21/12/2017 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten:

The woman

who accused the cabinet minister

of inappropriate conduct speaks

to the BBC.

Mr Green - one of Theresa May's

closest colleagues -

was forced to resign yesterday -

after he was accused of breaking

the ministerial code.

Kate Maltby - a former

Conservative party worker -

says she passed on concerns about Mr

Green to Downing Street - in 2016.

I was aware that he was

the Deputy Prime Minister.

And I was aware that

number ten knew about it.

We'll have an exclusive

interview with Kate Maltby -

the day after Theresa May insisted

on Mr Green's departure

from the government.

Also tonight:

In Yemen, the International Red

Cross says the humanitarian crisis

has left more than 80 per cent

of the population facing food

and water shortages.

It's not the bombs and the bullets

which claim the most lives -

it's the catastrophic humanitarian

crisis.

Apple has been forced to admit

that it deliberately slows down

the operating speed of iPhones

as they get older.

Homelessness in the UK.

We report on the high number

of young people 'sofa surfing'

with no place to call home.

# I'm passionately smashing

every expectation #.

And the runaway Broadway hit

about triumph through adversity

that's now opened in London.

Coming up in Sportsday later

in the hour on BBC News,

a let-off for Manchester United

and Manchester City.

There'll be no FA punishment

and Manchester City.

after that dressing

room altercation.

Good evening.

A day after the forced resignation

of Damian Green from the cabinet -

the woman who alleged he made

inappropriate advances -

has spoken tonight to the BBC.

Kate Maltby - a former

Conservative activist -

says she passed her concerns

on to Downing Street back in 2016.

Ms Maltby - who was found to be

a 'plausible witness'

by an official inquiry -

said the culture in Downing

Street needed to change.

And tonight Number 10 said that

everyone should be able

to work in politics

without fear or harassment.

Our political editor

Laura Kuenssberg has

this exclusive report.

Damian Green's fall from grace began

not with claims about the police or

pawn but with a woman decades his

junior.

If you let the Prime

Minister down?

Is complaints about

one of the most powerful men in the

country prompted the investigation

which removed him from office. Kate

Maltby, journalist and activist,

whose account of inappropriate

advances towards her by Damian Green

was found to be plausible, if not

conclusively proven by Cabinet

official Sue Gray, her aim to expose

the broader concerns, not Mr Green.

I wrote about the problem of sexual

harassment in Westminster because I

knew it was a persistent problem,

but I also knew of similar

experiences with many other people

in Westminster across all parties.

But what I was not seeking was a

resignation, I've never called for

Damian Green's resignation either as

an MP or a minister. Frankly what I

was expecting was an apology.

The

Daily Telegraph blogger Kate Maltby.

Mr Green did apologise yesterday but

said he doesn't recognise her

account of events. Miss Maltby is

well-known in Tory circles and has

never hidden being a friendly

contact of Mr Green. But until now

she has never publicly said her

concerns about his behaviour led her

to tell one of Theresa May's team.

Last year, before he was promoted

become first Secretary of State.

I

was able to give the inquiry a lot

of evidence, written evidence, that

I'd complained frequently and

consistently and contemporaneously.

So I knew that really I was

believed. The reason that I didn't

tell many people about the first

encounter, the encounter at which I

felt the political mentorship, even

a job in the Conservative Party, was

being offered at the same time as

the sexual suggestion, the reason I

didn't tell many people then accept

my parents is I wondered if it was a

one-off and eventually I spoke to a

very senior and long serving aide of

Theresa May.

You gave evidence to

the official inquiry. That's as far

as you're concerned, number ten was

aware that there was an issue with

Damian Green's behaviour towards

women?

I gave evidence to the

inquiry as soon as I sat down with

Sue Gray that, to the best of my

knowledge, Downing Street was aware.

This whole story has been about

power. This whole story is about

power. Damian Green became a very,

very powerful person. I was aware

that there seems to be improper,

there seemed to be an improper

mixing of mentorship and... Sexual

advance within the Conservative

Party. In his case I was aware he

was the Deputy Prime Minister, and I

was aware that number ten knew about

it.

What would you say to some of

our viewers who might be thinking,

hang on a minute, this young woman

was sending texts to this man, she

met him for a drink in a bar, this

is just the rough and tumble of what

goes on.

