21/11/2017 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at ten, celebrations

into the night in Zimbabwe

after Robert Mugabe finally resigns

as president after 37

years in power.

Tens of thousands of people poured

into the streets after the man who'd

had an iron grip on power

was swept aside.

I, Robert Mugabe...

I, Robert Mugabe...

Mugabe's resignation came

as a complete surprise.

His letter was read

out in parliament.

We're here right at the moment that

they've heard that Robert Mugabe has

resigned from the presidency.

And you can hear it from Zanu-PF

MPs, from opposition MPs,

from members of the public who've

come here to witness

what's happening.

It happened as impeachment

proceedings against 93-year-old

Mugabe were beginning after last

week's military take over

and days of protests.

It is a good steak for Zimbabwe.

This is a new era for our nation.

I

think the only time I will be able

to comprehend what has just happened

is when I wake up in the morning.

is when I wake up in the morning.

For many people, Mugabe is the only

leader they've ever known.

We'll be asking what

now for Zimbabwe?

Also tonight:

Police reveal dozens of prosecutions

have been dropped after claims that

thousands of test results

were tampered with at

a forensics laboratory.

The DUP leader Arlene Foster says

Northern Ireland's border is being

used in the negotiations for the

Brexit negotiations.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond puts

the finishing touches to tomorrow's

Budget saying he will "invest

to secure a bright

future for Britain".

And coming up on Sportsday on BBC

News: No shortage of goals

in Spain as Liverpool

continue their Champions League

campaign in Sevilla.

Good evening.

Robert Mugabe took Zimbabwe

and the world by surprise this

afternoon when he suddenly resigned

as the country's president

after almost four decades in power.

Without warning his letter

of resignation was read out

in parliament just as impeachment

proceedings against him

were getting under way.

In it Mugabe said his decision to go

was voluntary and he had made it

to allow a smooth transfer of power.

The news sparked wild celebrations

with thousands of people pouring

onto the streets in the capital

Harare.

Our Africa Editor Fergal Keane was

in parliament when the news broke.

Tonight Harare, a city for so long

where people feared to speak their

mind, is a place of noise. It is

exactly seven days since the army

began its move against Robert

Mugabe. In the times since, people's

hopes have surged and faded as they

wondered if he would resign. Tonight

just before five o'clock Robert

Mugabe brought the waiting to an

end.

It is the night of the free, and

night like no other in their lives,

a great tension has broken, the

Epoque of fear, of desperation, of

Robert Mugabe, has ended. How rarely

does politics translate into

something so truly felt?

It is a

mystery in the making. We never

thought something like this would

happen in Zimbabwe.

This is what we

have been fighting for since

independence. One man has been taken

as, but we are happy it is done now.

Suddenly we got the news tonight it

was over, he had retired, he had

resigned and he was gone and

suddenly there was just this

euphoria and that is all of us.

All

of us!

The sense of surprise here is

deep. Because at the day's beginning

it did not feel as if Robert Mugabe

was going anywhere.

Parliamentarians, urged on by the

crowds, gathered to begin the

process of impeaching the president.

After a week in which he had refused

to quit, his own MPs led the legal

process. As MPs moved into

Parliament to prepare for the

impeachment vote, the decisive

political phase of the operation to

remove Robert Mugabe from power gets

under way. Will he be gone by the

end of the week?

I really cannot

say. The process of Parliament is

determining whether or not he will

be gone by the end of the week. I

would have wanted him to go

yesterday.

The MPs knew that public

patience was wearing thin. The

expectations of a nation were

focused on them. The crowd have new

heroes, the general who arrested

Robert Mugabe... And Emerson

Mnangagwa, the political brain

behind the coup and president in

waiting. By mid afternoon the MPs

and senators had moved to a hotel to

accommodate the special joint

session of Parliament. They were

watched by the public in what felt

like a rare moment of true democracy

here. People are suffering, this MP

said. And then the moment. A letter

was handed to the speaker. He read

it first himself and then to the

world.

