20/03/2018 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten.

Facebook under growing pressure

to explain how it handles the data

of its two billion users.

Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg,

is called to answer questions,

following claims that personal

information about millions of users

was gathered from the site

without their permission.

A British firm, Cambridge Analytica,

is accused of using the data

for political purposes in the US

presidential election

as regulators express concern

about the way data is handled.

Of course individuals should

be careful and think

twice about who they're

sharing their information

with but on the other hand it's

really up to the companies to get

this right and comply with the law.

And tonight, the head

of Cambridge Analytica

has been suspended.

His firm and Facebook both

deny any wrongdoing.

We'll have the latest.

Also tonight...

A Red Arrows jet has

crashed in North Wales.

An engineer died, but

the pilot survived.

Heading for Moscow, the 23 Russian

diplomats expelled from the UK,

following the chemical

attack in Salisbury.

A BBC investigation reveals

young Rohingya girls,

who fled the violence in Myanmar,

are being trafficked

into prostitution in Bangledesh.

With the arrival of so many refugees

in the nearby camps,

there are even more vulnerable young

people for the traffickers

to prey upon.

And, a report from Kenya

on the northern white rhino -

a species now on the brink

of extinction.

And coming up on Sportsday

on BBC News:

Ashley Young backs his

Manchester United manager

after a tumultuous few days on the

sidelines and in front of

the cameras for Jose Mourinho.

Good evening.

The social media giant, Facebook,

is under growing pressure to explain

the measures it's taking to secure

the personal data of its two

billion users worldwide.

It's facing investigations by the US

Federal Trade Commission,

the UK's Information Commissioner,

the European Parliament and a House

of Commons committee.

It follows allegations that

information on millions

of Facebook's users was gathered

from the site and used for political

purposes by the British firm

Cambridge Analytica.

That firm's Chief Executive,

Alexander Nix, was suspended

earlier this evening.

Our business editor

Simon Jack reports.

In the information age,

personal data is the new currency

and we spend it liberally

on social media platforms.

How old we are, whether we

are in a relationship,

what are our political leanings,

this can all be gathered and used.

Cambridge Analytica is a company

which does exactly that

and it is at the centre

of a political storm that has

rocked one of the biggest

companies in the world.

It started with an app designed

by a British academic that invited

Facebook users to do

a personality test.

270,000 people downloaded the app,

it collected personal

information on them,

their friends, their friends'

friends and so on until it had

information on 50 million

Facebook users.

That data was passed

to Cambridge Analytica,

who allegedly used it to influence

the presidential election in the US,

using highly targeted messages,

a charge denied by the company.

The UK's data watchdog

said she had concerns

about the company for some time.

These allegations are very serious,

they came to the attention

of our office some months ago.

And on the 7th of March,

I issued a demand for

information from Cambridge.

They did not comply with that,

so now I am moving ahead to seek

a warrant so that I can search

premises and data.

The company worked on Donald Trump's

election campaign and secret filming

by Channel 4 News shows

Cambridge Analytica's boss

boasting about the role

they played in his victory.

The company denies any wrongdoing.

The company says Mr Nix's comments

did not represent the values

of the firm and it has now

suspended him pending

their own investigation.

Whether this tiny consultancy

was really involved in influencing

the US presidential election,

there is an old adage,

in digital marketing which says

if the service you are getting

is free, then you are the product.

Served up to advertisers

who are convinced that highly

targeted messages constructed around

detailed personal

information really works.

Facebook is also right

under the microscope.

It too denies any wrongdoing.

The US Federal Trade Commission

has launched a probe

into the company and has the power

to levy colossal fines.

The company has seen

$50 billion wiped off its value

in just the last two days.

So, could this scandal mark a moment

of reckoning for the way we share

and companies use our personal data?

I think for the first time,

things that people suspected

have surfaced thanks

to the testimony of whistle-blowers.

Now we are finally seeing

that the leaders of these companies

are being called to testify

in front of Parliaments.

