05/04/2017 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten: Syria and Russia face intense criticism

following the gas attack which killed at least 70 people.

Many of the victims in the town in northern Syria were children.

The Americans have blamed the Assad regime as the President signalled

I will tell you that it's already happened,

that my attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed very much.

At the United Nations, the US ambassador went a step

further than the President and challenged the Russians

How many more children have to die before Russia cares?

And Moscow's suggestion that civilians were poisoned by rebel

Also tonight: At Westminster Abbey a service of hope following

the terror attack of two weeks ago as the widow of one victim

I'm extremely proud of him and I'm very happy that the world now knows

As persecution of Rohingya Muslims intensifies, we ask the leader

of Myanmar if she's failing to stop a process of ethnic cleansing.

I don't think there's ethnic cleansing going on.

I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use

At the European Parliament, Nigel Farage laughs at suggestions

that the UK should pay for an exit fee for leaving the EU.

And why did Pepsi cancel this advert less than 24

Coming up in the sport: Can Chelsea extend their lead

in the Premier League or will they open up

the door in the title race against Manchester City at Stamford

Syria and Russia have both come under intense criticism

at an emergency session of the UN Security Council.

Syria stands accused of mounting a gas attack in Idlib province

which killed at least 70 people and injured hundreds of others.

President Trump called it a terrible affront to humanity.

But Mr Trump's Ambassador to the United Nations

went a step further, accusing Russia of helping Syria

Our correspondent Nick Bryant reports.

Five-year-old Ibrahim went to bed and woke up to the latest horror in

Syria's unending war. His grandmother was at his hospital

bedside caring for him and his sister because their father was

killed in the attack. Lives ended, lives ruined by a toxic

cloud that filled victims' lungs with poison.

TRANSLATION: My grandchildren were sleeping. Everyone woke up to a loud

noise. They went outside and that's when they came across the chemical

attack. They just fell to the floor and died. It's all too easy to

become desensitised to the suffering of the Syrian people but consider

the plight of this man, he lost 20 members of his family, including his

twin children, killed in a second explosion.

TRANSLATION: I left them in good health. Why did this happen? I went

to help other people and thought my children were OK. Now they are gone.

Yesterday, Donald Trump derided his predecessor Barack Obama for warning

the Assad regime that using chemical weapons crossed a red line but not

following through on that threat. But today in the setting of the Rose

Garden he deployed similar language himself himself and signalled a

change in thinking on Syria. These heinous actions by the Assad regime

cannot be tolerated. My attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed

very much. It cost a - crossed a lot of lines for me. In an angry session

at the Security Council. Diplomatic protectors Russia but Moscow claimed

Syrian rebels were to blame for the deaths.

TRANSLATION: The Syrian air force conducted an air strike on the

eastern edge of Khan Sheikhoun on a large warehouse of ammunition and

military equipment, on the territory of that warehouse there was a

facility to produce ammunition with the use of toxic weapons. But that

prompted this electrifying moment of diplomatic theatre, the US

ambassador Nikki Haley getting to her feet and holding up graphic

images of the dead. Then, eye-balling her Russian counterpart

she blasted Moscow. If Russia has the influence in Syria it claims to

have we need to see them use it. We need to see them put an end to these

horrific acts. How many more children have to die before Russia

cares? Today we saw the usual divisions at

the Security Council, the usual deadlock over Syria. And the usual

inability of the international community, even to agree about basic

facts on the ground. This is the deadliest attack in

Syria after nearly four years. After 2013 the Assad regime was supposed

to have handed over its chemical weaponses stockpile. But it's

continued to use banned toxic weapons and experts believe the

evidence points to Damascus having carried out another war crime.

Wrecked buildings and ruined cities are usually the grim landmarks, but

today it was empty streets and signs that warned of the poison still

contomorrow Nating the air. -- contaminating the air.

Let's go to Washington and our North America editor, Jon Sopel.

