but they need a huge amount of water to stay in tip-top shape.And now scientists have used satellite and weather station data to calculate just how much the greens and fairways of southern Portugal are consuming.
The study shows the Algarve's 40 courses are being irrigated with some 18 million cu m of water a year.
"The greenkeepers understand the challenges of using so much water and they are introducing efficiency strategies," Prof Celestina Pedras from the University of the Algarve in Faro told BBC News.
She was presenting her work here in Vienna at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly meeting.
Golf has boomed in the region since the 1980s when there were just a handful of courses.
The constant sunshine, the proximity to the beach, and the excellent local cuisine have all proven to be a big draw for tourists who also want to drive some balls.
But the Algarve’s perfect weather means the region needs also to conserve its water. Faro, the regional capital, receives about 500mm of rainfall per year. Most of this rain is concentrated in winter months, meaning that in summer, the courses must irrigate in order keep the greens and fairways from becoming parched.
Nearly all of this sprinkler water is being taken from boreholes.
Prof Pedras and colleagues looked back through three decades of meteorological data and the long time-series of images taken by the US Landsat spacecraft to complete their study. Landsat allows researchers to assess the state of vegetation.
The team could see that although the consumption of water had increased five-fold since 1980, the practices of golf courses had become less wasteful.
The latest grass technology is being used that requires less water; the soils are being managed in a way so that they hold more water; the agro-climatic parameters are being more frequently monitored; and water is being taken from a wider variety of sources. All of these practices work towards more efficient usage.
It is clear, too, says Prof Pedras, that "deficit irrigation strategies" are being implemented. That is, there is an acceptance of a reduction in quality: the greenkeepers and the players recognise that overly lush greens and fairways would be inappropriate.
"I think players who understand the issues and the need to conserve water will accept playing on courses that are a little yellow," she said.
Courses in the Algarve now cover about 2,500 hectares - almost 10 square miles Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos
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Driver seen FaceTiming behind wheel
A lorry driver told officers he was driving while using his mobile phone because it was unlawful to stop on the hard shoulder A motorist was seen using video chat app FaceTime while driving, Surrey Police have revealed.The unnamed car driver was using a tablet on their lap while at the wheel.
Officers spotted the incident during a three-month pilot scheme which used an unmarked HGV tractor to target lorry drivers breaking the law.
Insp Richard Mallett, of the Surrey Roads Policing Unit, said officers had also spotted a lorry driver texting with one foot on the dashboard.
"The person FaceTiming was actually a car driver, but because we were higher up, we could see down into the car," he said.
He said most of those stopped were lorry drivers, but that a significant number of car drivers were also driving "appallingly".
A total of 436 vehicles were stopped between February and earlier this month, 270 of which were commercial vehicles.
'Little knife'Some 333 drivers were given fixed penalty notices, 44 were given words of advice, 27 got graduated fixed penalties - given to those who do not have UK addresses - and eight were summonsed.
Insp Mallett said a knife with a 6in (15cm) blade had been seized from a Dutch lorry driver, who said in Holland it was "a little knife".
"One chap admitted 'I haven't worn a seatbelt for 20 years - this is the first time I've been stopped'," he added.
Some 436 vehicles in total were stopped between February and earlier this month, A petrol tanker driver "begged" officers not to tell his employer he was not wearing his seatbelt because he would lose his job, the force said.
A Lithuanian lorry driver said he was driving while using his mobile phone because it was unlawful to stop on the hard shoulder.
A driver who "hogged" lane three said: "It's your fault, officer, you shouldn't have been so close behind me".
Another, stopped for speeding, said: "How am I supposed to know my speed?"
The three-month pilot, called Operation Tramline, was led by Surrey Police and included officers from Sussex, Hampshire and the Thames Valley and Warwickshire, in partnership with the Highways Agency.
Insp Mallett said the force felt the scheme had been successful.
"Any incident we prevent prevents delays to the network and reduces the numbers of injuries and casualties on our roads," he said.
VIDEO: Paul Simon and Brickell in court
Paul Simon and his wife Edie Brickell have appeared in court charged with disorderly conduct.
Simon, 72, told a judge they were "fine together" while Brickell, 48, said her husband was "no threat to me at all".
The pair, who have been married for more than 20 years, were arrested after police were called to their Connecticut home, on Saturday.
