15/11/2017 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten, Robert Mugabe's

decades in power seem to be over,

following a military

takeover in Zimbabwe.

The 93-year-old president,

seen here last week,

is now under house arrest

in the capital, Harare.

Armoured vehicles are patrolling

the streets but military leaders

claim they haven't mounted a coup.

We wish to make it abundantly clear

that this is not a military

takeover of government.

Some parts of the city

are in lockdown.

Now this is as close as we can get

to some of the military tanks

that have stationed themselves

in strategic positions.

We'll be reporting from the capital,

and we'll be looking back

at the abuses and the economic

collapse of Mugabe's years in power.

Also tonight.

Scotland is to become the first

country in the world to set

a minimum price for alcohol,

following a ruling

by the Supreme Court.

Our second special report

on the suffering in Yemen,

where millions are threatened

with starvation.

In the deepest parts of the ocean,

scientists report sea life

is affected by plastic pollution.

And football's great challenge -

how to draw younger supporters put

off by the price of tickets.

Coming up in the sport, Northern

Ireland manager Michael O'Neill has

been officially approached by the

Scottish FA but could a move to

Sunderland B on the cards?

Good evening.

After nearly four decades

in power in Zimbabwe,

Robert Mugabe's turbulent days

in power seem to be over.

The president is under house arrest

in the capital, Harare,

after the army seized control

of the country overnight.

Mr Mugabe, who's 93 and the world's

oldest head of state,

provoked a fierce battle

for succession within his Zanu-PF

party and the military decided

to block the progress

of Mr Mugabe's wife, Grace.

Tonight, military vehicles

are patrolling the streets

of the capital and the British

embassy has advised UK

nationals to stay indoors.

Our correspondent in Zimbabwe,

Shingai Nyoka, has sent this report.

This is what Zimbabweans

woke up to this morning,

tanks on the streets

of their capital city,

something that has never happened

in nearly 40 years of independence,

followed by a statement

from the military on state TV,

saying the Mugabe family was safe

and that this was not a coup.

What the Zimbabwe defence forces

is doing is to pacify

a degenerating political,

social and economic situation

in our country, which,

if not addressed, may result

in a violent conflict.

Overnight, President Mugabe,

the world's oldest leader,

lost control of the country he has

led for 37 years.

And though the generals say

he remains president,

he is clearly no longer

calling the shots.

The presence of the military

is being felt here on the streets

of Harare and some parts of the city

are in lockdown.

Now, this is as close as we can get

to some of the military tanks that

have stationed themselves

in strategic positions.

One, as you can see here,

has blocked off access

to the President's office.

There's another that has blocked off

access to Parliament.

The president still has his

supporters, especially in the rural

areas, but here in Harare,

it is a different story.

TRANSLATION:

We're going

to have a good life now.

We're looking forward to Christmas

because of what has happened.

We want to thank those who organised

this and we want them to remain

until our problems are resolved.

TRANSLATION:

I want

to thank the general

for removing this tyrant.

He was ruling the country as if it

belonged to his family.

Much now depends on how Zimbabwe's

neighbours react to this situation,

especially South Africa.

Its president, Jacob Zuma,

spoke on the phone to Mr Mugabe

earlier and has now sent

South Africa's defence minister

to assess the situation first-hand.

I am hoping that the defence force

will not move and do more damage,

that they will be able to respect

the constitution of Zimbabwe

as well as the people of Zimbabwe.

But ultimately, this takeover

is down to a power struggle

within Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF.

Last week, Emmerson Mnangagwa

was sacked as vice president.

A loyal ally, he was, like Mugabe,

a veteran of the country's

struggle for independence.

But in recent years,

he's found himself up against this

woman, Grace Mugabe,

the President's young, ambitious

and some would say ruthless wife,

a one-time typist and now one

of the most powerful political

figures in the country,

with plans to take over

as vice president.

She remains a divisive figure

among party supporters.

Just last week, she was met

with boos while attending a rally.

Boo, go ahead!

I don't care!

Since the takeover,

the military has begun

to arrest those close

to her and the British Foreign

Office issued a warning to British

nationals in the city.

