No licence needed?

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A Google self-driving car being tested in California

Driverless vehicles may seem unfamiliar now, but over the coming years you'll start to encounter - or even use them - on a daily basis. Will it mean the end of the driving licence and changes to the rules of the road?

It's not uncommon to see a squat white droid trundling along the streets of Greenwich, south-east London, as it delivers takeaway food to the borough's residents at 4mph.

In Paris and Helsinki, robot buses are shuttling passengers along city streets, while in Colorado an 18-wheeler truck drove beer 120 miles down a highway - without a driver.

Around the world, projects like these are under way to help develop the technology that will ultimately bring driverless cars and other vehicles to our roads.

Image copyright PA Image caption A self-driving delivery robot being tested in Greenwich, London

But alongside the issue of whether they will work is another big question: how will pedestrians, cyclists and human drivers be kept safe?

A world without eye contact

Sales of self-driving vehicles are currently in the thousands, but some estimates suggest that they could reach 10m worldwide by 2030.

But that's just a tiny fraction of the more than one billion cars already on the road.

So, the challenge is figuring out how to accommodate both humans and driverless vehicles on roads, pavements and bike paths.

Image copyright PA Image caption A driverless Nissan Leaf being tested in London

We've got several years, even decades, to get this right and self-driving vehicles that can operate without any human input at all are not on the immediate horizon.

Engineers are still working out how to handle some of the most difficult challenges.

Think about what happens at crossroads - when drivers and pedestrians arrive at the same time and use a combination of eye contact, gestures and intuition to navigate the junction safely.

This type of reasoning is beyond the ability of machines.

Driverless cars

• 10m predicted worldwide sales by 2025

• £100m UK government commitment to test projects

• 636,000 miles driven by Google cars in California last year

UK government; Google; IHS Automotive

Getty Images

Other challenges include weather conditions that disrupt sensors.

And driverless vehicles will need to learn when to disobey traffic rules - for example, when an emergency vehicle needs everyone to move out of the way.

Right now, autonomous vehicles are still very much in the testing phase, "learning" how to deal with the unpredictability that is endemic to driving.

It's not something they have mastered and it's not uncommon for humans to have to take control in road tests to avoid accidents.

There have been a handful of high profile incidents, including a fatality involving a semi-autonomous Tesla car, with most down to human error - such as running a red light.

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Driverless vehicles around the world

Image copyright BBC Sport

• There are plans to test driverless cars on UK roads and motorways from 2019
• The UK already has a shuttle bus, supermarket delivery van and cars
• Driverless taxis are in Singapore, Uber cars in Pittsburgh and a convoy of trucks has crossed Europe
• Google cars in California are averaging over 5,000 miles between human drivers taking control
• Volvo's sensors can spot Sweden's moose, but struggle with Australia's kangaroos
• India has decided not to allow driverless cars, to protect jobs

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Hundreds of billions of miles

Officials are trying to get some ground rules in place for testing in public spaces, but even this may not be enough.

It would take hundreds of years of road tests, over hundreds of billions of miles, to prove beyond doubt that driverless vehicles will cause fewer fatalities than human drivers, experts at think tank the Rand Corporation have argued.

Instead, we may have to allow driverless vehicles in some circumstances, while they continue to learn.

So far, there is no international safety standard for driverless vehicles - each country is responsible for writing its own rules.

There are also questions about whether rules for driverless vehicles should be national - making it easier for companies to comply, or on a more local level - so that cities can tailor them to their residents' needs.

This variety could speed up the process of learning about what works and what doesn't.

Finding an agreement is difficult.

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Some possible consequences of driverless vehicles

• People may give up their own cars, using on demand vehicles instead
• Fewer vehicles on the road could free up land for more parks and housing
• Using driverless cars for everything could increase congestion and pollution
• On demand vehicles could improve transport for those on low incomes
• Cities may lose revenue from fines as robot vehicles obey the rules of the road
• People now working as drivers may need help finding new jobs

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Keep the driving licence for now

Another issue without a clear answer is around the ethics that driverless vehicles should adopt.

Put simply, in the case of an unavoidable accident, should a fully autonomous vehicle be programmed to career off the road, risking the lives of the four people inside, or continue into a parent and child crossing the road?

Because human drivers make split second, instinctual decisions, we can't look to human behaviour to come up with the right answer.

The shift from cars doing all the driving in predictable, stable conditions with humans as back-up, to a time when they make all the decisions will be gradual.