Mexico 'cartel ties' mayor detained
Police last month confiscated an iron ore mining operation belonging to the cartel near Lazaro Cardenas The mayor of the Mexican port city of Lazaro Cardenas has been arrested on suspicion of taking part in kidnappings and extortion.Arquimedes Oseguera is also accused of having ties to the Knights Templar drugs cartel, all of which he denies.
Lazaro Cardenas is one of the main port cities on the Pacific coast and a stronghold of the cartel.
The city's treasurer has also been arrested on suspicion of having links to the Knights Templar.
Smuggling hotspotLazaro Cardenas has a deepwater seaport, and police say the Knights Templar ship illegally mined iron ore from the city to China.
Tonnes of precursor chemicals used to manufacture illegal synthetic drugs have also been seized in the port over the past years.
The Knights Templar are one of the main suppliers of methamphetamines to the United States.
Their leader is believed to he hiding in or around Lazaro Cardenas.
Federal police officers have been combing the area in their search for the Knights Templar leader Three of the cartel's top bosses have been killed or captured since the beginning of the year in a crackdown by the security forces.
Two weeks ago, the mayor of Apatzingan, another Knights Templar stronghold, was arrested on suspicion of extorting money on behalf of the cartel.
Farmers in western Michoacan state have long complained about the power of the Knights Templar and the corrupt nature of local officials.
Many have joined "self-defence" groups which have taken control of a number of small towns in the state.
On Monday, Mexican security forces started registering the weapons of the vigilante groups as part of a deal with the government to incorporate them into the official security forces.
The vigilantes have until 10 May to register their guns. Anyone found carrying weapons illegally after the disarmament would be detained, officials warned.
Seized Nigerian girls 'taken abroad'
Boko Haram has often targeted educational establishments Some of the schoolgirls abducted by suspected militant Islamists in northern Nigeria are believed to have been taken to neighbouring states, a local leader has told the BBC. Pogo Bitrus said there had been "sightings" of gunmen crossing with the girls into Cameroon and Chad.
Some of the girls had been forced to marry the militants, he added.
Mr Bitrus said 230 girls were missing since militants attacked the school in Chibok, Borno state, two weeks ago.
The Islamist group Boko Haram has been blamed for the night-time raid on the school hostel in Chibok town. It has not yet commented on the allegation.
The girls were seized from their hostel late at night Mr Bitrus, a Chibok community leader, said 43 of the girls had "regained their freedom" after escaping, while 230 were still in captivity. This is a higher number than previous estimates, however he was adamant it was the correct figure.
'Slavery'The students were about to sit their final year exam and so are mostly aged between 16 and 18.
"Some of them have been taken across Lake Chad and some have been ferried across the border into parts of Cameroon," he told the BBC.
Mr Bitrus said there were also reports that the insurgents had married some of the girls.
"We learned that one of the 'grooms' brought his 'wife' to a neighbouring town in Cameroon and kept her there," he told the BBC.
Continue reading the main storyI'm crying now as community leader to alert the world to what's happening so that some pressure would be brought to bare on government to act”End Quote Pogo Bitrus Chibok community leader "It's a medieval kind of slavery," he added.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau first threatened to treat captured women and girls as slaves in a video released in May 2013.
It fuelled concern at the time that the group is adhering to the ancient Islamic belief that women captured during war are slaves with whom their "masters" can have sex, correspondents say.
Mr Bitrus said everyone in the community felt as though their own daughters had been abducted.
Men were "braving it out", but women were "crying and wailing", he said.
"Whether it is my niece or whoever it doesn't matter. We are all one people," Mr Bitrus told the BBC.
"That's why I'm crying now as community leader to alert the world to what's happening so that some pressure would be brought to bare on government to act and ensure the release of these girls."
The government has said the security forces are searching for the girls, but its critics say it is not doing enough.
Boko Haram has staged a wave of attacks in northern Nigeria in recent years, with an estimated 1,500 killed in the violence and subsequent security crackdown this year alone.
A 60-second guide to Boko Haram
What are the hazards facing a plane stowaway?
Magazine Monitor A collection of cultural artefacts 
Looking into the wheel well of a plane on the tarmac in Wisconsin in 2007 A 16-year-old survived a flight from California to Hawaii, hiding in the wheel well. What happens to the human body under those conditions, asks Tara McKelvey.Ninety-six people are known to have hidden under planes during flights around the world between 1947 and 2012, according to the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute in the US, and 23 survived.
