When the UK authorities announced on Wednesday that they suspected two alleged Russian agents in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, they released CCTV images of the suspects arriving at Gatwick airport. Two of the images, framed side by side, began to spread on social media, driven by pro-Russia conspiracy theorists and suspected troll accounts. They showed the alleged agents - Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov - passing through a non-return gate at the airport. The images had identical timestamps. How could two men be in exactly the same place at the same time, a flood of tweets asked. Speaking on state TV, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed that either "the date and the exact time were superimposed on the image" or that Russian intelligence officers had "mastered the skill of walking simultaneously". Her remarks were echoed by pro-Kremlin accounts on Twitter and on the messaging app Telegram, which is popular in Russia. Users suggested the CCTV images had been manipulated. They mocked the British authorities and alleged it was an MI6 operation. Soon it would not necessarily matter that the background of the CCTV images were not identical; that the camera was at a different angle; that Google Maps shows that the non-return gates at Gatwick are a series of near-identical corridors that the two men could easily have passed down, adjacent to one another, at the same time. What would matter would be that some people following the story would begin to question what was real and what wasn't. Some might even begin to question the very idea that there was a real, reliable version of events at all. Russia denies any involvement in the Skripal case, and its embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment from the BBC, but analysts say the Russian state is now the chief exponent of a new kind of information warfare. A loosely-defined network of Russian state actors, state-controlled media, and armies of social media bots and trolls is said to work in unison to spread and amplify multiple narratives and conspiracies around cases like the Skripal poisoning. The goal is no longer to deny or disprove an official version of events, it is to flood the zone with so many competing versions that nothing seems to make sense. "What is really striking is that you no longer see the Russian machine pushing a single message, it pushes dozens of messages," said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who studies Russian disinformation. "The idea is to confuse people." Other theories circulating on Wednesday included a claim that the suspects were British actors, stars of a (non-existent) KGB spy series broadcast on British television in the 2000s. Another suggested the attempted assassination in Salisbury, and the deaths of other Russian nationals in Britain, were part of an MI6 plot. "Why do all these horrible events only happen in Britain?" asked Andrei Klimov, a Russian member of parliament, on state TV. "The more different theories you put out, the more different Google results you're going to get," said Mr Nimmo. "So instead of seeing two or three different versions of the story you're seeing 20 or 30. And for someone who is not following the story regularly that becomes more and more confusing until they give up. And at that point, the Russian disinformation has had its effect." Early evidence of the tactic can be traced back to the 2000s but it first drew serious international attention in 2014 when Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing 298 people. The evidence pointed to a Russian-supplied surface-to-air missile fired from rebel-held territory in east Ukraine. Russia had already been accused of deploying crude disinformation techniques around its actions in east Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea, but its response to being linked to the downing of MH-17 was on a different scale - the "tipping point where Russian information warfare kicked into high gear", Mr Nimmo said. In the days and months after the aircraft was shot down, Russian state media and pro-Kremlin social accounts pushed out a raft of different and wildly contradictory theories: that a Ukrainian Su-25 combat aircraft had been picked up by radar near MH-17; that video evidence showed a missile being fired from government, not separatist, territory; that Ukrainian fighters had mistaken MH-17 for Vladimir Putin's plane in an assassination attempt; that the CIA was behind it. "MH-17 is really the classic example," said Samantha Bradshaw, a researcher on computational propaganda at the University of Oxford. "You saw a whole series of different conspiracies and competing narratives emerge, attached to various hashtags and social media campaigns. The goal was to confuse people, to polarise them, to push them further and further away from reality." The technique expanded and evolved in the years after the MH-17 attack, with Russia linked to disinformation campaigns around its actions in Syria, the 2016 US election, the murder of Boris Nemtsov, and a UK inquiry into the murder of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London. A key component in recent iterations of the tactic has been the use of humour and ridicule. When a UK inquiry found in 2016 that Russian president Vladimir Putin "probably approved" the murder of Litvinenko, a hashtag - #putinprobablyapproved - spread through Twitter, with tweets suggesting Mr Putin had "probably approved" the assassination of JFK, the invasion of Iraq, climate change and more. In the hours after the UK named the suspects in the Skripal case, a flood of near-identical tweets used pictures of comedians, historical figures and Hollywood spies - from Joseph Stalin to Jason Bourne - in place of the suspects, mocking the UK's announcement. The official account of the Russian embassy in London even joined in, posting an image of the two Skripal suspects allegedly carrying the Novichok toxin alongside a picture of British police in biohazard suits, asking users to "spot the difference". On Russian state news bulletins, anchors reported the news with a mixture of disbelief and sarcasm. "The strategy is optimised for the internet, it's meant to go viral," said Mr Nimmo. "That's why mockery and sarcasm and attempts at funny memes are so much a part of this ... It is disinformation for the information age." In 2015, the European Union was sufficiently alarmed by Russian disinformation that it created a task force - the East Stratcom team - directed solely at counteracting the perceived threat. The small team attempts to debunk fake stories in real time, but it is reportedly vastly outmatched by the amount of material coming its way. Peter Wilson, the UK ambassador to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said earlier this year the OPCW had counted more than 30 different Russian theories swirling around the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The effectiveness and reach of this type of disinformation operation in the West is debatable. A YouGov poll conducted earlier found that 75% of Britons believed that the Russian state was behind the Skripal poisoning, while just 5% said they thought Russia was innocent. But the sheer volume of Russian disinformation being exported abroad remained a major cause for concern, said one EU official who works on the issue but was not authorised to speak about it publicly. "Some people like to think this tactic was used around Brexit and it went away, or it was used around Skripal and went away, but it's happening 24/7," he said. "Others also use disinformation, of course ... But this aggression, this exporting of information narratives abroad, this is really something where Russia is number one in the world."

