25/02/2014 BBC News at One

she says she never sanctioned it. She tells the Old Bailey she'd not

been aware of a request from a journalist to hack the mobile phone

of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002. We'll have the latest from

the Old Bailey. Also this lunch time: A partial apology but Labour's

Harriet Harman goes on the offensive over Dale claims over links between

an organisation she worked for and a paedophile campaign group. The form

per Guantanamo Bay detainee, Moazzam Begg, is among four people held on

suspicion of Syrian terrorism offences. A judge in South Africa

rules parts of Oscar Pistorius's murder trial can be broadcast live.

It's due to start next week. And, the charity fighting to stop a

million babies every year dying on the first day of their lives.

The row over Smithfield market as it decides its future and the aquatics

centre before it opens to the public - we'll be taking a look.

Good afternoon and welcome to the BBC News at One. The former News of

the World editor, Rebekah Brooks, has told the Old Bailey that she

didn't know phone hacking was illegal when she was in charge of

the paper and she said she never sanctioned it. Mrs Brooks said she

wasn't aware of a request by a journalist to illegally access to

vows mails of the missing schoolgirl Mully Dowler in 2002. She says the

first time she had heard the phone had been hacked was in 2011. Our

Home Affairs correspondent, Tom Symonds is at the Old Bailey for us

now. In the last hour, the questioning

has turned to that, arguably the most controversial episode in the

phone hacking affair. Rebekah Brooks was the boss of the newspaper in

2002 when someone illegally accessed the phone messages of the missing

schoolgirl, Milly Dowler. Milly Dowler's disappearance,

abduction and murder is among the most horrifying crimes of recent

decades and a huge media story and in 2002, the News of the World was

among the newspapers pursuing it. On April 14th, the paper published this

story, that Milly had phoned an employment agency looking for work.

It was wrong. But it had been obtained through phone hacking of

voice mail messages left on her phone in error. Rebekah Brooks

giving her third day of evidence was the editor of the News of the World

at the time but denies having anything to do with the hacking.

In fact, the courts heard she was on holiday in Dubai and her deputy Andy

Coulson was in charge. She was asked by her barrister,

Jonathan Laidlaw QC, did she know anything about the decision to

access the voice mails, a decision made by a News of the World

journalist. She said, no, I didn't. Earlier, she'd been asked business

Mr Laidlaw: She was asked would it be a useful

thing to do. She admitted knowing the technique

of hacking was possible and what did she think about it, she was asked.

She said. : Both she and Andy Coulson deny

conspireing to hack mobile phones. And returning to Milly Dowler,

Rebekah Brooks has said she only found out about that phone hacking

in 2011 and she says that when she did, her reaction was one of shock

and horror. She said it was "pretty abhorrent". She's also said that she

felt the use of phone hacking, although she didn't know it was

illegal, would have been a serious breach of privacy.

Thank you. The Deputy Leader of the Labour

Party, Harriet Harman, has issued a partial apology for links the

between an organisation she used to work for and a pro-paedophile

campaign group. She said she regrets that the Paedophile Information

Exchange was allowed to afilliate to the National Council for Civil

Liberties before she began to work for it. Our Political Correspondent,

Vicki Young, reports. She's the most senior woman in the

Labour Party and for over 30 years, Harriet Harman's been a high profile

figure at the heart of British politics, earning a reputation as an

ardent campaigner on equal rights. But now she's having to answer

questions about her work as a legal adviser in the '70s for a civil

liberties group that had links to a paedophile organise zaik. Miss

Harman's repeatedly refused to say whether it was a mistake for the

National Council for Civil Liberties to afilliate the Paedophile

Information Exchange, a group that spoke positively about adults who

were attracted to children. Today she insisted she had nothing

to apologise for but... It was regrettable that they even existed

and regrettable that they had newing to do with NCCL ever but it's not

true that to influence my work at the time I was at NCCL or that I've

ever apologised for or colluded with peedle fill ya because that is the

smear. The Daily Mail has focus on the

Harriet Harman, her MP his Jack Dromey and former Cabinet Minister

Patricia Hewitt who all worked alet the NCCL. The paper denies it's

unfairly singling out the Labour politicians. When we looked into the

archive, there were pages and pages and pages and it's all the more

remarkable that a woman of such high office never saw once fit to say, I

don't think this can be right, how on earth can we be associated with

such a devious, wicked organisation. No smear, no vendetta, it's just the

repetition of a fact and a question. Labour's Deputy Leader is clearly

furious. In a Tweet, she's hit out at the newspaper's own coverage:

Alongside a photo of girls in bikinis that was. Harriet Harman's

intervention is unlikely to be the end of this matter.