Until cars are fully automated and don't need human input, manufacturers won't be able to dispense with steering and braking controls.

Image copyright Getty Images

People will still need driving licences and they'll have to ready to take control at short notice - so challenges like distraction and drunkenness will remain.

It's likely we will always need seat belts: autonomous vehicles have the potential to dramatically reduce crashes, but no technology is perfect.

The peril of driverless vehicles is that we will repeat the mistakes we've made over the last century - like rushing to build new roads that destroy neighbourhoods and creating out of town shopping centres that only cater to drivers.

But if we learn from our mistakes we could reduce congestion, pollution, and inequality.

When it comes to the self-driving vehicles, people will still have to be in the driver's seat.

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About this piece

This analysis piece was commissioned by the BBC from an expert working for an outside organisation.

Jennifer Bradley is the director of the Center for Urban Innovation at the Aspen Institute and the co-lead of the Bloomberg Aspen Initiative on Cities and Autonomous Vehicles, which is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

The Aspen Institute describes itself as a non-partisan forum for values-based leadership and the exchange of ideas.

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The tax trick

Image copyright Getty Images

Would you like to pay less tax? Make a sandwich: specifically, a "double Irish, Dutch sandwich".

Suppose you're American. You set up a company in Bermuda and sell it your intellectual property. It then sets up a subsidiary in Ireland.

Now, set up another company in Ireland: it bills your European operations for amounts resembling their profits. Now, start a company in the Netherlands.

Have your second Irish company send money to your Dutch company, which immediately sends it back to your first Irish company. You know, the one headquartered in Bermuda.

Are you bored and confused yet? If so, that's part of the point.

Tax havens depend on making it, at best, very difficult to get your head around financial flows, and, at worst, impossible to find out any facts.

Accounting techniques that make your brain hurt enable multinationals such as Google, eBay and Ikea to minimise their tax bills - completely legally.

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that have helped create the economic world.

It is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.

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You can see why people get upset. Taxes are a bit like membership fees for a club: it feels unfair to dodge the fees but still expect to benefit from the services provided to members - defence, police, roads, sewers, education, and so on.

But tax havens haven't always had such a bad image. Sometimes they've functioned like any other safe haven, allowing persecuted minorities to escape the oppressive rules of home.

Jews in Nazi Germany, for example, were able to ask secretive Swiss bankers to hide their money.

Avoidance v evasion

Unfortunately, secretive Swiss bankers soon undid the good this did their reputation by proving to be just as happy to help the Nazis hide the gold they managed to steal, and reluctant to give it back to the people it was stolen from.

Nowadays, tax havens are controversial for two reasons: tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Tax avoidance is legal. It's the stuff of double Irish, Dutch sandwiches.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Like other major technology companies, Google has come under pressure over its tax arrangements.

The laws apply to everyone: smaller businesses and even ordinary individuals could set up border-hopping legal structures too. They just don't earn enough to justify the accountants' fees.

If everyday folk want to reduce their tax bill, their options are limited to various forms of tax evasion, which is illegal: VAT fraud, undeclared cash-in-hand work, or taking too many cigarettes through the "nothing to declare" lane at customs.

Secrecy boost

The British tax authorities reckon that much evaded tax comes from countless such - often modest - infractions, rather than the wealthy entrusting their money to shadowy bankers.

But it's hard to be sure. If we could measure the problem exactly, it wouldn't exist in the first place.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption In 1934, the Swiss made it a criminal offence for bankers to disclose financial information

Perhaps it's no surprise that banking secrecy seems to have started in Switzerland: the first known regulations limiting bankers' ability to share information about their clients were passed in 1713 by the Great Council of Geneva.

Secretive Swiss banking really took off in the 1920s, as many European nations hiked taxes to repay their debts from World War One - and many rich Europeans looked for ways to hide their money.

Recognising that this was boosting their economy, in 1934 the Swiss made it a criminal offence for bankers to disclose financial information.

The euphemism for a tax haven these days, of course, is "offshore" - despite Switzerland's lack of coastline. Gradually, tax havens have emerged on islands such as Jersey or Malta, or, most famously, in the Caribbean.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Many small islands have become tax havens as a pragmatic way to grow their economies

There's a logistical reason for this: a small island isn't much good for manufacturing or agriculture, so financial services are an obvious alternative.

But the real explanation is historical: the dismantling of European empires in the decades after World War Two.

