24/05/2016 Outside Source

Hello, I'm Ros Atkins, this is Outside Source.

Bill Cosby will stand trial for sexual allegations.

We'll be live in Beirut for full details.

I'll also update you on the battle to retake Falluja from IS -

Of the smoke is going up, there is a battle going on as these forces

moving on Fallujah from different investigations. And a BBC

investigation about dogfights in the UK. And Facebook and Twitter have

both announced changes to how they do things. We will get into what

they have done and why. Three hours ago, this came through

from Pennsylvania concerning Bill Cosby. We understood he had been

ordered to stand trial in a criminal sex assault case that dates back to

2004 encounter. This has been happening today in a place called

Norristown in Pennsylvania. Laura Becker was in court, she stepped

outside to speak to me after the news broke. The judge has ordered

that criminal proceedings can progress. There will be a further

hearing in July. That is when Bill Cosby will start these criminal

proceedings and face these criminal proceedings against three counts of

sexual misconduct. This dates back to 2004 and involves a woman called

Andrea Constant. She was a former employee at Temple University, she

alleges she went to Cosby's Harris for advise where he gave three

unidentified blue pills. She said those pills made her blurry eyed.

She said she felt frozen and was unable to talk and had to lie down.

She said she was in and out of it. And she said during that time on the

couch she was sexually assaulted. Bill Cosby in his statement to the

police which was also read out said that any sexual conduct was

consensual, that she agreed to it. But he does admit that she doesn't

say yes, but he says she didn't say no. Certainly Andrea Constant's

story is that there was no consent. This will be the basis now for this

criminal trial, and certainly it is the only criminal proceedings

against Bill Cosby. There are a further 56 women who have come

forward since these allegations arose, all with similar stories, and

we are expecting several press conferences to follow the

announcement today. That is one story that has been developing, and

this is another, concerning Syria and in particular what is happening

just north of Iraq. -- Raqqa. We understand that a Kurdish led

alliance of Armed Forces in north-eastern Syria has begun to try

to push forces out of Raqqa. It sees Raqqa as the capital of its

self-declared caliphate. This is not a move on the so-called Islamic

State's de facto capital Raqqa itself. They say they are going to

liberate the countryside north of Raqqa. They haven't set a date on

when they are going to attack that city, that will be a very tall

order, and it will be hard fought over. It is important to Islamic

State. We are also hearing they are making ample reparations for a

sophisticated network of tunnels underneath Raqqa. It is worth

remembering Kobane, the large town on the border between Syria and

Turkey, which was pummelled by American air strikes after it was

overrun by Islamic State. It took months to retake, because the

fighters were able to take cover, and they put up quite a tough fight,

despite facing well armed guards on the might of the US Air Force and

its allies. You mentioned the Americans. Was there a prospect that

America and Russia could help this? Certainly, the Russian foreign

minister, Mr Lavrov, has acknowledged that Russia

is willing to play a part. How involved it will

be, we don't know. We suspect there has already been

a coordination between Russian and coalition aircraft

over parts of Syria. Some of the operations that have

been going on would have ended in chaos otherwise,

if there wasn't some kind of communication -

whether that is through the Kurds, Arab forces on the ground

or directly between Russian and American forces,

we're not entirely sure. There has clearly already been

a level of corporation and it seems like that will have to increase,

though, if a move is made around Raqqa

and eventually to Raqqa itself. Lets you talk about another

significant development in Syria today concerning the Diaz airbase.

Satellite images that have been shown to the BBC reveal extensive

damage at this airbase, and we know that the Russians have been using

it. It appears to have been attacked by Islamic State. Here are four of

those satellite images. You can see 20 lorries here, this satellite

image is from before the attack, this is the same angle after the

attack. You don't mean me -- need me to describe the extent of the

damage. The next is a satellite image of a set of helicopters, this

before the attack, that afterwards. And again you can see these

helicopters have been destroyed to an extent that they will not be used

again. A global intelligence company who gave us these image has showed

them exclusively to BBC Arabic's ram Iraq Ayane.

The before or on the 14th of May and the after are on the 17th.

So Stratfor can only say they believe the attack happened

in between these two dates, without knowing exactly

They saw the first report of this fire on the base,

ironically coming out of the IS news agency Amaq,

which quite strangely said that there is a fire and that

20 helicopters are on fire and 20 trucks are on fire, and they didn't

They didn't say it was IS, even though they had announced

on the same day an attack by IS on the T4 Syrian air base.

Stratfor investigated, got these images and found

that the IS report of this kind of damage was very accurate.

Is this evidence that Islamic State is becoming more powerful

It is two different areas - Homs, central Syria,

They have attacked this airbase before.

They have been in the vicinity of Palmyra, even though

What they are trying to do is keep the regime

and its allied factions, and the Russians, busy

in the central part of Syria, so they don't go after their own

supply lines in the east and in the north in Raqqa.