Our chief Political Correspondent, Norman Smith, is at Westminster. So,

so this a battle between Harriet Harman and the Daily Mail or does it

have much wider significance? My sense Sophie is this goes way

beyond a row about newspaper headlines or smears, as Miss Harman

regards them into a storm about Miss Harman's political judgment and a

looming storm about whether the Labour Party is on the cusp of an

all out war with the Daily Mail. On the former, I know many of Miss

Harman's colleagues, friends even, have been appalled, aghast, by her

repeated refusal to apologise. One former Labour Cabinet Minister I

spoke to earlier shook his head in despair at her response, a situation

made even worse by the fact that the current Head of The civil rights

group has spoken of her horror and disgust at the situation. So there

are questions about Miss Harman's judgment and the way she's responded

to this whole story, but it goes further than that because she's

escalated it by going on the offensive against the Daily Mail, in

effect accusing them of pandering to paedophiles by publishing pictures

of young girls in bikinis and then for good measure Tweeting a picture

of some of these offending pictures. Now, what we don't know is whether

team Miliband are going to row in behind Miss Harman or whether they

are going to leave her to slug it out on her own with the Daily Mail.

But we know that Ed Miliband has unfinished business with the Daily

Mail following their claims last year that his father hated Britain.

So it may be that we are on the cusp of an all out war between Ed

Miliband and the Labour Party and one of Britain's most unfluent usual

newspapers. Thank you very much.

Police in the West Midlands have arrested a British man who was held

at Guantanamo Bay for nearly three years. 45-year-old Moazzam Begg,

from Birmingham, is among four people being questioned on suspicion

of terrorist offences linked to Syria. Mr Begg, released from

Guantanamo in 2005, is facing allegations of attending a terrorist

training camp and facilitating terrorism overseas. Here is our Home

Affairs correspondent, June Kelly. It was at this address in Hall Green

in Birmingham that police arrested Moazzam Begg. He was one of four

people detaunted in the City in a Syria related Counter-Terrorism

operation. 45-year-old Moazzam Begg is a

well-known campaigner, commentator and former Guantanamo Bay detauntee.

He was moved there by the Americans after originally being arrested in

Pakistan in 2002. They accused him of having links to three extremist

organisations including Al-Qaeda. Moazzam Begg has always denied this.

Together with three other Britons, he was released from Guantanamo in

2005. Back in the UK, he was held by British police and then released

without charge. For years, Moazzam Begg has been a

leading figure in campaign group Countryside Agency which helps those

deteenaged and -- Cage which helps those detained and their families.

There is been a string of arrests in the UK.

This footage recently emerged of Mr Majid from Crawley, said to have

blown himself up in a suicide bomb attack on a prison.

Moazzam Begg has spoken of how he has visited Syria. Now he's being

questioned by Counter-Terrorism detectives on suspicion of attending

a terrorist training camp and facilitating terrorism there.

Our Home Affairs correspondent, is here with me now. How much more do

we know about his trips to Syria? Yes. Moazzam Begg has spoken quite

clearly about these trips, he says they were part of his investigations

into allegations of complicity and torture. West Midlands Police say

the arrests are squarely focussed on allegations of activity in Syria,

nothing to do with the UK. But the part of a pattern of behaviour from

the police we have seen has increased in the last few weeks. We

have had about 16 arrests for allegations of terrorism related to

Syria since January, that compares to about 24 I think it is of last

year, so there's been a real change. The Security Services are very

worried about a small number of people who're going to fight. There

are hundreds of people going to Syria to deliver aid, but the

Security Service is concerned about people who're going to fight and

that's what this appears to be related to. They are trying to

investigate. The police have about 14 days to decide whether to release

or charge Moazzam Begg. Thank you very much.