Unwilling to prop up Bermuda or the British Virgin Islands with explicit subsidies, the UK instead encouraged them to develop financial expertise, plugged into the City of London. The subsidy was implicit, instead - tax revenue steadily leaked away to these islands.

Mind the gap

The economist Gabriel Zucman came up with an ingenious way to estimate the wealth hidden in the offshore banking system.

In theory, if you add up the assets and liabilities reported by every global financial centre, the books should balance - but they don't. Each individual centre tends to report more liabilities than assets.

Zucman crunched the numbers and found that, globally, total liabilities were 8% higher than total assets. That suggests at least 8% of the world's wealth is illegally unreported. Other methods have come up with even higher estimates.

Image caption Zucman identified a gap between the global economy's declared assets and liabilities

The problem is particularly acute in developing countries. For example, Zucman finds 30% of wealth in Africa is hidden offshore. He calculates an annual loss of $14bn (£11bn) in tax revenue. That would build plenty of schools and hospitals.

Zucman's solution is transparency: creating a global register of who owns what, to end banking secrecy and anonymity-preserving shell corporations and trusts.

That might well help with tax evasion. But tax avoidance is a subtler and more complex problem.

To see why, imagine I own a bakery in Belgium, a dairy in Denmark, and a sandwich shop in Slovenia.

I sell a cheese sandwich, making 1 euro of profit. How much of that profit should be taxed in Slovenia, where I sold the sandwich, or Denmark, where I made the cheese, or Belgium, where I baked the bread? There's no obvious answer.

Accounting tricks

As rising taxes met increasing globalisation in the 1920s, the League of Nations devised protocols for handling such questions. They allow companies some leeway to choose where to book their profits.

There's a case for that, but it opened the door to some dubious accounting tricks.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Did a company in Trinidad really sell pens to a sister company for $8,500 (£6,600) apiece?

One widely reported example may be apocryphal, but illustrates the logical extreme of these practices.

A company in Trinidad apparently sold ballpoint pens to a sister company for $8,500 (£6,600) apiece, resulting in more profit booked in low-tax Trinidad and less in higher-tax regimes elsewhere.

Most such tricks are less obvious, and consequently harder to quantify.

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More from Tim Harford

The simple steel box that changed global trade

The warrior monks who invented banking

What makes gambling wrong but insurance right?

Do passports restrict economic growth?

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Still, Zucman estimates that 55% of US-based companies' profits are routed through some unlikely looking jurisdiction such as Luxembourg or Bermuda, costing the US taxpayer $130bn (£100bn) a year. Another estimate puts the losses to developing country governments at many times the amount they get in foreign aid.

Solutions are conceivable: profits could be taxed globally, with national governments devising ways to apportion which profit is deemed taxable where.

Political desire

A similar formula already exists to apportion national profits made by US companies to individual states.

But that would need political desire to tackle tax havens. And while recent years have seen some initiatives, notably by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), they've so far lacked teeth.

Perhaps this shouldn't surprise us, given the incentives involved. Clever people can earn more from exploiting loopholes than trying to close them.

Individual governments face incentives to compete to lower taxes, because a small percentage of something is better than a large percentage of nothing.

For tiny, palm-fringed islands, it can even make sense to set taxes at 0%, as the local economy will be boosted by the resulting boom in law and accounting.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that tax havens mostly benefit financial elites, including some politicians and many of their donors. Meanwhile, pressure from voters for action is limited by the boring and confusing nature of the problem.

Sandwich, anyone?

Tim Harford writes the Financial Times's Undercover Economist column. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.

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Elephants in Malawi relocated as part of conservation project

Rangers in Malawi take on the mammoth task of moving hundreds of elephants to safer national parks.

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Smack down

Image copyright Samuel Bergstrom

Mongolian wrestlers have dominated the Japanese sumo scene for years and Bum-Erdene Tuvshinjargal is keen to follow in their footsteps. As a girl, that means challenging centuries of tradition, but as she explained to journalist Erin Craig, that's another fight she's ready to take on.

On one side of the ring squats a formidable, heavyset wrestler, the traditional mawashi wound around his waist. On the other is Bum-Erdene Tuvshinjargal, her loincloth wrapped over black spandex.

The competitors wait, stare, then cannon toward each other. They hit in the centre, straining in a slow dance of raw power.

Then Tuvshinjargal explodes forward, muscling her opponent out of the ring.

