18/03/2018 BBC Weekend News

Boris Johnson accuses Russia

of making and stockpiling deadly

Novichok nerve agents.

Two weeks on from the collapse

in Salisbury of a Russian

spy and his daughter -

the Foreign Secretary

attacks Moscow's attitude.

Their response has been a sort

of mixture of smug sarcasm

and denial, obfuscation and delay.

His comments come as a senior

Russian diplomat suggests the nerve

agent could have come

from the British

facility at Porton Down.

In Russia - Vladimir Putin casts his

vote in the Presidential election -

as he seeks another six

years in power.

A Sunday white-out as driving snow,

biting winds and ice affect

much of the country.

And joy for Britain as the Winter

Paralympics come to an end -

winning gold for the first time.

Good evening.

The Foreign Secretary says

the Government has evidence that

Russia has been creating

and stockpiling the nerve

agents known as Novichok.

Speaking to the BBC,

Boris Johnson accused the Kremlin

of 'smug sarcasm' in its response

to the attack in

Salisbury two weeks ago.

A senior Russian diplomat has

suggested that the substance used

in Salisbury could have come

from the British research

laboratory at Porton Down.

Here's our Home Affairs

Correspondent Daniel Sandford.

Today, despite the bad weather,

troops and police officers continued

the delicate and dangerous work of

decontamination and preserving the

scenes in Salisbury.

It is clear now that the focus

of this investigation

is Sergei Skripal's burgundy BMW

car, with detectives still seeking

more information on its

movements on the day

of the nerve agent attack.

This morning, the Russian ambassador

to the EU, chose to hint that

Britain might have been responsible

for the whole thing.

Porton Down, as we now

all now, is the largest

military facility in the

United Kingdom that has been dealing

with chemical weapons research.

And it's actually only eight

miles from Salisbury.

You're not suggesting that

Porton Down is responsible for

this nerve agent?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Immediately afterwards,

on the same programme, this was the

Foreign Secretary's riposte.

This is not the response

of a country that

really believes itself

to be innocent.

Their response has been a sort

of mixture of smug sarcasm and

denial, obfuscation and delay.

And with 23 diplomats

due to leave the

Russian Embassy this week,

after being expelled as spies,

the Foreign Secretary made his most

direct

accusation yet that Russia has been

doing recent nerve agent research.

We actually have evidence

within the last ten years that

Russia has not only been

investigating the delivery

of nerve agents for the purposes

of assassination, but has also been

creating and stockpiling Novichok.

However, the Foreign Secretary then

had to concede that a wife of a

former minister under Vladimir Putin

had paid £160,000 in a Conservative

Party auction to play

tennis with him.

Did the tennis game actually happen?

It did.

It did.

But the Labour leadership's

position on the

Salisbury attack now seems much

closer to the Government's than it

was in the middle of last week.

Putin has questions to answer

because this is highly likely this

could have been a state execution.

But what we don't do in this country

is that we don't leap to conclusions

without the evidence.

Tomorrow, international

specialists from the

Organisation for the Prohibition

of Chemical Weapons will arrive at

Porton Down to start their own

independent analysis of what left

Yulia and Sergei Skripal

fighting for their lives.

Daniel Sandford, BBC News.

In Russia, polls have closed

in the presidential election,

with President Putin seeking another

six years in power.

Seven other candidates

are also standing.

The indications are that Putin has

won by a significant margin.

Our Moscow Correspondent,

Steve Rosenberg at the Kremlin.

Thank you. According to the latest

results of Vladimir Putin has won

more than 70% of the vote in the

election, not a surprise, many

Russians support him. But crucially

it's the political system Mr Putin

put in place in Russia that

virtually guaranteed he would emerge

the winner.

It looked more like

a show than an election.

Russian polling stations providing

free entertainment to

boost the turnout.

Inside, you could cast a ballot

and cast an eye at the art.

Pride of place here reserved

for a legendary Russian ruler who

had battled the West.

The current leader is

facing international

pressure after Salisbury.