A South African judge has ruled that the trial of Olympic athlete, Oscar

Pistorius, will be televised but only in parts. The athlete admits

shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home in Pretoria

over a year ago but he says he mistook her for an intruder. The

trial starts next Monday and is likely to last several weeks. Our

correspondent is in Pretoria. How much of this trial will actually

been broadcast? Yes. What we know from judge dues

tan that limit but is that the opening and closing arguments will

be televised on TV live during the trial, including the judgment. What

the judge then said is, the conditions such as three cameras

only allowed and they have to be unmanned, in other words they have

to be remotely controlled, stills photographs will be allowed but no

flash photography and witnesses who do not want to be filmed will have

to put it into writing to the court that they do not want to be filmed.

Also the judge made it very clear that there shouldn't be any

close-ups of the faces of the people who'd be testifying in court.

Milton, thank you very much. One of the biggest chains of state

funded academies in England is being stripped of control of nearly a

third of its schools. Ofsted inspectors have raised concerns

about ten of the schools run by the charity, eE-ACT. Our correspondent,

Daniel Boettcher is here with the details. Academies are state funded

but independently run, giving them more control over curriculum,

finances, the length of the school day, some of them run has individual

schools, others are parts of groups or bigger changes and E-ACT is one

of the largest, sponsoring 34 academies. It's having to give up

control of up to ten of these. We haven't been given the individual

reasons but it's known there have been issues of underperformance in

some e-Act schools. It's the first time something like this has

happened. It's been working with the Department of Education to identify

where its best place is to make a significant difference to academies

and it's hoped E-ACT can raise the standards in remaining schools. What

does it mean for the way they have been supervised? Some concerns have

been raised about the speed with which some of these groups have been

growing and also their size. The number of academies have been

growing rapidly over the past few years. For example, in May, 2010,

there were 203 academies, the latest figure is well over 3,500. Labour

and some of the teaching unions say that there hasn't been enough

supervision and scrutiny and the Head of Ofsted believes that as well

as inspecting individual schools, his organisation should also be able

to inspect the groups themselves. That is the view also of the Liberal

Democrats schools, many David Lawes, but that appears to put him at odds

with the Education Secretary, Michael Gove.

Thank you very much. The time is very nearly 1. 1.15. Our

top story. Rebekah Brooks says she didn't know

phone hacking was illegal when she was editor of the News of the World.

But she says she never sanctioned it.

Still to come. Telly addicts. How the rest of the world can't get

enough of British TV programmes. 600 booths, hundreds of buyers,

determining what the world will be watching on television. On BBC

London: The vital role played by the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich during the

First World War. We find out more about the secret city which even has

its own railway. All that and a full weather forecast.

Fields under several feet of water, crops ruined and livestock moved

into barns. Farmers have been hit hard by this winter's flooding and

many have said they don't know how they will survive. Now the

Government has announced that every farmer affected will be offered

grants of up to ?5,000. The immediate response fund will come

from the ?10 million already set aside to help farmers caught up in

the crisis. Here is our correspondence Sarah Ransome. It has

been like this for months, thousands of acres feet deep underwater and

little prospect of it going anywhere any time soon. Homes and businesses

flooded, livestock moved, many farmers struggling to survive. It

has been a terrible time. On a day like today Heather's cattle should

be out in the fields, but there are no fields left for them to go into.