We are not wilting flowers.

I've always been able to stand up

for myself. So I haven't done this

so much to complain about my own

terrible treatment by Damian Green

so much as to try and change the

culture. It is, I mean this is

something, the rough-and-tumble of

Westminster is a highly sexualised

environment, a highly deceitful

environment, it's problematic in

many ways. There is a lot that goes

on there that we all just put up

with. But we shouldn't have too. I

have the resources to stand up and

say we should not.

Her riposte to

those who claim she went public for

her own advantage?

I'm sure my

career has been damaged by this. It

was a calculated loss because I

think there's something more

important at stake here.

If you saw

Damian Green now what would you say

to him?

I never want to see him

again.

Downing Street flatly denies

the Prime Minister knew. A number

ten source said:

yet this winter's revelations have

already changed both of their lives

for good.

Laura joins me now from Westminster.

After all the events of the past 24

hours, this interview conducted

today takes us back to the start of

this train of events.

It does, it

takes us right back to the beginning

a couple of months ago when all of

Westminster was reeling about some

of the stories are emerging about

some of the kinds of harassment

young people particularly involved

in politics had been sharing and

coming forward to tell. And to be

clear, Kate Maltby says she is

speaking out now because she wants

to change that culture, because she

believes that her motives that the

time were questioned for coming

forward. We should be also be clear

that Damian Green has apologised to

her but has always said he doesn't

recognise her version of events. Of

course he was forced out last night

because he, in the end, had to admit

he gave misleading statements about

whether or not he knew about

pornography found on his work

computer. He was not forced to

depart from his job because of the

claims Miss Maltby said. But I think

what this does remind us of is

everything that happened in the last

few weeks, there still is a real

demand here in Westminster, and a

real concern, about the culture

spread across all political parties,

and still real calls for all of the

party political leaders to actually

take real action. Therefore made

promises the culture has to change.

They've all said they will do

things. There are various ideas and

various things that have been put

forward so far. But there is still a

real call for people at the very top

of the political tree to take this

issue more seriously as we get into

next year.

Once again, thanks very

much for the latest at Westminster.

Laura Kuenssberg, our political

editor.

The International Red Cross says

the number of suspected cholera

cases in Yemen has now

reached one million.

It said the figures highlight

the humanitarian crisis which has

left more than 80 per cent

of the population facing food

and water shortages.

The country - the poorest

in the Arab world -

has been caught up in a two-year

civil war between supporters

of the President -

who's backed by Saudi Arabia -

and a rebel group - the Houthis -

who are linked to Iran.

Our correspondent

Nawal Al-Maghafi is in

the capital Sana'a -

and has just sent this report -

parts of which you may

find distressing.

CRYING

This is 11-month-old Abdillahi,

exhausted and beyond despair,

he's just one of Yemen's starving

children.

With his belly swollen

from malnutrition, there are 400,000

other infants suffering

just like him.

Once confined to rural areas,

the threat of famine has now

reached the capital.

Abdillahi's mother Jamilla sits

helpless at his side,

she's already lost two other

children to hunger.

She tells me, he's all

she has to live for.

TRANSLATION:

My husband's salary

used to provide for us,

it would run out at the end

of the month, but he would get paid.

Everything was OK.

Now, all we eat is bread and tea.

All the infants here

were born into this war,

now in its third year.

From birth, it's

a struggle to survive.

Eight-year-old Allah has just

arrived and he's just been

given his first proper meal in days.

He's from a family with a well-paid

government job, but for over a year

anyone working for the state hasn't

received a salary.

So the family quickly

fell into poverty.

Too ashamed to ask their own family

for help, they struggled in silence.

TRANSLATION:

I break one piece

of bread between two children

and another is shared out

between the rest.

That's all we have.

At night they ask for dinner,

they cry, but I can't give them

anything, so they sleep hungry.

It's really heartbreaking.

In Yemeni culture it's shameful

to go out and ask for help and I'm

shocked that Jamilla waited

until her son was in this state

before she asked her sister

for money to bring him here.

It makes me wonder how many more

people are starving in their homes.

And here's the incredible thing,

whilst millions of people

are starving across the country,

supermarket shelves in the capital

are stocked high with food,

but ordinary Yemenis can no longer

afford to shop here.