She gives a rare, brief smile as she walks off the mat.

"You can't be scared," says the 17 year old sumo world champion. "If you're scared you won't win."

Image copyright Samuel Bergstrom

As a child, Tuvshinjargal watched sumo on TV with her grandparents, never dreaming she would be a wrestler herself. She later took up judo, and in 2015 her instructor suggested trying sumo at a competition the following month.

That competition turned out to be the Junior Sumo World Championships. Tuvshinjargal came home with a bronze medal. Last year she went back for the gold.

Her coach, Gankhyag Naranbat, thinks this is just the beginning. As a former rikishi - a professional sumo wrestler - and World Games gold medallist, he knows what to look for in a competitor.

"I think she will be more than three times world champion, heavyweight category," he predicts. That would break a world record - one established only last year by Tuvshinjargal's teammate, Khishigdorj Sunjidmaa.

Pushing the rice paper ceiling

But no matter how many records she breaks, Tuvshinjargal's career is approaching the rice paper ceiling. In sumo, only men can go pro.

Professional sumo is only practiced in Japan where rikishi participate in six annual Grand Tournaments. Sumo began as a religious ceremony and the sport remains deeply ritualistic. Tradition forbids women even entering the ring.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Pro sumo only exists in Japan - and only for men

But women have competed at the amateur level since the mid-1990s when Olympic aspirations convinced the sport to go "co-ed". Sumo still hasn't made the Olympics but after 12 World Championships women have become an integral part of landscape.

Unlike many female wrestlers, Tuvshinjargal comes from a country where sumo is incredibly popular. Mongolian rikishi have dominated professional sumo for years; just this month Mongolian superstar Hakuho broke the world record for total career wins.

Wrestling has always been important to Mongolian culture, as one of the legendary Three Manly Sports, and many boys learn sumo alongside traditional wrestling.

According to Naranbat, Mongolians fundamentally changed sumo by bringing in moves from traditional wrestling. While sumo matches can be over in seconds, Mongolian wrestling isn't limited by a ring and requires more time and strategy.

"Before Mongolian wrestlers sumo was only pushing," says Naranbat. "That's why Mongolian wrestlers are high level."

Forging a future

But amateur sumo isn't covered in the Mongolian media, leaving female wrestlers permanently in the dark. People are often surprised to learn they exist.

They're even more surprised to see what these women can do.

"They think that when I'm on this mat I looks like a beast." Tuvshinjargal acknowledges. "But when I step out of this building, I'm just a girl."

Image copyright Samuel Bergstrom

And like most people her age she is thinking about the future. After graduating from high school last June, she has been busy applying to universities and considering careers. Most of all, she wants to forge a path as a female wrestler.

"I have given my heart to sumo," she says. "I want to pursue it to the highest level."

It's unclear whether she could make it a career, as amateurs don't usually receive sponsorships. The Mongolian government gives monetary awards to medal winners but with only one major international competition a year even a gold medal isn't enough to live on.

She would love to combine her other passion - acting - with athletics, like her favourite movie star Jackie Chan.

That's not unprecedented - Mongolian sumo champion Ulambayar Byambajav has appeared on several TV programmes. Or she could blaze new territory and become the country's first female sumo coach.

A champion - if allowed to be

Like many of her teammates, Tuvshinjargal can rely on a supportive family. Her grandparentsenjoy experiencing sumo through her instead of the TV and their walls are covered in pictures of Tuvshinjargal in her mawashi.

The 2018 World Championship will be Tuvshinjargal's last match in the junior division unless she outperforms the older women to earn a place in the adult division.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption It could be long until sumo offers a career for women as it does for men

She already competed on the Mongolian National Women's Team during 2016 World Championships, which placed second overall.

After that, her eyes are on the 2021 World Games and maybe, someday, the Olympics.

Naranbat is quietly confident in his student's ability. After all, she is already strong enough to beat men. Once she masters the strategy, there will be no stopping her.

And if the rules changed, if women were allowed to go pro, would Tuvshinjargal have the ability to make it?

"Yes," he says. "She would be a champion."

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German cable car collision leaves dozens stranded in mid-air

Image copyright EPA Image caption Firefighters assess damage caused after a cable car struck a pillar in Cologne, Germany

Dozens of people were left suspended in mid-air after a cable car hit a support pillar and came to a stop over the River Rhine in Germany.