Still, Vladimir Putin

was relaxed as he voted.

"I believe in the programme I'm

offering my country," the

President said.

And his supporters agreed.

"He's a genius," he says.

"Putin wants Russia

to prosper and for Russians

to live in happiness."

"It's thanks to Putin," she says,

"That Russia still exists."

But critics of the Kremlin says

the election was fixed.

But critics of the Kremlin say

the election was fixed.

That only those candidates

who stood no chance of

unseating Vladimir Putin

were allowed to run.

The problem with Russia

is there is no such thing as

Russian politics.

Politics has been eliminated

in Russia altogether.

There is only one political

institution in Russia and this is

the physical body of Vladimir Putin.

Which is why the results of this

vote was never in doubt.

This election is less

about choosing a

new President and more

about reappointing the old one.

The political system,

which Vladimir Putin has built,

ensures he faces no serious

challenge and he's set for a

fourth term in the Kremlin.

But these images will

embarrass the Kremlin.

Caught on CCTV, a woman stuffs

the ballot box at a polling

station near Moscow.

Suddenly, there are two of them

at it, and something

suspicious in Siberia.

During the vote count,

someone moves a tricolore

of Russian balloons

so they cover over the camera.

Election officials say

they will investigate

alleged violations.

But that won't change who will be

running Russia for the

next six years.

You know, there is a joke doing the

rounds in Moscow right now. In

Russia there are two things of which

you can be sure. That the winters

here will always be long and that

Vladimir Putin will always win an

election. STUDIO: Steve Rosenberg,

thank you.

Much of the UK has been in the midst

of a second significant

snowfall of the winter.

For many areas it's been combined

with bitterly cold winds,

bringing misery to those

travelling this weekend.

Frankie McCamley reports.

As the snow gave no sign of giving

up, neither did those trying to

clear it away and keep

traffic moving.

But with strong winds causing

blizzard conditions, here in

Devon driving became treacherous.

Some clearly struggling

to keep control.

In Newcastle, for those just trying

to leave the house, it

wasn't an easy task.

I've been here for an hour

and I've done about a

quarter of this road,

so I'm making headway.

We're not equipped here for

the snow, it's not like if you live

abroad and you have a lot of snow.

I think some of the

biggest problems is

the drivers themselves,

they are not used to driving,

if it looks like two

flakes of snow, they're stuck,

some of the people.

I don't think it's been too bad.

Railway stations across

the country have also seen

delays.

In Newbury all trains

were stopped in their tracks.

Staff doing what they can to help.

And as snow hit the South

West, Bristol Airport

stopped flights this

morning with Exeter

cancelling flights for

the

rest of the day.

Even for those wanting

to brave the weather and

support their local team, football

and rugby fixtures were called off,

including the Anglo Welsh Cup

final at Gloucester.

Throughout the day the snow

gates on the A66 remained

closed between County Durham and

Cumbria, keeping one family apart.

Basically, I'm trying to get a draft

pick my daughter up.

Basically, I'm trying to get

to Brough to pick my daughter up.

She's been stuck there

since last night.

So, it's just a question

of getting round.

With around 11 centimetres of snow

already falling on higher

ground is like here in

West Yorkshire, more snow is still

expected.

But the majority tonight

and tomorrow morning will be in the

south-west of England.

With amber weather warnings

in place until 9am

tomorrow morning.

Go!

It's not all doom

and gloom, though, the

so-called Mini Beast From The East

has brought some fun with it too

with all sorts heading out

to enjoy the weather.

As for when temperatures

will get back to

normal, things should be

warming up by Tuesday.

Frankie McCamley, BBC

News, West Yorkshire.

The head of Cambridge Analytica,

the data firm used by Donald Trump's

election campaign has been called

back before a committee of MPs.

They believe Alexander Nix has

fresh questions to answer

about the way his company used

the personal details of up

to 50 million Facebook users.

The social media giant

will also be asked to appear.

Both deny any wrong doing.

Here's our business

correspondent Joe Lynam.