During this five-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean, at an altitude of 11,600m (38,000ft), the teenager reportedly lost consciousness - unsurprising given the lack of oxygen supplied to the brain. "You'd get shortness of breath and then you'd just kind of doze off," says Peter Hackett, director of the Institute for Altitude Medicine in Telluride, Colorado. "It wouldn't be uncomfortable."
Continue reading the main story Lack of oxygen makes you unconsciousExtreme cold reduces heart functionDecompression sickness can be fatalLowering landing gear is another hazardBut more than 20 people - usually young - are known to have survived Another problem for plane stowaways is the extreme cold - as low as -62C (-80F). "In a cold state, the heart isn't pumping as much blood," says Hackett. "And what blood there is goes to the brain." At a certain point, individuals fall into a "poikilothermic condition", according to authors of a 1996 report for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This is similar to hibernation, when the body needs less oxygen than normal. The heart rate and breathing slow down dramatically.Stowaways may also suffer from decompression sickness, caused by an abrupt drop in surrounding pressure. Gas bubbles form in tissues and blood vessels and slow down the flow of blood.
Young people are more likely to survive. The authors of the FAA report said a "youthful, thin" individual has a better chance of enduring this than someone who is "heavy-set and older".
In 2000, a man survived a seven-hour flight from French Polynesia to Los Angeles, "spattered with oil from the landing gear and with his clothes ripped to shreds", according to the Los Angeles Times. And last year, a teenage boy endured a short flight in a wheel well in Nigeria. Others have died when the landing gear is lowered."I would not have predicted survival," says Michael Yaron, a professor of emergency medicine at University of Colorado at Denver, when asked about the boy in Hawaii. "Miracles happen. Lucky kid."
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VIDEO: Education warnings 'six years ago'
Concerns raised earlier this month about a lack of long-term vision for education in Wales were highlighted over six years ago but the findings were not made public.
BBC Wales has seen a confidential document from 2007 which details weaknesses in strategy and teacher training.
Hywel Griffiths reports.
Dad's Army: a box office battle?
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Don't panic! Clive Dunn as L/Cpl Jones in Dad's Army Dad's Army looks set to invade the big screen - for the second time. How much of a challenge does the TV comedy classic face finding a modern audience?More than 45 years since it was first seen on television, a new cinema version of Dad's Army is in the works.
The story of the Home Guard waiting for a Nazi invasion in the fictional town of Walmington-on-Sea will apparently star Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring and Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, roles made famous by Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier.
The latest version will be directed by Oliver Parker, who made Johnny English Reborn and the two recent St Trinian's films, from a script by Hamish McColl, who wrote Johnny English Reborn and Mr Bean's Holiday.Producer Damian Jones has said the "universal appeal" of Dad's Army convinced him a new film could work.
That appeal is not in doubt. Having run on TV between 1968 and 1977, attracting 18 million viewers at its height, repeats of Dad's Army on BBC Two still draw an audience of about 2 million. A film spin-off version from 1971 also gets regular outings on TV.
"I don't think it's a great surprise," says Tim Glanfield, editor of RadioTimes.com. "Dad's Army is known among TV schedulers as 'ratings crack' because of its enduring appeal."
He points out that revivals and rebooted franchises are a big part of the world of TV, film and music.
David Sillito reports on a return for Dad's ArmyFormer BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather recently resurfaced on ITV and Del Boy and Rodney were briefly resurrected for an Only Fools and Horses Sport Relief sketch last month.
But the actors taking on such familiar Dad's Army roles will have their work cut out, according to Glanfield. "I wouldn't want to be Toby Jones or Bill Nighy at the moment.
"Captain Mainwaring and Wilson are huge comedy characters in the same league as Del Trotter or Basil Fawlty. To step into their shoes is an enormous challenge for those actors."
The new Dad's Army project would hope to emulate the recent big screen success of popular TV comedies The Inbetweeners and Alan Partridge.
The show's co-creator Jimmy Perry has given the project his blessing but won't be involved in the script.
Michael Rosser, news editor at Screen International, argues that Dad's Army has a unique take on stories about World War II.
"It's an opportunity to explore a war story in a funny way that's not really been done in the movies. I can't think of any other films about the Home Guard."
He thinks the film would appeal to the "grey pound" market - older cinemagoers who have flocked to films such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. He points out that remakes are also an attractive proposition in the film industry.
"Film is very risk averse. Dad's Army is already a success story. There's a fan base already. You're not just building from scratch."