A letter from the

president...

He was muffled but the

words were momentous.

He hands in

his resignation.

CHEERING

Many who are we ago would have

cheered Robert Mugabe now exalted in

his fall.

And we are here right at the moment

that they heard that Robert Mugabe

has resigned from the presidency.

You can hear it, cheering from

Zanu-PF MPs, from opposition MPs and

from members of the public who have

come here to witness what was

happening. They did not expect it.

They thought this would be a

potentially elongated process of

impeachment but it has not happened.

He has gone, it is over. A week ago

most foreign journalists were banned

here. Today MPs were eager to speak

with me. This is a huge moment for

your country, what do you feel?

This

is a revelation. The people, if they

speak their mind, they can change

what will come.

What are you

feeling? I am feeling very happy

because there is no spilling of

blood in Zimbabwe. The people love

peace. Celebrations spilled into the

streets. They cheered Emerson

Mnangagwa and mocked Robert Mugabe.

Wherever they were met, the soldiers

were fated. We moved back up to the

city into the rapidly gathering

crowds. We have just come from

Parliament and we are on the streets

and the celebrations have started.

Many are celebrating the end of the

age of Mugabe. Now it is over. But

in their joy they also know they

must be vigilant.

I think people

will rejoice tonight, after that we

really have to be about the serious

business of building our country. We

cannot make the mistake of having

the same kind of leaders in place to

build our country, we cannot afford

that.

Remember the longer road to

this moment? The people who endured

white minority rule? And then they

saw their independence become

tyranny. They found themselves

suddenly free. Our Africa editor

Fergal Keane.

Our Africa editor Fergal Keane.

After nearly four decades in power,

Robert Mugabe is the only leader

many Zimbabweans have ever known.

Our Zimbabwe Correspondent,

Shingai Nyoke, has been talking

to some of the people celebrating

in the capital Harare.

Street parties are going on

throughout the night as people say

they have been reborn. On every

street, in every bar, the

celebrations continue, relishing the

national flag in a renewed sense of

patriotism. I witnessed first-hand

celebrations at independence in

1980. There was such an overwhelming

sense of hope. Now for the first

time in 37 years I have seen the

same glimmer of hope in the eyes of

Zimbabwe. I visited this bar to see

what changes this generation, known

as born frees as they were born

after 1980, want from a future

without Robert Mugabe.

Can you

imagine all the years I have existed

on this planet I have only known one

president. For me it is certainly a

different thing and it is the best.

I will run with it and I will run

with Emerson Mnangagwa, I do not

care.

It is ironic that Emerson

Mnangagwa, one of the symbols of

Zanu-PF repression, is now seen as

the face of that new hope.

I just

hope that as the new president of

Zimbabwe he is aware that, unlike

Mugabe, he is leading with people

who have found their voice and if at

any time in his presidency he comes

short, we now have got the courage

and the will to put that into check.

That is what this period has been

about, that the president must

answer to the people.

For many years

Zimbabwe and had felt an unspoken

shame as the economy crashed and

millions of Africa's most literate

workforce, young and old, fled the

country for new jobs in foreign

lands.

I can start building a

career, I can start investing. By

the time I am 40 maybe I can own

property. For me I finally have a

future and I can start looking

towards something and not just

surviving.

We are the future of

Zimbabwe, without us, there will not

be any Zimbabwe.

In the streets of

Harare I saw a pride that has been

long absent and heard many say that

night they have shown Africa had to

effect peaceful change.

effect peaceful change.

The 1980 independence struggle one

Robert Mugabe the image of a hero by

some.

His part in achieving that won him

the status of a hero

in the anti-colonial struggle.

But then during his long years

in power he presided over decades

of political repression

and economic chaos.

By the end he was

reviled as a tyrant.

Here's our Africa

Correspondent Andrew Harding.