Looking back on it now, I think it might have been a real live troll I saw that late summer's night in Stockholm. He was of slight build and dressed all in black. I tried calling out to him, but he ran off, seemingly more scared of me than I was of him… But I'm getting ahead of myself. Long before there were people who sat at computers abusing other people online, there were real trolls in the world and they lived in Scandinavia. I learned about them as a child. My mother, whose own mother was half-Swedish, would read to me from an old book written in an unfamiliar language. The yellowing pages, which smelled of dust and magic, were filled with pictures of what looked like giant gnomes, huddled around fires or skulking in caves. They had pot bellies and pockmarked skin, long curly hair and large drooping noses. It was said they could be enticed out of the forest by the smell of coffee and bacon. Some were benign, others malign, but none of them looked anything like the creature that ran away from me outside the Culture House in central Stockholm that evening. Which is probably why I didn't make the connection immediately. Trolls predate the arrival of Christianity in Scandinavia by many centuries. Probably millennia. But when it did arrive, and traditional folklore was adapted to suit the times, the trolls too changed their behaviour. They developed a hatred of church bells. It was said they couldn't stand the smell of Christians. People told stories of rocks hurled at places of worship under construction - sabotage by angry trolls. Were these works of pure imagination? Or were these real people opposed to a radical new belief system, one that would sweep away the power of the pagans in favour of an unfamiliar foreign faith? And did those dissenters perhaps retreat into the forests to live beyond the reaches of the new social norms? Perhaps. The creature in black emerged out of the shadow of the Culture House into a pool of light beneath an advertising hoarding. His pale face flashed briefly under a dark cap that was pulled down close over his eyes. The face that stared back at him from the billboard was giant by comparison. That face belonged to the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A few years ago every 16-year-old in Sweden was issued with a copy of her essay, We Should All Be Feminists. Adichie's call chimed with the aims of the Swedish government, itself an avowedly feminist administration, and led by the same party that has governed Sweden for much of the last century. Under the left-leaning Social Democrats, Sweden became a beacon for people around the world who defined their politics as "progressive" - economically left-leaning and socially liberal. It was a radical new belief system. Most Swedes adopted it with fervour. At least in public. But this country has not been immune to the polarisation that has swept through other Western democracies. The European refugee crisis of 2015 was a turning point. That year, Sweden invited in more migrants per capita than even Germany. The consensus was - it was the right thing to do. After all, this is a wealthy country that prides itself on being a "humanitarian superpower". But from deep in the forest, there came rumblings of dissent. The first to give voice to these concerns were the Sweden Democrats, a party with its roots in the neo-Nazi movement. Perhaps because of that, those dissenting voices were quickly dismissed as the ravings of fringe racists - views beyond the bounds of acceptable norms. But even as the migration crisis has eased, the voices of dissent have grown louder. What has all this to do with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? Nothing really, except perhaps that her foreignness, her blackness, and her feminism, somehow mark her out as an icon, a pictorial incarnation of the liberal values of openness and inclusivity that have become something close to a national religion in Sweden The creature in black looked furtively about him. From an inside pocket he pulled out a strip of paper and stuck it on to the poster, directly over Adichie's eyes. It was then that he noticed me. I wouldn't have thought much of it, if it hadn't been for his strange reaction - he began walking away at a fast pace. "Hey!" I called after him. I was just curious. He ducked into a side street and broke into a run. I chased after him, our footsteps clattering over the cobblestones, but I lost him down an alleyway by the side of a churchyard. I wandered back up to the poster. The strip of paper had two words print