Glanfield agrees that the core audience will be older, but wonders if long-term fans will turn out to see the new version.
"Even though a lot of people went to see it in the cinema some 45 years ago, would those same people get out of their armchair now or would they prefer to watch the repeats on BBC Two as they do at the moment?
"In a very competitive 21st Century cinema market, I wonder whether it will have what it takes to stand out and capture the imagination of a general audience."
Rosser doesn't see any reason to panic about Dad's Army's box office chances. "It could prove very popular in the UK," he says.
"I think it could have a job to convince people outside the UK, but the Second World War is not so local a story that it would shut out an international audience."
Did removing lead from petrol spark a decline in crime?
Many Western nations have experienced significant declines in crime in recent decades, but could the removal of lead from petrol explain that? Working away in his laboratory in 1921, Thomas Midgley wanted to fuel a brighter tomorrow. He created tetraethyl lead - a compound that would make car engines more efficient than ever.
But did the lead that we added to our petrol do something so much worse? Was it the cause of a decades-long crime wave that is only now abating as the poisonous element is removed from our environment?
The Crime Conundrum, presented by Dominic Casciani, is on BBC Radio 4 at 20:00 BST on Monday 21 April
Listen again via iPlayer
For most of the 20th Century crime rose and rose and rose. Every time a new home secretary took office in the UK - or their equivalents in justice and interior ministries elsewhere - officials would show them graphs and mumble apologetically that there was nothing they could do to stop crime rising.
Then, about 20 years ago, the trend reversed - and all the broad measures of key crimes have been falling ever since.
Thomas Midgley, creator of tetraethyl lead Offending has fallen in nations whose governments have implemented completely different policies to their neighbours.
If your nation locks up more criminals than the average, crime has fallen. If it locks up fewer... crime has fallen. Nobody seems to know for sure why.
But there are some people that believe the removal of lead from petrol was a key factor.
Lead can be absorbed into bones, teeth and blood. It causes kidney damage, inhibits body growth, causes abdominal pain, anaemia and can damage the nervous system. More than a century ago, a royal commission recommended to British ministers that women shouldn't work in lead-related industry because of damage to their reproductive organs.
By the 1970s, studies showed that children could even be poisoned by chewing fingernails harbouring tiny flecks of old leaded paint from their homes and schools.
Studies have shown that exposure to lead during pregnancy reduces the head circumference of infants. In children and adults, it causes headaches, inhibits IQ and can lead to aggressive or dysfunctional behaviour.
If you want to understand the causes of crime - and be tough on them - you need to start with lead, says Dr Bernard Gesch, a physiologist at Oxford University who has studied the effect of diet and other environmental factors on criminals.
"Lead is a very potent neurotoxin," says Gesch. "It has a range of effects on the brain that have been demonstrated through hundreds of different biological studies. Lead alters the formation of the brain. It reduces the grey matter in areas responsible for things such as impulse control and executive functioning - meaning thinking and planning."
Unless someone is telling us that the brain is not involved in decision-making then lead has to be relevant to crime”End Quote Dr Bernard Gesch
In other words - lead poisoning leads to bad decisions. The lead theorists say the poison has a time-lag effect which could not be understood until recently.
In the early 1990s, economist and housing consultant Rick Nevin was pondering whether it would be worth the US spending vast sums cleaning leaded paint out of old housing in American cities. By then, everyone knew that lead did bad stuff to the brain and took years to leave the body.
And that got Nevin thinking. Would the accumulation of lead over time play a role in behaviour that would ultimately become criminal? Nevin calculated the rise and fall of the presence of lead from petrol and he compared that curve to the modern history of violent crime. What he came up with was rather startling.
When the amount of lead in the environment increased, Nevin showed a corresponding rise in violent crime two decades later. And when the amount of lead in the environment fell, violent crime also tracked down - again about 20 years later.
Was this a one-off, freak statistical result? Where was the proof that lead had actually caused crime?
Fourteen years ago, Prof Jessica Wolpaw-Reyes, an economist at Amherst College Massachusetts, was pregnant and doing what many expectant mothers do - learning about the risks to her unborn child's health. She started to read up on lead in the environment and, like Nevin before her, began pondering its link to crime.
"Everyone was trying to understand why crime was going down," she recalls. "So I wanted to test if there was a causal link between lead and violent crime and the way I did that was to look at the removal of leaded petrol from US states in the 1970s, to see if that could be linked to patterns of crime reduction in the 1990s."