At every roadblock in every corner

of this long tormented country you

can feel the influence and the

damage wrought by Robert Mugabe. And

the fear. Today we went deep into

Zimbabwe's countryside. There it is

on the left. Robert Mugabe's

mansion. It is almost feudal, more

like a family business than a

country.

Andrew, we want you to come

in and take a look.

They would not

let us go in to admire the

chandeliers, so we visited the

neighbours. It was smashed down by

the police?

Yes.

To be poor in

Zimbabwe is to be powerless. Robert

Mugabe's wife Grace recently decided

she wanted this land so she said the

piece into destroyed dozens of

homes.

They came here and started

demolishing my house. They said you

must go away with this process being

taken by the first lady.

Grace

Mugabe?

Yes.

If she came here, what

would you say?

She has destroyed my

life for the past 16 years.

Tear her

to pieces. So how did it all go so

wrong?

I, Robert, Gabriel Mugabe.

37

years ago Robert Mugabe was a hero,

the man who liberated Zimbabwe, but

he soon proved to be a different

leader. After he had the least his

supporters on the country's white

farmer as the economy collapsed. He

rigged elections and terrorised his

opponents to stay in power and all

but a few suffered. This was me

shopping in a country ravaged by

hyperinflation. To give you a sense

of this country's spiralling

catastrophe I have come to a

supermarket on the edge of Harare

and we are using hidden cameras for

our protection. The first thing you

see are empty shells that should be

stacked with bread, but the bakeries

have stopped working. Robert Mugabe

shrugged it off, but he was older

and weaker than he knew. In the end

his fatal mistake was almost a

cliche, to pick his wife as his

successor, a woman who know one

trusted or liked. The man poised to

take over here is Emerson Mnangagwa,

for decades Robert Mugabe's

right-hand man, his brutal enforcer.

The worry is that Zimbabwe is busy

exchanging one tyrant for another.

Then again this has been an

earthquake of a week. The fear has

lifted, the genie of freedom may be

out of the bottle.

This is a big

moment, we are so excited that

finally we are taking over the

country. 37 years of disappointment,

falsehood and dictatorship, all of

this is coming to an end and we must

have a fresh beginning.

Tonight

Robert Mugabe leaves behind a

country warped by years of stubborn,

unnecessary cruelty. But he is gone

and Zimbabwe is celebrating.

But he is gone and

Zimbabwe is celebrating.

Let's go back to Fergal Keane who is

in Harare. We can hear the noisy

celebrations still going on. I am

sure they will be going on into the

night. What next now for Zimbabwe?

We know that Emerson Mnangagwa, the

president elect, will arrive here

tomorrow and be sworn in either

tomorrow or Wednesday. As Andrew

said in his report, there are

serious questions around him. He was

a loyal henchman of Robert Mugabe

for years. But it is important to

factor in the pressure that will

come from people like the Chinese,

major backers of Zimbabwe, and the

West. For me the biggest thing that

has emerged in the last week is the

power of our younger generation of

activists. They are people who are

tech savvy, allied to the power of

social media and determined not to

endure the prior patience and

depressions that their parents and

grandparents suffered. They will be

the biggest bloc against any kind of

tyranny in Zimbabwe again.

Fergal

Keane, thank you.

More than 10,000 criminal cases may

have been affected by alleged

data manipulation at a forensics

laboratory in Manchester.

It's a lab that's used by police

forces across the UK.

Around 50 prosecutions

for driving offences

have already been stopped

because of concerns about drug test

results and there are fears

there could be many more.

Daniel Sandford reports.

A glossy promotional video

for Randox Testing Services,

used by police forces to check

samples for drugs, testing that

it's now clear has been

unreliable for years.

My advice from the forensic science

regulator was that up to 10,000

cases, spanning back to late 2013,

could no longer be fully relied

upon in the criminal justice system.

10,000 cases.

Defence lawyer Nick Freeman spotted

the problem when one of his clients,

who'd admitted using a small amount

of cannabis, tested positive

for drugs he knew he hadn't taken.