Stay at home.

Stay in your hotel room.

Wait until things settle

down a little bit.

Tonight, the city remains

in relative calm.

So far, a bloodless military

takeover, but it leaves those

inside the country wondering

what lies ahead.

Change is under way but whether it's

the change Zimbabweans have been

yearning for is far from clear.

Shingai Nkoya, BBC News, Zimbabwe.

Robert Mugabe has ruled

Zimbabwe since 1980,

when the country formerly known

as Rhodesia gained

independence from Britain.

His downfall has been predicted many

times, but until now,

the 93-year-old has managed

to confound his many

critics at home and abroad,

as our Africa editor

Fergal Keane reports.

Robert Mugabe is a leader

who has outlived his epoch.

From icon of the struggle

against racist rule,

to symbol of excess and repression,

he has fallen hard and inflicted

untold damage on his

country in the process.

There was a deceptive calm

in Salisbury, capital

of Rhodesia, on the day of UDI,

the Declaration of Independence.

It was this world of white privilege

and black exclusion he and other

revolutionary leaders

sought to overthrow.

Robert Mugabe went to jail for ten

years and later fled

to join his guerillas in the bush.

A revolutionary war led to thousands

of casualties but when apartheid

South Africa withdrew support

from the Rhodesian regime,

it was forced into negotiations.

Whether they accept it or not

is immaterial to us, really.

They will have to accept it

in as much as they must accept

political domination.

Under the stewardship

of the old British colonial power,

there were elections,

which Robert Mugabe won,

promising forgiveness and tolerance.

And bear true allegiance

to Zimbabwe and observe...

But in power, a ruthless nature

swiftly asserted itself.

My government will never rest

until those within that party

who are responsible for organising

the disturbance are crushed

and crushed fully.

In Matabeleland province,

he used the army to crush supporters

of a rival guerrilla army.

It was a pitiless campaign

of massacre, as I discovered when I

went to investigate the atrocities.

This is a country

in a state of fear.

Everywhere you go,

there are militia, police

roadblocks and of course,

the spies whom you can't see.

The West stayed silent,

believing Robert Mugabe was good

for stability and had

kept his promise to allow

white farmers to hold

their lands and lifestyle.

But as opposition to his rule grew

amid economic downturn,

he turned on the white farmers,

harnessing anger over long-festering

grievances among the landless poor

and veterans of the guerrilla war.

His political opponents

were terrorised, too.

None of this troubled

the army or the man tipped

to succeed Mr Mugabe,

Emmerson Mnangagwa.

He is another veteran

of the liberation war and has

been implicated in past

massacres and corruption.

There isn't much difference

between Mnangagwa and President

Robert Mugabe himself.

They may differ in terms of style

and he's much younger

than President Robert Mugabe

but he has been part and parcel

of the formation of Zanu-PF.

He has been behind the scenes.

He has been the brains behind

President Robert Mugabe.

What forced him and his

military allies into action

was the inexorable rise of Grace

Mugabe.

Her ostentatious spending shocked

even some of the corrupt elite

around the president.

But it was her political

plotting that finally forced

the old revolutionaries of the army

and the ruling party into action.

There is among an older generation

of Africans some residual

affection for a man once seen

as an icon of liberation.

But his old regional allies are dead

and gone and many in his own country

will be glad to see the end

of the age of Mugabe.

Fergal Keane, BBC News.

Let's go live to Harare and our

Zimbabwe correspondent, Shingai

Nkoya. Tell us more about the

reaction there has been to the past

24 hours and indeed what you are

picking up about people's hopes for

the months ahead.

Africa appears to

come up with its tolerance to coups

appears to be shrinking at the

African union chairperson issued a

strongly worded statement condemning

the events of the last 24 hours,

saying this is tantamount to a coup

but the continental body has not

specified what kind of action it

will take against the military and

you will know that the military has

said this is not a coup or a

military takeover, that they are

trying to bring justice to some of

the criminal offences that have been

taking place or that have been

happening with people that surround

President Robert Mugabe but there is

a sharp contrast between the African

union's objections and how people

have received this news and this

probably points to the grim reality

is that Zimbabweans face Ulster 3

million of them have fled to South

Africa, where they are living as

economic refugees. Unemployment is

one of the highest in the world and

food prices are rising. Many of them

hope the recent changes might bring

the change that they want.

