European Union members agreed to postpone Brexit for up to three months, stepping in with a decision less than 90 hours before Britain was due to crash out with no divorce deal.
The next deadline for departure will be January 31 next year -- although the other 27 capitals would allow an earlier date if London ratifies a withdrawal agreement before then.
Since the Calais migrant camps were shut three years ago and security measures were increased at Dover and the Channel Tunnel, people smugglers have increasingly moved to other routes.
Asked which ports are being used, the National Crime Agency told me: "All of them."
More dangerous methods are being used to get human cargo through.
The most common one is being hidden in the back of a lorry, but increasingly commercial shipping containers are being used, sometimes even refrigerated ones of the type seen on the back of the truck in Essex.
Risks are substantial for the migrants, who can pay £10,000 or more for a space on these vehicles.
In 2015, the bodies of 71 people were found in an abandoned lorry on an Austrian motorway. Police suspected the vehicle was part of a Bulgarian-Hungarian human trafficking operation.
Media caption'I've seen people running out of a lorry'
Essex Police has set up a casualty bureau for anyone concerned about relatives to call.
The British Red Cross has confirmed staff and volunteers were helping "those dealing with this terrible tragedy".
6 分前 - Parliament is sitting on a Saturday for the first time in 37 years to vote on Boris Johnson's Brexit deal. The PM is trying to convince MPs to support the agreement he secured with the EU, ahead of what is expected to be a ...
...Mokyr, a professor at Northwestern University, attributed Britain’s sudden economic growth to its superior “artisanal elite” — a group of engineers and mechanics whose technical skills gave Britain a competitive advantage over the rest of Europe.
“Britain taught Europe, and Europe taught the world, how the miracles of technological progress, free enterprise, and efficient management can break the shackles of poverty and want,” he said.
Mokyr’s talk — called “The Holy Land of Industrialism: Rethinking the Industrial Revolution” — challenged widely accepted views about the time period. Many historians attribute British dominance in the Industrial Revolution to the country’s scientists, who they argue looked for labor-saving, coal-burning technologies.
Mokyr, by contrast, argued that the driving force behind British growth was the workers who implemented those innovations. He contended that British artisans outstripped their peers on the continent because of the British apprenticeship system. Whereas European craftsmen handed down “codified knowledge” mostly from instructional manuals, the British system passed on “tacit knowledge” from observation, imitation, and in-person teaching.
Mokyr argued that even European contemporaries echoed this idea. He cited as an example British engineer John Farey, who, according to Mokyr, argued that the British did not produce better inventions than other countries but had more effective ways of implementing existing technology.
He said that British advantage launched the nation toward economic fertility because, in addition to the ideas of inventors, countries needed the “mechanical expertise” of “tweakers and implementers” to put new technology into practice.
Audience members said they appreciated Mokyr’s new take on the material...
The Harvard Crimson
Economic historian Joel Mokyr argued that the expertise of British craftsmen fueled that country’s rise to dominance during the Industrial Revolution in a lecture sponsored by the Economics Department Wednesday. http://ow.ly/aW2850wNjct
Wood from a vast underwater forest in Ghana could be used to rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral after its spire and roof were consumed by a blaze in April.
Massive tropical trees have been submerged beneath Lake Volta since 1965, when the construction of Ghana's Akosombo Dam flooded part of the Volta River Basin.
A Ghanaian company, which has government concessions to harvest this wood, believes that using it to rebuild Notre-Dame is more environmentally friendly than cutting down new trees.
Image copyrightDENNIS IVERSImage captionLake Volta spans 3,300 sq mi (8,500 sq km) and is the world's largest man-made reservoir
Kete Krachi Timber Recovery argues that the wood is "much stronger" because it has been preserved from decay by the lake's bog-like conditions, and has started to fossilise.
While some experts have described the proposal as a "genius solution", others warn that it could have disastrous consequences for the ecosystem.
The company has submitted its proposal to the French government, arguing that using wood from Lake Volta would help restore Notre-Dame to its original state.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionNotre-Dame's roof and spire collapsed after a fire burned through the cathedral in April
An estimated 1,300 trees, mainly oaks, were felled in the 12th Century to build Notre-Dame's iconic frame and spire. The deforested area spanned 52 acres - the equivalent of 26 football pitches.
According to Bertrand de Feydeau, vice-president of French preservation group Fondation du Patrimoine, France no longer has giant oak trees of the same size and maturity that were used to build the original structure.
Francis Kalitsi, chairman and co-founder of Kete Krachi, agrees. "We don't think they still have oak in these volumes for the construction of cathedrals," he said.
"Whereas underneath the lake, you have typical African hardwoods that are similar to oak trees - their density may range from 650kg to 900kg per cubic metre. They are structural timbers which could be useful in the reconstruction."