When we got the report from Randox,

it suggested a much larger amount

than had been anticipated but,

more pertinently, it also suggested

that he'd consumed cocaine

and another substance,

and he hadn't consumed any other

substance,

as far as he was concerned.

Two employees from Randox's

Manchester laboratory are suspected

of not redoing tests that had

failed quality checks.

They've been arrested,

but not charged.

The company has apologised and is

paying for thousands of retests.

The actual number of miscarriages

of justice isn't clear yet.

The Crown Prosecution Service has

dropped 50 prosecutions

for drug-driving that hadn't come

to court yet and two cases of death

by careless driving involving drugs

have been referred back

here to the Court of Appeal.

And there are now concerns

about work done by these same two

employees on family cases

at Trimega Laboratories

between 2010 and 2014 before

it was taken over by Randox.

Daniel Sandford, BBC News,

at the Court of Appeal.

A drugs company has been accused

of overcharging the NHS by tens

of millions of pounds a year

for a thyroid medicine.

Ten years ago the annual bill

to the NHS was £600,000,

last year the company Concordia

charged the NHS £34 million for it.

The Competition and Markets

Authority says the manufacturer

abused its dominant position.

Concordia denies it

infringed competition law.

Northern Ireland's border

is being used as a bargaining chip

in the Brexit negotiations according

to the leader of the

DUP, Arlene Foster.

She's accused Ireland and the rest

of the EU of being "careless"

and "reckless" in the way

they are using concerns as part

of the Brexit talks.

It comes as the Prime Minister

Theresa May said she's ready to move

the Brexit talks forward.

Our political editor,

Laura Kuenssberg, reports.

The answers aren't written

in the sky, but Number Ten has got

ministers on board to dangle

the promise of a bigger

payment to Brussels.

Theresa May hopes that will shift

the EU to talking trade next month.

We are ready to move onto phase two,

to see those talks about a deep

and special partnership with the EU

for the future.

But a hypothetical bigger bill

isn't the only demand

the Brexit Secretary's

counterparts are making.

The EU's pressing the UK

to be more specific

about what happens at the border

between Northern Ireland and

the South when it's time to leave.

The Northern Ireland border cannot

be fully addressed if we're not

taking into account the shape

of our future partnership

with the European Union.

Final resolution of the financial

settlement depends on it

because nothing is agreed

until everything is agreed.

Serious slips can easily

be made by both sides,

one diplomat said today.

And serious awkwardness is emerging

over the Irish border.

The Irish PM, the Taoiseach,

demanding a hard border is ruled

out, concerned that putting up real

barriers could undo progress,

peace in Northern Ireland.

But the DUP who, remember,

have essentially the casting

vote in the Commons

and the Prime Minister's ear, aren't

happy about how Ireland and the EU

are playing their concerns.

I am accusing them of being reckless

because, if you listen

to some of the rhetoric...

Look, nobody understands

negotiations probably better

than I because there are people that

will come out and they will say

things to try and push agendas

forward, so it's almost

a full battle.

So you think some of this

is confected, would you say

it's a faux battle?

Well, I think some people

are taking their moment in the sun

at the moment to try and get

the maximum in relation

to the negotiations and I understand

that, but you shouldn't play

about with Northern Ireland.

It sounds rather, Arleen Foster,

that you're warning

off the Taoiseach?

Well, I'm saying to him

that he should know better

than anybody, that you don't play

around with Northern Ireland

to effect change in other places.

We need to get into the next phase,

to look at what does it actually

look like in terms of trade.

I hear this phrase "the borders

of the past", of course

the borders of the past

were there for a completely

different reason.

The borders of the past

were there to deal with terrorism.

They were there to deal

with a very difficult situation

in Northern Ireland.

What is that solution though?

People talk about the frictionless

border and for pretty much 18 months

now nobody has come up

with a solution.

What might that be?

The solution comes in the trade

negotiations and that's

the point I'm making.