Thank you

for joining us. From the latest --

with the latest in Harare, Shingai

Nkoya, there.

Scotland is to become the first

country in the world to introduce

a minimum price per unit of alcohol.

The Supreme Court ruled

that it was a "proportionate means"

of improving public health.

The policy was agreed five years

ago, but it drew a prolonged legal

challenge by the Scotch Whisky

Association.

The First Minister,

Nicola Sturgeon, expressed her

delight at the outcome.

Our health editor,

Hugh Pym, reports.

In Scotland, with 22 people dying

each week from alcohol problems,

minimum pricing has been

on the agenda for over five years,

but it's only today the Government

can plan to implement it.

Though it won't be

popular with everybody.

It's not going to stop

anybody buying it.

It's probably quite a good thing.

I actually work as a community

psychiatric nurse, so we get a lot

of people addicted to alcohol

and things like that.

The changes will mean prices of some

of the cheapest alcohol

in Scotland increasing sharply.

This four pack of beer costs £1.00,

it's set to rise to at least £4.00.

This bottle of wine

is currently £2.80, in future

it'll be at least £4.69.

And this £11.00 bottle of vodka

will be at least £14.00.

Ministers were celebrating,

saying it was a step forwards

in tackling the country's unhealthy

relationship with drink.

The policy is, you know,

by its very nature,

controversial because, you know,

again, this is an example

of Scotland leading the world.

It will continue to have

its critics, but it's the kind

of bold and necessary policy

that we need to tackle our

public health challenges.

The ruling followed attempts

by the Scotch Whisky Association

to block minimum pricing,

calling it a restriction on trade.

They now say they accept the ruling.

The Scottish Government's pioneering

move will be watched

closely around the UK.

The Welsh Government wants to go

ahead with a similar policy.

There's sympathy for it

in Northern Ireland.

But in England, a plan to introduce

minimum alcohol pricing

under the last Government

was later dropped.

Joanne wants to see

change in England.

Her daughter Megan

was just 16 when she died

after drinking strong

cider at a party.

It had cost just 16p a unit.

It's so cheap.

You know, it's pocket money prices

and the minimum unit pricing that's

come in in Scotland,

you know, I'm ecstatic about.

You know, it's fantastic news

and hopefully it will roll out now

just across the rest of the country

because that's what needs to happen.

For retailers and manufacturers,

there'll have to be a major rethink

of how they market alcoholic

drinks in Scotland.

What remains to be seen

is the impact on drinkers

and alcohol-related health problems.

Hugh Pym, BBC News, Glasgow.

A brief look at some

of the day's other news stories.

The head of Britain's National Cyber

Security Centre has confirmed

Russian hackers have targeted the UK

media, telecoms and energy sectors.

Ciaran Martin said it was a "cause

for concern" and accused Moscow

of "seeking to undermine

the international system."

At least 15 people have died

in flash floods in Greece.

Three towns to the west of Athens

were hit by a torrent of water

caused by heavy overnight rain.

Locals are saying the damage

was on an unprecedented

scale in that region.

A man has been found guilty

of deliberately trying to infect 10

men with HIV after meeting them

on a dating app.

Daryll Rowe was convicted

at Lewes Crown Court of five counts

of grievous bodily harm with intent

and five counts of

attempting to do so.

Four people have been treated

by paramedics after a fire

at a block of flats on the outskirts

of West Belfast.

The block was evacuated.

Safety drills had been carried out

there following the Grenfell Tower

tragedy in London in June.

Boris Johnson, the Foreign

Secretary, has held his first

meeting with Richard Ratcliffe,

the husband of Nazanin

Zaghari-Ratcliffe,

the British-Iranian woman who is

in prison in Iran.

Mr Johnson pledged to leave no

stone unturned in trying

to secure her freedom.

She was jailed for five years

in April last year for spying,

an allegation she has always denied.