Wolpaw-Reyes gathered lead data from each state, including figures for gasoline sales. She plotted the crime rates in each area and then used common statistical techniques to exclude other factors that could cause crime. Her results backed the lead-crime hypothesis.
"There is a substantial causal relationship," she says. "I can see it in the state-to-state variations. States that experienced particularly early or particularly sharp declines in lead experienced particularly early or particularly sharp declines in violent crime 20 years later."
She says her research also established different levels of crime in states with high and low lead rates.
Nevin's original research pointed to lead poisoning in childhood increasing the likelihood of offending by the time someone had reached their teens or early twenties. Wolpaw-Reyes' data appeared to show that anti-pollution legislation in the US then reversed that trend on a state-by-state basis.
"Lead changes who we are," she says. "If you wanted to say, Jessica, I don't believe that story, then my answer is that you need to come up with another story that would explain why we have found this particular pattern to lead in the 1970s and 80s and then crime in the 1990s and 2000s.
"Moreover you need to be able to show why this relationship is now coming up in other work on bullying, child behaviour problems, teenage delinquency, suicide and substance abuse. You need to tell a story about why those would be linked by chance."
Since then, the data for the lead theorists has become more and more detailed. Nevin and his supporters predicted that crime would fall in other nations 20 years after the banning of leaded petrol - and their theory appears to have played out in Europe.
Leaded petrol was removed from British engines later than in North America - and the crime rate in the UK began to fall later than in the US and Canada.
Lead theorists say that data they've collated and calculated from each nation shows the same 20-year trend - the sooner lead is removed from the environment, the sooner crime will begin to fall.
Dr Bernard Gesch says the data now suggests that lead could account for as much as 90% of the changing crime rate during the 20th Century across all of the world.
"A lot of people would say that correlation isn't cause," he says. "But it seems that the more the exposure, the more extreme the behaviour. I'm certainly not saying that lead is the only explanation why crime is falling - but it is certainly the most persuasive. Unless someone is telling us that the brain is not involved in decision-making then lead has to be relevant to crime."
So why isn't this theory universally accepted?
Well, it remains a theory because nobody could ever deliberately poison thousands of children to see whether they became criminals later in life.
Lead theorists say that doesn't matter because the big problem is mainstream criminologists and policymakers who can't think outside the box.
But Roger Matthews, professor of criminology at the University of Kent, rejects that. He says biological criminologists completely miss the point.
"I don't see the link," he says. "If this causes some sort of effect, why should those effects be criminal?
"The things that push people into crime are very different kinds of phenomena, not in the nature of their brain tissue. The problem about the theory is that a lot of these [researchers] are not remotely interested or cued into the kinds of things in the mainstream.
"There has been a long history of people trying to link biology to crime - that some people have their eyes too close together, or an extra chromosome, or whatever.
"This stuff gets disproved and disproved. But it keeps popping up. It's like a bad penny."
Gesch disagrees and says the debate among biologists is now moving further, to look at how improving nutrition could affect antisocial behaviour.
"One of the problems with criminal justice data is that very few of the factors are good at predicting rates of crime. But lead is."
Wolpaw-Reyes says the data is now so good that she is finding that police and policymakers in the US are taking it more seriously.
"I don't think lead is the whole story but given the broad worldwide exposure and the evidence that we have of how adversely lead can affect behaviour, it makes sense that lead is an important part of the story. All of us born in the 60s and 70s were exposed to high levels of lead - but we are not all violent criminals.
"But if you had to guess if someone was going to commit a crime I would think that their childhood lead exposure would be helpful to me in making a guess. But it is not going to be a certainty."
The Crime Conundrum, presented by Dominic Casciani, is on BBC Radio 4 at 20:00 BST on Monday 21 AprilFollow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook
Heartbleed used against net thieves
Heartbleed has put many smart home heating systems and other devices at risk. The Heartbleed bug has turned cyber criminals from attackers into victims as researchers use it to grab material from chatrooms where they trade data. Discovered in early April, Heartbleed lets attackers steal data from computers using vulnerable versions of some widely used security programs.
Now it has given anti-malware researchers access to forums that would otherwise be very hard to penetrate.
The news comes as others warn that the bug will be a threat for many years.
French anti-malware researcher Steven K told the BBC: "The potential of this vulnerability affecting black-hat services (where hackers use their skills for criminal ends) is just enormous."
Heartbleed had put many such forums in a "critical" position, he said, leaving them vulnerable to attack using tools that exploit the bug.