Support for President Donald Trump remains strong in the American farming heartland but, as BBC North America correspondent James Cook found in Broadview, Montana, there are also concerns about the drift away from free trade. Michelle Erickson-Jones should be celebrating. On the Great Plains, the harvest is coming to a close and she is cutting the very last of this year's wheat, rattling across a golden field in a combine harvester which bristles with technology. In the cab more than half a dozen screens are pumping out data as the machine reaps, threshes and winnows. A tablet superimposes the track of the great green-and-yellow beast on a satellite image of the land. Farming here in Montana is a hi-tech business with a global market. The most important customer for this farm is not a bakery in the nearest village but the world's third largest economy, Japan. And that is why Ms Erickson-Jones is worried. "We spent decades building that market," she says. So what happened? In a word, Trump. The president is enormously popular in Montana. In 2016 the Republican cruised to victory, beating his Democratic Party rival Hillary Clinton here by more than 20 percentage points. "America is tired of getting ripped off," said the president at a rally in Montana on Thursday night, showcasing the blunt language which helped him into the White House. "We're going to get a great deal for our farmers and ranchers and factory workers," he added. A good spot at the front of the rally was in such demand that a handful of fans had camped overnight outside the Rimrock Auto Arena in Billings. And yet this popularity comes despite, not because of, Mr Trump's approach to trade. It is a paradox which is not easily explained in a state where agriculture is by far the leading industry. On his third day in office, as he had promised during his campaign, Mr Trump pulled the US out of the nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which would have been the largest trade deal in history, covering 40% of the world's economy. His predecessor Barack Obama had envisaged the pact as a central plank of an American "pivot to Asia" with the aim of drawing countries around the Pacific Rim together in a fair, rules-based system, a challenge to China's statist capitalism. As a candidate Mrs Clinton also promised not to join TPP, which for a time appeared moribund until it was revived earlier this year by the remaining nations including Canada, Australia, Mexico and, crucially for Montana, Japan. Wheat and barley farmers in Montana say the effort they put in over several decades to cultivate Japanese customers now counts for little as the US, unlike the European Union, does not have its own trade agreement with Tokyo. "We have roughly 50% of Japan's market share right now," says Ms Erickson-Jones. "It's definitely something we wanted to continue and even expand and without being involved in TPP we expect to lose about half of that market share." Such losses will be a big blow for the rural US economy and for American prestige. Farming is entwined in this country's identity, its spacious skies and amber waves of grain celebrated by patriots who extolled the New World as a land of plenty. It is a description which remains rooted in truth. US crops are so plentiful that vast quantities of them are sent abroad. Statistics from the Department of Agriculture record American farmers exporting 50% of soybeans; 46% of wheat; and 21% of corn (maize), including ethanol. In 2017 the total value of US agricultural exports was assessed at $138.4bn. Montana is particularly dependent on such exports. "Seventy five per cent of our wheat is exported," says Ms Erickson-Jones, the fourth generation of her family to farm land near Broadview in south central Montana. She says the decision to abandon TPP and the subsequent loss of market share in Japan is far from the only protectionist problem in the air. 'Trade-distorting practices' Mr Trump may have been cheered in the steel mills of Pennsylvania when he announced that he would impose tariffs on imports of metals but the decision was a double whammy for farmers and ranchers. First it pushes up prices for agricultural equipment made using imported steel or aluminium and for the metals themselves. Secondly, American farmers reported in March that China had responded to US tariffs by stopping purchases of American wheat. The White House denies it is protectionist, insisting instead that it is using its economic might to force China to abandon "trade-distorting practices" such as unfair state subsidies; restrictive rules for foreign companies operating in the country; and the theft of US technology. Peter Navarro, a senior White House adviser on trade and industrial policy, wrote in April that Beijing had "broken every rule in the book" as its economy expanded at a time when the US was losing factories and jobs. Ms Erickson-Jones, who is the first female president of the Montana Grain Growers Association, is careful not to criticise the president personally and says she understands why he took action against China. But while she applauds the idea of taking on Beijing she would like to see an emphasis on "expanding our markets," including a plan to rejoin TPP. And she wants a speedy conclusion to the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), citing Mexico as another critical market for US crops. Mr Trump said again at his rally on Thursday that the Mexican aspect of the new Nafta deal had been struck and he hoped Canada would soon be on board too. He has also mused in the past about trying to re-negotiate TPP but there has been little evidence that he is actually preparing to do so. In the meantime, the administration is offering emergency bail-out payments to farmers and the US reputation as the breadbasket of the world is suffering. Montana's Democratic Senator Jon Tester says he too accepts the president's diagnosis of the problem with China but insists that he would have tried a different solution, forming an international coalition to put financial sanctions on Beijing, which he calls "a bad actor," which steals technology and manipulates currency. Mr Tester, a farmer himself, says he remembers with dread the early 1980s when the US government stopped its farmers from selling grain to the Soviet Union (a policy enacted by a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, in response to the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan and ended by a Republican, Ronald Reagan). "I was on the farm in the 1980s... and I saw my neighbours leave in droves," he says. "So the tariffs scare me. They scare me bad." Mr Tester is campaigning for re-election in November's mid-term elections in the shadow of Yellowstone National Park - deep in Trump territory. "If we don't have those foreign markets, we are literally dead in the water in production agriculture," he warns. Across the state line in Wyoming there seem to be more ranchers than farmers at the Cody Rodeo. Here in the town founded by the showman WF Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, the crowd may not be following every twist and tweet from Washington DC but it is clear that they trust the modern day showman in the White House. "Glad we have Trump to properly stand up for ourselves and maybe make a better deal for us," says Corey Forman, who hides a broad grin under a shaggy red beard and a black and white baseball cap which advertises farm loans. Phil McVey is also in the audience, well-prepared for the evening's entertainment in four layers of shirts and jackets topped off with a smart light-brown cowboy hat. "American farmers need help," he admits before adding quickly "and whatever he [Trump] can do to help us, its fine." Pressed on what exactly that should be, Mr McVey has a simple answer. "He'll do the right thing. We like him." There is a great divide here between the protectionism in Washington and the free trade preferred by farmers but it doesn't seem to be eroding support for the president. Time and again in the wilds of the west we heard the same thing: voters here trust Donald Trump to do the right thing. As autumn beckons though, concerns remain. Back on the farm Michelle Erickson-Jones says tariffs have already pushed down profits, putting the very future of this family enterprise in doubt. When I ask whether her farm will survive her answer - "I hope so" - is delivered with a laugh which does not sound especially reassuring. "Nothing's certain in farming, so no, I'm not totally sure but we're OK for a couple of years," she continues. "A lot of my concern is based on how long it's taken us to build these markets. It's easy to tear them down and tearing them down has a pretty big impact on the future of my kids' ability to farm.