Our special correspondent,

Lucy Manning, explains.

He's waited 19 months.

Richard Ratcliffe finally on his way

to meet the Foreign Secretary,

with his wife still in prison in

Iran.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe,

a dual citizen, was accused

of trying to overthrow

the Iranian regime.

Today, her husband said

the meeting was positive,

but there were reservations

about giving his wife

diplomatic protection,

and he's still waiting to hear

if he can travel to Iran

with the Foreign Secretary.

He said, listen, I'm open

to the idea, you know,

I'd love you to come,

but I need to check both

with the Foreign Office officials,

whether they think it's a good idea,

and also with Iran.

How closer do you think

you are now to your wife

coming home for Christmas?

Well, the Foreign Secretary

didn't make any promises.

He promised to do his best.

And you know, I couldn't

ask for more than that.

In terms of how close do I feel,

it feels like with all the attention

and concern, that can only be

a good thing.

But the Foreign Office has always

been reserved that more attention

makes it more complicated.

Mr Johnson upset the family two

weeks ago, appearing

to contradict her claim she was just

in Iran on holiday.

He spoke ahead of the meeting.

People here in the Foreign Office

and across government have been

working very hard over the last 19

months to secure the release

of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

and indeed to solve some other very

difficult consular cases in Iran,

and we're going to continue to do

that, and we will leave absolutely

no stone unturned.

If you ask me if Nazanin

is still cross with him,

yes, she is still cross with him.

If you ask me if I'm

cross, I'm not cross.

Me, I'm focused on just

bringing her home.

And to bring home his three-year-old

daughter Gabriella,

who is also still in Iran.

Mr Ratcliffe now has the publicity

and the political profile,

but will it help to ensure

the release of his wife?

The kind of concessions

that the Iranians want

of the British Government cannot be

done publicly and it's much

better to try and do these

things behind the scenes,

just as the kind of concessions

that they have to give goes

through a similar sort of stages.

But with reports the charity

worker's health is deteriorating,

her husband hopes there can be

a diplomatic solution.

Lucy Manning, BBC News.

The charity Save the Children

is warning that 50,000 children

under the age of five in Yemen

are expected to die this year

from hunger or disease.

The crisis began in 2015 when Houthi

rebels, backed by Iran,

ousted the President and took

control of parts of the country.

A coalition, led by Saudi Arabia,

then began a campaign of airstrikes

to try to restore the government.

The United Nations estimates that

nearly seven million people are now

under imminent threat of starvation.

Well, in the second of his extended

reports from Yemen, my colleague

Clive Myrie and cameraman

Nick Millard have been

to the front-line city of Taiz,

where there's no let up

in the fighting.

And a warning, there are some

distressing images from the start.

It shouldn't be like this,

children fed through plastic tubes,

not because of nature,

but because of man.

Nuwara is two years

old and acutely malnourished.

Her skin, starved of

nutrients, is flaky.

She's a prime target for infections

that could kill her.

TRANSLATION:

She had diarrhoea

and vomiting when we first

came to the hospital.

Now they feed her through a pipe.

There seems to be nothing we can do.

Who can I blame?

I don't know.

The tragedy of the Yemen war

is that Nuwara is far

from alone in her suffering,

there are half a million other

children straddling life-and-death.

It's estimated a child is dying

of a preventable disease

here every ten minutes.

The city of Tiaz, population

600,000, sums up Yemen's

dystopian nightmare,

it's a city sinking

under the weight of war.

No-one seems to be in control here,

rubbish piles up in the streets.

It fills the local canal instead

of water, much of it

bags of human excrement.

Cholera's rampant.

Taiz sits on the front-line of this

country's war between Saudi-backed

government forces and Houthi rebels,

allegedly supported by Iran.

Win Taiz, on the main

highway running north

to south across Yemen,

and you dominate the

southern battlefield.

A commander with forces loyal

to the government points out

the positions of the rebel army.

TRANSLATION:

Their coalition

supports us with air strikes

and light weapons and some heavy

weapons, but not enough.

Their efforts are important

to liberating Yemen,

but we need more heavy weapons.