The Heartbleed vulnerability was found in software, called Open SSL, which is supposed to make it much harder to steal data. Instead, exploiting the bug makes a server hand over small chunks of the data it has just handled - in many cases login details or other sensitive information.
Mr K said he was using specially written tools to target some closed forums called Darkode and Damagelab.
"Darkode was vulnerable, and this forum is a really hard target," he said. "Not many people have the ability to monitor this forum, but Heartbleed exposed everything."
Charlie Svensson, a computer security researcher at Sentor, which tests company's security systems, said: "This work just goes to show how serious Heartbleed is. You can get the keys to the kingdom, all thanks to a nice little heartbeat query."
Individuals who repeat the work of security researchers such as Mr K could leave themselves open to criminal charges for malicious hacking.
Threat 'growing'The widespread publicity about Heartbleed had led operators of many websites to update vulnerable software and urge users to change passwords.
Paul Mutton, a security researcher at net monitoring firm Netcraft, explained that while that meant there was no "significant risk of further direct exploitation of the bug", it did not mean all danger had passed.
He said the problem had been compounded by the fact that a large number of sites had not cleaned up all their security credentials put at risk by Heartbleed.
In particular, he said, many sites had yet to invalidate or revoke the security certificates used as a guarantee of their identity.
"If a compromised certificate has not been revoked, an attacker can still use it to impersonate that website," said Mr Mutton.
The dangers posed by Heartbleed will persist for years, warn security experts In addition, he said, web browsers did a poor job of checking whether security certificates had been revoked.
"Consequently, the dangers posed by the Heartbleed bug could persist for a few more years."
His comments were echoed by James Lyne, global head of security research at security software developer Sophos.
"There is a very long tail of sites that are going to be vulnerable for a very long time," said Mr Lyne, who pointed out that the list of devices that Heartbleed put at risk was growing.
Many so-called smart devices, such as home routers, CCTV cameras, baby monitors and home-management gadgets that control heating and power, were now known to be vulnerable to Heartbleed-based attacks, he said.
A survey by tech news site Wired found that smart thermostats, cloud-based data services, printers, firewalls and video-conferencing systems were all vulnerable.
Other reports suggest the makers of some industrial control systems are also now producing patches for their software to limit the potential for attack.
How tempting this was for malicious attackers was difficult to gauge, said Mr Lyne.
"We do not really know how much Heartbleed is being used offensively because it's an attack that is hard to track and log."
VIDEO: VW to reveal record-breaking results
Volkswagen - Europe's biggest carmaker - will announce its latest financial results on Tuesday and they are expected to be record-breaking.
VW, which makes car brands ranging from Audis to Skodas, is expected to announce it is now selling 10 million vehicles a year.
Operating profits are expected to top $16bn.
But some analysts say all this success could be masking some fundamental problems at the company as Jeremy Howell reports.
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Samsung's mobile phone sales decline
There have been some concerns recently over a slowdown in Samsung's growth Samsung Electronics has reported a 4% fall in sales at its mobile phone unit.Revenues in the sector fell to 33.4 trillion won ($32.3bn; £23.3bn) in the January-to-March period.
But the South Korean company said operating profit for its mobile phone unit rose 18% from the previous three months, in part due to "positive impact from adjustments of one-off expenses".
Samsung is the world's biggest mobile phone maker and handsets account for the bulk of the firm's profits.
The figures came as the electronics giant reported a net profit of 7.57 trillion won (£4.4bn; $7.5bn) for the first quarter, up from 7.3 trillion won (£4.2bn; $7bn) in the previous three months.
Maturing market? The success of its Galaxy range of smartphones has been one of the biggest drivers of Samsung's growth in recent years.It helped the company dislodge Nokia as the world's biggest phone maker in 2012.
However, competition in the sector has been increasing, forcing manufacturers to lower their prices and hurting their profitability.
At the same time, demand for smartphones in developed markets - which have been key drivers of growth of the sector so far - has also begun to slow.
"This is further evidence that the global market for smartphones is maturing and as the pace of growth which firms such as Samsung have enjoyed in recent years is slowing," said Andrew Milroy, an analyst with consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.
He added that "the company will have to look at introducing lower cost models in emerging markets to sustain the business."
For its part, Samsung has been looking to tap into the emerging markets by launching low cost handsets there.
However, it has been facing increased competition on that front as well, especially from Chinese firms such as Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE.
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