If you are a man and mulling over the idea of running for president in 2019 for one of Nigeria's main parties then deep pockets are required. Campaigning, of course, is going to cost money, but both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) charge presidential hopefuls who want to run in the party primaries tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege. The APC, the party of President Muhammadu Buhari, wants $125,000 (£97,000) for a nomination form. An opposition PDP presidential nomination is cheap by comparison - just $33,000. Women, on the other hand, get a discount - half price for the APC or totally free if you want to try your luck with PDP. But neither party has ever nominated a woman since the return of democracy in 1999 and only one woman, Sarah Jibril, has run in the primaries. She gained just one vote in the 2011 contest. But for male aspirants the price tag has triggered fears that the opportunity to run for the country's highest office is only open to the rich. Only candidates from the PDP and APC have won Nigeria's presidency since the end of military rule. Recipe for corruption? People have accused the main parties of using the nomination process to generate cash. The APC has nearly doubled the price from the last election in 2015. When Mr Buhari made his bid to become the then-opposition party's candidate for president he bought his nomination form for $76,000. At the time he said he a got a bank loan to cover the cost, but there has never been any statement on how or when the loan was repaid and with what interest. Mr Buhari wants to run for a second term as the APC candidate - his nomination fee has been covered by a youth movement this time round. One man who is hoping to challenge Mr Buhari, Alhaji Mumakai Unagha, has called the charges "a deliberate act to deny potential aspirants with genuine intentions for the country from accessing or collecting the form". "With the current situation, those who stole our common wealth will now have a field day, while those of us with a genuine and burning desire to contribute to the development of the country will be denied." Mr Unagha thinks that the nomination fee is an invitation to loot state coffers once people win office. "The party is indirectly telling Nigerians that when aspirants get to power they should recoup their money." Too poor to run? This view is echoed by Nana Tim-Dudiefa Nwachukwu, who is part of the #NotTooYoungToRun movement that seeks to encourage young Nigerians to run for office. "How do you hope to recover your money? People go into businesses for the benefits it brings to them in one way or the other. "It means such a person will be looking at some other means outside of his or her legitimate income to recover their money." The opposition PDP has gone the opposite way to the APC and slashed its nomination fees by nearly half. But $33,000 is still out of the reach of most of the population, seeing as Nigeria's average annual income per person is less than $2,000. Although the parties charge these nomination fees, the country's electoral commission, which has made no comment on the issue, does not charge the parties to register their candidates once the primary process is over. The parties have defended their charges. APC spokesman Yekini Nabena told the AFP news agency that the fees were a reflection of the cost of campaigning and a way of ensuring the party was not in thrall to a handful of wealthy donors. "We want the party itself to take care of the elections so that nobody will say because he gave money to the party, he wants to dictate to the party what to do," AFP quoted him as saying. He added: "Even though you are financially handicapped, if you are the man of the people, your supporters can contribute money for you." But the suspicion is that the office of president may now be going to the highest bidder. 'Humongous fees' Journalist Kassim Afegbua, a member of an APC breakaway faction, has been damning. "A party that calls itself progressives shut its doors against all democratic principles of allowing other persons to vie for the presidency," he wrote in an article in the New Telegraph newspaper. "It imposes a humongous nomination fee... on a president it has generously branded as a poor man whose only item on his menu list is integrity." Idayat Hassan, Executive Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, also thinks this reflects badly on the way politics is going. "These parties are saying offices are only for the rich candidates with [a] large war chest. "These parties previously have tried to hide the role of money in politics but for this electoral cycle, what they have made obvious is money is the defining character for the election: no money, no contest, no money, no office. "This has made democracy the preserve of the rich."

The star of the film version of novel The Hate U Give has admitted she found it hard to have her casting queried because she is not darker-skinned. "It was the first time in my life that I'd ever had my blackness questioned," Amandla Stenberg told reporters at the Toronto Film Festival. "I've never thought of myself as not being black enough," she went on. The film tells of a girl who witnesses the fatal shooting of an unarmed friend by a white police officer. The incident makes her question her place in both her predominantly black community and the private school where she is one of few non-white students. She also faces opposition over her determination to testify against the police officer responsible. Last month the artist who illustrated the cover of Angie Thomas's best-selling novel said she "wasn't exactly thrilled" by Stenberg's casting. "I was hoping it would be a very brown-skinned actress, because there's so little opportunities in these big movies for darker-skinned actresses," said Debra Cartwright. Her comments followed a debate on social media over whether the film was guilty of colourism - prejudice against people with a darker skin tone. Speaking on Saturday, Stenberg said she was sympathetic to that viewpoint and had considered turning down the lead role of teenager Starr Carter. "I have a great sensitivity towards the place from where that [viewpoint] comes, a place of pain," the 19-year-old said. "It's a result of people being frustrated because they're navigating a colourist system at all times. "There was a point in time when I went to Angie and said 'If you agree with these concerns and feel I don't accurately represent Starr, tell me and I will drop out'. "And she said, 'What?' She said she had never questioned I was not the right person." Hunger Games star Stenberg has drawn praise from critics for her work in the film, which opens in the UK on 26 October. The Guardian said George Tillman Jr's film was "anchored by [her] heavyweight performance," while Variety saluted her "star-making turn". Speaking on Saturday, Tillman Jr said he had wanted to make the film as "honest" and as "authentic" as possible. The director of such films as Soul Food and Biggie Smalls biopic Notorious said he hoped it would both "inspire and create dialogue". "I never wanted this story to be sanitised," said Thomas of her 2017 debut novel, which was inspired by a real-life police shooting in 2009. "Angie wrote an amazing book with a lot of depth and heart so our main goal was to capture that," said Stenberg, adding that she hoped the film would make young black women feel "validated, empowered and strong." The Toronto Film Festival continues until 16 September.