Record-breaking rainfall with long-term, heartbreaking results. We

cannot farm underwater, so it is a huge problem. It is not like people

whose houses have gone, it is a longer term problem. It is

devastating for them, but this is years of recovery. Today the

Government outlined a crisis package to repair flood defences and for

farmers like Heather what money is on offer from a new ?10 million fund

to help them get back on their feet. It may sound a lot, but some are

concerned the pot is too small. Is it too small, but it is welcome to

the farming industry. We need to assess where that need is and make

sure the right people get the help they need. We will assess the upper

limit for grants and keep the scheme under constant review to ensure it

remains flexible and targeted at those in greatest need. Back on the

farm Heather is doing her best to cope. Like everyone else she has no

idea how long that will be fought and when the water eventually does

go down and the clear upstarts, they are hoping these political promises

don't simply drain away. How have farmers reacted to the Government's

latest offer of help? The farmers I have spoken to today

on the Somerset Levels are pleased the Government announced this new

tranche of money available to them a couple of weeks ago. But they say

their real concern is whether there will be too much red tape, whether

it will take too long to find its way into their bank accounts once

they apply for it. They are most concerned about whether the money

goes to the people who really need it. They say it is imperative

someone overseas this and someone is in charge of making sure the money

goes where it is needed and when it is needed and quickly. They say

there is no point hanging around, because a farmer needs the money

straightaway. But you can see behind me some of the water that is still

here and some farms are feet deep underwater and it will be some time

before some farmers work out how much money they will need. Ministers

from the US and Britain are due to meet later today to discuss an

emergency package of economic aid to save Ukraine from bankruptcy. It

follows the weeks of protests that led to the ousting of President

Victor Yanukovych. But Russia is warning against forcing Ukraine to

choose between East and West. Our diplomatic correspondent Bridget

Kendall is in Moscow. It seems they are watching events in Ukraine very

nervously in Russia. Yes, that is the case. If you read the Russian

press, it paints a terrifying picture of virtual anarchy, armed

groups roaming the streets and setting fire to buildings and

toppling statues. The Russian Government has had some very harsh

rhetoric when it questioned the legitimacy of the new authorities

and said Russians' interests were being threatened. Today there was a

different message from the Russian Foreign Minister. They seem to have

taken their time and thought, and he said they had to choose between East

and West, but Russia would not intervene in the affairs of another

country. He also said Moscow would wait to see what the new Government,

due to be announced on Thursday, what it is made and what their

policies are and whether they could end the violence and restore law and

order and reach out to other groups in Ukraine, particularly to the

regions where there are Russian speakers. When he was asked if

Russia would take part in a donor conference which has been talk about

in Western capitals to get together a bailout plan to save Ukraine's

economy from collapse, he did not rule that out. There are mixed

messages coming from Moscow. My suspicion is they are still trying

to work out what their policy should be. The lives of more than half a

million babies around the world could be saved every year if mothers

had access to a trained midwife. A report from Save the Children says

in many countries access to a skilled midwife is limited. In 2012,

40 million women around the world gave birth without a trained health

worker present. 2.9 million babies died within 28 days. Of these, 1

million babies died on their first day of life. One of the worst

countries for newborn deaths is South Sudan. George Alagiah is

therefore as now. You join us in the maternity ward. It may not look like

much, but this hospital, this unit, has got the best reputation in the

country for looking after mothers and their babies. This lady had a

baby a couple of days ago and it was a very complicated birth, but both

mother and baby are doing fine. That would not have been the case

anywhere else outside in South Sudan. It has got a terrible record.

You might be able to hear some of the crying. There has been a baby

delivered just in the last few minutes. It is a very different

situation outside. One in seven women in this country, rather one in

seven stand a chance of dying during pregnancy. This is the matron at the

hospital. Stella, you have got a tough job, but it is made even

tougher by the fighting that started last December. Yes, the crisis in

South Sudan has added a lot to our staff here. In December we had 237

admissions in the maternity for different medical illnesses and we

had 129 deliveries and 13 Caesarean sections and two stillbirths and two

premature and one death. So a very tough time, but you and your staff

are doing a very good job. Yes, they are doing a good job, but it is very

hard for them. There are only eight midwives working here in maternity

and we have another DOS working in child health. Stella, thank you very

much. There are ten midwives in this hospital. In the country there are

just 300 midwives for a population of 10 million people. You can

imagine what challenges these people, people like Stella, phase.