A once busy store, now empty.

Two thirds of the population don't

know where their next meal is coming

from, and they're totally

dependent on aid to survive.

TRANSLATION:

This milk

used to cost $15.

Now it is 25.

The people only come

here to look at the food,

they can no longer eat it.

On the streets of Sana'a

you can see the toll

the fighting has had

on the

city.

Burnt buildings, homes in ruins.

The war in Yemen has had an impact

on all aspects of life.

The coalition air

strikes, the fighting

on the ground, has left people

here living in fear.

The country is more divided

than ever and people are too

afraid to speak their minds.

But it's not the bombs

and the bullets

claiming the most lives.

It's the catastrophic

humanitarian crisis.

Much of the problem lies here.

The Saudi led coalition

has blocked all

commercial imports from entering

Yemen's main ports.

Which has driven up prices.

Yesterday, the blockade was lifted

for the next 30 days.

But the Houthi rebels are impeding

what little aid is being delivered.

Everyone here is now struggling.

All government workers

are now trying to

feed their families

without any income.

Mohammed has been teaching

for over a year without pay.

He says his family

goes hungry, but he

couldn't live with himself

if he didn't turn up to lessons.

TRANSLATION:

If they don't pay

us our salaries and the situation

doesn't change, it'll be

a catastrophe for teachers, for the

people.

Already, the middle-class has

completely disappeared.

The UN says Yemen is the world's

biggest humanitarian crisis,

but according to its resident

co-ordinator, the international

community isn't doing

enough to stop the war .

There is a glaring lack

of pressure beyond the words.

There's been words coming out

of the US, there is words coming out

of Europe and words coming out

of the UK and everywhere else,

but it's not translating

into a pushback on this action

and the only solution is political.

So the political people have to get

around this table and take a real

full-hearted approach

at fixing this.

With a lack of international

diplomacy and the war at a stalemate

those at the brunt of the suffering

are the vulnerable.

Nawal Al-Maghafi, BBC News, Sanaa.

The United Nations General Assembly

has overwhelmingly

backed a resolution calling

on the United States

to reverse its decision

to recognise Jerusalem

as the capital of Israel.

128 countries - including the UK -

voted to reject Donald Trump's

recent announcement while nine voted

against the resolution,

which is non-binding.

The United States had warned

there will be consequences

for those nations that

challenged its new policy.

We will remember it

when we are called

upon to once again makes

the

world's largest contribution

to the United Nations.

And we will remember it

when so many countries come

calling on us, as they so often do,

to pay even more and to use our

influence for their benefit.

America will put our

embassy in Jerusalem.

That is what the American

people want us to do.

And it is the right thing to do.

Our correspondent Nada Tawfik is at

the United Nations in New York.

Very strong words from the

ambassador but they didn't really

bring the result they wanted.

Yet,

Huw

bring the result they wanted.

Yet,

Huw, this was always going to be a

highly charged debate, but President

Trump and Nikki Haley raised the

stakes even further when they

threatened to cut financial aid to

countries that support the measure.

Many countries here really resented

that intimidation. The General

Assembly hall they called it

blackmail, arrogance, unethical. At

the time of the vote, key allies of

the United States, including the

United Kingdom, brushed off

Washington's threats and decided to

support the measure. Canada, which

was going to vote no in the end up

staying because one senior diplomat

told me they didn't like the tone

the United States used. Now the

threat did have a small impact, more

states than anticipated abstained,

21 didn't even show up. But with

absolutely clear from this was that

this was a strong rebuke President

Trump's decision, his unilateral

decision to recognise Jerusalem as

Israel's capital. But it was more

than that. It was also a strong

repudiation of his America first

foreign policy.

Thank you for the latest from the UN

in New York.

There's been a high turnout

in elections in the Spanish

region of Catalonia -

where voters are choosing

between those parties

which back independence -

and those who want to

remain part of Spain.

With most of the votes counted the

pro-independence party appears to be

on course for a majority in the

region's Parliament. Parliament was

dissolved earlier this year for

unlawfully declaring independence,

one of the worst political crises in

Spain in decades.

Our correspondent James Reynolds

reports from Barcelona -

and there is some flash photography

in his report.