The President talks about changing his attitude to the Assad regime,

what should people read into that? He also said that President Assad

had crossed many lines in carrying out what he did. He said he was

shocked and it couldn't go unanswered. The clear implication of

which is that the President would favour some kind of military action

to be taken against Syria. But what? Just because you have a new

President in the White House doesn't mean that the kind of equation has

changed, that Barack Obama had to deal with. What would be the

objective of military action, what would success look like, what would

mission accomplished be? That is not to mention Russia. We heard there

from the ambassador Nikki Haley saying that Russia was shielding

Syria from further sanctions. From President Trump we heard nothing

about the word Russia. He didn't mention Russia. Where do the America

Americans stand and how could they take military action if Russia is

alongside Syria? In the context of this security strategy a very

important change today in the President's staffing? The most

important person in the White House, apart from Donald Trump, is a man

called Steve Bannon, he is the chief strategist and he was a permanent

member of the National Security Council even though he had no

national security experience. He was the insurgent, the man during the

campaign who said he wanted to tear down the walls of the establishment,

wreck the state, he described himself as a Lennonist. He has been

moved off the National Security Council. In normal politics you

would say if someone influential has been moved he must be on his way

out. I think that's premature to say about Steve Bannon. He is the

architect of America First. Yesterday we heard Donald Trump

talking about I am not the President of the world, I am the President of

America. Sometimes the world impinges in ways the President

wishes it didn't. With Syria today, tomorrow he is meeting his Chinese

counterpart, where the topic will be North Korea. National security

issues often define a US President. Thank you very much.

A service of hope and reconciliation has taken place

at Westminster Abbey, a fortnight after the attack

on Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament.

The service took place to remember the victims of Khalid Masood

who drove a car into pedestrians and stabbed a police officer.

At the Abbey, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry joined

those attending the multi-faith service, as our royal correspondent

Two weeks after shocking events which occurred almost

within its precincts, at Westminster Abbey

Leaders of the different faith communities from across

the United Kingdom were joined in the congregation by the Duke

and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, together

with members of the emergency services, some of those

who were injured and some of the bereaved, including

Melissa Cochran whose husband Kurt was one of the four people who died.

Candles were lit to represent the light which can

never be extinguished by the darkness of terror.

In his address, the Dean of Westminster recalled that among

those who were directly affected by the attack were people

He posed the question so many have asked - why?

What could possibly motivate a man to hire a car and take it

from Birmingham to Brighton to London and then drive it fast

at people he'd never met, couldn't possibly know,

against who he had no personal grudge, no reason to hate them

and then run at the gates of the Palace of Westminster

We weep for the violence, for the hatred, for the loss

of life, for all that divides and spoils our world.

Prayers were offered pledging respect between

That the best of Muslims is the one who utters beautiful words,

Two weeks after the Westminster attack, from an ancient Abbey,

which has borne witness to so much, a message of hope.

One of those attending the service was Melissa Cochran.

She and her husband Kurt were both hit by Khalid Masood's car

Kurt was killed, while Melissa suffered injuries,

They'd travelled from the USA to celebrate their 25th wedding

Melissa Cochran has spoken exclusively to Fiona Bruce.

Kurt was probably the best man I have ever met.

I am extremely proud of him and I'm very happy that the world now knows

He would probably hate all the publicity that is going on,

We were just having another wonderful day in our vacation.

Just enjoying the sights, taking pictures, making

I don't remember much more after that.

Crossing the bridge and we were almost there.

You have no recollection of the car and the attack itself?

There is a photograph that has been printed,

I imagine you're aware of it, of you on the ground

And the panic, you know, of not being able to see

Or really know what was kind of going on.

And when did you find out that Kurt had been killed?

It was after my surgery on my leg, I had come out

of recovery and they placed me in a hospital room.

And they were there waiting for me when I came out.

I asked them to find out what had happened to my husband.

My parents walked out of the room and came back in and they both

grabbed my hand and said that he didn't make it.

Very striking, the press conference where so many members

of your family came and stood in solidarity with you.

And also said that your husband would not have felt ill

I think that would have surprised a lot of people.

He was probably the most loving man I've ever met.

There was just such a nerve in his heart.

And you can manage to do that yourself?

Not feel ill-will towards the man that has put you in this wheelchair,

that has ended your future together with your husband?

I don't think I could heal my injuries or as a person

Melissa Cochran talking to Fiona Bruce.

In the past six months, some 70,000 Rohingya Muslims -

a persecuted minority - have fled their homeland in Myanmar,

There are now reports that the national army has been

responsible for mass killings and rapes.

The country's leader is Aung San Suu Kyi who for many

years has been widely recognised as a champion of human rights.

But more recently she's been accused of failing

to confront the atrocities against the Rohingya minority.

A year after Aung San Suu Kyi became leader in democratic elections

she has given a rare interview to our special

It is a relic of the absurdity and paranoia of military rule,

a capital marooned far from the people, designed

to keep the Generals safe, but where the new democratic

government is trying to consolidate its hold on power.

It's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has undergone a rapid transformation

A period of intense scrutiny and criticism.

Now, for the first time this year, she's agreed

In terms of change in the lives of ordinary people, one

of the things that's happened - it's happened in South Africa,

for example - is a massive sense of disappointment when a liberation

What have you done to make their lives better?

You go through the whole list of things we have done,

such as how many miles of roads and how many bridges and so many

Last year we started out by saying that, at the top of our priorities

was job creation and we discovered, over this one year, that

if you start constructing all-weather roads and if you provide

electrification, then people start creating jobs for themselves.