Neither side in this war is making

any significant territorial gains.

The fighting simply grinds

on with civilians inevitably

caught in the middle.

For the Saudi-led coalition,

air power after two years has

not proved decisive.

It is not winning the day.

Their military intervention has

become stuck, it's bogged down.

Any kind of victory here

seems a long way off.

EXPLOSIONS

While the fighting drags on,

the neglect mounts in Taiz.

War dictates everything,

not the banalities of peace.

This is the local courthouse,

what chance of law and order here?

Whole neighbourhoods

have been abandoned.

This man points out there

are snipers down the road,

we can't go any further.

TRANSLATION:

There is no food.

They're besieging us.

We can't move at all.

Our lives are full of danger

and no-one is helping us.

Taiz has been forgotten.

And every citizen has a war story,

though some require no words.

Muneer Hassan lost three

limbs and his mother.

"She was martyred", he told me.

"Shot by a sniper.

I wish this country was safe."

Few in Yemen have the luxury

of memories that don't

include a time of war.

Through Britain's colonial era

in Aden, the years of communism,

civil war and now the proxy struggle

of regional powers that see

Saudi Arabia so prominent here.

This is what's left of a department

store, smashed by an air strike.

After all the destruction

and lives lost this war,

like most modern conflicts,

will only come to an end

with a political solution and,

at the very least, that requires

the Yemenis themselves to come

together for the greater good.

But the chances of that happening

are as remote as they've ever been,

so it seems Yemen's pain

is destined to endure.

All the malnourished

children in this humble ward

are victims of grand designs.

The manoeuvrings of the Middle East

power players, from Tehran

to Riyadh, Yemen is stuck

in the middle.

Born into this world as war babies,

will they ever know peace?

Clive Myrie, BBC News,

in southern Yemen.

That was the second of Clive's

extended reports on the appalling

suffering there of the people in

Yemen.

The cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins

and Team Sky won't face any charges

after an investigation

into the contents of a package

that was delivered to him in 2011.

Sir Bradley, a five-time Olympic

champion, said that he'd been put

through a "living hell"

during the course of the inquiry.

Our sports editor, Dan Roan,

is at the National Cycling

Centre in Manchester.

Dan, does this mean that all these

questions have now gone away?

Sadly,

not, Huw. While today's judgment

adds talk of strippingifiles or bans

nor does it clear anybody of

cheating. Team Sky and Wiggins,

no-one has actually been charged.

That will no doubt come as a big

relief to all of them that this long

investigation which cast a shadow

over the most successful sport in

the country and the most decorated

Olympian in British sporting history

is finally at an end. It falls short

of a full exoneration of any of

those involved because they said

they were havrpdered by a lack of

that evidence would support the

explanation that that mystery Jiffy

Bag bag contained a mere deacon

jestant and not a steroid as

alleged. They have been criticised

for their close relationship, both

who are based here at the National

Velodrome in Manchester behind me.

They say the lack of medical

record-keepingnd and the lack of a

paper trail was a great difficulty.

As for Bradley Wiggins himself. He

is furious. He says he's been

through a living hell and a

malicious witchhunt. Many in the

sport tonight will be feeling uneasy

about the ambiguous report and

result. They will refer back to the

scrutiny that Wiggins was under for

his use of medical exemptions of

banned substances before major

races, the lack of power of UKkad.

The investigation may have come to

an end but the suspicion will linger

on.

Dan, thank you very much.

Every year, some eight million

tonnes of plastic are thought

to find their way into the world's

oceans and a new study has

highlighted just how pervasive

and destructive this pollution is.

Scientists at Newcastle University

have found man-made fibres

inside creatures in the deepest

trenches in the Pacific Ocean,

some seven miles below the surface.

Our science editor, David Shukman,

has been looking at the research.

A startling creature, the deepest

part of the ocean. A realm so alien

it feels utterly unlike anything

we're familiar with.

I think it's a

sponge. No, it's trash!