Here's how much this election

matters to the people of Catalonia.

Voting carried on right up

to the final seconds.

An expected record turnout.

The pro-independence camp

is watching every moment of the vote

count, the future of their movement

may come down to one or two seats.

The deposed exiled Catalan leader

Carlos Puigdemont joined

colleagues in Brussels

to learn his fate.

A victory for his pro-independence

camp may lead to his return.

For some this is

a chance to get even.

Spanish police violence in October

has turned this woman into a

pro-independence voter.

TRANSLATION:

I want them

to listen to us out

there in the world, for them

to listen to us in Spain, in Europe,

for them to know that the Catalan

people and Catalan sentiment exists

and that we've been forgotten,

we've been treated like nobodys.

In October's disputed

independence referendum,

this polling station

was a scene of chaos.

The Spanish police used force

to confiscate ballot boxes.

By contrast, this election

is organised and orderly.

Everyone is getting

the chance to vote.

In Barcelona's old city,

the three Moreira sistors split

two to one in favour

of pro-independence parties.

"We haven't tried to convince one

another," Amina admitted.

Retired maintenance man Jordi wants

Catalonia to become a republic.

Raquel said that she was voting

for freedom from Spain.

Marta says she wants deposed

pro-independence leader Carlos

Puigdemont to return.

But in Hospitalet and

other working-class

districts, many voters

take the opposite view.

TRANSLATION:

If they want

independence they should look

for an island and go there.

This is Spain, Catalonia is Spain.

TRANSLATION:

I went to see

a government that is

anti-independence because I believe

that if the others

win, our economy will get worse.

This election may reveal

Catalonia's divisions.

But it won't bring them to an end.

And tonight the pro-independence

movement behind me is claiming and

celebrating victory. If the

projections are confirmed they will

retain a slim majority in the

parliament. If that turns out to be

so, then all the recent months of

crisis will have succeeded in

changing no one's mind. Many thanks,

James Reynolds, in Barcelona, Europe

correspondent on the Catalonia

elections.

A brief look at some of the day's

other other news stories.

An investigation has cleared

the International Trade Minister

Mark Garnier of breaching

the ministerial code,

after it was alleged he asked

a member of his staff to go

into a sex shop for him.

Downing Street has said Theresa May

believes a line should be

drawn under the matter.

Two men have been arrested in

Australia after a car was driven

into a crowd of pedestrians in a

busy street in Melbourne. 19 people

are injured and several critically.

The police save the driver was a

32-year-old Australian citizen of

Afghan origin with a history of

mental health issues and drug use.

An MP's aide has been cleared

of raping a woman after they had sex

in the MP's Westminster office.

24-year-old Sam Armstrong,

who worked for the Conservative

MP Craig Mackinlay,

was found not guilty

at Southwark Crown Court

after a two-week trial.

A Ukrainian government interpreter,

who visited Downing Street

and met Theresa May,

has been arrested in Kiev

and accused of being a Russian spy.

Reports say Stanislav Yezhov had

been under surveillance

for several months,

and was present at numerous

high level meetings.

Apple has confirmed the suspicions

of many iPhone owners,

by revealing that it deliberately

slows down some models

of the iPhone as they age.

The company says this

is to prolong their life,

because the performance

of the batteries

diminishes over time.

Our technology correspondent

Rory Cellan-Jones reports.

They're expensive devices which have

made Apple the world's most

valuable company.

But after a couple of years many

iPhone users say there's one

thing they begin to notice.

What have you noticed

as your iPhone gets older?

It slows down and the battery goes.

The battery life goes

and it's slightly slower.

The phone doesn't last that long

and you have to update it.

Now Apple has admitted that it does

act to slow down some

older models like the iPhone 6S

released two years ago, but it says

that's not, as some suspect,

to persuade people to rush

out and buy new phones.

Apple says this move is all

about making older versions of

the iPhone work more reliably.

As the battery ages there's a risk,

particularly in colder weather, that

the phone suddenly shuts

down without warning.

The software update is designed

to stop that happening

by making everything run just

a little more slowly.

But the software update

in question happened last year.

Apple put out its statement only

after this technology analyst

identified what was going

on with older phones.

So I think Apple could have been

a lot more transparent.