The Ministry of Justice is scrapping rules which prevent some victims of crime from being compensated if they lived with their attacker. The "same roof rule" was changed in 1979, but not retrospectively, meaning victims from before that time have been refused payouts. It is part of a government review to "improve access" to compensation. Justice Secretary David Gauke said he wanted to "make sure victims get the awards they're due". The Court of Appeal ruled in July that the pre-1979 caveat in the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (CICS) had unfairly denied compensation to a claimant who was abused as a child by her stepfather. The government said it agreed with the ruling and would not appeal. The review into CICS, launched on Sunday, will also look at the existing time limit where adult victims have to apply for compensation within two years of the crime. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said both measures would be especially relevant for victims of historic child abuse and seek to "reflect the changing nature of crime" and "better support victims". The CICS is available in England, Wales and Scotland and is funded out of government spending. Last year, it paid out more than £150m to victims. Claims can be made in relation to mental or physical injury, sexual or physical abuse, loss of earnings and the death of a close relative. The MoJ will also look at whether to expand the definition of a crime of violence to include sexually exploitative behaviour, such as grooming, and how victims of terrorism should be compensated. The review will look at the "sustainability" of the scheme and the "affordability" of any changes. BBC home affairs correspondent, Danny Shaw, said it would be the "most far-reaching review of the scheme for more than 20 years". 'Rebuild lives' Mr Gauke said: "Whilst no amount of compensation can make up for the immense suffering endured by victims of violent crime, it is vital they receive the help and support needed to rebuild their lives. "Over the years we've seen more prosecutions for sexual offences and sadly experienced the horror of terrorism. "We need to make sure these victims get the awards they're due so we will be looking to ensure the criteria are appropriate." The announcement was welcomed by Barnardo's chief executive Javed Khan, Victim Support chief officer Diana Fawcett, and Rape Crisis co-chairwomen Dawn Thomas and Dianne Whitfield. In a joint statement, they said: "As a coalition, we have long campaigned to get justice for victims of child sexual abuse who have lost out due to illogical rules governing the scheme. "We are glad the Ministry of Justice has listened to our concerns, so victims will at long last get the compensation they so rightly deserve." The review will start immediately and is expected to report back to the government in 2019 with any recommendations for changes to the scheme.

A plastic tunnel attached to the side of a supermarket has become the highest rated TripAdvisor attraction in a Cornish seaside resort. The 70m (230ft) structure in Bude has racked up more than 160 comments with the majority rating it "excellent". Those commenting have jokingly likened it to the Taj Mahal and called it "one of the seven wonders". Its profile says "nowhere else in Bude can you walk this far undercover in a continuous straight line". The person who originally listed the tunnel, who wishes to remain anonymous, said they did so because it was "one I have admired for a while", and they "never thought that it would become this popular". They have also been selling postcards depicting the tunnel in the town to raise money for the Bude Sea Pool, a popular attraction. The latest stories from Cornwall They said: "It's been a great talking point in the town, and one that seems to have brought everyone together. That's fantastic. "It's great that as well as being a bit of fun, it will raise a little bit of money for one of the town's real attractions." One woman, who gave an "excellent" rating, commented that the tunnel was a "great place for a divorce". She said: "Took my ex-husband, (husband at the time), to the tunnel to break things off and inform him about the divorce. "The walk back through the elongated trouble felt like the first step towards freedom from Steven and his massive collection of recorders. Best moment of my life." The tunnel links shoppers from the Sainsbury's supermarket to the car park, protecting them from the rain. A Sainsbury's spokesperson said: "It's clear that visitors to Bude have seen the light at the end of this tunnel." Mark Hibbard, from Bude Area Tourist Board, said reviews people read online were unregulated and the town "has so much to offer visitors". "I hope that the Bude Tunnel being rated as the number one attraction in Bude does not become detrimental to the 'real' things to do and visit in our town," he said.

QI host Sandi Toksvig is paid 40% of the amount the panel show's former host Stephen Fry used to earn, she has told the Women's Equality Party conference. Her fellow WEP co-founder Catherine Mayer tweeted that there was a "huge gasp" in the party conference room as Toksvig responded to a question on pay. Toksvig, 60, took over from Fry in October 2016, who had hosted since 2003. She has filmed three series. Producers Fremantle Media have made no comment on the difference. The company makes the show, which runs on the BBC, and is set to return on Monday. Answering a question about pay at the party conference, she said she had never wanted the equal pay argument to focus on her, she had a "nice living" and did "very well". But she added: "I have recently discovered I get 40% of what Stephen used to get. And I get the same pay as (permanent panellist) Alan Davies, who is not the host. "I temper this with the fact that I love the show and I'm the first woman to host such a show." Later, she added: "I love QI and the brilliant team who produce it. John Lloyd and the (production) team champion women on the show." The Women's Equality Party (WEP) which she established with Ms Mayer campaigns for women to have the same rights and opportunities as men. Toksvig said she made the comments at the party's conference in answer to a question she felt she had to respond to "because the issues with equal pay and the gender pay gap cut right across the media and all industries and all areas of life". "Until now I had held back from talking about this because this is not about me. "However, the lack of transparency around pay is a big part of the problem and I hope that being open, I can support women across the country whose work is undervalued." Toksvig also co-presents the Great British Bake Off. The amount she is paid for either roles has not been released. The BBC press office said: "QI is made by an independent production company who manage their own talent fees." Stephen Fry has also yet to comment on his successor's statements.