The idea that all women should

receive the same message...

Meet

Alexander Nix, he is the Eton

educated boss of the data mining

company Cambridge Analytica, which

specialises in something called

Psycho graphics.

That is an

understanding of your personality,

because it's personality that drives

behaviour and behaviour that

obviously influences how you vote.

But now a committee of MPs thinks he

might have given Parliament false

statements about what his company

did with millions of Facebook

profiles. He has been recalled for

more questions. The Facebook boss

Mark Zuckerberg will also be called.

It looks like Facebook were trying

to avoid difficult questions about

this and people will rightly be

concerned, are there other data

breaches we don't know about? How

effective our Facebook actually at

stopping people taking data from

their platform and then using it in

a way that suits them that Facebook

can control.

can control.

At the heart of this

was an app designed in Britain in

2014 supposed to tell you a lot more

about your own personality, but if

you login using your Facebook

profile it allowed the app and its

owners access to some very personal

data held on Facebook, most

astonishingly, though, it allowed

the app access to all of your

friends' personal data without their

explicit consent.

We are going to

make America great again.

It has

been claimed Donald Trump's campaign

used personal data acquired from

Cambridge Analytica to try and

influence the election, something

flatly denied by the company. And it

was also at the top table when the

Leave.eu campaign was launched in

2015. But now denies it did any work

at all on the Brexit referendum. But

it does raise the issue, though, of

what happens when we click OK

online.

We see these quizzes pop up

in our Facebook timelines, we think

it would be a bit of fun to be

matched with which they must start

and I? But what doing is handing

every bit of your profile data onto

a data collection service.

Much of

this has come to light because this

former Cambridge Analytica employee

Chris Wiley has now claimed Facebook

knew what data the company held and

how it could be used. Facebook

strongly denies his claims and

suspended his own Facebook account.

-- Christopher Wylie. The social

media giant said it was doing so

because Christopher Wylie exploited

Facebook to harvest millions of

people's profiles. Joe Lynam, BBC

News.

On the final day of the Winter

Paralympics in South Korea,

Britain has won its first and only

gold medal at the Games.

It was thanks to Menna Fitzpatrick

and her guide Jen Kehoe

who triumphed in the women's

visually-impaired slalom.

Kate Grey reports.

It was the golden moment

they'd been waiting for.

Menna Fitzpatrick and her guide

Jen Kehoe saved their best

till last to win gold in the slalom

on the final day of these games.

The pair were in

silver medal position

going into the second run

and displayed a perfect performance.

The time was unbeatable.

COMMENTATOR:

She's in front!

Their fourth medal here

in Pyeongchang to become

Britain's most successful

British Paralympians.

It's been absolutely astonishing

the way that this week

has gone from quite low

to extremely, extremely high.

To finish on a gold

medal and put in one of

our strongest performances this

week is beyond words.

It hasn't sunk in and I think

probably won't until they

It hasn't sunk in and I think

probably won't until we

get back to the UK and are back

in our own beds and have a lie in.

There was further success as Millie

Knight and her guide Brett Wild

managed to sneak the bronze

in that same race, which

means Paralympics GB have reached

their target of seven medals.

But all dependent on one sport, one

classification and a small number

of athletes.

I'm proud of every single one

of the 17 athletes that came

here to Pyeongchang

to represent Paralympics GB.

Yes, the medals came from snow

but every one of those

athletes did give it their all.

So, these Games drew

to a fitting close

with Britain's golden girls carrying

the union flag, and the

International Paralympic Committee

could also celebrate with more

nations taking part than ever

before, and a record number of

tickets sold.

They now call these games

the greatest Winter

Paralympics to date.

Kate Grey, BBC News, Pyeongchang.

Just before we go -

a teacher from London has just

won a $1 million prize.

Andria Zafirakou -

who teaches art and textiles

at Alperton Community School -

was awarded this year's Varkey

Foundation Global Teacher Prize

at a ceremony in Dubai.

The money works out

to more than £700,000.