It would have great had Apple been

straightforward and upfront about

this and said your battery is old,

we are going to have to do things

to ensure that you get good battery

life out of your phone.

I think if Apple had

been upfront and

transparent from the get go this

wouldn't be quite the uproar that

it is today.

The solution is to replace

the battery rather than the whole

phone, but now that they are built

in that's nothing like as simple or

as cheap as it used to be.

Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News.

Homelessness blights the lives

of tens of thousands

of people in Britain,

and only yesterday MPs called it

a national crisis.

Some of those affected,

so called sofa-surfers who move

from friend to friend to keep off

the streets, don't even register

in the official statistics.

So BBC News has commissioned

a survey to give some indication

of the scale of the problem,

particularly among young people.

It found that almost one in ten

of 16 to 25-year-olds questioned,

found themselves sofa surfing

for over a month, and that

more than a quarter had

done it for over a week.

Our social affairs correspondent

Michael Buchanan has this

special report on Britain's

young hidden homeless.

Time passes slowly

if you're homeless.

For some, most days are spent

waiting and hoping, waiting

for the phone to ring,

hoping they will have a bed tonight.

So there won't be any

further assistance?

Is there anything else

we could look at possibly?

All right, thank you for that.

Sam's local council paid

for a room for a few nights

as temperatures fell below zero,

but with the nights becoming

warmer Sam's prospects have called.

Hi, my name's Sam North, I'm ringing

up for Janet regarding the room.

With the council withdrawing

support, the 23-year-old who has

spent time in prison and suffers

from mental health problems

desperately searches

for somewhere to sleep.

Don't know whether I'm

coming or going, I don't

know where I will sleep

from night to night.

I might find somewhere I can

stay for a few days,

then after that it's

doing it all over again.

I'll have a pack of spuds.

Unlike some, Ian knows he has a roof

over his head tonight and,

thanks to this charity,

food in his cupboards.

Three weeks in a friend's flat means

the daily struggles of sofa

surfing are over for now.

Ian's next aim is to get a job

though it won't be easy.

Looking for a job with no permanent

address is really difficult.

Not only that, with sofa

surfing it is difficult

to keep your hygiene up

so you're not smelling

while you're in work,

looking smart, it is difficult.

Sofa surfing mainly affects young

men and as our poll suggests falling

out with parents is the main reason.

Our main drive is to get young

people back in touch

with their families,

that would be our first port of call

to go back to parents

and say it's not going to be that

easy, they won't get

a flat straightaway,

your child could be

left on the streets

and negotiate with them and see

if there is any way we can

get them back home.

Moving back in with his mother,

though, was never an option

for 20-year-old Dale.

Living in close quarters with her,

our relationship gradually got

worse, so constant arguing,

and had a snowball effect,

gradually getting worse and worse

until Christmas Day of 2014

when we had a massive argument and

she kicked me out

and I became homeless.

He normally would have

gone to his gran's,

but she was in a home,

having developed dementia.

Just months earlier

Dale

had been living with her

and was her primary carer.

So he relied on friends for two

months while still at school.

It's extremely hard because doing

your A-levels is stressful as it is,

no one really enjoy A-levels,

well, I didn't anyway.

But it was very hard

trying to balance work

life and personal life.

It's hard to focus on doing your

school work and your revision

during the day when you're worrying

about where you will

be sleeping at night.

Would you sometimes go into school

in the morning knowing that at that

moment you had nowhere

to sleep that night?

Yes, that was often the case, yeah.

Dale prevailed - he's now renting

a flat in his second

year at university.

As we left, Sam was facing a night

on the streets but hours later

a friend called to offer his sofa.

Relief for tonight but tomorrow

the search for shelter begins again.

Michael Buchanan, BBC News.

Birmingham will host

the 2022 Commonwealth Games,

the bid was the only one submitted

by the September deadline.

With an estimated

budget of £750 million,

it will be the most expensive sports

event in Britain since

the London 2012 Olympics.

Our sports editor Dan Roan reports

from Birmingham on the reaction

to today's announcement.

The host of the 2022

Commonwealth Games will be...

Birmingham.

It may not have been

sport's best-kept secret

but this was the moment

they had been waiting for,

an assembly to remember

for these local schoolchildren this

morning with official

confirmation their city

would be staging its first

global sports event.