On the coast, it is a different kind of thing -

it is suicide attacks, what they have been doing in Iraq,

They are able to go into areas which are not necessarily war zones,

such as these two cities on the Syrian coast, and wreak

importance of this to IS, but strategically doesn't really

Well, perhaps this battle for central Homs,

central Syria, the Homs province in particular,

And as long as the Islamic State group managed to keep the

regime and the factions allied with that preoccupied in central Homs

maybe they think it would delay any kind of offensives by the regime

So, we have brought you to stories from Syria.

From Syria to Iraq - because government forces continue

Jim Muir has just returned from the front line.

Pounding away at the self-styled Islamic State in Fallujah.

Day two of this offensive saw heavy bombardments being Meted out

as ground forces pushed forward towards the outskirts of the city,

The front-line effort was the result of a huge mobilisation.

Thousands of army and police troops, backed by Shia militias and Sunni

tribal irregularses massed against the militants.

We have come from other cities in Baghdad or in the south.

The Shia militias who are playing a prominent backup role

are in jubilant mood after initial advances.

One of their leaders was also upbeat?

TRANSLATION: It is going according to plan and we have

In a few days we expect to have Fallujah completely surrounded.

Then we have the presence of so many civilians in the town being used

The frontline advance is seeing thousands of regular troops

and militias pushing in towards the town being defended

Also there are an estimated 50,000 civilians.

There is great concern for the civilians who are believed

The next phase would be a major assault on the town it evil is.

That is when it is believed the civilians, if they cannot get

The final assault on the actual city of Fallujah is

It's not yet clear how much of a fight

If they do fight to the death there are fears that not much

In a few minutes, we will be getting into big announcements from Twitter

and Facebook today. We will explain what they have done and why they

have done them. Birmingham City Council

is handing over control of its children's services -

which were recently described as a 'national disgrace' -

to a new voluntary trust. In recent years, the deaths

of a number of children have been blamed partly on failings

within the department. For the last four years,

inspectors have consistently judged Councillor Brigid Jones,

Member for Children's Services said improvements have been made,

but further help was needed. Birmingham City Council has a long

history of failure, but for the last two years, we have been pushing away

from that. We have caseloads down to 15 on average, staff turnover is

down and agency staffing has gone down from one third to under one

quarter. Things are pushing in the right direction, but in order to

sustain that address and take it to the next level, we need to think

about new ways of working, and we really think the trust could be the

way to do that. This is Outside Source live

from the BBC newsroom. Bill Cosby will stand

trial over sexual He's accused of assaulting a woman

at his home in 2004, And we can bring you some of the

main stories from the BBC One service as well.

Ukraine says seven of its soldiers have been killed in the east

of the country over a period of 24 hours -

that's the highest number of casualties on a single

Over 8000 people have died in over two years during this

Turkey's new prime minister has named his new cabinet.

Looks like gender equality has a way to go.

The new prime minister says he'll immediately start working

to increase the power of the president,

You can imagine how that's gone down in some quarters.

Facebook is changing how it's trending topics are produced. It was

accused of restricting right-wing stories. An investigation has

revealed no evidence of systemic political bias in the selection or

prominence of stories. Nonetheless, Facebook is going to change how it

does trending topics. I have been talking to Zoe Clyde and, EBC tech

reporter, about why. It was relying on an algorithm and human

suggestion. It turns out more than half of the stuff being suggested

algorithmic was not making the cut, and they were relying on news

outlets such as us, the Washington Post, Buzzfeed, to validate and see

whether those were big enough discussion points. They will throw

that out now, so they're giving more control back to be humans. The

problem here is that Facebook say they don't do contend they are just

a platform, but it is getting involved in content. Once you start

curating something, whether you like it or not you are taking on more

responsibility. They are saying that people are increasingly getting

their news from Facebook, and they want to compete with the likes of us

as somewhere you can go to get that. But it is hard to get the right mix

of stories for an individual. Don't go anywhere, because we are going to

talk about Twitter as well. It has also announced some changes designed

to bring in new users. They add an image, and then the character count

goes down, and that doesn't make sense, because they don't see any

other text, they see an image, so we removed counting against any time

you add an image or media, and again making it a lot more visible and

intuitive. So that is one, removing some of the hidden rules that don't

make sense. And we know that people use Twitter to talk a lot, and when

you are in a conversation, you have more people come in, and then you

have four or five handles in that tweet, and suddenly it starts taking

away the amount you can say. So as more people join the conversation,

you can say less. And that doesn't make sense, and that is not great,

so we are not counting those characters any more either, so you

have the full 140 characters to have a conversation. I can recognise all

of the things he is talking about, I think it does make sense, but the

context here is that Twitter is on the back foot in terms of getting

new users to come on board. It has stagnated, we were talking about

Facebook just now, they are booming, 1.6 billion people now using it.