They are being held to account

in the media, analysts

in the financial industry

are dumping their stock

as a vote of no-confidence.

This is a real moment where

it is going to incentivise change.

The facts of our lives are valuable.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has

built a fortune out of them.

Politicians on both sides

of the Atlantic want him personally

to explain how they are used.

In a moment we'll talk

to North America Editor Jon Sopel

in Washington, our media editor

Amol Rajan in San Francisco

but first to Simon Jack outside

Cambridge Analytica's headquarters.

Simon, tell us more about the

reaction now during the course of

the day.

These rather modest

offices, the second floor here have

become the rather unlike the eye of

a storm that has engulfed Facebook

and drone in the politicians on both

sides of the Atlantic. When the

story broke, Cambridge Analytica

said they had done nothing wrong,

that the footage and reporting

grossly misrepresented the position

of the company, the executives were

talking in hypotheticals. They had

changed their tune and they are

saying that the

comments of the firm and he was

suspended pending their own

investigation. We heard politicians

about today, Damian Collins, said he

wanted to extend an invitation for a

Mark Zuckerberg to appear in person

to explain how this information got

into the wrong hands. I should say

that the company does not deny it

worked on the Trump election what

came by this information, it denies

that it use that information in that

campaign. On the financial markets,

a lot of people rapidly friending

Facebook, its shares have fallen by

$50 billion. More than the entire

value of the Ford motor company.

Real implications for what is going

on in.

Thank you.

And to Jon.

There are concerns by regulators as

well. Yes. You're in the position

where Cambridge Analytica are either

telling falsehoods, which is not a

good look or it is telling the

truth, in which case, it could be in

a whole heap of trouble with

lawmakers here. They claim to have

been responsible for the entire

digital strategy of the Trump

campaign, of the crooked Hillary

campaign well. Leave to one side

whether Donald Trump will accept

that Cambridge Analytica were

responsible for the election victory

but some of the claims they make

about coordinating between the Trump

campaign and some of what they call,

super packs, that are meant to be

entirely independent of the

campaign, that would breach US

electoral la and that could cause

problems. Then there is Mark

Zuckerberg, if he has been called to

come and give evidence, he has a

bunker on his estate, I don't think

that will protect them from the rout

of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

And to Amol Rajan...

What is the pressure on the company?

Facebook is facing its biggest

crisis since the company was founded

in 2004. Tens of billions wiped from

its stock market value, you have the

resignation of a senior figure in

the company and the mood here is one

of banks and anxiety and investors

are getting uppity and talking about

rebelling. It has got to be said

that the response to this crisis has

made things worse. Earlier this

afternoon, there was a meeting and

Mark Zuckerberg was not there.

The Chief Operating Officer was not

there. I have just spoken to a

senior executive who said that they

were taking the time to gather the

facts and when the revelations first

came to light, the company said it

was not a data breach. It could have

been something worse, the mass

harvesting of the data of millions

of people without them knowing. This

is making people wake up that for

all its innovation, Facebook is a

mass surveillance tool that used to

be about selling products which is

now selling politics as well and

that has implications for western

democracy and Facebook have not got

their head around it.

Thank you.

The Royal Air Force has announced

that a member of its Red Arrows

aerobatic team has died in a crash

in North Wales.

The engineer was killed when a Hawk

jet came down near the RAF

Valley base on Anglesey

earlier this afternoon.

The pilot, who is injured

and receiving medical

care, managed to eject.

There are no details

about the cause of the crash,

as our Wales correspondent

Sian Lloyd reports.

The remains of the Hawk vast jet,

which crashed within minutes

of taking off from RAF Valley.

Two members of the Red Arrows

display team were on board.

Plumes of smoke were

captured by people walking

on the nearby sand dunes.

Later, confirmation came that

a crew member had died.

The engineer's family have been

informed, and have asked for a 24

hour period of grace before further

details are released.

A pilot of the aircraft survived

the incident and is currently

receiving medical care.