Until the

cameras pick up sights like this. We

now know it's the pollution you

can't see that might be more

damaging. Is carrier bags and other

plastic waste break up into millions

of tiny fragments. Research a few

years ago revealed how these plastic

particles can be ingested, even by

the smallest marine creatures. Now a

re search team have found more

startling things. The scientists had

an unwelcome surprise. Every

creature they brought up from the

deep had swallowed some plastic

waste. Being remote is no defence.

I

think it's quite worrying. It's

quite a surprise. I think when we

entered this we figured we would

probably see something, find

something of interest. We didn't

expect to find so much of it and

there are areas, for example, the

bottom of the French every single

thing we looked at had one fibre in

its stomach.

The scale of plastic

pollution in the oceans is so vast

it's hard to grasp. There's an

estimated five trillion pieces of

plastic out there. Weighing

something like 300 million tonnes.

With up to 13 million tonnes more

being added every year. Now.

Of this waste floats at or just

below the surface, but some of it

sinks. Last year scientists found

tiny fragments of plastic in marine

creatures 2,000 meters deep in the

Atlantic. That was depressing

enough. But this latest discovery is

nearly 11,000 meters down, nearly

seven miles at the deepest part of

the Pacific. That show that is

nowhere in the oceans is safe.

When

we first started thinking about the

problem of plastics in the oceans

people talked about big islands of

plastic. The truth it's everywhere.

It won't be easy to scoop up the

plastic. We have to stop it at the

source.

The biggest pieces can kill

seabirds. I saw for myself how this

young albatross almost choked on a

plastic hook there. Are projects to

stop waste entering the oceans, but

products used once and then thrown

away are a legacy threatening every

corner of the planet. David Shukman,

BBC News.

A study by BBC Sport has found that

most ticket prices in football have

stood still or have fallen

for a third year in succession,

but the game is still having

difficulty attracting

a younger audience.

A survey commissioned by the BBC,

suggests that more than half

of young adults say that they're

attending fewer games because

tickets are still too expensive.

Our sports correspondent,

Natalie Pirks, has been

studying the findings

The biggest crowds, the brightest

talent.

COMMENTATOR:

Eriksen. Delightful

ball. What a great goal.

The reward

for the fans dedication is thrilling

entertainment. That loyalty comes as

at cost.

How come you prefer to

watch it at home or play Fifa

It's

money, really. The cost of travel

and the cost of a ticket.

Fans like

Sam are feeling the pinch and

missing out on the live experience

because of it.

It's louder than I

thought it was going to be, to be

You wouldn't go honest.

Get this at

home.

There are those who believe

football could do more to help.

Pricey, especially for

It's young

people. Wages are not going up every

year. Ie, people say season tickets

are froze not as expensive as they

were two or three years ago. It's a

lot of money to watch 90 minutes of

football.

Business is booming, in

the Premier League they hit record

level of attendances for the third

year running. The BBC survey shows

when it comes to young adult they

ares missing a trick. Why is it

important, they are the season

holders of the future despite more

than three quarters of clubs

offering discounts for young adults

more than half surveyed said they

have stopped going to matches

completely or go to fewer games

because of the expense. The extras

all add up, too. An adult shirt tops

£50 for the first time and a junior

shirt more than £40 a big ask for

parents I spoke to.

With kids kit as

well they don't want the kit they

want, they want the player's name on

the back that you are paying for as

well. The kids kit becomes so

expensive. .

You have to say you can

have home or away, not all three of

the brand new kits.

Why do you need

tho have the West Ham shirt?

It

makes me support West Ham.

David

Scudamore said gaming is the biggest

threat. Our poll suggests he might

be on to something. 61% said their

engagement came through playing

football games.

That will create a

problem for football clubs moving

forward because it's those younger

fans they need to engage to generate

the crowds of the next 20, 30 or 40

years time.

COMMENTATOR: There is Giroud pulling

it back. The Premier League says

more than half of their match

tickets cost £30 or less, but it

seems fans want more support from

their clubs in return for their

support. Natalie Pirks, BBC News.

Newsnight is coming up

on BBC Two, here's Emily.

Tonight, the Facebook founder's

on a mission to meet

the American people.

Does Mark Zuckerberg

have political ambition?