The Trades Union Congress has warned Theresa May it is poised to throw its "full weight" behind calls for a referendum on the final Brexit deal. TUC leader Frances O'Grady said that unless the government struck "the deal that working people need" with the EU, she would demand a "popular vote". "It's only right that people should get a say," she told the BBC. The government has ruled out another EU referendum, saying it is working to make a success of Brexit. Labour says it is not calling for another public vote, but that a referendum on the terms of Brexit should be "on the table". A referendum like this is the demand of the People's Vote campaign, which has backing of some MPs from the two largest parties. Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show as the TUC conference gets under way in Manchester, Ms O'Grady urged the government to extend the UK's EU membership to allow longer for negotiations. "Time is running out and a crash out of the EU would be an absolute disaster for the people we represent," she said. She said people's livelihoods at companies like BMW, Airbus and Jaguar were at stake, calling for jobs and workers' rights to be the government's priority. "I want to serve notice to the prime minister today that if we don't get the deal that working people need, then the TUC will be throwing our full weight behind a campaign for a popular vote so that people get a say on whether that deal is good enough or not," she said, adding that union leaders always consult their members when they negotiate a deal. Last week the GMB Union announced its support for the People's Vote campaign. To coincide with the start of the TUC conference, People's Vote has published polling suggesting most members of Unison, Unite and GMB supported the campaign's demands. It said the YouGov poll of more than 2,700 trade unionists was evidence of the "growing momentum" for its campaign.

Next Tuesday is September 11th and once again T-Mobile subscribers will be able to open the T-Mobile Tuesdays app and grab some freebies and prizes. The carrier does this to thank subscribers. Before we get into the giveaways, we should remind you that the sweepstakes being run with movie app Atom is still in play until Monday. If you haven't entered yet, you can do so via the same app you use to collect your weekly prizes. Those who are not T-Mobile subscribers can enter at amoe.t-mobiletuesdays.com. The winner will receive a pair of free movie tickets a week for a year. Next Tuesdays giveaways include: A $4 movie ticket to see The Predator from Atom. $25 concert tickets from Live Nation. $10 off a $50 order from Overstock.com. And a mystery prize that T-Mobile has yet to reveal. Again, to claim your prizes on Tuesday, open up the T-Mobile Tuesdays app on your T-Mobile phone. And don't forget that you have until Monday to enter the movie ticket sweepstakes.

@Piratebye really love to get invite so i am applying for invite

@Piratebye really superb thread and i like to apply for invite. Keep it up dude!

Dish Network, one of the largest pay-TV providers in the United States, sees online piracy as a serious threat that can't be ignored. The company is hiring a new anti-piracy specialist who will be tasked with researching and monitoring various pirate sites, as well as making sure that eBay, Craigslist, and YouTube remain piracy-free. With $15 billion in annual revenue, American satellite and broadcast provider Dish Network is a force to be reckoned with. The company has been on a pirate crusade in recent years, filing several lawsuits against alleged pirate sources, including the popular Kodi-addon repository TVAddons. TVAddons previously announced that it had reached a confidential settlement and this week the case was indeed dismissed (pdf). Dish, however, maintains dedicated to the piracy problem on other fronts. In a new job listing the Fortune 200 company is looking for a fraud investigator with a special focus on researching and monitoring online piracy activities. “DISH in Englewood, Colorado, is looking for an Investigator II to work on multiple projects with topics ranging from satellite piracy, IPTV violations, Intellectual Property violations, forum monitoring, Internet monitoring, and end-user cases,” the posting reads. One of the primary responsibilities of this position is to keep an eye on businesses and individuals that offer Dish content illegally. This covers streaming sites, IPTV services, and also Kodi-addons. In addition, the job also requires daily monitoring of specific “targeted websites” and forums, and a summary of the activity on these platforms in daily reports. Dish’s vacancy https://torrentfreak.com/images/dishjob.png Dish stresses that prospective candidates should be able to handle confidential information with discretion. They must also work with outside counsel, likely because their research could be used as the basis for future lawsuits. Finally, the position demands that candidates help implement various takedown procedures, with Dish specifically highlighting eBay, Craigslist, and YouTube as services of interest. While the job application reveals no groundbreaking details or plans, it’s clear that Dish is taking piracy rather seriously. The company’s efforts are clearly not limited to the occasional lawsuit. And for those who like spending time trawling through piracy forums, it’s good to know that Dish, and likely others, are reading along. Source: Torrentfreak.com

company. Sorry everyone. Updates soon." Update: This is beyond our control currently. (I was the only admin, I don't know if once again I can build it back up again with the passion I had before. It was a year long grind) Will update here again soon once more info is brought into light.

@emittokindly check your pm friend

Tactical JRPG Disgaea 2 is free-to-play on Steam until tomorrow (around midday PT), and if you like what you see then you can buy it at 55% off until Monday. The 2006 JRPG, initially released for PS2, came to Steam last year, complete with all the content included in the 2009 PSP port Dark Hero Days , as well as an updated UI, mouse and keyboard support, and three playable characters previously unavailable in western versions (Dark Eclair, Gig and Miabel). The original Disgaea's PC port was pretty atrocious, but this one has fared better. Some players have experienced bugs and visual glitches, but most seem satisfied, and user reviews are very positive. The 55% price cut, to $8.99/£6.74 from its regular price of $19.99/£14.99, is level with the cheapest it's been on PC, so if you've been meaning to pick it up now's as good a time as any. You might as well try it out for free while you can, at least—it's only a 2GB download. And if you're a fan of the series, keep an eye out for the Disgaea 5 port, which will launch on Steam next month.