An air ambulance arrived within 20

minutes of the tragedy taking place,

and fire crews were quickly

at the scene.

As night fell, the

investigation continued.

Peter Glover saw what happened

from his nearby caravan.

The canopy come off,

I saw a chute open, and the plane

just hit the ground severely hit

the ground, and a massive bang,

and a massive bang, then

a bowl of smoke.

The Red Arrows aerobatics team

are famous for their displays.

The two crew members had been

training on Anglesey,

and the jet was returning

to its base at RAF Scampton

in Lincolnshire, when it came down.

We're not expecting any further

details to emerge of what happened

until well into tomorrow,

but tonight, the thoughts of those

here and across the service

with the families of the two people

involved in this crash.

Sian Lloyd, News, RAF Valley.

Twenty-three Russian diplomats

and their families have left the UK,

after they were expelled in the wake

of the Salisbury poisoning attack.

They left on a plane bound

for Moscow this afternoon,

as Theresa May chaired a meeting

of the National Security Council.

Ministers have again accused Russia

of involvement in the attempted

murder of former spy Sergei Skripal

and his daughter Yulia,

as our diplomatic correspondent

James Landale reports.

This report contains flashing

images.

It was dubbed 'expulsion day' -

the moment Russian diplomats

and their families began the long

journey home from their embassy

in London, sent packing

after their government was blamed

by Britain for the nerve agent

attack in Salisbury.

Those staying behind gathered

outside to hug their colleagues,

wave goodbye, and yes,

shed the odd tear, as the long

cavalcade of coaches and cars

left for the airport.

In a tweet, the Russian ambassador

bade farewell to his colleagues,

after what he called 'the hostile

move of the UK Government'.

At Stansted, the ambassador stood

at the aircraft steps to shake

the hands of the 23 departing

diplomats accused by Britain

of being undeclared

intelligence officers.

His embassy said that

with spouses and children,

about 80 people were leaving

in total in what's the biggest

expulsion of Russian diplomats

from Britain since the Cold War.

This afternoon, the Russian plane

carrying its diplomatic cargo

finally took off from Moscow.

finally took off for Moscow.

This weekend, British diplomats will

travel in the opposite direction.

Today, the Foreign Secretary Boris

Johnson confirmed that the former

Russian intelligence officers

Sergei Skripal and his daughter

Yulia have been in a coma since

they were poisoned two weeks ago.

Morning! What's our next move

against the Russians?

Ministers gathered to decide

what Britain should do next.

Russia's already announced that 23

British diplomats must leave

Moscow by the weekend.

In the end, the government decided

not to impose further

sanctions on Russia.

It wants to avoid a bilateral

tit-for-tat row and instead keep up

the European and international

pressure on Moscow.

A task made harder today

by the European Commission President

Jean-Claude Juncker controversially

writing to President Putin

congratulating him

on his re-election.

James Langdale,

BBC News in Downing Street.

A two-year-old girl has died

after being pulled from a car

in the River Teifi in west Wales.

Kiara Moore was found

in the vehicle in the river

in the town of Cardigan.

Dyfed-Powys Police have described

her death as a 'tragic incident' --

and say they're not looking

for anyone else in

connection with the case.

Enter

There's been a bigger than expected

fall in the rate of inflation,

the latest figures show that prices

rose by 2.7% last month,

compared with 3% in January.

A small drop in petrol prices

and a slower rise in the cost

of food were some of the factors

cited, as our economics editor,

Kamal Ahmed, explains now.

Mixing in a new ingredient,

after over a year of rising

inflation, today better news -

the rate is falling, as food costs

ease and fuel costs drop.

Inflation can often start here,

firms that make the stuff we buy.

If their costs are cut, then prices

for us often go the same way.

There's not many costs

that are coming down,

but the two things we have

identified are distribution

costs for us.

We've definitely seen

those ease off, but also

in digital and technology.