Kete Krachi already harvests the underwater timber using remotely operated machinery guided by video, sonar and GPS navigation. Most of the wood is exported to Europe, and some to South Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Image copyrightJACOB TETTEH AGEKEImage captionRemotely operated machinery is used to extract timber from Lake Volta
The company says if commissioned, it would sell $50m (£39.5m) worth of wood to the French government. Its proposal has already been acknowledgement by the ministry of culture.
Jérémie Patrier-Leitus from the French culture ministry told the BBC: "Right now we don't know if the frame will be rebuilt in wood. We are in the process of securing the monument, and then we will have to rebuild the vault and the spire.
"Reconstruction will start once the structure of the monument is stabilised and preserved. We will study the different generous offers once we have confirmed the material used to rebuild the frame."
Notre-Dame before the fire in 360° video
Bog oak: A more durable wood
Dr Cathy Oakes, specialist in French and English medieval architecture and iconography at the University of Oxford, said the wood in Lake Volta could be similar to "bog oak", which was widely used in medieval constructions and furniture, although not in the original Notre-Dame.
"Bog oak has similarly been exposed to water for a long period of time, so it's stronger and more durable," she said in remarks before her death this summer.
Image copyrightDENNIS IVERSImage captionWood from Lake Volta could boost Ghana's timber industry
The shortage of oxygen, and the acidic conditions of peat bogs and riverbeds help to preserve tree trunks from decay. The wood then begins to fossilise, making it significantly stronger.
Andrew Waugh, director of London-based sustainable architecture practice Waugh Thistleton Architects, said using African wood such as iroko from Lake Volta could be a "genius solution".
"It would seem to be a great way of solving a problem and helping a poorer economy," he said.
Image copyrightDENNIS IVERSImage captionTimber is loaded on to a barge after it is extracted from the lake
"Iroko is an incredibly durable, hard-wearing timber. It's very stable. Unless there are any issues with decay from taking it out of the water, one would imagine it would be a great timber to work with."
But what about the environment?
However, concerns have been raised about the possible negative impact harvesting wood from Lake Volta could have on the local ecosystem.
A report in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives said pulling trees from lake beds can pollute the water with sediment, thereby blocking the light needed by aquatic organisms to survive.
Image copyrightDENNIS IVERSImage captionSome say that Lake Volta's wood is stronger as a result of being submerged for six decades
The trees also provide a habitat for fish and other wildlife. Uprooting them could disrupt the lake's ecology, thereby threatening Ghana's fishery industry - a lifeline for an estimated 300,000 fishing families.
Stephen Anani, a project officer at local NGO Friends of the Nation, told the BBC that removing underwater trees had led to a "sharp decline" in the number of fish in Lake Volta because they tend to breed around stumps.
"It's destroying the habitat where fish lay their eggs," he said. "Some of the fish are now endangered. If you speak to fishermen along the lake, they complain bitterly."
Questions have also been raised about the carbon footprint associated with extracting the wood and transporting it from Ghana to France.
Image copyrightDENNIS IVERSImage captionTimber from Lake Volta includes typical African hardwoods such as iroko and wawa
According to the International Maritime Organization's third Greenhouse Gas study, maritime transport emits around 940 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year and accounts for about 2.5% of global greenhouse gases.
Dr John Recha, a Nairobi-based climate scientist at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, says harvesting the wood and transporting it to France could leave a "significant" carbon footprint.
"A ship typically uses a lot of fuel," he told the BBC. "The machinery used on seas, oceans and lakes are also typically more complex and require more fossil fuels, which emit carbon into the atmosphere."
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionSome fishermen fear that removing trees from Lake Volta could lower fish populations
Kete Krachi maintains, however, that emission levels related to salvaging timber from the lake are "much lower" compared to emissions from cutting trees on land.
"The bulk of fuel consumption in felling trees is in log transport - and water transport is more energy efficient than land transport," Mr Kalitsi said.
Dr Tristan Smith, an energy and shipping expert at University College London's Energy Institute, agrees that ocean shipping is normally considered the most efficient mode of transport in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
Image copyrightJACOB TETTEH AGEKEImage captionThe submerged wood is said to be similar to "bog oak", widely used in medieval architecture
However, he warned that pollution from shipping has not been as tightly regulated as other industries, so the plan to ship wood may not be as eco-friendly as might be assumed.
"Depending on the specifics of the route taken and the ships used, the greenhouse gas emissions from the sea voyage may be of a similar magnitude to that from the trucking used at either end of the voyage," Dr Smith said.
Kete Krachi says the ships it plans to use would be travelling to France anyway on established trade routes, so it would contribute a "negligible" quantity of additional carbon into the atmosphere.
Image copyrightDENNIS IVERSImage captionTransporting goods by water can be more fuel efficient than by land
The company ultimately believes its potential involvement in rebuilding Notre-Dame would not only benefit Ghana's economy, but have a wider symbolic importance.
"It would mean we could play a role in an architectural feat that is a gift not only to France, but to the world," Mr Kalitsi says.
Dr Oakes agrees.
"In the end, it's got to come down to practicalities of experience. But to think that the world is being invited to contribute towards the reconstruction of this building is great."