While we wait on Nightdive's remake of System Shock—due in 2020—the studio has given us the next best thing: a new version of the classic immersive sim that runs in 4K, has an adjustable field of view and extra keyboard rebinding options. The new features arrive in a free update to System Shock: Enhanced Edition. It already offered graphical improvements on the base game plus basic mouselook support, but the latest update—called the 'source port update'—adds so much more, including new hi-res assets and smoother camera movement. You can read about all the additions here. Crucially, it also adds official support for mods and fan-made missions, playable through a new menu. That means you can boot it up and jump right into System Shock: ReWired, the game's first ever fan-made campaign. As the name of the update suggests, this is the first time System Shock has been rebuilt from the original source code, allowing it to be adapted to Nightdive's KEX engine. The source code was released to the public earlier this year. You can pick up a Steam key for a mere $2 from the Humble Store—an 80% price cut that's active for the next five days. It's also available on Steam at 50% off or on GOG without a discount. Wes sat down with Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick and business development director Larry Kuperman in March to discuss delays to the System Shock reboot—it's worth a read.

The PC version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has a new update that adds content and fixes a lot of the game's bugs. Update 21 implements a new mode, weapon, vehicle, weapon attachment, a reward system for fulfilling certain criteria during matches, and multiplayer improvements. Update 21 adds a new training mode that allows you to practice different mechanics without fear of being killed. Taking place on a small island--only 200x200 km--the training mode contains 14 zones for trying out different skills. You'll be able to practice jumping off ramps in vehicles, maneuvering on twisting roads, controlling vehicle speed, piloting a boat, driving off road, shooting on different gun ranges, landing in a parachute, free-running over rooftops, swinging different melee weapons, trying different grenades, and learning the effects of consumables. All three maps get the new assault rifle the MK47 Mutant. The rifle takes 7.62 ammo and holds 20 rounds a clip. The rifle can be fired in both single shot and two-round burst modes, and takes almost all types of assault rifle attachments other than stocks. Sanhok gets a new exclusive vehicle: the three-person Tukashai. It's slow but it handles off-road better than the motorcycles. Update 21 adds a lot more to the game as well, including an objective system where you're rewarded for completing certain tasks during matches--like reviving teammates a certain number of times or dealing a certain amount of damage with one attack. There's also a new laser sight, which fits into the grip slot on rifles. It offers greater accuracy at the cost of giving away your position. You'll also be able to place markers on your compass, which translates to your teammates' compasses too. This helps you determine the direction of a threat more efficiently when your team is stationed at different points on the map. All of the changes are outlined in greater detail in the full patch notes on PUBG's Steam page. If you're simply interested in the bug fixes, we've listed them below. This update is only live on the PC version of PUBG, but the battle royale game is also available for Xbox One. PUBG just officially launched on Xbox One with its 1.0 update, which added the Sanhok map and weather conditions. PUBG Update 21 Bug Fixes Fixed the issue where, after connecting the XBOX controller to the PC, the drop-down menu would not appear to select the reason for reporting on the results screen. Fixed the issue where a character on board a vehicle would sometimes be shown as immobile in a very different location. Fixed the issue where a character is sometimes shown in a different location Fixed the issue where a character who is driving in a vehicle is created in an unspecified location. Fixed the issue where weapons are sometimes shown in locations different from where the character is holding them. Fixed the issue where the gun of the person you are spectating is sometimes not rendered, causing problems when the gun goes into ADS mode. Fixed the issue where approaching a corpse while lying down could sometimes cause the camera to zoom in. Fixed the issue where approaching a window with glass and throwing a throwable could sometimes cause the camera to temporarily zoom in and out. Fixed the issue where sometimes a character standing at the very edge of the sea would be shown as falling out of the sky. Fixed the issue where the Bluezone UI timer occasionally decreases by 2 seconds. Fixed the issue where an underwater character is unable to move to land because the terrain is shown as stuttering. Fixed the issue where colliding with an object while driving in a UAZ deals comparatively more damage than other vehicles. Fixed the issue where the firing mode of a gun that has been dropped and picked up again is reset to default settings. Fixed the issue where the AR compensator on the SLR was not reducing the horizontal recoil. Fixed the issue where a character cannot peek while over a gas can. Fixed the issue where frame drop occured when the weather was rainy and the character was swimming in the water when the perspective changed from under to above water. Fixed the issue where the suppressed AKM and Beryl M762 sounded the same. Fixed the issue where characters could pass through a wooden door while riding the scooter. Fixed the issue where players sometimes couldn’t loot items when the item was dropped on stairs or a slope. Fixed the issue where the vaulting action was not working properly with certain building windows in Sanhok. Fixed the issue where the HP gauge was displayed red in certain conditions. Fixed the issue where an afterimage sometimes remains on other players' screen when repeatedly arming/unarming.