For millions of people,

today's fall in inflation brings

into sharp focus one of the most

important issues facing the UK

economy - that income squeeze.

Prices rising faster than wages,

leaving people worse

off month by month.

Today, a glimmer of hope.

With inflation easing and wage

rises strengthening,

could that income squeeze be coming

to an end this year?

Before 2017, wages were rising

faster than prices, meaning that

people were slightly better

off each month.

Then last year that reversed,

inflation rose quickly

following the Brexit referendum,

which saw a fall in the value

of the pound and an increase

in the price of imports.

Now the pound is stronger,

the rate of inflation is falling

and wages are catching up.

Could those lines cross in 2018?

The impact of the fall in the pound,

of course, meant that imported

inflation was quite high.

That effect is fading.

Increasingly now we're

seeing inflation coming

from domestic sources.

So higher wage growth in particular

is driving up costs.

Inflation risk has not drained away

and wage growth will keep minds

focused at the Bank of England.

It's signalled that it will raise

interest rates in the next few

months to control any

future price rises.

Kamal Ahmed, BBC News.

A BBC investigation has revealed

that Rohingya girls as young as 13,

who fled Myanmar in the past six

months, are being trafficked

into prostitution in Bangledesh.

The undercover team filmed

traffickers openly offering

the girls for sex in Cox's Bazar,

the town nearest to the refugee

camps, where hundreds of thousands

of Rohingya Muslims now live.

The BBC's Mishal Husain

has the story.

A small city on the Bay of Bengal,

where the main business was tourism,

is now the hub for aid agencies

working in the nearby refugee camps.

But alongside the shop fronts,

the beachside bars and the hotels

of Cox's Bazar there's

an open secret.

After hearing repeated

stories about children

trafficked into prostitution,

we went in search of the evidence.

One 14-year-old Rohingya girl

we met in the camps,

and whose identity we've protected,

told me what happened

to her as she crossed

from Myanmar into Bangladesh.

TRANSLATION:

Women came with a van,

they asked me if I'd go with them.

Not long after that,

in a building in Cox's Bazar,

they brought two boys to me.

They showed me a knife and punched

me in my tummy and beat me

because I wasn't cooperating.

Then the boys raped me.

I wasn't willing to have sex,

but they kept going.

We heard other accounts

from girls of a similar age.

A 13-year-old told me she was lured

out of the camp by a woman

from within the Rohingya community

offering her work.

With the desperate conditions

the refugees are living in,

her family agreed to let her go.

TRANSLATION:

She came to my home.

We know her.

She said, "You're not

being fed properly, come

with me to Cox's Bazar,

I will give you a job."

When we got there, she put me

in a hotel in the morning.

By the afternoon, a boy

was put in my room.

He beat me and raped me.

I asked the woman,

"Why I should do this"?

She told me, "If you don't do

this, I will kill you."

After only 48-hours on the ground,

our team had identified a number

of people offering children for sex.

This was one of them, not only

boasting about his own collection

of women and children,

but of a network of traffickers,

all of whom had more than ten girls

under their control.

We had to be careful not to create

a demand and asked for girls

who were immediately available.

We were offered these three and told

they were all Rohingyas,

aged between 13 and 17.

We went to the police and told

them what we had found.

They agreed to conduct

an operation that same evening.

Our undercover investigator posed

as a client who wanted to have sex

with children and arranged

with the trafficker for the delivery

of two young girls to a hotel.

Bring the girls down here.

As we waited, the

trafficker sent a scout.

8.00pm, red hoodie.

He asked our investigator to go

with him, but we needed

the trafficker to come to us.

He's away with the girls.

He appeared to change his mind.

We are go, we are go.

But when the girls arrived,

it was a driver who was with them

and who collected the money.

How it's going?

14, 15, 16 and and two for you.

Ask him, if tonight's

good, can they get more?

We handed over around £140.

As soon as the deal was done,

the police moved in.

Come on, girls.

Hey, come here.

The girls were two of those we'd

seen in the photograph.

