16/08/2017 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at 10: The Government wants business as usual

on the Irish border, after Britain leaves the EU.

The Prime Minister says people and goods should be able to cross

between north and south as they do now.

We do want to ensure that we don't see a return

to the borders of the past, we don't see a return to a hard border.

We'll ask whether the Government's plans are achievable.

Republicans, including two former Presidents,

join the condemnation of Donald Trump for his handling

Unemployment falls to the lowest level in 40 years -

but average earnings still lag behind inflation.

Also tonight, the BBC talks to child soldiers

trained by so-called Islamic State - and now living in Europe.

And, as her film about civil unrest 50 years ago opens,

Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow tells us race relations in America

Until there's a meaningful conversation about race in America,

I'm worried that these events will keep happening.

And coming up in Sportsday on BBC News: Celtic try to make

the Champions League group stage for a second season in a row.

After Britain leaves the EU, people and goods should be able

to move freely across the border between the Irish Republic

and Northern Ireland, much as they do today.

That's the government's ambition outlined in a paper published today.

Ministers says they want no return to checkpoints and border posts.

At the moment there are about 110 million border crossings every year.

Northern Ireland exports ?2.4 billion worth of goods south of the

border, that's nearly a third of all its exports,

Critics of today's proposals say they lack credible detail -

and have raised concerns that an open border could

become a back-door for immigration from the EU.

Our Ireland correspondent Chris Buckler reports

For more than 300 miles, crossing fields and bridges,

roads and rivers, there is a political dividing line

But it is a border that currently cannot be seen, and many want

Soft toys and cushions are the latest protest

against what's been called a hard Brexit.

Where some kind of barriers could divide towns like Belcoo

bridge and people in areas like this have jobs,

businesses and friends that require them to cross this border regularly.

I cross this border quite easily 15, 20 times a day,

moving goods sometimes, sometimes just to manage staff,

meet different people, whatever is involved in daily work.

If there is any sort of checks that slow that down or anything else,

it is going to create a lot of logistical difficulties.

The Government doesn't want to return to the days when border huts

and customs posts marked where Northern Ireland

This position paper seemed to dismiss the idea

And ministers say they are determined to protect

Allowing the free movement of people across Ireland and Britain.

Ideas and aspirations that will be welcomed beyond these

islands and Brussels, but ones which raise political

and practical difficulties, with claims that it could allow

a back door for people to get into the UK.

We do want to ensure that we don't see a return

to the borders of the past, we don't see a return to a hard

border and that we are able to ensure that the

and people between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is able

Some have raised doubts about the UK's ability to forge

trade deals with other countries if it agrees to meet the EU's

And if a customs deal cannot be agreed with the EU,

there are questions about what will happen to the billions of pounds

of trade carried along these busy border roads.

The British Government believes technology and online declarations

could be used to monitor goods carried by bigger firms.

But there are concerns about smuggling, and the Irish

I don't believe the island of Ireland issues will be resolved

through technology and I think this paper probably also accepts that,

which is a step forward and I welcome that.

It does leave you wondering what the border is going to look

like and if you are outside of the customs union

We are no clearer as to knowing what that is going to be, are we?

That is because the negotiation now needs to take place.

And there is a will to find solutions in those negotiations,

because tied up with the politics and practicalities are concerns

about the potential impact of peace and prosperity at this,

what is currently the softest of borders.

In a moment we'll talk to our political correspondent

Alex Forsyth in Westminster, but first to Chris Buckler

Chris, we have heard plenty from politicians today, what is your

assessment of what people really want here? I think people who live

close to this border will share many of the sentiments and thoughts in

this report. The idea that they don't want barriers, they don't want

anything that would get in the way of open roads. But you get the

impression that a lot of that will depend on the wider Brexit deal. At

the moment you get the idea that beyond the principles ministers are

struggling to explain exactly how all of this would work in practice.

However, looking at the detail there is a recognition of how important it

is to this part of the UK, partly because of Northern Ireland's land

border with the Republic, and the EU state, also because of the past. In

it they have said time and again there needs to be protection of the

Good Friday Agreement and the years of political progress. That is

probably particularly true given there is no power-sharing Government

at Stormont because of disputes between the two big parties. They

don't agree on an awful lot, including bricks -- Brexit and the

position paper. The Democratic Unionist Party welcomes the report,

saying it is a constructive step, but Sinn Fein has described it as a

cynical bargaining chip, the peace process is cynical bargaining chip

in the negotiation with the EU. You might not be able to see it, but

this border is certainly political. Alex is in Westminster. Is there a

sense in which these proposals raise rather more questions than answers?