Fire crews and rescue teams in Cologne used a crane to reach the 75 trapped passengers, some of them said to have been as high as 40m (130 ft).

Pictures show children being lowered to the ground. No injuries were reported.

All of the 32 cars believed to have been in operation at the time came to a halt when the incident occurred.

The collision took place at around 15.30 (13:30 GMT).

The incident is said to have been the result of one of the gondolas clipping a part of the support structure, bringing the entire cable transport system to a standstill.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A man clutches a child as they are lowered to the ground near the Rhine in Cologne

Image copyright EPA Image caption Fire crews use a crane to evacuate trapped passengers as high as 40m (130 ft) in the air

Image copyright EPA Image caption A passenger waits patiently as a member of the fire service slides along a cable

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A woman and child abseil to safety

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Maryam al-Otaibi: Saudi anti-guardianship campaigner freed from detention

Image copyright Twitter/@MERiAM_AL3TEEBE Image caption A picture posted on social media by Maryam al-Otaibi showing her identity documents and a slogan demanding the end of the guardianship system

A Saudi woman activist campaigning against the restrictions of male guardianship has been freed after over 100 days in detention, reports say.

In what is being seen by campaigners as a significant step, Maryam al-Otaibi was also reportedly released without the presence of a male guardian.

She was detained after she fled her father's house to try to lead an independent life.

Earlier this year, King Salman issued orders to modify guardianship rules.

The system has traditionally left Saudi women needing male permission for many everyday actions, such as applying for a passport, travelling abroad, getting married and also exiting a prison.

Ms al-Otaibi, an activist with a large following on social media, had taken part in a campaign against guardianship rules that saw people post on social media under the hashtag #IAmMyOwnGuardian, send letters to King Salman and sign a petition.

However male members of her family disapproved of this activity, according to the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR).

Ms al-Otaibi moved to the capital Riyadh on her own but her father complained to police under the guardianship system and she was arrested in April, GCHR said.

Shortly before her arrest Ms al-Otaibi tweeted that she did not want to "go back to hell" and accused police in her home town of al-Ras of conspiring against her with her family.

During her 104 days in detention she was transferred to the women's section of al-Malaz prison in Riyadh, GCHR said.

In April King Salman ordered government agencies to allow women to access government services without a male guardian's consent.

The same month, Dina Ali Lasloom, a 24-year-old Saudi woman, was stopped in Manila airport while attempting to leave her family and seek asylum in Australia.

She was forcibly returned to Riyadh with relatives and has not been heard from since. The Saudi embassy in Manila said it was a "family matter".

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Qatar crisis: Saudi-led allies stand firm

Image copyright Reuters Image caption The foreign ministers of the four nations met in Bahrain's capital Manama on Sunday

The four Arab countries boycotting Qatar have issued a strong statement saying the kingdom must respond to the 13 demands it has made.

The bloc suggested it would then be "ready for dialogue".

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) cut ties with their Gulf neighbour on 5 June, saying it supports terrorism.

Qatar strongly denies the allegation and has rejected a list of conditions for the lifting of sanctions.

They include the closure of news giant Al-Jazeera and reducing ties with Iran.

The foreign ministers of the Saudi-led bloc met in Bahrain's capital Manama on Sunday to discuss the blockade.

"The four countries are ready for dialogue with Qatar with the condition that it announces its sincere willingness to stop funding terrorism and extremism and its commitment to not interfere in other countries' foreign affairs and respond to the 13 demands," Bahrain's foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, told a news conference after the meeting.

Saudi Arabia has closed its land border with Qatar, while all four countries have cut air and sea links with Doha.

Qatar's lawyers have called the tactics "reminiscent of the extreme and punitive conduct of 'bully' states that have historically resulted in war".

Diplomatic efforts led by Kuwait and backed by Western powers have so far failed to end the dispute.

Earlier in July it appeared the 13-point list might be abandoned, when diplomats told reporters at the UN they now wanted Qatar to accept six broad principles.

These included commitments to combat terrorism and extremism, and to end acts of provocation and incitement.

But on Sunday, it was clear the list was still on the table.

The bloc also accused Qatar of complicating the hajj - the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca - for its citizens.

Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, but Qataris cannot fly there directly from Doha under the sanctions.

Last week, the four nations added 18 more groups and individuals they say are linked to Qatar to their "terrorist" lists.

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Media captionGiles Trendle of Al-Jazeera: "We're not partisan to any particular group or ideology or government"

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