As they were taken aside

and into safety, they told

us they were 15 and 21

and that their families

depended on the money

they made from sex work.

What the two girls told me

here tonight reveals so much

about how they and others like them

get trapped in the sex

industry in Cox's Bazar.

They've never been to school

and have no idea how

they would support themselves

without this work.

And with the arrival of so many

refugees in the nearby camps,

there are even more vulnerable young

people for the traffickers

to prey upon.

Childcare professionals

and trafficking experts

helped us to arrange care

for the girls afterwards.

The younger one went

into the care of social services,

but the 21-year-old refused.

We handed over all the information

we had to the police.

But the trafficker is still

at large, part of an established

network that puts children into sex

work here and, as our

investigation found,

also sends them further afield,

to India and Nepal.

Now the presence of a large refugee

population, including many

unaccompanied children,

is providing easy pickings

for the traffickers and another

danger for the Rohingya people.

Mishal Husain, BBC News, Bangladesh.

The parents of a 6 year-old boy,

with a rare form of epilepsy,

say they've been told that a special

licence will be granted

for their son to use cannabis oil

on compassionate grounds

to treat his condition.

Alfie Dingley was

joined by his family

and the actor Sir Patrick Stewart

as they handed in a petition

at Downing Street earlier today.

His parents say cannabis oil,

which is illegal even

for medical use in the UK,

will help control his seizures.

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt,

has suggested that plans to reform

the adult social care system

in England will include a cap

on the cost of care.

Mr Hunt has set out seven key

principles which he says

will guide the changes,

acknowledging that patients

with conditions such as dementia

faced a far greater financial burden

than those with other illnesses.

The Government is due to publish

its strategy later this year.

Our social affairs correspondent,

Alison Holt, reports.

OK, Charles?

Are you going to watch...

Charles, are you going

to watch Ginge?

The care system in England

is a punitive lottery

for people like Charles Major,

who has dementia, according

to today's speech by the Health

and Care Secretary.

Here at Woodbury Manor in north

London, he gets good care,

but his wife who used to look

after him at home had to fight

for the local authority's

support they needed.

They don't have funding,

enough funding, for everyone.

And I think you've got to really get

to the state where you're

at rock bottom before

they really take notice of you.

Here, care staff work alongside

NHS nurses to assess

the needs of residents.

The government sees more

integrated services like this

as a key principle for the future.

It also acknowledges staff

need to feel more valued.

Sometimes I just get frustrated,

fed up and say, you know,

the money is so small.

I cannot cope.

The pressures that come

with an ageing population mean

something has to change.

By 2026, one in five people

in the UK will be 65 and over.

By then, more than a million

people will have dementia.

But by 2020, councils in England

estimate there will be

a £2.3 billion shortfall

in care funding.

As the Secretary of State

set out his principles

for a better care system today,

he indicated a Green paper

on funding, due this summer,

will contain a cap on care costs

to give people more certainty.

They want to have a sense that,

even if they're unlucky enough

to get an illness like dementia,

which affects one in three over 65s,

it can potentially clean you

out of your life savings,

people want some security

and comfort that that

isn't going to happen.

At the moment, that is what happens.

Whilst the principles have

been broadly welcomed

to many in the care sector,

they want to know if enough money

will be there to fix

a system that is struggling.

It will only be real

if money comes with the principles.

He now needs to go and discuss

with colleagues in the government

the amount of funding needed,

both new money and the money that

currently may be spent in the NHS

that could be better spent

in social care.

And with the care system

already under great strain,

the Government knows it will be

under increasing pressure to make

sure that these plans for reform

really do lead to change.

Alison Holt, BBC News.

The northern white rhino

is a species on the brink

of extinction following the death

of a 45-year-old male in Kenya,

the last of his kind in the world.

His name was Sudan, he was put down

on Monday after his health

problems worsened significantly.

His daughter and granddaughter

are the only female

northern white rhinos left.