Twitter has stuck at around 320 million, and it needs more, it needs

to grow. This has been going on too long, so one of the common

frustrations is 140 characters is not enough to say what you want to

say. They thought about making it longer, opening it up completely,

but when would be below the stock? There is a good thing about keeping

something short, so these tweaks might make things easier, but it is

not revolutionary. I think we were all watching our thinking, these are

good ideas, but we have all known these things need to be improved for

a while. It is mysterious White has taken so long. Let's turn to OS

business. This was in Marseille outside

an oil refinery - striking This is part of a series of strikes

and demonstrations Here's the knock-on effect -

fuel stations are We spotted one blog jotting down

with an orange marker every place where a user was saying they had

trouble filling up. You get the idea, this was a national story in

France today. Lucy Williamson went

to one of the stations. Motorists have been queueing up here

at this petrol station in Paris this morning searching for petrol, but

the staff here have told us they only have about an hour's worth of

petrol left, and they are completely out of diesel. Once they are out,

they will have to close until they get more deliveries, and they are

expecting deliveries this evening, but until then, they will have to

close, and the deliveries themselves are dependent on getting the petrol

out of the refineries. Six out of eight of France's refineries at the

moment rather being blockaded by protesters or they have striking

workers forcing a slowdown, so the Government is sending people in --

police in to clear the blockade to get the petrol moving, but there is

no doubt, of all the projects that have taken place in the last few

weeks, this one is really making itself felt. These new labour laws

will allow an employer to more easily change an employee's hours or

let them go, so this is why some people in France are upset and

protesting. I want to show you a story that came

up yesterday. This from the Wall Street Journal:

Monsanto rejects Bayer's It describes the offer

as "incomplete and But that may not be

the end of the matter. Monsanto says it's open to talking

further about the matter. The offices of Google in Paris have

been raided as part of a tax Reports say about 100 tax officials

entered Google's offices in central Why did they go in and what were

they looking for? Evidence in terms of what exactly happens within that

office. You will remember we have talked about this before, many

European nations are critical of tech giants like Google and Yahoo,

who operate within Europe, but they actually hold their main offices in

Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is much lower, and so what many

of these companies argue is that all these offices you will find in

London or Paris operate more as satellite offices, and that

everything really happens in the main office in Ireland. And that

way, they get to take advantage of the lower corporate tax rate. What

France is arguing is that that is in fact not the case, and they said

back in February that they want Google to pay a $1.8 billion in back

tax, so this investigation is part of that, to get to the bottom to see

if really what Google is saying that it hardly uses its Paris office, is

really the case. Thank you. A report now from Tom Symonds

on dog fighting in the UK. There are claims they are now

a daily event - with dogs used Not a sport. Bloody cruelty. This

organised fight behind closed doors was filmed by an undercover BBC

investigation. But the league against cruel sports claims

increasingly dogfighting is coming out into the open. This sort of

confrontation, known as a role, in streets and parks, but it is no less

cruel. This is cupcake. A vet believes she was used as so-called

bait for training a fighting dog. Here is one of the signs. Her teeth

are filed down so she can't bite back. Now her scars have healed, her

mental recovery is under way, but her rescuer, who has asked us not to

show her face, is furious at those responsible. To victimise and

torture a vulnerable creature is despicable. Man up, and if you have

a lust for fighting, go out and fight yourself. We are seeing very

few prosecutions taking place, and those that are prosecuted lead to

low custodial sentences, if at all. The charity wants them increased, a

register of banned owners and a review of the 1991 Dangerous Dogs

Act. The Government says that law is designed to help with animals out of

control, and the new requirement of microchip dogs will also make a

difference. You can also find that report

online. I had no idea until today that

North Korea runs around 130 It does, and South Korea is claiming

that the staff at one Perhaps - but this appears

to the second restaurant Now you can find these North Korean

restaurants in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai,

amongst other places. You can also find in Mongolia, in

Ulan Bator. One TripAdvisor user says:

"We went for karaoke night, which was a live show performed

by all the waitresses. While another user says: "This

restaurant isn't somewhere you'd go It's more of a bizarre banquet hall

with live shows every night." The BBC's Celia Hatton

has been to one. Well, for a few years

in Beijing it was actually quite fashionable to go

to the North Korean restaurants. Chinese diplomats really

like going to North Korean restaurants because it kind

of underlines China's When the food comes it is a lot

like South Korean food. It is not really that

special or different, so there is a lot of beef on offer,

a lot of rice, a lot of kimchi. It wasn't really that remarkable,

then the strangest part is that every hour the waitresses would stop

serving for a few minutes and then go up to a little stage

at the front of the restaurant and pick up tiny guitars,

and they would play There are a few different theories

as to why this is happening. Some people say, well,

North Korea really wants This is an easy way for it to do so,

and it is also a way for North Korea to make some

money at the same time. North Korea really needs sources

of hard currency, and this is a way for North Korea

to continue bringing in money to its There are also some

people who are quite cynical, and they think that these

restaurants are actually a great cover to get North Korean spies

into different countries, or they are just great ways

for North Korea to launder money, to bring more

money back to Pyongyang. Now just to quickly mention that in

about 20 minutes time we will be talking US politics with the US news

anchor Keith Oberman. I don't know if you have seen the latest poll of

polls, because for the first time, all Trump is being put ahead of

Hillary Clinton won all of the polls but together. If you have questions,

BBC OS is the hashtag to use. Speak to you in a minute.

Welcome to our regular look at the weather stories from around the

world, and we will start with El Nino. It has been responsible for

weather extremes around the globe this year. At