The Government has been accused of a lack of clarity and confusion over

its report into Brexit, and it says it has a vision. I am told the

reporter on the island of Ireland was not meant to be a technical

blueprint but a broad statement of principle. On the commitment to no

hard border there is alignment between the UK and the EU, but there

is scepticism about how that can work in practice. There is concern

too about whether it would allow the Government to deliver on the

referendum result, because a key plank of the Leave campaign was

about taking back control of UK borders, and there are some concern

that people can travel between Ireland and the UK without extra

border checks, it could leave a back open TEU emigration. We expect more

detail about Government plans for its immigration policy post Brexit,

and this is subject to negotiation with the European Union. The

Government says at the moment that it is about principles, the clarity

offered today has been welcomed but there is no certainty about the

day-to-day reality of life after Brexit or even if the Government can

get agreement on that period in Westminster, let alone Dublin,

Belfast and Brussels. Thank you, Alex Forsyth and Chris Buckler.

Condemnation of President Trump is growing, after his comments

blaming all sides for the deadly violence in Charlottesville,

Two former Republican Presidents, George Bush, and his son

George W Bush, have released a joint statement, calling on the American

people to reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism,

One woman was killed and 19 people were wounded

Our North America editor Jon Sopel reports.

The memorial service for Heather Heyer, an anti-racism

protestor mown down by a white supremacist in

But far from this being an occasion when a nation comes together,

America seems more bitterly divided than ever.

They tried to kill my child to shut her up.

This was Charlottesville on Friday night - racist groups chanting "Jews

will not replace us," carrying Ku Klux Klan style torches and also

marching to the slogan "White Lives Matter."

Yesterday, the President blamed both sides for the violence that ensued.

You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other

and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious

and it was horrible and it was a horrible

There was a group on this side - you can call them the left,

you have just called them the left - that came violently

attacking the other group, so you can say what you want,

It is true there was violence on both sides.

But the race hate protesters had come tooled up for trouble.

This is not the Army, but a right-wing militia that turned

Most had clubs, helmets and shields with white supremacist insignia.

The anti-racism demonstrators were not organised, they were mostly

local people among whom a small core had come to fight.

But Donald Trump seeming to draw a moral equivalence

between swastika-carrying neo-Nazis and anti-racism protesters has

The senior Republican Paul Ryan tweeting...

The only significant voice of support last night came

from the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan,

There is reported to be deep unhappiness among some senior

White House staff over the President's comments.

He had not been due to say anything and significantly,

a new intervention - this time from two the former living

Republican presidents George HW Bush and George W Bush -

saying there is no room for bigotry or anti-Semitism in today's America.

Donald Trump left New York today to resume his hardly quiet

More isolated from the political and business establishment

than at any time since he took office.

It's not just political opposition, now a number of business leaders

saying tonight they want nothing to do with him?

Dramatic developments, when Donald Trump became president of one of the

first things he did was to set a two bodies, want to advise him on

manufacturing and the other to advise him on business in general.