But the report from Save the Children says it would not take much

in the way of commitment from leaders to turn around the

situation. There has been progress and there are beacons of hope like

this hospital. Maths teachers in England are being

urged to be more like their counterparts in Shanghai. Recent

figures suggest pupils in the Chinese city are three years ahead

of English schoolchildren when it comes to maths. But critics argue

that Shanghai schools only get such good results because many children

are excluded and educated separately. John Sudworth reports

from Shanghai. If only English children were this clever. Education

Minister Elizabeth Truss is here to find out how Shanghai does it. It is

a system in which hard work and long study hours pay off. In maths,

according to the rankings, the city's 15-year-olds are three years

ahead of their UK counterparts. But rather than something to be emulated

critics suggest the system here is deeply flawed. China's strict

residency rules mean a huge number of the most disadvantaged students

are missing from this picture. A city of 23 million people should,

according to the global average, have almost 300,015 -year-olds. But

Shanghai has only a little more than 100,000. This, the critics argue,

cannot be explained purely by the low birth rate. Many thousands of

15-year-olds appear to have vanished into thin air. Students like this

14-year-old. Her parents are migrants, but despite having lived

and worked in Shanghai for nine years, they do not have full

residency papers so she cannot go to a Shanghai high school. There is

nothing we can do about it, her dad says, my daughter is having to leave

Shanghai not because she wants to do, but because of the system.

Elizabeth Truss is convinced there is much to learn from Shanghai.

There is a strong belief maths gets you everywhere and it is an

important subject and everybody can achieve in maths. Secondly, it is

the focus on the core basics, so making sure every student gets

arithmetic, they can do their times tables and long division. But there

are other criticisms. Chinese pupils complain about how highly

pressurised this system is. Finally, one British export

customers abroad cannot seem to get enough of is our television with

shows like Paddington Kirby and the great British bake of getting an

ever bigger slice of the international cake. Old favourites

like Top Gear are often a little bit different in their new homes. The

man speaking fluent Farsi is of course Jeremy Clarkson. The joke

about Loughborough might lose something in translation, but Iran

is rather partial to Top Gear. And in French because they are making a

cake. What is number one in British TV in Finland? It is Benton Abbey.

Thomas has come here to buy TV for Finland, a place where Doctor Who

has not taken off and an old, British peace programme has.

Heartbeat from ITV. The audience she is absolutely amazing. TV is

becoming increasingly globalised and if you want to go shopping, you come

to events like this. This event began in 37 years ago and it was in

a small hotel in Brighton and there were 37 people. Now we have row

after row, 600 booths, 720 buyers, all watching television ten hours a

day, determining what the world is going to be watching on TV. It is

global producers creating global brands and then adapting them. Take

Strictly Come Dancing, unlike Britain in India there are no cruel

judges. The judges tend to be on the more positive side, so there is less

criticism. I was watching a version of it in Panama and found even in

week one and the judges were handed out tens. US programming is

suffering at the moment. No matter how good it is and you put it on the

schedule, the figures are quite low. I don't know, that is something I

have discussed with colleagues all over Europe and everybody is feeling

the same. The new power in the Middle East is Turkey and the new

market everyone wants to break is China. This is Masterchef. But the

biggest stir has been made by this man, Sherlock. These are the

world's most powerful TV viewers. A tear or a smile on these faces and

it could be very big news. Time now for a look at the weather.

I am not sure we could export the British weather at the moment. The

last of the overnight rain is clearing away from eastern areas.

Following on behind are more showers which are pushing away and our

attention now is to the west where we have got these heavy showers

coming in. But it is showers and not constant rain and there will be some

sunshine around as well. But the showers are coming with blustery

winds and there is a chance of hail and thunder as well. This is three

o'clock this afternoon. The odd shower pops up and they are very hit

and miss in nature. Where we had 15 degrees yesterday, it is closer to

ten today. Sunshine amongst the showers in the East Midlands, East

Anglia and Lincolnshire. But they are working their way across England

and Scotland and there is some snow on the hills. Gusts of 40 or 50

miles an hour or so in western Scotland and in the Irish Sea and

the showers head into Wales and south-west England. But once you

have had a shower it will move out of the way. They are moving east and

it is a process that continues for a time this evening before they fade

away. Many of us will be dry with clear spells. Where it is dry and

the skies are clear it will be a cold night and last night, but not

many of us getting all the way down to freezing. In the early morning

showers in northern Ireland and they will move across western Scotland.

To the south there is plenty of dry and sunny weather to be had.

Brightening up in Northern Ireland and temperatures are close to

normal. There is another Atlantic weather system coming on Wednesday

night and into Thursday morning, but again it is quick moving. The rain

totals do not have time to add up because it is out of the way by

Thursday morning. A little bit cooler by Friday and into the

weekend there are still some showers around. More details on the website

and you can find out how some rain is heading to California to help out

with the drought. The main story: Rebekah Brooks said she did not know