The man in charge of

the Commonwealth Games

movement told me they had

found an ideal host.

I think Birmingham will bring

diversity, it will bring a journey

over the next four years of working

with the host city to

run a Games right, run

a Games for the people,

by the people.

Birmingham beat Liverpool

to be Britain's candidate

after the original choice Durban

was stripped of the Games

for financial difficulties but no

other rivals emerged.

Come 2022, the Alexandra

Stadium will host some

of the world's finest athletes.

For those who train here,

like hurdler Heather

Paton, today's news

is added motivation.

I narrowly missed out for the 2018

Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.

I only got one of the

qualifying times rather

than the two that we needed.

So, now, to compete here in 2022

is a massive goal of mine.

Organisers insist the Games

will transform venues like this

and help regenerate this part

of Birmingham with the athletes'

village creating 1000 homes.

The 11 days of sporting action

will cost £750 million

to stage, it's the most

expensive sports event

to be held in Britain since London

2012, and a quarter of that total

has to be raised

by local authorities.

The huge cost overruns at

London's Olympic Stadium have cast a

shadow over the Games' legacy record

and a hotel tax, with visitors

paying a small fee,

a first for Britain,

is now being considered

to help raise money

for Birmingham 2022.

Opinion is very mixed about it,

some people are excited

about the event coming,

it's good news for Birmingham.

Others are very concerned

about the effect on council services

which are not at a great standard

at the moment, and also concerned

about the disruption

in the local community.

How will you go about making sure it

represents good value?

The Treasury have

crawled all over this.

It's correct that they

should have done.

We are very confident today

that with their support,

they are saying this is good value

for money for the British taxpayer

because we are expecting to get back

the investment we put in and more.

So it's a good starting point.

The commercial success of

Glasgow's Commonwealth Games in 2014

helped secure Britain's

reputation as a sporting host.

Now it's Birmingham's turn to

deliver the event and to prove

it's worth it.

Dan Roan, BBC News.

It was an unlikely hit on Broadway,

a hip-hop musical about one

of the 18th century

politicians who helped

to establish the United States.

Hamilton is the story of a poor

immigrant from the Caribbean ,

Hamilton is the story of a poor

immigrant from the Caribbean,

who arrived in New York on the eve

of the American Revolution,

and went on to become the country's

first Treasury Secretary.

It's been enthusiastically

reviewed in the US,

and it opened in London tonight.

Our arts editor Will Gompertz has

been to meet the show's creator.

# Put a pencil to his temple,

connected it to his brain

# And he wrote his first refrain.#

Here is Hamilton's creator,

Lin-Manuel Miranda,

at the White House poetry slam

in 2009, performing

what would become

the opening number of his musical

about America's founding fathers.

Six years later it opened

in New York and became

an instant classic.

# What's your name, man?

# Alexander Hamilton

# His name is Alexander Hamilton

# We are waiting in the wings for

you. #

And now it's in London,

as is for a few days

the man behind the show,

who's been compared to...

Well... Are you the 21st-century

Shakespeare?

Not even close!

No, Shakespeare wrote

a mind-altering amount of dramas

and comedies and sonnets,

worked with other playwrights.

I've written two musicals, so let's,

everybody, chill out.

# I'm past patiently waiting!

# I'm passionately

smashin' every expectation

I recognised in the story

of Hamilton the story of so many

immigrants who are coming

to the United States today.

And so I used the music that I love

to tell their story.

A lot has been made

of the multiracial cast.

This is the story of America then

told by America now.

We're going to use every tool

at our disposal to eliminate

the distance between a modern

audience and something that happened

200 somewhat years ago.

The casting is part of that,

and casting it to look

like the way our country

looks eliminates distance.

When George Washington is a young

man of colour and he's

running for his life,

suddenly you're not filled

with images of Washington standing

like this, crossing the Delaware,

he's not invincible any more.

It's suddenly, these

are real people.

How nervous were you about bringing

this show to the UK?

I was not nervous at all.

What I was very excited

for was the reaction

to King George III in the shadow

of Buckingham Palace.

I mean, we're really right up

the street, so the only change

we've made in that direction

is we have tarted up

his outfit quite a bit.

George III might have lost America

but he steals this show every night.