There've been advances in healthcare and, critically,

But all of this has been overshadowed by the terror

in Rakhine State, where tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims

have fled what human rights groups call ethnic cleansing.

And about which Aung San Suu Kyi has condemned for failing to speak out.

What exactly is it that they're condemning?

They want you to allow a UN fact-finding mission

That is just what they asked for last month.

But what is that they have been condemning over the last year?

Many, many people, including those who would be sympathetic to you,

look at the situation and say - why hasn't she spoken out?

Here's an icon of human rights - What do you mean by "speaking out"?

Now, Fergal, this question has been asked since 2013 when the troubles,

the last round of troubles broke out in the Rakhine, and they would ask

me questions, and I would answer them and people would say I said

nothing, simply because I didn't make the kind of statements

which they thought I should make, which is to condemn one community

So what we're trying to go for is reconciliation, not condemnation.

Do you ever worry that you will be remembered

as the champion of human rights, the Nobel Laureate who failed

to stand up to ethnic cleansing in her own country?

No, because I don't think there's ethnic cleansing going on.

I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use

It's what I think, as an outsider, I have to say.

Fergal, I think there's a lot of hostility there and,

as I pointed out just now, its Muslims killing Muslims

as well, if they think that they are collaborating

So it's not just a matter of ethnic cleansing, as you've put it,

it's a matter of people on different sides of a divide.

She remains the most popular politician here by a very long way

and her goal remains to negotiate the military out of politics,

with people power at her back and a steely interior determination.

Do you think that people in the West misjudged you or mischaracterised

you or misunderstood you, expecting you to be this sort

of amalgam of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, for example?

And, actually, maybe you're closer in your determination and steeliness

Well, no, I'm just a politician, I'm not quite

But, on the other hand, I'm no Mother Teresa either.

The European Parliament has agreed its priorities for the forthcoming

MEPs overwhelmingly backed a motion that said trade talks could not

begin until substantial progress had been made on the terms

Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, accused MEPs

of behaving like the Mafia, setting a ransom demand.

Our correspondent, Damian Grammaticas,

It began cordial enough - smiles, genuine or not,

between the architect of Brexit and the man who says

Britain must pay billions, he's Michel Barnier,

Today, the European Parliament backed his demand.

The leader of the Socialist Group said the UK must pay its bills,

"The gas bill, the electricity, it all has to be settled",

As soon as he was on his feet, his tone changed.

He said the EU was being vindictive and nasty,

You're behaving like the Mafia, you think we're

Groans at the Mafia comparison stopped him mid-flow.

Then this, from the parliament's Italian president.

TRANSLATION: I'm sorry, Mr Farage interrupted Antonio Tajani,

but saying this parliament is behaving like the Mafia,

It's a sign of how fractious the real negotiations could become.

Mr Barnier responded, he will not punish the UK,

only ask that it live up to its financial obligations

and he said it'll have to agree the separation terms before trade

The sooner we agree the principles of an orderly withdrawal, the sooner

Among the parliament's other demands, that the UK can have no

special access to the EU's single market for sectors

The reason this debate matters is that this parliament

will have a vote in two years' time on any Brexit deal, yes or no.

If it doesn't like it, it could throw it out,

A different future was laid out too, where a young generation of Britons

A young generation that will see Brexit for what it really is,

a catfight in the Conservative Party that got out of hand.

A lot of time, a waste of energy and, I think, stupidity.

But for now, the EU is ready in what it says will be a tough

Damian Grammaticas, BBC News, Strasbourg.

Former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, is facing

a new Labour Party investigation into his comments about Hitler.

Mr Livingstone was last night suspended from the party for a year.

Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, says his refusal to apologise

could now open him up to further disciplinary action.

The matter will now be considered by the party's ruling

A group of Muslim leaders from Britain have been in Rome

for talks with Pope Francis as part of efforts to strengthen relations

between Christians and Muslims and to improve the quality

The delegation was led by the leader of Roman Catholics in England

and Wales, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, as our religious

affairs correspondent, Martin Bashir, reports.

In a city where Christians once feared to tread,

four Muslim leaders arrived for a meeting that intentionally

crossed the borders of their own religion.

The four imams - who serve communities in Leicester,

Birmingham, Glasgow and London - were taken to the Vatican's inner

Pope Francis said such an interfaith gathering brought great joy,

that it furthered the most important work of humanity, that

And then he greeted each of the imams and even

Islam gets very a bad press, as you know, because of some Muslims

who have behaved in an un-Islamic way, but for the Pope, whose beliefs

are so different to those of Islam, yet for him to acknowledge that

Islam is a religion of peace is a very powerful message

and I hope Muslims are listening, especially those Muslims who are

The meeting was organised by the leaders of Catholics

What do you say to those who point at the persecution of Christians

in Muslim countries like Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan?