Our correspondent, Alistair

Leithead, reports from Kenya.

And then there were two -

the last remaining northern

white rhinos on earth,

now that the last male, Sudan,

has died of old age.

A subspecies of rhino ever

closer to extension.

One is Najin, 27-years-old,

Sudan's daughter.

The other is Fatu, his

teenage granddaughter.

The last of what was once a great

species that roamed central Africa.

This was Sudan, and for the last

few years scientists

and conservationists have been

trying to get him to mate.

They even put the 45-year-old

on Tinder as part of

a publicity campaign.

There was no other

animal quite like him.

It highlights first and foremost

the fact that human greed

and sometimes human activities that

are not controlled can drive

species to extinction.

The last wild northern

white rhinos were seen

here in Garamba National Park,

in the Northern Democratic

Republic of Congo,

but that was many years ago.

They became extinct

in the wild in 2008.

Well, Fatu and Najin are now

the last two remaining

northern white rhinos,

and obviously they're both females.

They're here under armed

guard 24-hours a day,

such is the continuing threat

to these animals from poachers.

They are now incredibly rare.

There are only 30,000 rhinos left

on the planet and Sudan

was unusual for his kind,

in that he died of old age.

Now it's up to the scientists

and a never before tried fertility

treatment in a last gasp effort

to save these animals

from extinction.

Alastair Leithead, BBC

News, in northern Kenya.

More than 50 years after The Beatles

were awarded MBEs at

Buckingham Palace their drummer,

Ringo Starr, has returned

today to receive a knighthood.

The musician, who was presented

with the honour by the Duke

of Cambridge, spoke of his shock

at being given the award

in recognition of his

services to music.

Next month a team of pilots,

paramedics and doctors

from the London Air Ambulance

will take on the toughest

foot race on earth.

It's called the Marathon des Sables,

and they'll be running 150 miles

across the Sahara Desert -

six marathons in six days -

carrying all their own kit to raise

money for the air ambulance charity.

And running with them will be former

patients and families

who owe them their

lives in many cases.

Sophie Raworth went to meet them.

There are some flashing

images in the report.

I remember wheels turning across me,

and then I don't remember the impact

as such, but I remember

being on the floor, and really

panicking because I tried to get up

and I couldn't move my legs.

She was deathly white.

She had lost a lot of blood,

she looked like she was dying.

Can you hear me?

Three years ago, Vicky Labrecque

was cycling to work

when she was knocked off her bike

by a lorry.

Vicky, what we're going to do now

is we're going to give

you an anaesthetic.

Her life was saved thanks

to a pioneering medical technique

carried out at the roadside.

So we really need to then crack

on and get her into the ambulance

and get her to the Royal London

as quick as we can.

I mean, if it hadn't been

for the air ambulance then

I wouldn't be here because they're

the only people that

do this procedure and,

if that hadn't happened,

then I would definitely be dead.

They managed to save her life,

but the surgeon, Tom Koenig,

wasn't able to save her leg.

Now, three years later,

he will be part a team of medics

and patients heading to the Sahara

to raise money for

the air ambulance.

Running alongside will be another

cyclist, who also owes her life

to London Air Ambulance.

I remember it happening.

I remember going under the wheel,

trying to get the wheel off,

trying to speak to the driver

afterwards to say sorry,

because I thought I was going to die

and he would have to live with that.

Chloe Baker, now a doctor,

was a medical student

when she was knocked off her bike

11 years ago.

The pilot who came to rescue her

remembers that day vividly.

This patient was self-diagnosing

herself and she, being a medic

of some sort, knew what she thought

she'd done, which is really

rare, and we've never

really heard of before.

For Chloe, just over 15 minutes

to get a trauma team

service right next to her,

I think that makes a massive

difference to any patient

in that situation.

Chloe now works alongside

the team who saved her,

and in three weeks' time they'll

all be swapping the London chill

for the Saharan sun.

Sophie Raworth reporting there.

Newsnight is coming up on BBC Two.