They had the cream of the CEOs of this country, they were the good and

the great. After Saturday the President's comments in

Charlottesville, one by one a trickle became a flood and more and

more started to resign, then this lunchtime it started to emerge that

maybe the advisory body was to disband itself in

protest at what the president had done. This is a president who used

to be the host of the Apprentice, he does not get fired, he fires, so he

disbanded both of these industry bodies at a stroke saying I do not

want anything more to do with you. It is a fundamental breach with the

business community at a time when Donald Trump wants to achieve tax

reform, greater infrastructure spending. Isn't everyone wailing in

the White House over this? Probably not. Yes, the globalists are

probably very unhappy at the turn of events. But the Nationalists and

populists in the White House are probably quietly cheering all that

has unfolded over the past few days. It is a sign of the dysfunction

within Donald Trump's White House. The number of people out of work

in the UK is now at its lowest level There's also been a slight rise

in average earnings. Our economics correspondent Andy

Verity is here with the details. Yes - if you look at the total

number of unemployed people - Part of the reason it's

such a low rate - 4.4% - is because it's a smaller

and smaller percentage of an ever-growing workforce -

32.1 million people. Now with the unemployment rate

that low - in theory wages should take off -

because employers need to pay more to attract staff and workers have

greater bargaining power. Pay rises did improve slightly -

the average was 2.1%. But we used to take it

for granted that pay would rise That changed in the wake

of the financial crisis, when pay rises - that's the blue

line here - fell behind price rises But this year they flopped back

again below inflation. In spite of low unemployment,

earnings in real terms The paradox is we've got super-low

unemployment right down to the level that would normally cause

an acceleration of wages, It's not happening here and it's not

happening in any country in the developed world,

even with low unemployment. For companies like this

upmarket motorbike maker, the tight labour market won't be

solved by offering higher pay. It simply can't find enough skilled

staff to meet demand for the bikes. At the moment, I can't drive

the growth as fast as we're able - bizarrely, not because of models

or orders or finance, but people. And it's super frustrating

that we can't get the skilled staff to come in and take advantage

of the orders that we have. Companies used to be able to afford

inflation-beating pay rises because every year,

each worker produced a little bit more per hour,

helped by investment in new technology,

training and skills. But that growth in productivity has

been absent in 2017. Today's figures also show something

interesting about the flow 3.56 million people working

in the UK are non-UK nationals. That number is still rising -

but not as quickly as it has been. In the first three months

of the year it grew by 207,000 But in the second quarter it

went up by just 109,000. A brief look at some

of the day's other news stories. The Labour MP Sarah Champion has

resigned as shadow equalities minister, after apologising for an

article In the article she wrote that,

"Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping

and exploiting white girls." The MP for Rotherham said she used

an extremely poor choice of words. Tens of thousands of people have

greeted the HMS Queen Elizabeth as she sailed into her home port

of Portsmouth for the first time The 65,000 tonne ship,

which took eight years to build, is the Royal Navy's largest

ever surface warship. It can't currently deploy planes,

but flying trials are due A group of robbers used

sledgehammers to smash their way into a London

jewellers this morning. Footage captured the men leaving

the shop and escaping on mopeds. Scotland Yard said nobody

was injured in the raid. A week of national mourning has

begun in Sierra Leone, in the wake of the flooding

and mudslides that claimed many hundreds of lives

near the capital, Freetown. Officials say more than 100 children

are among the 400 people who are known to have died when part

of a mountain collapsed And at least 600 people

are still missing. From Freetown, Martin

Patience reports. In Freetown the ambulances

are rushing not to the hospital They are ferrying the dead -

victims buried alive by a landslide. The relatives wait outside

to collect their bodies. Daniel wasn't home

when disaster struck. But he tells me six members

of his family are dead, The grief and anger

is tangible here. This is a nation mourning

the loss of hundreds. And rescue workers say that

authorities are hampering This gaping scar was

once a neighbourhood. It's the scene of a recovery

operation on the hoof. Diggers have been drafted

in but there are no sniffer dogs, The fear is disease could

spread unless hundreds A trickle of aid is getting

through but many, like So-called Islamic State

is collapsing in the Middle East and attention is turning to fighters

returning home, It's believed at least

2,000 children have gone The group calls its child

soldiers the Lion Cubs. The BBC has discovered that some

of these boys and young men are now living in Europe -

with the authorities Our Middle East correspondent

Quentin Sommerville reports on how IS cultivated, controlled and

sent children into battle. This is childhood in

the so-called Islamic State. This footage, filmed secretly

in Raqqa and passed to the BBC, is of what IS calls the cubs

of the caliphate. They are child soldiers,

barely teenagers. Clumsy and armed to the teeth,

there are guns are almost Even as IS is collapsing,

it's investing in its future. This is where the IS war machine

suffered its biggest defeat, Here, the fighters

honed their skills. Imagine fighting in this

and then surviving. Well, some did, some escaped,

and some have made it to Europe. We travelled to Belgium,

and there we met Ahmed. TRANSLATION: They taught me how

to use a Kalashnikov. They would keep talking

about martyrdom operations. I was brainwashed,

and I believed it. I told my family, you can't

change my thoughts, and no matter what you do,

I'm going to stay. He became disillusioned