We need to be able to move

to the second phase so we can

actually get more of the details.

But for Ireland, north and south,

for Brussels as well as Westminster,

the border could yet hold up

the deliberation of the next crucial

stage.

A reminder, Brexit is not just

about our departure,

not just about our Parliament,

and certainly not just

about our politicians.

Laura Kuenssberg, BBC

News, Westminster.

Tomorrow the Chancellor Philip

Hammond will outline his vision

for Britain's economy and spending

when he delivers his Budget.

He says he will use it

to "invest to secure a bright

future for Britain."

Our economics editor, Kamal Ahmed,

has been looking at what we can

expect him to say and asking just

how much room for maoeuvre

the Chancellor actually has.

Budget day and probably the most

important economic and political

event since the general election.

It's the day when the Government

lays out how it's going to tax

all of us and what it's

going to spend those taxes on,

that long shopping list of demands -

schools, hospitals,

the police and housing.

For many years the Government has

spent more than it raises in taxes,

and that's meant the Government's

had to borrow.

On that issue though,

there's been some good

news for the Chancellor.

The official forecast said

that the Government was likely

to borrow this year £51.7 billion.

But higher tax revenues and lower

public spending has made the picture

a little more positive.

Now, the forecast is expected to say

that borrowing this year

will hit £45.7 billion.

That would give Hammond a bit more

wriggle room if he wants to spend

more.

And will help the deficit,

that's the amount the Government

spends compared to what it

receives in taxes.

In 2010, the deficit was running

at 9.9% of national income,

otherwise known as GDP.

Last year, it was 3.8%

and the Government wants it to fall

to zero by the middle

of the next decade.

But talk to any budget

expert and they will tell

you all of the Chancellor's

calculations could be blown out

of the water by a huge

downgrade in productivity,

that's the ability of

the economy to create wealth.

A downgrade's definitely bad

news for Philip Hammond.

It's bad news both because a slower

growing economy means lower tax

receipts and more borrowing and it

reduces the amount of money he has

to play with to make the kind

of announcements he might

want to make.

Productivity downgrade is also

going to affect people's pay

and families living standards

and that creates added pressure

on the Chancellor to do

something about that,

whether it be via things

like public sector pay or cuts

to working-age benefits or changes

to the tax regime.

Mr Hammond already has

some bills to pay.

The Government has pledged

£2 billion to help students

repaying their loans.

There's another £2 billion

for affordable housing.

The Northern Ireland

coalition deal with the DUP,

that will cost £1 billion.

There is likely to be major funding

needed to deal with the aftermath

of the Grenfell tragedy.

What should we expect

from the Budget?

Will the Chancellor borrow more

to pay for all that housing?

Will there be more money for health

and public sector pay?

And don't forget, the Chancellor

doesn't actually control the biggest

factor affecting the economy

and that's Brexit, and that

remains the big unknown.

Kamal Ahmed, BBC News.

A fatal accident inquiry in Scotland

has ruled that the deaths of three

people who were killed in a rally

in the Borders could have been

avoided if people had been clearly

banned from standing in the area

where the crash took place.

The inquiry was held into the deaths

at the Jim Clark Rally in 2014

and a fourth fatality

at the Snowman Rally

near Inverness in 2013.

Rodney Bewes, best known

for his role as Bob Ferris

in The Likely Lads, has

died aged 79.

English girls abroad with appealing

shoulders and flowery dresses,

like wallpaper on the march.

The series was a huge hit

in the 1960s and was

revived a decade later.

His agent described him

as "a true one-off."

UN war crimes judges

will deliver their verdict tomorrow

on the former Bosnian Serb army

commander Ratko Mladic after a trial

that's lasted six years.

In 1992, after the break up

of Yugoslavia, the small republic

of Bosnia-Herzegovina descended

into civil war.

Areas dominated by ethnic Serbians

declared autonomy and began

a three-year war with Bosnia's

mainly Islamic majority.