The violence in those countries certainly includes Christians,

but it's not only directed against Christians in some

Clearly, innate violence finds a lodging place in aspects of Islam

and that is a real challenge for us to face together.

This may have been more symbolic than substantive but,

in meeting with the Pope, these imams were signalling

to British Muslims that the way forward should be friendship

with other faiths and not enmity; community and not conflict.

The Pope will travel to Egypt at the end of this month

in his continuing quest to improve Catholic-Islamic relations.

He offered his blessing to each of the imams and asked

The outgoing head of Britain's surveillance agency, GCHQ,

has called on technology companies to do more to tackle

In his final interview before leaving the role,

Robert Hannigan spoke to our security correspondent,

Gordon Corera, who was given exclusive access behind

She's GCHQ's iconic building, housing a mix of people and machines

working at the cutting-edge of technology, countering threats

In the heart of its headquarters, the outgoing director told me that

so-called Islamic State will, as it faces defeat

on the battlefield, increasingly turn to the internet.

They will continue to try to use the media to crowd source terrorism,

to get people around the world to go and commit acts of violence

on their behalf, but it's not just for governments to do operations

online, it's for the companies and for the rest of media

and society to have the will to drive this material

So this is our 24-hour operation centre.

Inside the building, teams of analysts pour over

communications and data from around the world.

So there may be a team monitoring the kidnap

of a British hostage overseas, for example, or a counter-terrorist

operation that's live at the moment, in support of MI5.

This, for example, is our cyber 24-hour monitoring cell.

We were shown a map which visualises cyber-attacks on the UK,

and high on the agenda is the cyber threat from Russia.

The scale has changed, they've invested a lot of money

and people in offensive cyber behaviour and, critically,

they've decided to do reckless and interfering things

Clearly, they aspire to do similar things in the UK.

There has been this accusation, that's been aired

in the United States, that GCHQ was asked

to spy on Donald Trump by the Obama administration.

Well, we get crazy conspiracy theories thrown at us every day,

On this occasion, it was so crazy that we felt we should say so.

So, this is one of our high performance computers.

Deep under the building sits the electronic brain

of GCHQ, humming with data and super computers.

This is the first time cameras have filmed inside.

Today, our map editions are again using them

to tackle our most difficult problems, including on terrorism.

Critics argue there is too much intrusive power within these walls,

but GCHQ says it's needed to pursue those who pose a threat.

Technology and the internet are overwhelmingly brilliant

Unfortunately, there will always be people who want to abuse the latest

technology and it's our job to deal with that dark side.

GCHQ acknowledges it may have been too secret in the past

and to succeed in the future, it needs greater public

understanding of what really goes on here.

Gordon Corera, BBC News, inside GCHQ.

Pepsi has announced it's discountinued a controversial advert

starring the model Kendall Jenner and apologised for

Viewers had complained that the video undermined

Pepsi argued it was trying to project a "global message

of unity, peace and understanding" as our correspondent,

It's a global brand that's caused a global backlash.

Supermodel Kendall Jenner handing a can of Pepsi to a police

Pepsi says the message was about harmony, but it's caused

They've basically set this advert in a protest situation.

Donald Trump just got elected, Black Lives Matter's

I think people have a right to be upset because essentially Pepsi's

just gone out and said - "With a can of Pepsi we can fix

and heal the world," and that's just not true.

In America, this is the reality of protests.

Anger and arrests, not soft drinks and supermodels.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana last year, there was widespread unrest

following the shooting of a black man, Alton Stirling, by police.

Critics say Pepsi have tried to replicate this iconic

image from the protest, and it's in bad taste.

I'm tired of black pain being used for commercial gain.

It made no sense and it was a parody, basically,

I'm wondering if they even have an inclusive and diverse board

of advisors, because if anybody who saw that before it went out...

They would know that that was just inappropriate and disrespectful.

They say any publicity is good publicity.

Ad agencies are constantly trying to push the boundaries.

When you trivialise it or make a scene, like,

just that everybody in a melting pot kind of thing, I don't know

if they're really about the issues or if they're just trivialising

Probably bigger problems in the world, isn't there?

But I think when you say insulting...

It's insulting in that, you know, there are serious problems

in the world and Pepsi have used the problems to try

Bowing to pressure, Pepsi has now pulled the advert and apologised.

It's cost the company hundreds of thousands of pounds,

but it's a drinks campaign which has fallen flat, and the cost to Pepsi's

Something strange is happening in the French presidential election,

candidates from the two main parties have been overtaken in the opinion

Tonight, we visit a former coalmining region in France to find

Here, on BBC One, it's time for the news where you are.