with IS and escaped first The authorities here don't

know about his past. TRANSLATION: They were my enemies,

now I'm living among them. They've received me

and looked after me. When all this happened,

I started to hate my entire past We travelled to Germany,

where we met Moutassem. Again, his youth means

his IS membership has He was one of many

groomed by the group. TRANSLATION: They would give

us whatever we wanted, and they would tell us

that we are the best, that we are right and all the others

are wrong and must fear us. They would also allow us to carry

weapons wherever we go. For two weeks, he underwent

military training and was Others, though, volunteered

for suicide missions. TRANSLATION: They prefer children

to adults because they can use them Nobody would expect that

a 14 or 16-year-old boy Both teenagers that we met say

they've turned their backs on IS. But as we travelled across Europe,

we learned of at least three more We approached the EU

police force Europol, Europe is still vulnerable, but it's

here where the journey begins. On the Turkish border, Syrian

refugees can still slip through, scrambling past searchlights

and guard towers. Near the border, I met a people

smuggler from Raqqa. He helped one of the boys make

it from IS territory TRANSLATION: I've helped

many, a huge number. It used to be easier

back in 2014 and 2015. Now the situation is more

difficult due to the presence You have to go through the Kurds,

the rebels and the Borders. Its territory is shrinking

and its supporters fleeing. These are the final days

of the so-called caliphate, but still the Islamic State is no

less of a threat. And amid these ruins,

they leave behind a legacy. Hundreds of child soldiers

and a new generation of hate. Quentin Sommerville,

BBC News, Mosul. Thousands of low paid workers

are to receive more than ?2 million in back pay as a result of tax

investigations by the government. Around 230 employers were found

to have paid workers Among the worst offenders

was the retailer Argos Thousands of extra care home places

will need to be created in less than 10 years,

in order to cope with the growing Researchers at Newcastle University

say England will need an extra 71,000 home places by 2025 -

because people are living longer, and many need substantial help

in their last years. Ida, who's 92, is being shown

how to text at this IT class She feels she's making

progress, though sometimes, it's hard to remember

everything she's learned. Sometimes, it gives you a few

minutes, then it comes back and - So, you know, you just have

to work hard at that. The aim of the class

at the Abbey Community Centre, in North London, is to help

the learners live independent lives What this new research highlights

is that while living longer can bring more opportunities,

it can mean declining health - and that means

a greater need for care. The report predicts

rapidly increasing demands on a system which is already

under great pressure. The care needs of the over-65s have

doubled over two decades. Men now require 2.4 years

of substantial care on average, So the report says 71,000 extra

care home places will be needed in England by 2025,

on top of the 220,000 in 2015. Care providers say they need to know

about official plans before trying We need to create capacity and this

is something governments have failed to do up until now. Sir Andrew

Dilnot says the government needs to come up with something urgently. We

need to spend more of as a nation. Some of that needs to come from

individuals and some from the government. What the government most

needs to do is come up with a clear strategy. Staying fit and staying

healthy are the priorities for many in retirement. Some will live many

years independently, some will need social care but the challenge for

them and society as a whole is to work out who will pay for it.

The actor Daniel Craig has put an end to months of speculation.

Willie return as James Bond? Guest-macro. Yes.

Speaking on an American chat show last night,

he did stress that his fifth appearance as 007 will be his last.

The film Detroit focuses on the civil unrest and riots

that took place in the US city 50 years ago.

And as we've reflected tonight, the recent protests

in Charlottesville show America continues to grapple

Detroit stars the British actor John Boyega, and is directed

by Kathryn Bigelow, the only woman to have won the Best Director Oscar.

It had its UK premiere tonight, as our entertainment correspondent

Every direction you go to, you can see fires.

1967, news coverage of Detroit, torn apart by race riots -

This week, Charlottesville, a situation today that resonates

with Kathryn Bigelow's historic movie.

Even though the story takes place 50 years ago, it feels, sadly,

very much like today, and therefore tomorrow.

And until there is a meaningful conversation about race in America,

I'm worried that these events will keep happening.

I'm guarding that grocery store across the street.

The movie centres on one tense and brutal night in the city.

The story's moral conscience - a security guard

It's so weird, the timing and everything, but I think now this

makes this movie very necessary for perspective and also to see just

how little has been done and to hopefully spark

Of course, the film world itself is far from perfect.

Detroit's director Kathryn Bigelow remains the only woman to win

But this year, there have been breakthroughs.

At the Cannes Film Festival, Sofia Coppola won Best Director.

And Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, has become one

So much more needs to be done, but Wonder Woman

And I think it is simply a glass ceiling that's

in the process of shattering, but perhaps not as quickly

The Oscar's Academy too has been changing, bringing

The Academy to me represents huge influence -

the voice of the industry - and it's very important for that

I just hope there is a move forward because, yeah, I think were done

Detroit is also aiming to be part of that conversation.

A film that feels both historical and all too relevant to today.

Tonight Newsnight looks at the mysterious tale of the investigative

journalist who was last seen while following a story on a Danish

submarine. Join me now on BBC Two. That's all from the News at Ten

team - now on BBC One, it's time for the news

where you are.