On September 11, the mythic-difficulty version of Uldir, the first raid in Battle for Azeroth, opens up. This brutally hard version of the raid will pit raid teams against a gauntlet of eight bosses, each possessing a series of abilities that will devastate all but the most skilled and coordinated teams. And for the first time ever, WoW's top guild, Method, will stream the whole thing on Twitch—bringing an end to the mystery of World of Warcraft's mythic world-first raid races. For decades, these races have been the soul of competitive World of Warcraft, with top guilds from all over the world racing to be the first to defeat every boss in a given raid. Doing so is a serious feat of endurance, with guilds sometimes trying to beat the same boss for 16 hours day after day. While the last expansion's raids didn't take too long to complete, some of WoW's older raids took weeks. The prize? Bragging rights for the next few months until a new raid was released and a new race began. But because the competition was so stiff, few teams were willing to stream their attempts on Twitch for fear of revealing their secret strategies, giving their opponents an edge. It made for an awkward experience as a spectator. Players were deeply invested in who won the race but were unable to actually watch the damn thing. Instead, viewers would usually have to tune into streams by less competitive guilds who didn't care about broadcasting their attempts. That often meant that entire boss fights were a mystery for days or weeks as only the most competitive guilds could actually get that far into the raid. It wasn't until one guild actually managed to kill every boss that they'd release videos showing exactly how they did it. "Strategizing on how to kill each raid boss plays a huge part in succeeding in the progress race," explained Method's guild leader, Sco, in a statement. "Guilds treat their strategies as top secret and as a result of this, no guild with a shot at claiming a world first has ever live-streamed this competition. We want to change that." To that end, Method is partnering with Twitch and Discord to stream their attempt to be the first to defeat Mythic Uldir when it opens on September 11. "It's an incredibly exciting announcement for all of us at Method," said Method's communications director, Derrie. "We cannot wait to give you all a look (and listen!) at what it's really like during World First progress." Dozens of Method's guild members will be streaming the race from their point-of-view on Twitch next Tuesday, but Red Bull will also have a curated stream with key Method raiders and commentators live from their Gaming Sphere studio in the UK. It sounds like the guild is going all-out to make the event special, but I'm interested in seeing if all the extra production value makes the race more compelling. At the very least, it's great that Warcraft's legendary world-first races will finally be a thing that average players can spectate. There's no telling how long it'll take Method to clear Mythic Uldir, but hopefully this will spark a new era of competitive World of Warcraft without all the secrecy. On Tuesday, September 11, you can tune into Method's main Twitch channel to watch the race from their perspective.

Larian could probably tweak, fix, enhance, and otherwise append things to Divinity: Original Sin 2 for the next decade and still not be done with it, but now that the Definitive Edition is out (it's a free update on PC), studio founder Swen Vincke says it's time to move on to the next project. “It’s not as if we didn’t talk about adding new quests or a new origin character [to Divinity: OS2]," said Vincke in an interview we published earlier today, "but we only have so much time in our lives and there’s only that many things we can make.” “We’ve already put a lot of effort into improving what’s there. People forget that these are three-year endeavours for us, and when you think about your lifecycle, you start counting how many you can make. It’s not that many. That’s why we need to move on and make new stuff.” I've just restarted Original Sin 2, and while I wouldn't mind seeing it improved forever (Larian says it'll continue to support it with patches), I'm awfully curious about what the studio is working on now. A new Divinity or Divinity-style game would complete the dismantling of my social life, but I'm willing to pay that price. Presumably, whatever game is next for Larian has already been brewing, so it may not be too long before we get a peek. "Expect to hear a lot more from us once we’re ready to announce our new endeavors," said the studio in its final Divinity: OS2 Kickstarter update.

The folks over at Humble have unveiled the early unlock game for October's Humble Monthly bundle: Overwatch, which can be unlocked for the one-month subscription price of $12. That's a nice discount from the game's $40 street price, and even cheaper than Blizzard's relatively regular 50 percent off sale. Humble Monthly offers up a collection of games each month on a subscription-based system. Anyone who subscribes by October 5 will get a bundle of mystery games, and subscribing now grants immediate access to Overwatch. Last month's bundle included Rise of the Tomb Raider, Sniper Elite 4, Tales of Berseria, Staxel, Battle Chef Brigade, Darksiders II, and several others. It's a solid deal for 12 bucks, and you can cancel anytime while getting to keep any games you've unlocked. Subscribers also get a 10 percent discount on the Humble Store, and 5 percent of all proceeds (including Monthly subscriptions) is donated to charity.

AOC on Friday introduced a new line of gaming monitors designed for fast-action gaming. Each of the company's new G1 series models deliver up to a 144Hz refresh rate and support AMD's Freesync technology for fast and smooth gaming. There are four models in all, comprised of the 24-inch C24G1, 27-inch C27G1, 31.5-inch C32G1, and 31.5-inch CQ32G1. The first three each use a VA panel with a 1920x1080 resolution and 1ms response time, whereas the CQ32G1 bumps the res up to 2560x1440. It's not clear if that one also uses a VA panel. Each of the displays is also curved, —1500R for the C24G1 and 1800R for the rest. Along with thin bezels, AOC is pitching the G1 series as being friendly for multi-monitor configurations. "Multi-monitor setups have become commonplace in not only productivity setups, but in gaming battle stations as well. The frameless curved design results in thin bezels around the top and sides of the monitors for enhanced immersion. Multiple monitor setups are ideal for an immersive widescreen experience, streaming on Twitch or watching a favorite stream while gaming," AOC says. There are no other specs available for the CQ32G1. As for the other three, each one has a rated brightness of 250 nits. That's well short of eye-searing, and below the 400 nits requirement of VESA's entry-level DisplayHDR 400 certification. These are not HDR displays anyway, but we'd still like to see a higher brightness rating. For connectivity, users will find a two HDMI 1.4 ports, a DisplayPort connector, and a VGA port. The C27G1 is available now on Newegg for $279.99. The C24G1 ($229.99), C32G1 ($299.99), and CQ32G1 ($399.99) will be available sometime later this year.

Now that the new generation of Nvidia cards are almost here, prices for 10-series GPUs continue to drop. GTX 1080 Ti cards have largely stayed around $650, but now you can buy an MSI triple-fan model for $599.99 after a $20 mail-in rebate. This card uses MSI's 'ZeroFrozr' technology to stop the fans when temperatures drop below 60°C, and there's a custom heatsink with 8mm "super pipes." The core clock is 1531 MHz, but it can boost to 1645 MHz. For input, you get one dual-link DVI-D, two HDMI, and two DisplayPort. You can buy the MSI GTX 1080 Ti from Newegg.