Mladic, nicknamed the "Butcher

of Bosnis blamed for ordering

Mladic, is blamed for ordering

Europe's worst atrocities

since World War II.

Our special correspondent,

Allan Little, reports.

For years, he was the most

commanding figure on the Bosnian

battlefield and his men gave

to the lexicon of conflict a grim

new euphemism - ethnic cleansing.

But Ratko Mladic's son insists

The Hague tribunal is biased.

They are going to try to ignore

the Second World War

in which the Serbian people lived

through five years of genocide.

He was an honest, capable officer,

who did his job perfectly in this

difficult circumstances.

If it were not for General Mladic,

we would have repetition

of the Second World War.

This inherited memory drove

the Serb war effort.

For them it justified

the bombardment of Sarajevo,

were 11,000 died.

The murder and extermination,

the mass deportations,

the concentration camps -

all these are charges Mladic faces.

And at Srebrenica, 8,000

men and boys killed.

For this, he is charged

with genocide.

When he took Srebrenica, Mladic held

meetings with local Muslims.

This engineer is almost too

frightened to speak,

within days he was murdered.

Nesib Mandzic, then

a school teacher, also met

Mladic, he survived.

TRANSLATION:

At one moment

he said to me, "Nesib,

the destiny of your people

is in your own hands.

You will decide whether they

survive or disappear."

I took it as a threat,

but I didn't think they would

kill so many people.

But in the end, they

even killed children -

14, 15, 16 years old,

and men over 70.

I couldn't believe that they would

kill people like that.

Among Serbs who fought for him,

General Mladic remains a folk hero,

but even here there's a weariness

with the past and the war

the country hasn't recovered from.

"You should know that

a good percentage of war

veterans on both sides",

he told me, "become alcoholics

or addicts or they commit

suicide in poverty.

None of us war veterans

would want our children

to fight another war.

We'd rather leave."

Two decades on, the divisions

of the war remain.

These children are Bosnian Muslims,

growing up in the Serb

controlled half of Bosnia,

but they go to a separate Muslim

only school because their parents

say the local state schools teach

an explicitly Serb curriculum,

one which rejects

their Bosnian identity.

It's what Ratko Mladic

fought his war, to separate

Serbs from non Serbs.

Alija Omerovic, who survived

Srebrenica, has two

children at the school.

TRANSLATION:

I think he succeeded.

That plan, to divide us,

is still succeeding.

This in a way is also

ethnic cleansing.

Schooling is a basic

right for all children,

no matter what their nationality

and if we don't have schooling,

then we can't live here.

Ratko Mladic fought to dismember

Bosnia, a country he believed had no

legitimacy or right to exist.

The divisions that war bequeathed

are deep and enduring.

Allan Little, BBC News, Sarajevo.

Back now to our main story and the

sudden resignation of Robert Mugabe

after 37 years as Zimbabwe's

President.

Back to Harare now and our

correspondent, Shingai Nyoka.

As the curtain closes on President

Mugabe's era tonight I've cast my

mind back on his 37 year rule. He

began as a hero, a liberator, a

person who educated his people as

well as a reconciler of

black-and-white. But so much of that

has been eroded over the last 20

years. I've been thinking of the

people who never really stood a

chance. The millions of people who

left Zimbabwe to find work. The

thousands who died in hospitals

because there was a shortage of drug

while he left and flew to Singapore

to keep him Seve live. In the end he

was a man obsessed with power and

that obsession became more important

than his people.

Our Zimbabwe

correspondent, Shingai Nyoka, thank

you very much.

That's it from us.

In a moment the news where you are,

but we'll leave with some images

from what's been an extraordinary

day in Zimbabwe.

Good night.

I hereby formally tender my

resignation as the President

of the Republic of Zimbabwe

with immediate effect.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

He's gone, we are free!

We are FREE!

It's victory for our children.

Independence is finally here.

This is a new era for our nation.

37 years with one president,

it doesn't make any sense.